Chapter 364 New Spinning Wheel and Loom

Maximus looked at Capito.

Capito responded: "In fact, it will take less than a month. Yesterday, Gaius, the construction supervisor, told me that it would only take 20 days to build the two granaries."

Maximus then said: "This remedy is not bad."

Cornelius finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Capito, the drawings you drew last time have been made by Thetilipus and his men. When will you take time to see them?" Capito asked again.

"Oh, the spinning wheel and the loom have been made!" Maximus was delighted and immediately said: "I will go and see them tomorrow. By the way, call Sheslet together!"

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Sheslet is a middle-aged woman with ordinary looks and average weaving skills. She was originally a slave girl in a large farm in Campalia. There were many people with better skills than her in the weaving workshop. The reason why she could become the supervisor of the weaving workshop was that she, like Aconis, was one of the first slaves to join the rebels. At that time, her cloth-cutting and sewing skills were the best among the slaves, so Maximus asked her to organize some people to sew linings and bags for the soldiers.

Later, the rebels occupied Sarapia. Since the wool produced in Cape Calgarum was very famous in Italy, Sarapia had a specialty - woolen clothes and woven carpets. There were several textile workshops in the city, and the female slaves working in them were all recruited by the rebels.

However, Maximus did not remove Sheslet and replaced her with a more skilled weaving slave to serve as the captain of the formation team, because Sheslet's diligence and loyalty in the past were worthy of his trust, and Sheslet's seniority in the rebels was enough to intimidate the newly joined weaving slaves.

In fact, the weaving team has expanded and the number of people has increased, but the order has always been stable. Whether it is during the war or the establishment of the weaving workshop of the Nix tribe, the department has always made contributions, which is inseparable from Sheslet's efforts.

However, whether in the period of the rebels or in the current tribe, the weaving workshop is probably the department that Maximus has paid the least attention to in the past. Even for the furniture workshop, which is also not very prominent in the tribe, he has drawn drawings of new furniture many times.

This is certainly not because Maximus trusts Sheslet's ability too much, but because the conditions were not met during that period of time. He felt that the weaving workshop only needed to maintain the status quo.

It was precisely because of Maximus's indifference to the weaving workshop that Sheslet, who rarely received Maximus's face-to-face guidance, felt very nervous when she learned that the leader wanted to summon her alone.

Her direct superior, the works officer Capito, did not tell Maximus why he summoned her, but pretended to be mysterious and comforted her: "This will be a great thing for your weaving workshop! Come with me quickly, you will know when the time comes."

The anxious Sheslet followed Capito to the tribal hall.

When Maximus saw her, he said jokingly: "Sheslet, you are finally here. It is not easy to see you."

Sheslet was even more nervous and was about to explain.

Maximus waved his hand and said: "It's good that you are here, come with me."

After that, he waved his hand, turned around and walked out of the hall, and the attendants led Capito and Sheslet to follow closely.

Unlike in Slotia, the main house of Ophidilla was more spacious, so Maximus initially remodeled it into three parts: one was the chief's office, including the tribal hall, the meeting room of the political hall, the chief's office, and the guard's lounge...; one was where Maximus and his three wives and children lived; and the other was the part that was ostensibly under the jurisdiction of the internal affairs department. In fact, in addition to the kitchens and purchasing areas under the jurisdiction of Aknis and his men, there were also the Intelligence Department, the Archives Department, and the Attendant Department under the Secretariat.

If the guard station next to the main house is included, there should be four major parts.

Maximus went to the area where the Ministry of Internal Affairs was located. After crossing the courtyard and coming to a house, he pushed open the half-closed door and walked in.

"Chief, you're here!" A familiar voice came from the house that made Sheslet feel familiar.

Sheslet didn't distinguish carefully, and followed Capito into the house a little nervously.

"Oh, Sheslet, my good sister!" Akonis ignored Capito who had entered the room first, and came up to give Sheslet a hug: "We haven't seen each other for more than a year, I miss you a little! How about you?"

"Uh... me too..." Sheslet responded perfunctorily, her eyes were completely attracted by the two things placed in the middle of the room. She subconsciously pushed away Akonis's hug and unconsciously walked towards the center of the room.

In the middle of the room was a strange-shaped device. Its main part is a solid base, one end of which is a solid vertical shaft, on which is a wooden round wheel with a diameter of one meter. Three spindles are installed above the round wheel, each supported by a slender spindle rod. A C-shaped bracket is erected at the other end of the base, on which is installed a pedal rod. The bracket points divide the pedal rod into about 4:6, and the long end of the pedal rod extends into the wooden wheel...

A maid from the Ministry of Internal Affairs sat next to her, and a large wooden frame stood beside her. Six bundles of thin threads were hung on the wooden frame. They were all flax fibers formed after the newly harvested flax this year was dried, peeled, soaked, boiled, and combed.

The maid put two bundles of flax fibers on a spindle. After the three mats were covered with flax fibers, she placed her feet on both ends of the pedal and stepped left and right like a seesaw.

The long end of the pedal pried the axle, and the wooden wheel began to rotate continuously. There were indentations on the outside of the wooden wheel. When it rotated, it drove the three spindles next to the wooden wheel to rotate together through friction. As a result, the spindle rotated, causing the flax fibers to be stretched, twisted and entangled on the spindle, gradually forming a thin thread...

At this moment, in addition to stepping on the wooden wheel with her feet, the maid needed to pay attention to the supply of flax fibers and be ready to add the flax fibers stored in the wooden basin on the other side to the wooden rack at any time...

In this way, after a while, the three spindles were wrapped with thin threads and turned into thick spindles.

Sheslet stared at the scene in front of her with wide eyes, her face full of shock.

The spinning process in the weaving workshop she was in charge of also had a spinning wheel. It consisted of a rotating wooden wheel and a fixed spindle. A bundle of flax fibers was fixed at one end of the spinning wheel. The rotation of the wooden wheel caused the flax fibers to twist together, forming thin threads and winding around the spindle... The whole process was a bit similar to the scene in front of her.

However, since the spinning wheel had to be controlled by hand, the wooden wheel had to be stopped after a period of time to continue the flax fibers. It took a lot of time to complete a spindle, and it took about half a day to complete three spindles. However, this new spinning machine could be easily completed in such a short time without spending too much energy. This efficiency was really too high!

Although Sheslet was surprised, she did not speak because her eyes turned to another machine next to the new spinning wheel.

This is a loom! But like the spinning wheel, this loom is very different from the loom in the weaving workshop.

The loom in the weaving workshop is a vertical loom with two pillars. These two pillars support the horizontal cloth shaft. The warp yarn is fixed on the cloth shaft and tightened from the bottom by the weaving fray. There is a horizontal thin rod in the middle of the loom. All the warp yarns are alternately hung on the front and back of the rod to form a natural weaving opening. The warp yarns hanging at the back can be pulled to the front with the heald rod, thus forming an artificial weaving opening. The weft yarns fixed on the shuttle can alternately pass between natural and artificial weaving to weave cloth...

Since the loom is very wide and upright, the women in the weaving workshop always weave in a standing posture. When weaving, they must walk back and forth around the loom to pull the weft yarn through the warp yarn...

Such a loom often requires two or three women to operate at the same time. It takes about half a day to weave a piece of cloth that is one meter long and one meter wide.

After a day's work, the women were tired and had backaches due to standing and walking for a long time, but there was no other way. Whether in Rome, Greece, Egypt or Asia Minor, women used such looms.

But the loom in front of her was something Sheslet had never seen before: the entire frame was basically upright, with a warp shaft placed on the top, and the warp yarns were spread from top to bottom, divided into two layers of odd and even yarns by thin rods. There were two heddles hooking the odd and even yarn layers of the warp yarns, and the heddles were composed of the front heddles and the back heddles.

There were horse-head-shaped heddles on both sides of the loom, and there were long and short pedals under the loom. The long pedal was on the left and connected to the back heddles through a connecting rod, and the short pedal was on the left and connected to the horse's head through a connecting rod, and the horse's head was connected to the front heddles.

When the short pedal is stepped on, the horse's head rises, pulling the heald forward to form an opening; when the long pedal is stepped on, the connecting rod pulls the heald backward, and the horse's head droops, completing the layer change and forming the opening...

Sheslet watched the maid from the Ministry of Internal Affairs sitting in front of the loom step on the pedals with both feet, pulling the horse's head, swinging up and down, constantly changing the warp, introducing the weft with the shuttle from time to time, and then beating the weft with the reed...

Sheslet watched intently, and no one else spoke, but the room was not quiet. The friction of the loom parts, the shuttle shuttling back and forth, the slight vibration when the warp and weft were intertwined... formed a relatively noisy sound.

But no one in the room felt annoyed. They quietly watched the maid skillfully operate the loom...

After an unknown amount of time, Maximus finally said, "It's OK."