Pei Ruozhu had noticed what set cotton cloth apart — soft, warm, and colorfast.

Having seen all manner of rare and precious things during her time in the palace, she had developed a discerning eye, and could precisely identify cotton’s distinctive qualities. Such a small distinction might mean little to those of wealth and status, but for ordinary people it was enormously significant.

Keeping warm in winter was the most important thing of all.

Pei Ruozhu beckoned to her husband, and Qiao Yunsheng quickly handed her a small cloth pouch. Pei Ruozhu drew from it a few tufts of slightly yellowed raw cotton, placed them in her palm, and asked, “Then you must have seen this as well? I believe it is called cotton?”

“I have,” Pei Shaohuai nodded.

He did not rush to share his own views, but let his sister finish first.

Pei Ruozhu looked at the tuft of cotton in her hand with a look of quiet excitement. “I first thought this too must be silk spun by silkworms, given how soft and fine it felt — but when I asked around, I learned it actually comes from a plant. Planted in spring, it blossoms and yields cotton in autumn… If it, too, grows from the earth, why not use cotton in place of hemp and ramie? The cloth it produces is warmer and kinder to the skin.” This was where her thinking had started.

“The more I inquired, the more puzzled I became — with so many favorable conditions already in place, why is cotton cloth still not produced in abundance?” Pei Ruozhu said. “And so I came today to ask you for your insights.”

Pei Shaohuai understood. “Toil through harvest to match the silk of spring; a bolt of it is pure white as true cotton.” Cotton had reached Da Qing via two routes from the Indian subcontinent — the northern overland route through the Silk Road into the Turfan basin, and the southern maritime route arriving via the Min and Guangdong coasts.

Pei Shaohuai knew that following the natural course of history, cotton cloth was destined to replace hemp cloth and might eventually even surpass fine silk and satin — it would simply take longer without any intervention.

Pei Ruozhu continued recounting what she had learned. “I first assumed the taxes were too heavy, making cotton farming unprofitable for the people. But the court issued the People’s Instruction Proclamation to encourage Jiangnan farmers to plant cotton, with no tax imposed on cotton acreage beyond the set quota. Then I thought perhaps spinning and weaving were simply too labor-intensive. But I heard that a woman named Huang Daopo in Wunijing once brought back from Yazhou the techniques of ginning, fluffing, spinning, and weaving, and was celebrated throughout Songjiang.”

Pei Ruozhu paused, a puzzled look on her face, and asked, “With reduced taxes and the availability of weaving techniques, it still hasn’t spread widely — could it be that cotton is simply very difficult to grow, and only fertile soil will do?”

She had made the effort to learn what she could before coming here, and had come well-prepared.

“Not at all — quite the opposite. This plant is far less delicate than grain crops. It can thrive in sandy loam, along the coastal lowlands, and on land that is difficult to irrigate and produce cotton.” Pei Shaohuai replied. “Songjiang Prefecture borders the sea on three sides, and its farmland is affected by seawater salinity, or choked with reeds, making it unsuitable for growing rice or grain — so the people there mostly clear and cultivate wasteland for cotton as a livelihood.”

This was why most of Da Qing’s cotton cloth came from Songjiang Prefecture.

Pei Ruozhu was even more puzzled after hearing this. If cotton was such a fine thing, why had it remained confined to Songjiang Prefecture for so long and failed to spread more widely? She asked, “Suzhou and Hangzhou around Lake Tai are Da Qing’s heartland of weaving and textile production, and they’re right next to Songjiang Prefecture — why don’t they plant cotton?”

“Songjiang Prefecture’s soil, affected by sea salinity, is only suitable for cotton,” Pei Shaohuai replied. “Whereas Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou are not so constrained.”

He continued, “Ten thousand mu of mulberry fields fill the land, every household tends its loom, and the sound of the spinning thread fills the air — these places already have a mature sericulture industry.”

Pei Shaohuai left the rest unsaid, but Pei Ruozhu picked up the thread and voiced it herself, “The people of those places would not lightly abandon an existing industry they depend on, and risk growing cotton and weaving cotton cloth.”

As long as Da Qing still needed fine silk and satin, they could feed a whole family by planting mulberry and raising silkworms — that was the safe and reliable path.

Unless the day came when growing cotton clearly yielded more profit than silk production.

“What about elsewhere?” Pei Ruozhu asked.

“To the south and north of Songjiang, cotton can certainly be grown — but all things progress step by step,” Pei Shaohuai explained. “Third Sister, consider this: beyond Songjiang Prefecture, if a farming household plants two or three mu of cotton and harvests a few hundred jin of cotton bolls at year’s end, what do you think they would do?”

Pei Ruozhu thought for a good while before answering, “It is not a negligible amount, but not a great one either. That household might well not bother preparing an entire set of tools for just a few hundred jin of cotton bolls. Instead, they might shell the seeds by hand, then slowly card and spin it into thread and weave it into cloth — the labor required would be greatly multiplied, and the cloth produced would be of uneven quality, mostly made for their own use.”

Without continuous, large-scale planting like that in Songjiang Prefecture, it would be very difficult to form a proper industry.

Labor invested without visible profit — that was naturally why the spread had been so slow.

Pei Shaohuai felt ever greater admiration for his third sister. With only a small prompt, she was able to think through and articulate the interlocking logic of it all. He even felt that without his explanations, had she simply spent more time traveling and observing, she would have seen through it and arrived at the answers herself.

Some people look at a small piece of cloth and see only a small piece of cloth. Others look through that same piece of cloth and already see vast fields of snow-white cotton stretching across the hills.

Pei Ruozhu thought aloud as she spoke, “This crop needs to be grown on a large scale before its benefits become apparent — and it requires weaving machinery to reduce the labor needed.”

“Third Sister might think one layer further — consider why the machinery is divided into so many different tools: the cotton gin, the large bow and pestle, the rolling frame, and the treadle spinning wheel,” Pei Shaohuai said. Each implement represented a separate stage in the process.

Pei Ruozhu had no frame of reference for the tools her brother had named and was unable to immediately grasp the deeper point. But rather than pressing him to explain further, she committed the remark firmly to memory, to be worked out slowly over time.

She gently rubbed her rounded belly and smiled, saying, “If the chance comes, I really should make a trip to Jiangnan myself. Only after truly seeing and using things firsthand can one think them through clearly.”

“Father is in Taicang — you will certainly have the opportunity.”

In the course of their conversation, Pei Shaohuai had barely paid any attention to his third brother-in-law. Looking over now, he saw that Qiao Yunsheng had been at the tea table all along, writing steadily with his brush — he had already filled several pages of notes.

After Pei Ruozhu thanked her brother for clearing up her questions, she took her leave and went over to the Fengyu Pavilion. Qiao Yunsheng remained behind.

“My brother-in-law’s knowledge is truly broad,” Qiao Yunsheng said appreciatively. “Not only familiar with minting silver coins, but also knowledgeable about growing cotton and weaving. I have genuinely learned a great deal today.”

“Brother-in-law flatters me.”

Qiao Yunsheng organized the notes he had just written and confirmed the names of the various tools with Pei Shaohuai, then said, “You know your third sister’s temperament — once she has an idea in mind, she will act on it… As for the idea of growing cotton and setting up a weaving business, she is serious. She says she is ‘still thinking it over,’ but in truth she has already made up her mind.”

Qiao Yunsheng had his own plans as well. He said with a smile, “I intend to find these tools for her first, then bring a few masters from Jiangnan — each skilled in a different stage: growing cotton, weaving cloth, and dyeing — back to the capital. In the spring next year, we’ll plant a few dozen mu of cotton on the estate to let her gain some experience and put her mind at ease, rather than have her constantly preoccupied.” Going from nothing to something was no easy undertaking.

“Finding the weaving tools should not be difficult. Younger Brother and the others are right there in Taicang — you need only send a letter, Brother-in-Law, and Younger Brother will take care of it, arranging for the masters and tools to be sent back,” Pei Shaohuai suggested.

“Good idea — I nearly forgot that Shaojin is in Taicang,” Qiao Yunsheng said with a slightly embarrassed look, then added, “I have taken too much of your time today, Brother-in-Law. Thank you, truly.”

Qiao Yunsheng was always so humble and courteous. This was not formality — it was simply his nature.

Pei Shaohuai thought: in an era like this, for a man to quietly and steadfastly support his wife’s ambitions the way his third brother-in-law did — that was rare indeed.

Quietly supporting someone did not mean doing nothing — what his third brother-in-law did was more like being a devoted and capable partner.

Perhaps it was precisely because the Nanping Earl’s Mansion was such an unusual household that his third sister was free from the burden of trivial affairs — and so she was able to see more, and think further.

Third Sister and her husband left, but Pei Shaohuai’s thoughts did not stop.

The opening that Third Sister sought to create might bring sweeping, transformative change to Da Qing’s textile industry. It was both far-sightedness and a matter of following the natural current of events.

……

At the Zou estate in the south of Suzhou City, the old stone pavilion above the lotus pond stood as before. Another year’s late spring east wind had come — the willow branches swayed gracefully, and the elderly Nanju Scholar couple sat as they always had: one reading, the other painting.

What had changed was that the young student who had once come by this pond on the wind had now entered the court as an official.

What remained unchanged was that two more upright and clear-minded young men had come to sit humbly beneath the elder’s guidance.

On this day, Pei Shaojin and Xu Yancheng arrived carrying two small sandalwood boxes to call on the Nanju Scholar and his wife.

Each placed their box before the elderly couple. Pei Shaojin kept up an air of mystery, smiling as he said, “Elder Zou, Elder Madam Zou — Elder Brother sent these all the way from the capital especially for you. Why not open them now and take a look?”

“Let me see what this Zhuangyuan Lang has prepared — something that has you two being so mysterious on his behalf,” Elder Zou said with a cheerful laugh, and reached for the clasp on one of the boxes.

Dappled light filtered through the willow branches, falling in patches across the stone table.

Elder Zou looked at the five silver coins arranged neatly in the box — and for a moment he was completely still. The grin on his face froze and dissolved into solemnity. His gaze locked onto the coins, and his throat trembled almost imperceptibly.

Elder Madam Zou had not yet opened her own box. She leaned over to look — and was equally transfixed at a single glance.

This set of silver coins held a meaning for them that was beyond measure.

After a long silence, Elder Madam Zou gently said to Elder Zou, “The Northern Visitor’s young friend sent these coins on purpose to make you happy — not to have you sit there without a word.”

“Right, right… one ought to be happy.” Elder Zou wiped his eyes, carefully read the letter Pei Shaohuai had written to him, and then — the eyes he had just dried welled up with hot tears again. “Wonderful, truly wonderful…” The court would soon be issuing this set of silver coins.

The work left unfinished during his years in office — the Northern Visitor’s young friend had taken the first step.

Looking at the exquisite designs, Elder Madam Zou said, “Such delicate, intricate patterns — to think they could be engraved onto coins.” The longer she looked, the more the “Great River Flowing to the Sea” resembled the painting she had given to Pei Shaohuai — simplified and distilled into this form.

Elder Zou shared his memories with Pei Shaojin and Xu Yancheng, saying, “The thing I am most ashamed of — the one I can never lay down — is that I held the position of Minister of Finance and yet was unable to stop the court from printing reckless quantities of banknotes. Every additional banknote issued was the same as reaching into an empty hand and stealing half a year’s harvest from some common person. To the point that the court lost all credibility with the people — a string of a thousand banknotes was worth only a few dozen copper coins, and there were those who would not even accept them.”

The banknotes had become little better than scrap paper.

He had failed in his duty to his office.

After the court had stabilized and he had already entered the Grand Council, Elder Zou had hoped to find a way to rescue the court’s banknote system. But he had become caught up in factional struggles, and the memorials he submitted came to nothing.

And so, when he saw the new silver coins, he was moved as he was.

Elder Zou’s gaze rested on the closing words of Pei Shaohuai’s letter —

“That this student was able to succeed in his memorial is not owing to any exceptional insight of his own. It was because he walked the last step along a path that the Nanju Elder had already paved.”

Had Elder Zou not laid the groundwork during his years in office, how would Pei Shaohuai have needed only to raise the matter of minting rights for the Emperor to agree at once?

The right time, the right place — Pei Shaohuai, at exactly the right moment, had revived an “old matter.” The credit for this achievement did not belong to him alone.