Gasp! She's a Time Traveler Using Modern Tech to Improve Ancient Life-Chapter 422 - 419: Harvesting Cotton

Sure, here is the translated text:

In the modern era, Lin Wanwan met Lu Shouyue once in Jie Yuting’s restaurant, where he gave her an invitation to attend his mother’s birthday banquet in Hai City.

Regarding this event, Lin Wanwan had also received an invitation from Lu’s mother on WeChat, so naturally, she did not hesitate.

Earlier, she had received a super exquisite bracelet from Lu’s mother, and Lin Wanwan was thinking of reciprocating with a gift!

She had prepared her gift, which she believed wouldn’t fall short of the one Lu’s mother had given her. It was a pendant made from rare cat’s eye chrysoberyl, crafted by a master artisan from the Great Tang court.

Setting modern matters aside for the moment, after returning to the Great Tang, Lin Wanwan began preparations for integrating cotton into the textile industry.

The first step was registering the dried cotton into storage, which was the most concerned step for those outside of Lin Family Manor. Because the expense settlement happened here, afterwards, processing cotton into cotton cloth or quilts and selling them would no longer concern the cotton growers.

The second step was to lead the people of Lin Family Manor in processing cotton for cash.

In the Great Tang, cotton was only planted in Mao County and in the Western Regions, Lingnan, Nanzhao, and other places.

The cotton in the market was shipped by Hu Shang from the Western Regions. Except in Chang’an’s West Market, other cities didn’t have it, and the quantity there was not much, not exceeding the quantity of direct Gaochang cotton cloth.

The reason for this phenomenon was simple: Li Shimin had not yet conquered Gaochang and brought back the seeds of Gaochang cotton, an event that would occur in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan.

Due to the absence of physical cotton, the people of the Great Tang naturally could not understand how to process and weave cotton.

The Hu Shang, who transported cotton thousands of miles from the Western Regions to Great Tang Chang’an, assumed they would make a fortune, but after calculating the travel expenses, they only barely broke even. With low profits, merchants gradually disinclined to import it.

Original cotton was something the Han people of the Great Tang could not handle at all.

Forget about cotton quilts; making cotton quilts itself requires skill. It’s not about just stuffing cotton casually into a quilt cover. So simply bringing over cotton is of no use without a buyer’s market!

But now Mao County is different; during the previous New Year’s, Lin Wanwan brought a whole set of improved Huang Daopo weaving machine and a whole set of cotton ginning car from modern times, which had a huge impact on seed removal, spinning lines, and weaving cotton into cloth.

Back then, Huang Daopo returned to Wuni Jing with her technology, in just a few years, "teaching local women tirelessly, soon became renowned in Wuni Jing, feeding thousands of families," her contribution was immeasurable, and she’s revered as a Vega and a pioneer god of the Huaxia textile industry.

If Lin Wanwan also possessed the noble integrity of Huang Daopo and freely taught all the farm women in Mao County, she could likely replace Huang Daopo, becoming the "Vega" of Huaxia.

Huang Daopo’s achievements were so great that she was treated with everlasting fame, her reputation followed her to the grave with great public admiration, but when alive, the court did not make any gestures towards her!

Lin Wanwan not only desired posthumous fame; she also sought benefits while alive.

She was a common person, not a saint, thinking first of those closely linked to her family. Lifting her family’s poverty was the priority before benefiting the world!

In the rural households, it could be said that almost every home had a loom. The weaving machine that Huang Daopo had brought back was not purely a creation but an improvement, and what Lin Wanwan brought to the Great Tang was naturally the same.

These weaving and seed-removing machines were already crafted in advance by the third uncle of the clan, following Lin Wanwan’s secret orders, just to prepare for the subsequent work after cotton was gathered.

In the contract set by Xiao Chong and Lin Wanwan, it was agreed that in three years, Lin Family Manor would gradually make these cotton ginning machines, cars, wooden bows, spinning wheels, looms, and other devices public, and teach women of other surnames.

This meant that Lin Family Manor could profit from this windfall for three years. After three years, Lin Wanwan would lead all the women of Mao County to become wealthy, making Mao County the cotton-growing base and cotton textile center of the entire Great Tang.

Actually, both Lin Wanwan and Xiao Chong understood that even without this contract, the secret wouldn’t hold for too long.

Rather than allowing other nobles to reap the benefits, Lin Wanwan would rather make it public, boosting her own reputation!

Perhaps one day she too would become Huaxia’s "Vega," famous for ages.

Besides, cotton weaving shares similarities with weaving silk, hemp, or kudzu; as long as one is a weaver and has raw materials, with a bit of pondering, one could succeed. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Li Shimin brought back Gaochang cotton to the Great Tang after the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, and over a century, the people slowly figured it out themselves; the difference was that those with advanced tools had higher efficiency.

Of course, Lin Wanwan could prevent this technology’s development by controlling the source of cotton cultivation.

In historical Great Tang, even after introducing Gaochang cotton, truly woven cloth from cotton was scarce. Most cotton was slightly planted as ornamental flowers.

The reason perhaps was that they didn’t have a breakthrough in thought and hadn’t figured out various aspects of the technology.

Now with Lin Wanwan’s butterfly effects, the entire cotton-related industry will inevitably be advanced by many years.

To compensate for the loss caused by the disclosure three years later, Xiao Chong would help Lin Family Manor expand its upper-end cotton product sales, without charging intermediary fees.

Xiao Chong didn’t even intervene in the business; the cotton association Lin Wanwan proposed was obviously a matter of great interest, yet he wasn’t tempted, nor did he intend for Lin Wanwan to share the profits with other gentry and nobles of Mao County.

With him, along with Lin Wanwan’s title as the Village Lady of Le’an, Lin Family Manor could still secure the profits from the cotton line in Mao County.

The only thing Xiao Chong did was provide some cotton seedlings on credit to relatively backward, impoverished villages with underdeveloped irrigation within Mao County’s jurisdiction, letting them switch from hemp to cotton farming, backed by the County Government, and after autumn, purchased by Village Lady of Le’an.

In order to promote this, the people from the County Government under Xiao Chong were tormented to the point of near death.

The villagers of the poor mountain valleys didn’t appreciate or understand it and were stubbornly resistant; changing their ways felt like pulling teeth.

The "officials" all complained about Xiao Chong’s pointless efforts, questioning why bother with these farmers, emphasizing that royal authority didn’t reach the countryside; was it necessary!

Whether poor or not doesn’t concern the County Government; come harvest time, they just follow procedures to collect taxes, why aid these impoverished folks!

Despite the grievances, the "officials" in the County Government privately were more submissive.

Especially those contract workers rooted in Mao County for generations had profound respect for this County Magistrate from Lanling’s Xiao Family.

Because they all understood that this County Magistrate genuinely intended to benefit Mao County, not merely for his political career.

Of course, Xiao Chong’s ambition was his affair; Lin Wanwan now focused on leading Lin Family Manor and the surrounding villages to wealth, lifting them out of poverty to well-off prosperity.