Chapter 330: Chapter 63: The Xu Clan of Jingsha! I also want to rise_2

During that period, the Huangfu Clan pressured the Celestial Lei Family to the point where they struggled to keep their heads up.

Unfortunately, good times don’t last.

Seventy years ago, when the Old Ancestor, a celestial being of the Huangfu Clan, passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of over 370, the momentum of the Huangfu Clan slowed down.

Various reasons shaped the character and demeanour of Old Ancestor Hua Ye.

After a lifetime of rarely suffering losses, Hua Ye exuded a deep sense of confidence in his speech and behavior. Even when faced with Sky Pride Yu An, he was always calm and composed.

“Brother Yu An,” Old Ancestor Hua Ye lamented, “I have the utmost admiration for your master, Master Binglan. Not only does she possess extraordinary abilities, she is also one of the pillars supporting Longzuo County and even the entire Great Qian Land, exhibiting impeccable virtue. I have heard she even has the potential to make further progress.”

Yu An responded gracefully, “Huangfu Elder overpraises her. Master often says, ‘there is a long way to go’ and ‘compared to the vast Heavenly Dao, she is but an infant still learning to walk’ and such.”

The City Lord Xiahou Hongde laughed heartily, “Brother Yu An, you’re being too modest. If the famed Master Binglan is only considered a toddler learning to walk, then the rest of us cannot even babble yet.”

Yu An smiled politely but did not retort.

While those words reflected the modesty of Master Binglan, he was aware that as a chosen disciple of the Academic Palace, his aspirations for the future and the responsibilities he bore were different from these local powerhouses.

Nevertheless, he would not underestimate any of the local elites.

Having originated from a prominent family himself, he understood that Great Qian Land was constituted by a plethora of such families.

Every prominent family served as a foundation of Great Qian Land and a cradle of outstanding talents.

Moreover, both Old Ancestor Hua Ye and City Lord Xiahou Hongde had come a long way to achieve their current status, and their accomplishments were anything but simple.

Subsequently, the night banquet began.

The Huangfu family, with over a hundred household heads and over a thousand servants, meticulously screened numerous maids.

They served one after another high-end Spirit Food and various precious Spiritual Wines, which livened up the atmosphere immediately.

…

Meanwhile, a remote town in Changning called Jinsha Town existed.

It is a barren land where the total population has never exceeded ten thousand in the past decades.

A small, Rank 9 Prominent Family, the Xu Clan of Jingsha, regarded this town as their stronghold.

Besides the difficult tillage and sericulture for the Changning Xu Clan, the main industry was gold panning, yielding a small amount of gold year after year.

Compared to its heyday, the current gold yield of Jinsha Town was very low, only sufficient to support the local civilians’ and the Jinsha Xu Family’s livelihood, hence development was extremely difficult.

This implies that the Jinsha Xu Family was not a powerful clan.

However, they have an extremely close relationship with the Ping’an Wang Family.

In recent years, their lineal marriages have been quite frequent. For example, the mother of Wang Luo Jing and Wang Shounuo, Xu Zhirou, a gentle and intelligent woman, comes from the Jinsha Xu Family. When Wang Shouzhe and Wang Luoyi were young, she took care of them for a long time.

The wife of Wang ShouYi, Wang’s second brother, is a lineal woman from the Jinsha Xu Family. She gave birth to the Little Sky Pride Wang Zongsheng, who is currently studying at the Purple Abode, and the younger Wang Zongyao and Wang Lillian.

And Wang Shouzhe’s elder sisters, Wang Luomei and Wang Luohu, have both married into the Jinsha Xu Clan. They each have given birth to numerous nephews and nieces for Wang Shouzhe in the Jinsha Xu Clan.

Such a situation is like two impoverished, insignificant families huddling together for warmth, yet they have a close relationship and frequent interactions.

Fortunately, the Jinsha Xu Family’s living conditions have significantly improved in recent years.

The sands, once useless due to their extremely low gold content and littered along the riverbanks and in the riverbed, have suddenly become useful.

With the mass use of Changning’s cement, the price of river sand is soaring. In particular, the Ping’an Wang family needed a great amount of river sand whether for constructing cement roads, building cemented river embankments or other infrastructure projects.

The provision of river sand to the Ping’an Wang family alone brought considerably more comfort to the life of the Xu family of Jinsha. On top of that, they also supplied high-quality river sand to areas such as Donghaei.

Jinsha Town seemed to have truly become a ‘Gold Sand’ Town overnight.

As the economy gradually improved and an influx of hired workers came in, the total population of Jinsha Town had reached thirteen thousand. It was rumored that they were even accepting refugees recently.

At present,

The Xu family of Jinsha had another golden opportunity for development.

As numerous waterways traverse through Jinsha Town, with its beaches being wide and full of pebbles, convenient locations suitable for the construction of hydraulic workshops could be seen everywhere.

The silk technology in Longzuo County, from sericulture, silking, to eventually weaving plain silk, had already developed into a complete set of proficient procedures.

However, these processes which involve both silking and weaving require a lot of manpower and time.

Over the years, Wang Shouzhe and his elder brother Wang Shouxin had been relentlessly researching and improving silking and weaving technologies.

If you were to ask Wang Shouzhe to produce a complete blueprint, he wouldn’t be able to do so even if his life depended on it. He barely understood some of the principles.

However, a great number of scattered knowledge from his previous life and a very clear direction combined with the wisdom of many people, they were finally able to assemble a rudimentary water-powered silk reeling machine and a water-powered loom.

It’s not challenging to invent or create something basic; the difficult part is the direction and ideas. As long as you explore and keep improving along the way, you’re ultimately able to form something.

(When it comes to invention, Le Ao has more to say than other authors. After all, Le Ao himself has his own patents that are profitable…)

The structure of the so-called water-powered devices appears very simple; it’s just a mini-version of the Water Dragon Array.

Before this, reeling silk was done using foot-pedalled machines. One person per machine could reel three hammers of raw silk at the same time.

However, the water-powered silk reeling machine, can simultaneously drive hundreds of spindles, achieving the separation of people and the hammer. Only about ten silk reelers are needed to operate one water-powered silk reeling machine.

Compared to foot-operated silk reeling machines, not only was their per capita production increased tenfold, but the raw silk produced was also smoother and finer.

At the same time, the operating principle of the water-powered loom is similar. But they made further improvements on the structure of weaving, Wang Shouzhe didn’t know how different this machine was from the vague Jenny loom in his memory?

Undoubtedly, its production efficiency was far greater than the existing foot-operated looms.

As long as there is sufficient water resource, it could be in operation day and night with minimal manual assistance.

Disregarding the construction and manufacturing costs,

once put into operation, the manufacturing efficiency of water-powered looms will be terrifying.

The per capita benefit is roughly forty times that of foot pedal looms.

Moreover, both the silk reeling and weaving machines were not entirely made of wood. Wang Shouxin ordered the blacksmiths to create numerous machine structures.

Especially for some critical core parts, they even used Artifact Refiners!!

This ensured the stability of these two types of machines, as long as they were maintained properly, they could be used for a long time.

Bearing numerous advantages in mind,

the clan leader of the Xu family of Jinsha, Xu Anze, was so excited that he couldn’t sleep lately.

He spent day and night at the construction site, knowing that as soon as they start operation, it would mark the rise of Xu’s family of Jinsha. Given twenty to thirty years, they might even have the potential to rise to the Grade Eight Prominent Family.

Even though they were only the base unit for primary processing among the tripartite cooperation, he believed that the Xu Family of Changning and the Wang Family of Ping’an, wouldn’t treat them unfairly.

After all, one was a direct line, and the other was a closely related in-law family.

Moreover, Wang Shouzhe, the family head of the Wang’s, was very generous to his allies.

However, Xu Anze knew better, that to rise up, they still had one major barrier to overcome.

Night fell!

A few grey shadows appeared on the land belonging to the Xu Family of Jinsha. They stood on an elevated position, looking far away at the cement workshops under construction, with a trace of coldness and murderous intent gleaming in their eyes.

…