The new year has arrived, however, January 1508 seemed a little cold...
Generally speaking, the northern hemisphere is the hottest in July and the coldest in January. Therefore, in the previous life, Marin always thought that the Spring Festival is the most reliable. Because after the Spring Festival, it means that spring is coming soon. But the New Year of the Western Li Year is extremely cold in January after the end, which makes people feel a little desperate.
Of course, he is now European, so he naturally has to follow the customs and celebrate the New Year of the Western Living Day. But after the New Year of the Western Living Day, a cold wave from Eastern Europe came to northern Germany, causing the entire northern Germany to be frozen.
Normally, northern Germany is under the weak influence of the North Atlantic warm current and will not be too cold in winter, at most several degrees below zero. However, in January this year, due to the influence of the Eastern European cold wave, the temperature actually fell below minus 10 degrees. In many areas, blizzards generally fall, which is extremely cold.
In modern times, cold is just cold. But in ancient times, cold weather meant that someone would freeze to death...
Sure enough, reports sent from all over the country reported that someone had frozen to death.
However, there is no way to do this. Because in this era, Europeans did not have down jackets or cotton coats. As for quilts, there was no one. Because in this era, Europeans did not use cotton products.
As for down quilts, only aristocrats and wealthy merchants have them. And those serfs obviously don’t have the money to buy down quilts. And down jackets, or something, don’t even have aristocrats.
It’s not that the nobles can’t afford down jackets, but that down products have a disadvantage - they are easy to gather...
The quilt made of down is fine, because it is flat, and the down distribution is even. However, if it is made into clothes, the wrapped down has a characteristic - it is easy to deposit down. In the end, the down of the down jacket is completely piled up under the clothes...
Therefore, even the nobles can only wear a few more layers of wool clothes to keep warm in winter. Moreover, the effect is not very good.
In this kind of weather, most people basically crouch at home and sit in front of the fireplace to cook the fire.
But the problem is that in this era, the forest belonged to the nobles. Without the permission of the nobles, farmers would not dare to go into the mountains to chop wood at will. Otherwise, if they were caught, no one would seek justice if they were beaten to death.
If you meet a kind-hearted nobleman, facing the cold, you may allow farmers to go into the mountains to chop firewood to keep warm. If you meet a cold and ruthless person, you will not care about the lives of the people at all. Moreover, in this era, aristocrats who care about the lives of the people are the majority. Therefore, it is rare to meet a noble master who cares about the lives of the people, and the serfs will be grateful.
...
Relatively speaking, the situation in Beihai Country is much better than other countries. Because Malin promoted adobe houses and kangs. At least, in the manor under Malin's name, every household lived in adobe houses and kangs with good warmth performance.
Moreover, Marin was not stingy with the serfs in his own manor to allocate firewood to them. Therefore, when the severe cold came, only two people were frozen to death in the manor of Marin, the Beihai Kingdom. The others were not affected too much by the cold because they were hiding on the kang in the adobe house.
Most of the people reported to death from frozen to death in various places were happening in other aristocratic manors, especially the original old aristocratic manors.
This is because most of the manors under the name of the ministers and generals of Malin were imitating Malin's manors. Because they imitated Malin's manors, they naturally promoted adobe houses and kangs. Therefore, there were very few people who died of freezing to death in the manors of civil and military officials under Malin's manors.
Most of the manors of the original old noble families still retained their former habits. The houses where the serfs lived were still very dilapidated. Because they did not get the information shared by Marin, their serfs could not live in a warm adobe house.
In fact, the cost of adobe houses is very low and cost-effective. However, most of the old nobles were not reused by Marin, so they naturally could not share information with Marin and the new nobles under Marin. Therefore, the low-cost and practical houses of adobe houses were not promoted in the manors of the old nobles. This time, when encountering this extremely cold wave that once in a few decades, many people naturally froze to death.
...
Although the cold wave is raging, life still needs to continue. Many people must continue to work, otherwise the whole society will be in chaos.
For example, Marin and his ministers must go to work normally to deal with various problems. Of course, there is no shortage of stoves for roasting fire in Marin and his ministers.
There is definitely no kang in the office or fireplace in the fireplace. However, Marin promoted a stove with an external chimney, which made the office not cold and was not worried about being stuffy or even gas poisoning.
However, those who work outdoors are more miserable. For example, the guards guarding the gate of the palace are trembling with cold...
On the street, the workers who transport food and other necessary supplies were also trembling with cold. Basically, the pedestrians walking on the street were shaking as they walked, as if they had a cerebral thrombosis.
Even the officials were trembling from the distance from the room to the carriage when they were to get off work.
Marin felt that he should invent a warm artifact...
...
The first thing he thought of was cotton coats, but Europe now has no cotton. People who traveled through the Tang Dynasty could still get a lot of cotton from Gaochang. Now, not to mention that they don’t have much cotton in their hands, even if they want to go to Mexico to get cotton, it will take several months to go back and forth. At that time, it was probably summer, so who would you use the cotton coat for?
Therefore, the first condition for making a cold-proof artifact is to have materials...
When she was covering her velvet quilt at night, Marin naturally thought of the down jacket...
The down jacket was not made of velvet, but of duck down. So Marin sent his men to collect duck down everywhere the next day.
After collecting enough duck down, he naturally sews down jackets. Fortunately, Malin had read this information and had also removed the old down jackets to play with. So, he knew that down jackets were actually clothes sewing duck down in separate small plaid spaces.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! This method actually existed as early as the Tang Dynasty. People in the Tang Dynasty "included horizontally" goose down and horizontally in double-layer cloth. Each square lattice with needles and threads is an independent space separated from other squares. There is goose down in the square...
However, this method was not promoted in ancient times. Because after the Song Dynasty, cotton was promoted. With cheap cotton quilts and clothes, this troublesome goose-clothing and quilts were abandoned.
As for the problem of heavy cotton coats? The ancients were underdeveloped in productivity and paid more attention to cost issues rather than whether the clothes were heavy... Therefore, this early down jacket was not promoted...
The modern down jacket was invented by a foreigner after World War I. A guy named Eddie Ball found that after sewing the duck down in a small square space with vertical and horizontal needle thread, the clothes made no longer had the problem of down depositing down in the past. Then, he launched a modern version of the down jacket.
Compared with cotton coats, down jackets are lightweight, breathable and warm, but they are no worse than cotton coats. Then, this kind of down jacket became popular all over the world. In my country, it was only in the 1980s that someone started wearing them. At that time, who had any opinions on down jackets, or had overseas relations...
Malin ordered people to find a tailor and use two thicker layers of cloth (cloths with large pores may cause down), sew the spread duck down in small squares, and then make a down jacket that looks bloated.
After Malin put it on, he found that it was indeed very warm. However, there was a smell of duck feces...
So, Malin took off this duck feces down jacket with great disgust, and asked someone to find high-quality velvet and sew a down jacket again. Sure enough, this high-end velvet has no odor. However, this cost is high - a few pounds of velvet, worth 10 gold coins...
In other words, the cost of this down jacket is as high as 10 gold coins... Including fabric, needlework and tailor labor, the estimated cost is 12 gold coins...
Therefore, Marin felt that it would be the most economical to treat those duck downs with duck feces and remove the odor. Otherwise, if they are made of velvet, ordinary nobles cannot afford to wear them...
Marin handed over this task to the cobblers because they had the technique of removing odor after treating animal leather with odor. Although duck down is not leather, borrowing their technology and making a little adjustment, it is estimated that it can also remove odor.
However, before the technology to remove duck down odor was developed, down jackets were spread in the upper class of Beihai Country...
Because Malin was wearing a down jacket and wandered leisurely in the snow for a long time alone, looking completely unafraid of the cold, which attracted the attention of the ministers.
At first, everyone saw that Marin was wearing such a bloated down jacket, and they thought Marin was wearing very thick clothes. As a result, Schwartz stepped forward and found that the clothes were so light...
Then Schwartz also made a few pounds of velvet and asked Marin to get a feed for the incoming materials...
So, the next day, Schwartz also put on a down jacket, looking like "I feel very comfortable, I am very warm"...
Then, the senior officials in the entire palace sent velvet and asked for materials to be processed...
They are not people who are short of money, and they naturally want to see good things. What's more, down jackets are very practical and can allow them to go out calmly in cold weather.
These important civil servants and generals of Beihai Kingdom not only made down stocks for themselves, but also made down jackets for their families. Although the cost is quite high, their fiefs use advanced agricultural technology and their grain output is very high. Therefore, they naturally have money to squander. A mere down jacket cannot make them feel expensive.
Chapter completed!