The backyard of Feiyun Buzhuang is a typical courtyard house, but there are no trees and rockeries in the courtyard, but a very flat sandy field.

There are more than a dozen large vats on one side of the field, which was used to boil cloth and dye it in the summer, but now there is nothing on the field except for the snow that has been piled up on one side.

To the north of the courtyard is a row of main houses, and the hall of the main house, which used to be deserted, is now full of people. These people are the shopkeepers and proprietors of various businesses that deal in southern cloth in the capital.

These merchants, who used to control the cloth business in the capital, now seem to be a little anxious.

There are a few white cloths on the square table in the middle of the hall, and the bag shopkeeper of Feiyun Cloth Village is pointing to the cloth on the table, explaining to the cloth merchants in the hall.

“… Now the best selling in the capital is the white cloth produced by the cotton textile workshop under the name of the capital government, and many cloth shops in the capital now like to buy this kind of cloth back, and then dye it themselves and sell it, instead of buying the southern standard cloth in our hands.

I think we all know why this is happening, because most of the cloth we bring from all over the south is between 1 and 2 feet in width and 16 to 32 feet in length.

In the past, the best Songjiang standard cloth sold every day is an example, the width is 1 foot 8, the length is 20 feet, the weight of the whole cloth is about 30 taels, and the market price is about 045 yuan before dyeing.

And now the best on the market is this new standard cloth in Beijing, although it is twice as expensive as Songjiang standard cloth per horse, reaching 09 yuan.

However, the width of this new standard cloth has reached 2 feet 5, the length has reached 35 feet, and the weight of each horse has reached 70 taels.

Each piece of Songjiang standard cloth can make about one piece of clothing worn by a person of medium stature, but this new standard cloth can make more than two, and it is more suitable for the figure of northerners.

Because the new standard cloth does not need to be spliced, the cut clothes are not only more economical fabric, but also more neat and beautiful, and are very popular among the people of Beijing after dyeing. ”

When the shopkeeper was talking, several cloth merchants who had just arrived in the capital got up and squeezed to the table to look at the new standard cloth, and couldn't help pinching the cloth with their hands and comparing the texture of several pieces of cloth on the table.

After the businessmen shook their heads and returned to their seats, Huang Renfan, who was sitting at the top, got up and bowed to the four sides and said: "This new standard cloth came out at the beginning of the year, and when it appeared on the market, the cloth was of different specifications and the warp and weft were still very rough.

At that time, the price of the new standard cloth was sold to the villagers of Gyeonggi or directly used on the robes made by the soldiers in the army, except for the low price and wide cloth, there was nothing outstanding about it.

Those of us who sell southern fabrics thought that after a while, this new standard cloth would disappear from the market.

After all, the weaving skills of the northerners are really incomparable with our southern, especially the Songjiang cloth in the south is cheap and good, and the cloth in other places is really difficult to match. Not to mention, I've never heard of the cloth of the capital.

But since then, every once in a while, the quality of the standard cloth on the market has been better, and the price has also increased.

After June, the Beijing Textile Workshop formulated a new standard for standard fabrics, unifying the original specifications of fabrics with different widths. After entering August, the warp and weft lines of the new standard cloth are arranged tightly and the texture is exquisite, which is slightly inferior to Songjiang cloth.

Since then, the southern cloth trafficked by various businesses in the capital has not been sold much. As we entered November, the situation got even worse. The people of the capital have begun to use the new standard cloth as a standard to measure the price of each cloth.

Even Songjiang standard cloth, not some excellent workmanship, are rarely cared for. After I received this news, I asked the shopkeeper to contact my colleagues in Beijing to discuss a countermeasure. ”

A businessman who had just come up to see the quality of the cloth said suspiciously: "I see that the new standard cloth in Beijing is still slightly inferior to the quality of the standard cloth from our Songjiang, why are the people of Beijing keen on the new standard cloth and disdain for Songjiang cloth?" Didn't you set the price of Songjiang standard cloth too high before? ”

For this big cloth merchant who came from Songjiang, Huang Renfan didn't dare to slack off, and hurriedly instructed the shopkeeper who was squeezed aside: "Shopkeeper Bao, you can explain the reason for Brother Saeki." ”

The shopkeeper walked back to the venue unhurriedly, and said to the businessman: "I have been studying this matter for the past two months, and I have seen a little eyebrow.

In fact, this new standard cloth in Beijing is not only loved by ordinary people, but also very popular with various dyeing workshops. Not only because of its wide width and good quality, but also because it can guarantee quality. ”

"Guaranteed quality?" A few shrewd cloth merchants all cried out in surprise, while the other merchants still looked ignorant for some reason.

The shopkeeper said very seriously: "Yes, it is indeed good that my southern weaving is better than that of the north, but even the best quality Songjiang standard cloth is also divided into top, middle and bottom."

Even the same high-grade Songjiang standard cloth, the thickness of its cotton yarn and the density of warp and weft are also slightly different. These differences determine that there may be observable color differences during dyeing.

We have a self-dyeing business in Feiyun Cloth Village, based on the experience of dyeing cloth over the years. We found that in order to ensure the neatness of the cloth dyeing, in addition to the pigment mixing, steaming, and drying time should be as consistent as possible, the more similar the quality of the cloth, the more consistent the dyeing effect.

We have experimented that the new standard cloth in Beijing is divided into three batches for dyeing, as long as there is no problem in the dyeing process, the color difference is basically very small.

However, with the use of fabrics from various regions of the south, even the most experienced craftsmen could not reduce the color difference to such an extent. Some fabrics even have a certain color difference when dyed in the same batch. ”

Before the others could react, the businessman named Sun Zuobo had already frowned and said, "What the shopkeeper said is right, there are differences in the texture of the cotton grown in different regions.

After that, spinning and weaving are scattered in the hands of each family, and the machinery and craftsmanship in each person's home are good or bad, and the gap between the finished products is naturally greater.

But how do the textile workshops in Beijing achieve consistent quality? Even if they gathered the weavers together, it would not be possible for the weavers to achieve the same craftsmanship.

Moreover, cloth more than two feet wide is extremely difficult to weave, could it be that they are two-person machines? How many feet can you weave in a day? Wouldn't it be a loss to sell at this price? ”

Sun Zuobo asked questions like a cannon, and suddenly stunned the old shopkeeper of Feiyun Buzhuang. He glanced at the bag shopkeeper who was a little confused in the past, and suddenly knew that he seemed to be in a hurry.

However, it is no wonder that he has lost his calm appearance in the past, as one of the largest cloth merchants in Songjiang Prefecture, his business has been greatly affected this year.

In previous years, cotton was transported from the north to Songjiang, and then he purchased seed cotton and distributed it to the weavers, either the weavers repaid with the woven cloth, or he deducted the price of the seed cotton to give a certain processing fee.

However, in the middle of the year, a large amount of cotton yarn shipped from the north soon crowded the seed cotton market in Songjiang, 2 catties of cotton yarn for a small cloth, or 2 catties and a half of cotton yarn for a standard cloth.

It takes at least 7 days to spin a piece of cloth from seed cotton. But it only takes one day to spin a piece of cloth with cotton yarn, and the craftsmanship can even slightly exceed one horse.

Exchanging cloth for cotton yarn is obviously more cost-effective than exchanging cloth for seed cotton, and it also eliminates a series of troublesome processes, and the business of Songjiang cloth merchants such as Sun Zuobo is naturally greatly affected.

And this is obviously not the worst news, the bad thing is that this year's cloth dealers who do business in the north have invariably reduced their purchases of Songjiang cloth. Although these reductions in the amount of goods they have sold, they are not very large compared to the amount of cloth they have sold in previous years.

However, with the disaster in Shaanxi and the shrinkage of a large northern cloth sales market, the cloth market in Beizhili has obviously become important.

With a population of more than 10 million, the annual consumption of cotton cloth is about 19 million horses, which is less than two horses per capita. However, the population of the capital is 7 to 800,000, and the annual consumption of cloth is as high as 3.9 million, which is close to five horses per capita.

In previous years, the merchants in the capital alone bought more than 2 million pieces of cloth from Songjiang, but this year, only 3 to 400,000 pieces have been purchased. The number of firms in various parts of the North Zhili has also shrunk to varying degrees.

It is precisely because of this that when the owner of Feiyun Cloth Village invited them to go north to inquire about the situation of the cloth market in the capital, Sun Zuobo responded positively.

When Sun Zuobo stopped, the shopkeeper sorted out his thoughts and replied to him: "I am also very puzzled about the questions you raised. So he invited a steward of the Inner House Cotton Textile Factory to come out for a drink, and got a little news from him..."

After the shopkeeper made a small gesture for himself, he told everyone the news he had found out from the mouthful of the steward.

It turned out that the cotton textile factory under the name of the inner government was not as simple as gathering machines and weavers together to work.

From the moment the cotton is harvested, the mill grades the cotton, grouping together cotton of similar quality, which is divided into three grades.

Then there is the spinning process, corresponding to the grade of cotton, and there are three grades of spinning, which are divided into 20, 16, and 12. How many 1-meter yarns can be spun for each tael of cotton represents a few. 20 threads means that one or two pieces of cotton spin 20 1-meter-long yarns.

20 and 16 counts of cotton are used to spin standard fabrics, while 12 counts of cotton yarn are used to weave bed sheets, gloves, socks and other supplies.

Because each process from the beginning of cotton selection is sorted, when it comes to the weaving stage, the impact of individual craftsmanship on the finished cloth is very small.

Not to mention, the cotton mills all use the same looms, and each weaver must weave in the prescribed way, leaving little room for individual skill. As for the skilled craftsmen, they are arranged as the squad leader and are responsible for the management of the whole class of weavers, so the quality of the products of the cotton textile mill has become more and more stable in addition to the continuous improvement.

As for the width of these cloths, which can reach more than 2 feet, it is completely using the hand-drawn loom developed by the Wensi Academy, and just adding a shuttle box to the ordinary old wooden loom saves half the effort compared to the old loom with both hands throwing the shuttle.

This hand-drawn loom can not only increase the width of the cloth to 2 feet5, but also the length of the cloth woven each working day can reach 70 feet, which is more than double the efficiency of the old looms.

Because of the grade classification of cotton and cloth, coupled with the increase in ginning, spinning, and weaving speed, selling new standard cloth at this price, the cotton textile mills in the inner government not only did not lose money, but also made more profits than the old weaving method.

After listening to the explanation of the shopkeeper, everyone in the hall fell silent. After a long time, a businessman said bitterly: "In this way, the inner government has never done anything from beginning to end, and it has defeated us in the production process."

So what are we going to discuss? Can we still let the inner government stop doing this business? ”