Chapter 2543: Guangzhou Textile Market (Part 1)
Chen Lin thought the internship group was taking things for granted. Certainly, for families short on labor, saving a female worker would be a blessing. But such households were rare, and spinning seldom occupied daylight hours anyway—it was primarily a nighttime sideline.
For farmers, textile work was exactly that: a sideline. Unlike professional urban weavers who depended on the craft for their livelihoods and wove from dawn to dusk, rural folk adjusted their efforts with the seasons. They wove more during slack periods and less—or not at all—during the busy harvest months. In modern parlance, this was all "fragmented" time.
Chen Lin kept his objections to himself. The internship group might lack social experience, but they formed the technical backbone of the textile factory. It wouldn't do to contradict them openly.
As for cotton collection, he would simply make his own arrangements. Fortunately, his family already maintained a network for purchasing silkworm cocoons throughout Guangzhou Prefecture's counties. Perhaps he could entrust them to collect cotton as well...
While he pondered these countermeasures, Chen Xiaobing approached with a smile, letter in hand. "Mail for you!"
The letter hadn't come through the newly established Great Song Post Office—it bore the mark of Qiwei Special Delivery. Such express service was fast and secure, but expensive, typically reserved for urgent merchant correspondence and small documents like deeds, contracts, and certificates.
Chen Lin took the envelope and noted the red stamp: the letter was from Guangzhou.
"Arrived this morning," Chen Xiaobing said. "Probably from some Senator in Guangzhou."
"I don't know any Senators in Guangzhou." Chen Lin muttered, "Should be from Master Wu."
Inside he found an invitation and an accompanying letter. The invitation was for the Guangzhou International Textile Market Opening Ceremony. The letter, as he'd suspected, came from his cousin-uncle Wu Yijun, explaining that Senator Li Shan—who had served as their counterpart host during their Lingao visit—had arranged for the invitation.
The term "Textile Market" struck him as both strange and familiar. Though it belonged to the realm of New Speak, its meaning was clear enough. And the word "International" suggested that foreign merchants would also be welcome to trade there.
He didn't fully grasp the Senate's purpose in establishing such a market in Guangzhou, but he dared not neglect a Senator's invitation. He immediately packed his luggage to depart. Since the first phase of the cotton textile factory had just been completed, the internship group also needed to return and report, so they traveled together as companions.
After a two-day voyage, Li Shan arrived in Guangzhou City. He had visited at the beginning of Guangzhou's liberation, though his purpose then had been to inspect the Great World entertainment complex—even then, he was already considering it as a potential market venue.
But after surveying the Great World, he'd concluded the location wasn't quite right. The complex leaned toward retail formats, while his vision was for a Trading Market serving factories, wholesalers, and suppliers. Such a market required not only convenient transportation but also large-scale storage facilities; mere storefronts wouldn't suffice.
At that time, Guangzhou lay in heaps of ruins awaiting reconstruction, and his light textile market project naturally attracted no interest. It wasn't until over a year ago that the project passed the Guangzhou City establishment review and construction finally began.
Though the light textile market was essentially a case of "government builds the stage, merchants perform the opera," the Senate's philosophy was to minimize spending wherever possible. Thus the market operated as a mixed joint-stock venture, with Guangzhou City Assets Company as the largest shareholder, while local wealthy merchants and gentry held smaller investments.
The moment Li Shan stepped off the ship, he headed straight for the Great World. Lingao was no ideal textile base, and as a "Textile Person," his focus would gradually shift to Guangzhou in the future.
Of course, as a future metropolis, land in Guangzhou was precious beyond measure—using it for production would be wasteful, but for trade it held natural advantages. Seizing cheap land prices now to secure territory had become the primary goal for both him and Zou Biao. To that end, Zou Biao had already established an office in the Great World to settle his team.
When Li Shan entered Zou Biao's office, he found his partner looking thoroughly dejected. He cracked a joke to lighten the mood.
"You don't owe me money, and I don't owe you money. So why the long face?"
Zou Biao let out a heavy sigh. "That air-jet spinning technology pre-research proposal I mentioned? The Planning Institute rejected it again."
Li Shan walked over and patted his shoulder. "Don't take it too hard. Air-jet spinning was considered relatively high-end even in the old timeline. The Planning Institute turning it down seems reasonable."
"But after you told me about air-jet spinning, I dug up the blueprints and technical data again. It's really not that difficult to build. You know, back in the old timeline, our country started principle research in 1958 and achieved industrial application by 1967. Air-jet spinning represents the general direction of the field."
In Lingao, older technology was generally easier to replicate—but some technologies simply didn't suit their environment. The Spinning Jenny and the Mule, for instance, were ill-fitted to Lingao's conditions.
Air-jet spinning, also called rotor spinning, offered distinct advantages under equal energy consumption: high output, large package sizes, shorter processes, and a wide spinning range capable of handling cotton, linen, wool, and even low-grade cotton and waste cotton. It was the very model of "More, Faster, Better, Cheaper" for Lingao's circumstances.
For 20-count cotton yarn, air-jet spinning produced 60 to 85 kilograms per thousand spindle-hours—one to two times the output of ring spinning, sometimes three to four times. It generated less flying waste, required less floor space, and eliminated the chronic problem of ring and traveler wear and burning that plagued ring spinning. Labor requirements dropped to thirty percent of ring spinning, and floor space shrank by twenty-five percent. What the old timeline considered shortcomings—suitability only for medium-to-low count textiles and coarse yarn—were solid advantages here. The resulting cloth was fluffy, durable, and warm. Moreover, sails were typically low-count and multi-ply, and the demand for sailcloth would remain enormous for the foreseeable future.
The Senate's cotton supply was already tight, and what they had was short-staple cotton of relatively poor quality. Air-jet spinning was obviously the most suitable process for their fabric needs. Zou Biao was confident he could replicate it—knowing that rotor spinning had been invented in 1937, and that the old timeline had mastered the technology, he believed he could build a production line capable of industrial use within three years.
"Come now," Li Shan said. "If we had 1958-level industrial capability, wouldn't we be sweeping across the world? Setting everything else aside, your equipment requires full electric drive—it can't be installed in Guangzhou, let alone Lingao."
"Correct. The Planning Institute told me the same thing. They said if I want a small production line for technical reserve pre-research, they'll support it. Full mass production? Not a chance."
"Well, that's something! At least they approved the pre-research. You can still set up a production line."
"But it can only be placed in Lingao."
"That's not necessarily permanent. By the time you've developed the equipment three years from now, Guangzhou might have electricity too."
"Sigh..." Zou Biao sighed again.
"Stop trying to become fat in one bite," Li Shan said casually. "We have limited resources—what else can we do? We'll use the old technology for now." His thoughts drifted to the Nansha cotton mill. "The demonstration factory..."
"Progress has been smooth," Zou Biao said. "We ran trial production recently. Operations are stable."
"Excellent!" Li Shan's spirits lifted considerably. "Pity it can only spin for now. Phase Two must launch as soon as possible."
"Launching is easy. Finding cotton is hard." Zou Biao's expression grew serious. "Honestly, I've pinned such high hopes on this textile market partly because I'm hoping to attract sources of textile raw materials here..."
"We should establish a Cotton Exchange!" Li Shan grew animated.
"Exactly—and not just cotton. All textile products and raw materials!" Despite being a mechanical engineer, Zou Biao harbored keen interest in the market side of things. "Wool, silk, woolen cloth, silk fabric... And since they've already started trading bonds and stocks, we could do futures in the future."
Li Shan, however, was less optimistic. Among the four main textile materials, silk and wool were easiest to secure—abundant sources and stable supply. The textile market's prospects there looked promising.
For linen and hemp, local raw materials were plentiful but the market limited. Given the Senate's current technological level, they couldn't produce high-grade worsted linen fabrics. The linen cloth they could make at this stage was less comfortable than cotton for wearing, so hemp materials mostly went into sails and ropes.
The biggest problem was cotton supply. Reports from various dispatched stations painted an unpromising picture, and whether cotton from the north could be reliably supplied remained a large question mark.
Songjiang's manual cotton textile industry was highly developed, but a substantial portion of its ginned cotton was imported from outside—primarily from production areas in Shandong, Hebei, and elsewhere. Yet a developed industry meant powerful vested interests entrenched within it. From raw cotton to spinning to various textile putting-out systems, everything was monopolized by established families. Wresting a share from their grasp would prove difficult. Before the Senate could squeeze out Songjiang cloth, establishing a stable cotton source would be nearly impossible—but without a stable cotton source, defeating Songjiang cloth would be equally hard. It was a vexing contradiction.
Cotton was grown fairly widely across Guangdong, but rarely at scale, and the climate limited yields to pitiful levels.
As for the major cotton-producing regions abroad in the old timeline—whether the USA, Egypt, or Turkey—cotton cultivation industries hadn't yet begun in this era. The only region with anything resembling scaled cotton production was India.
Other paths existed, of course. If they could manufacture chemical fiber, it would reduce cotton demand, enabling 66% or 33% blended cotton cloth. But this was mere fantasy. Various departments of the petrochemical industry were fighting tooth and nail for products, and when the light textile industry's turn would come remained anyone's guess. Moreover, even if chemical fiber became available, cotton demand might actually rise due to market factors.
Li Shan had made bold promises. Securing a stable cotton supply had become his greatest worry. After all, he had convinced others to purchase machinery everywhere. If there was no cotton to weave, not only his own credibility but the Senate's reputation would suffer greatly.
(End of Chapter)