Chapter 330: Chapter 63: Golden Sand Xu Family! I Shall Rise Too_2
During that period, the Huangfu Family overwhelmed the Celestial Human Lei Family to the point where they could hardly lift their heads.
Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last long.
Seventy years ago, the previous generation’s Celestial Human Ancestor of the Huangfu Family passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of over 370, and the momentum of the Huangfu Family began to wane.
Various reasons contributed to Ancestor Hua Ye’s grandeur.
A lifetime without much adversity gave Ancestor Hua Ye an intense confidence in his speech and demeanor. Even when facing a Celestial Pride like Faang You’an, he remained at ease with banter.
"Brother Yoou’an," Ancestor Hua Ye said with a sense of nostalgia and sigh, "your master, Binglan Ascendant, is one of the few Ascendants I admire most, not only for her extraordinary strength but also as one of the pillars of Longzuo County and even the whole Great Country. Her character is impeccable, and I also heard that she hopes to go further."
Faang You’an gracefully cupped his hands and said, "Elder Huangfu overpraises. My master often says things like, ’The road is long and difficult, and I must strive tirelessly,’ comparing herself to a child just learning to walk in the vastness of the Heavenly Dao."
City Lord Xiahou Hongde, who was accompanying them, laughed heartily and said, "Brother Yoou’an, you’re too modest. If the famous Binglan Ascendant is just a child learning to walk, then we haven’t even begun to babble."
Faang You’an smiled gently and chose not to refute.
While there was a hint of Binglan Ascendant’s humility in those words, he also understood the ideals and responsibilities borne by a Direct Disciple in an academy were different from those local powerful families.
Nevertheless, he wouldn’t underestimate any of the local powerful families.
Coming from a noble family himself, he was acutely aware that the Daqian Kingdom was made up of one noble family after another.
Each noble family was a cornerstone of Daqian, a cradle for a continuous stream of talents.
Moreover, neither Ancestor Hua Ye nor City Lord Xiahou Hongde were simple characters to have reached their current positions.
Afterward.
The night banquet began.
The Huangfu Clan, with "household generals exceeding a hundred" and "household servants exceeding a thousand," selected many of their serving maids with care.
They presented an array of delicious high-end spiritual foods and exquisite spirit wines, instantly livening up the atmosphere.
...
Meanwhile.
In a remote part of Changning Guard, there was a place called Golden Sand Town.
This was a barren land, with a total population of less than ten thousand for decades.
This town had only a small Ninth-Grade Noble Family—the Golden Sand Xu Family used it as their stronghold.
Apart from the difficult-to-cultivate mulberry fields used to produce raw silk for the Changning Xu Family,
the major industry here was still panning for gold, producing a small amount of gold year after year.
Compared to its zenith.
Golden Sand Town’s current gold production was very low, barely enough to support some local commoners and the Golden Sand Xu Family’s livelihood, making it extremely challenging to develop.
This suggests that.
The Golden Sand Xu Family was not a powerful family.
Yet it was a family very closely linked to the Ping’an Wang Family.
In recent years, frequent marriages between their direct veins have occurred, as evident with Wang Luojing and Wang Shounuo’s mother, Xu Zhirou, that gentle and intelligent woman, who came from the Golden Sand Xu Family and even took care of Wang Shouzhe and Wang Luoyi for a long time when they were young.
Second brother Wang Shouyi’s wife also came from the direct line of the Golden Sand Xu Family and gave birth to the current Little Celestial Pride of the Purple Mansion Academy, Wang Zongsheng, and younger siblings Wang Zongyao and Wang Lili.
Elder sister Wang Lumei and second sister Wang Luohuo of Wang Shouzhe also married into the Golden Sand Xu Family. There, they bore children, giving Wang Shouzhe many nieces and nephews.
This situation seemed like two impoverished and declining families warming each other in their struggles, which led to deep relationships and frequent interactions between them.
Fortunately, in recent years, the Golden Sand Xu Family’s situation has improved significantly.
The sand with extremely low gold content, previously considered useless and filling the riverbanks and waterways with waste,
suddenly became useful.
With the massive application of foreign cement from Changning Guard, the price of river sand soared. Particularly, in constructing cement roads for the Ping’an Wang Family, building cement soil river embankments, or other infrastructure projects, vast amounts of river sand were indispensable.
Supplying just the Ping’an Wang Family brought much-improved living conditions for the Golden Sand Xu Family. Moreover, they also supplied quality river sand to areas like the East Sea Guard.
Golden Sand Town seemed to have suddenly become a true Golden Sand Town.
As the economy gradually improved and an influx of hired workers arrived, Golden Sand Town’s total population reached about twelve to thirteen thousand, with recent reports of them absorbing refugees.
Now.
The Golden Sand Xu Family is greeted with an excellent opportunity for development and rise.
Due to the crisscrossed waterways of Golden Sand Town, the wide riverbanks often being rocky stretches present many suitable places for constructing hydraulic workshops.
The silk technology in Longzuo County, from mulberry cultivation to sericulture, raw silk reeling, up to weaving plain silk, already had a well-practiced and complete process.
However, this process, particularly in silk reeling and weaving, required tremendous manpower and time.
In recent years, Wang Shouzhe, along with older brother Wang Shouxin, has been continually developing and improving silk reeling and weaving technologies.
In drawing a complete schematic on his own, Wang Shouzhe would likely struggle, let alone understanding some principles thoroughly.
But with abundant fragmented knowledge from his past life and very clear directional guidance, combined with collective wisdom, they eventually managed to contrive relatively primitive water-powered silk reeling machines and water-powered weaving machines.
The foundational inventions were not difficult; the challenge primarily lay in direction and methodology. As long as one explored and continually improved along a certain path, success was inevitable.
(On inventing, Old Ao has more to say than other authors since he has his patents, which are in production and profitable...)
The so-called water-powered structure appeared very simple, essentially a scaled-down and modified version of a large Water Dragon Array.
Before this, silk reeling technology relied on foot-powered silk reeling carts. One person per cart could simultaneously reel three hammers of raw silk.
But the current water-powered silk reeling carts can simultaneously drive hundreds of spindles, accomplishing human-spindle separation. Approximately ten silk reelers suffice for operating a single water-powered silk reeling cart.
Compared to foot-powered silk reeling carts, not only is the per capita output ten times higher, but the raw silk produced is also smoother and finer.
Meanwhile, the principle behind water-powered weaving machines was consistent. The weaving structure had undergone further improvements, though Wang Shouzhe did not know how much these devices differed in shape from the fuzzy Jenny Loom remembered from his past.
Undoubtedly, its production efficiency far exceeded that of today’s ordinary foot-powered weaving machines.
As long as water resources were abundant, it could operate day and night requiring only minimal manpower assistance.
Disregarding construction and manufacturing costs,
once the water-powered weaving machines commenced operation, their production efficiency would be terrifyingly high.
The unit labor efficiency was about forty times that of foot-pedaled looms.
Furthermore, both the silk reeling carts and weaving machines were not purely wood-based structures; Wang Shouxin directed blacksmiths to create many mechanical structures.
Some critical parts even involved Artifact Refiners!!
This ensured the stability of both these mechanical structures, which, with proper maintenance, could remain in long-term use.
Given their numerous advantages,
The clan leader of the Golden Sand Xu Family—Xu Anze, was so excited recently that he could hardly sleep.
Day and night, he guarded the construction site because he knew that once operations began, it would mark the rise of the Golden Sand Xu Family. With twenty or thirty years, they might even advance to an Eighth-Grade Noble Family.
Even if they just operated as the lowest-tier processing unit of the tripartite collaboration, he believed that neither the Changning Xu Family nor the Ping’an Wang Family would treat them unfairly.
After all, one was the Main Vein, and the other was a very close in-law family.
Moreover, Patriarch Wang Shouzhe was a leader known for his generosity toward allies.
Nonetheless, Xu Anze also knew that if they wished to rise, a significant hurdle remained.
As night fell!
Several gray shadows appeared on the Golden Sand Xu Family’s grounds. Standing on high ground, they gazed at the cement buildings forming the workshops, a glimpse of coldness and murderous intent flashed in their eyes.
...