Incredible

After a while, the chief steward of the Imperial Household Department came to invite them, and Xiao Ge went with Grand Princess Shangde to a nearby palace.

Xiao Ge went inside and circled the machine, but couldn't figure it out. He simply ordered the eunuch, "Move it and see."

The mule machine that Zhao Ruxi made was not powered by mules, but by water power.

It is called a mule machine because its inventor Crompton, was inspired by a mule to invent a spinning machine.

Mules are the offspring of horses and donkeys, but they are strong, powerful, and disease-free, making them superior to both horses and donkeys. Crompton combined the advantages of the spinning jenny and the water-powered spinning machine to invent this machine, hence the name "mule machine."

However, since there was no water drop for power, and it was inconvenient to bring in mules or horses (as the animals might go mad and injure the emperor), they switched to human power.

Upon hearing the Emperor's command, two strong sedan chair bearers immediately stepped forward to pull the lever, providing power to the machine. The eunuch assisted from the side. Once the machine was fully running, the eunuchs left and stood aside, leaving only the two sedan chair bearers moving continuously.

The sight of hundreds of shuttles moving around on their own was quite a sight. Xiao Ge watched as each of the spinning gauze spools gradually grew fatter, winding on more and more cotton thread. The efficiency was extremely high, and he was quite amazed.

When Xiao Ge was the crown prince, he was required to be familiar with agriculture, and he had seen the spinning machines used by ordinary people.

It was a wooden frame like a reel, with a crank in the corresponding part. One hand held the thread, and the other hand cranked it to spin cotton into thread. Whether the thread was fine and even depended on the weaver's skill. If the skill was poor, the thread would be sometimes thick and sometimes thin, and it would often break.

Even a skilled person can't spin much thread in a day with such a spinning wheel.

Look at it now, just two strong men, plus one person to watch over the spinning wheel, can spin so much thread at once, and those threads are very fine and even.

This spinning machine is indeed a good thing.

However, recalling his sister's excited and exaggerated words when she first entered the palace, he couldn't help but point at the two burly men and jokingly say, as if to argue, "You said you didn't need people. What are they if not people?"

Grand Princess Shangde rolled her eyes. "You can't have mules running in this palace, so I have to call the sedan chair bearers to act as mules for power. With mules and other animals, there's no need for people. Actually, Zhiwei said that this spinning machine doesn't even need animal power. As long as you find a place with high and low water currents, and the force of the water current drives the mechanism, the machine can run day and night, spinning yarn continuously, saving labor, speed, and efficiency."

"Zhiwei?" Xiao Ge asked doubtfully, "What does this thing have to do with that girl? By the way, you haven't told me yet, where does this mechanism come from? Why haven't I heard of it before?"

"This mechanism was created by Zhiwei after half a year of research," said Grand Princess Shangde.

Xiao Ge was surprised, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at Grand Princess Shangde. Then he frowned and said, "Shangde, even if you like that girl very much, and she has brought a lot of honor to your academy, the one who made the scheme is the one who made it. You can't just take someone else's things and put them on her head. If you make a mistake and mislead me, do you know the consequences?"

Grand Princess Shangde was Gao Xing upon hearing this.

My brother is not only doubting Zhao Ruxi's character, but also her character as a whole.

"Brother, can you please stop being so suspicious all the time? Which eye of yours saw us stealing from others? How did I mislead you? So, in your eyes, my character is that despicable?"

"No, no."

Seeing his younger sister's outburst, Xiao Ge quickly calmed her down. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that this is too unbelievable. The Ministry of Works employs a large group of skilled craftsmen. If even the Ministry of Works can't make something, how could Zhao Zhiwei, a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl, possibly create something so ingenious? This isn't something that can be done with just a clever brain."

Grand Princess Shangde glanced at him sideways. "Why is it impossible? Don't forget that she was the one who devised that safe. You still receive a monthly dividend from her. Could your skilled craftsmen build a safe?"

Xiao Ge: "..."

That's when he remembered this.

That safe was indeed Zhiwei had concocted. Back then, she even placed it at the entrance of the Court of Judicial Review and called on all the thieves and locksmiths in the city to try and open it, but not a single one of them could open it.

Because of this, all the powerful and wealthy families in the capital were scrambling to buy safes. Although the market is now saturated and business has slowed down, he has only received two or three thousand taels of silver in dividends over the past two months. But those who invested in the safes have already made a fortune.

The ingenuity of the safe was so remarkable that even the Minister of Ministry of Works praised it.

He recalled that the Minister of Ministry of Works had joked that if Zhao Ruxi were a man, she could easily get a position in the Ministry of Works based on her ingenuity.

Now, Xiao Ge was about 70-80% convinced that Zhao Ruxi had made the spinning machine.

As for why he still had some skepticism, it was because he discovered that the girl was involved in quite a few things.

Look, she pioneered the novel school of sketching and trained a large number of officials in portraiture for the imperial court; she also combined the painting methods of Mister Kumu with sketching techniques to create her own unique painting style, producing magnificent and grand paintings that could rival those of national masters, and became famous in painting competitions.

This girl is also quite adept at making money. Not only did she create safes, but she also opened a jewelry shop. The jewelry in the shop, designed by her, has particularly novel styles, and even at exorbitant prices, people are scrambling to buy it.

These alone are enough to keep people busy. Some people never achieve even one of these things in their entire lives.

Surprisingly, she still had the time and energy to study. I heard that she was an excellent student, repeatedly praised by great scholars, and even ranked first in the annual examination at the Women's Academy.

He even had someone bring him the exam paper to look at. The number and types of questions were similar to those in the county exam. Yet, that girl managed to answer them all perfectly without a single mistake, and her handwriting was also very neat and beautiful. With that kind of skill, the county exam shouldn't be a problem.

Now, his sister comes to tell him that this girl, besides being busy with these things, still has the energy to tinker with a spinning machine, which he finds completely unbelievable.

Something that a large group of skilled craftsmen in the Ministry of Works couldn't develop was somehow invented by a young girl in her spare time, and not just with minor improvements, but with a completely mind-blowing transformation. Is this girl even human? Or is she a monster?

Seeing that her elder brother was stunned and speechless for a long time after her question, Grand Princess Shangde became smug.