Historical Stories: The Story of The Zodiac's Innovative Textile Technology (Teen Story Series)

The story of the zodiac revolutionizing textile technology

Zodiac, female innovationist in prevention and control technology in the Yuan Dynasty. Also known as Huang Po, a native of Wunijing, Songjiang (present-day Dongwan Village, Shanghai County). Born into a poor peasant family. When he was a child, he was sold to someone as a child bride. Unable to bear the abuse of his in-laws and the beatings and scolding of his husband, he went to Yazhou (present-day Sanya City, Hainan Province) to learn textile techniques from the Li people. At the end of the 13th century, he returned to his hometown and began to reform production tools such as gins, stall vertebral arches, spinning wheels, as well as weaving, flower distribution and weaving technology, which promoted the prosperity and development of the cotton textile industry in the Songjiang area and played a role in promoting the development of the cotton and textile industry at that time. Dongwan Village, Shanghai County, has a zodiac tomb.

In the early winter, on a stormy night, the town of Wunijing in Songjiang County was sparsely populated. With a few barks, a figure ran through several cottages and along the path outside the village in a hurried northeasterly direction. I saw people running and running until a big river appeared in front of me. This river is what people often call the Huangpu River. When the figure came to the river with a gasp, there was a large ship moored on the shore, only to see the figure take advantage of the lack of preparation, quickly stepped on the springboard, along the side of the ship, and quietly flashed into the cabin full of cargo. The flickering dim oil lamps on the ship illuminated the panicked face of a young girl, who found a hidden place, leaned down, and squeezed herself into a pile of goods. At this time, she found that hunger, cold, exhaustion, and uneasiness suddenly struck, and the tragic encounters of the past began to appear in the village girl's mind...

It turned out that this village girl's nickname was A Mei, who was born in a poor peasant family, and at the age of twelve or thirteen, she sold her to a family surnamed Huang in Wunijing as a child bridesmaid. The little girl with a poor fate met a vicious and mean in-laws and a domineering husband. She not only had to serve her in-laws and husbands, but also had to go to the fields during the day to cultivate the fields, and when she returned home at night, she had to spin yarn and weave fabrics, and if she did not conform to the hearts of her in-laws and husbands, she was beaten and tortured. Such a miserable inhuman life, she gritted her teeth and endured for five years.

One day at the age of 18, she worked all day in the fields during the day, and when she returned home, she was so tired that she lay down with her clothes and wanted to rest for a while before spinning and weaving. Who knew that after the mother-in-law found out that she was lazy and was beaten badly, she was locked in a firewood room, not allowed to sleep, and not given food. Huang Amei is a strong-willed working woman, but she caresses the scars on her body and recalls her life in the past five years, and a wave of sadness and anger is burning her heart. She could no longer endure such a humiliating life, so she laid down a heart and decided to jump out of this cage and escape far away, leaving this life behind and finding her own new world. In the middle of the night, she dug a hole in the thatched roof, turned around and drilled it out, slipped to the ground, and escaped in the dark night of the wind and rain...

Huang Amei waited in the cargo warehouse for a day and a night before the ship began to move. When the ship came out of WuSongkou, she climbed out of the cargo warehouse, found the boat boss to talk about her experience, begged to take her to a distant place, she could cook, wash clothes, and spin yarn and weave cloth, just to have food to eat. Listening to her plight, the ship's boss moved with compassion and left her behind. Huang Amei, who had left her hometown, drifted with a boat and came to Yazhou (present-day Sanya City) at the southern tip of Hainan Island.

Yazhou Island is a hot land with lush vegetation and pleasant sea and sky. When Huang Amei stepped on this land, she felt a burst of fresh and hot air rushing towards her, blowing away the fatigue of the journey and brushing away the uneasiness in her heart. Yazhou Island is a settlement of the Li people, and the boat boss entrusts her to a reliable Li old lady. The simple and enthusiastic old woman also sympathized with this lonely young girl, so she accepted her as a daughter, not only taking good care of her life, but also enthusiastically teaching her local cotton weaving techniques.

Huang Amei is clever and clever, and her receptivity is also strong, and she quickly learned the local dialect and adapted to local life; coupled with diligence, can bear hardships, and is modest and studious, she quickly became familiar with the new cotton-making tools, mastered the whole set of operating techniques, and also learned the craft of weaving cliff quilts, becoming a skilled textile expert.

In the blink of an eye, 30 spring and autumn have passed, and Huang Amei, who is 18, is now an old woman who is nearly 50 years old, and the locals respect her as "Zodiac Mother". Over the years, she has formed a deep friendship with her Compatriots of the Li ethnic group, but she has always missed her hometown. The love of "falling leaves back to the roots" often makes her sleepless at night. In 1295, with the deep friendship and blessings of her Compatriots of the Li people, she returned to Wunijing, where she had been away for 30 years, with the xianjian textile tools given by the locals, the treadmill and the vertebral arch.

Back to the hometown, the hometown scenery warmed the heart of the zodiac, seeing that the textile technology in the hometown is still stuck at the level of 30 years ago, the zodiac is determined to devote herself to the transformation and reform of the cotton textile technology in the hometown, and make a modest contribution to the development of the cotton textile industry in the hometown.

Women at that time followed the bulky method of peeling cottonseed by hand; the bow for bouncing cotton was still small and short. Based on the treadmill brought back from Yazhou, Huang Daobo created a kind of stirring cart, rolled the car to remove the seeds, and asked the carpenter to imitate it, and received unanimous praise from the village women. The introduction of the 1-meter-long bow brought back from Yazhou to the women was also welcomed, so that the cotton that popped out was of good quality and high efficiency, which greatly reduced the labor intensity.

Then, the zodiac carefully reformed the spinning wheel. At that time, Wu Nijing used a hand spinning wheel with one spindle and one line, which was inefficient and required three or four people to spin yarn to supply a loom. Therefore, the zodiac changed it to a three-spindle three-wire pedal spinning wheel, which doubled the spinning output and became the most advanced textile tool in the world at that time.

In weaving technology, the zodiac has also made some innovations. On top of the loom, she installed a flower building. When it is necessary to weave flowers, it is operated by two or three weavers at the same time. On the flower floor is the pipe lift warp, and in the tube below the weft yarn is woven. This allows you to weave beautiful jacquard cloth.

After reforming the tools of rolling, bouncing, spinning and weaving, Huang Daobo continued to enthusiastically teach other techniques to the women of Wunijing, such as staggered yarn, color matching, threading, and flowering, and woven quilts, mattresses, and hand towels, which were equipped with folding techniques, tuanfeng, chess and other patterns, which were gorgeous and picturesque.

Finally, The Zodiac Po also introduced the weaving method of "Yazhou Quilt" to the women of Wunijing. After continuous innovation, the name of "Wunijing Quilt" has spread all over the world, enjoying the reputation of "Songjun cotton cloth, clothing quilt world". The cotton textile industry in Wunijing developed rapidly, attracting rich merchants from all over the world to flock to buy it. The Songjiang area has also gradually become the center of the cotton textile industry in the country, which has not faded for hundreds of years.

The historical record records the name and merits of this yuan dynasty textile technology innovator, and when she died, the local people held a solemn funeral for her, built an ancestral hall, and passed on such a song to express people's admiration and praise for her:

Huang Mother-in-law,

Teach me yarn,

Teach me cloth,

Two tubes,

Two pieces of cloth.