Why was there silk production in ancient China, but not in ancient western countries? Don't you keep silkworms in the west?

Silk may be the most beautiful gift from heaven to the people of China. Can you imagine that China's ancestors were already producing silk products around 4000 BC? Many times, the spit machine even suspects that the legend of Lei Zu, the wife of the Yellow Emperor, is true. After all, there should be a clever ancestor who took a big step.

At the time of the rise of East-West trade, these silks became the most popular commodities. In order to avoid the outflow of gold, the Roman Empire even banned men from wearing silk clothes, but it was useless. In order to get the secret of silk, they had to travel to the East again and again.

In fact, China really treasures the secret of silk, which has been preserved for hundreds of years before it gradually spreads. It first spread to the Korean peninsula with immigrants in 200 BC, and then spread to Japan through Ma Haixia. The spread to the west is obviously lagging behind. Although India announced that it would raise silkworms in 300 BC, their silk quality was obviously poor.

In fact, the west also produces silk.

Silkworm reeling in European countries can be traced back to 552 AD. It is said that several monks in the Eastern Roman Empire brought back silkworm eggs with hollow canes. Tucao himself doesn't quite believe this statement. Silkworms can be brought back, but the matching mulberry planting and feeding techniques are not good. I think it is very likely that they will spread naturally in India.

The environment in Europe is not suitable for sericulture, and only in Italy and some places in southern France can silk be successfully produced. These guys made a fortune with this thing, only because the production cost is too high, and the price of silk they made is more expensive than that shipped from China, and their competitiveness is not very strong.

Moreover, in the field of knitting, the skill tree in Europe is a bit crooked. We make silk to make it light, smooth and gorgeous. These guys just like to weave it thick. Genoese velvet used to be the most beautiful fabric in the western Mediterranean, but taffeta blended with France is not too thin. By the way, England also tried to plant mulberry trees, but it was not very successful, so they prefer woolen goods.

The Decline of Silk in the West

Before and after the industrial revolution, the output of silk in the west actually increased a lot, and the cost dropped a lot. However, the prevalence of cotton textile made these people not fully industrialize silk. It is also interesting to say that from 65438 to 0845, the silkworm babies in Europe began to get sick, and they became more and more serious and died on a large scale.

After a long period of depression, Frenchman Earl Chaton invented rayon, which is much cheaper than natural silk. A group of industrial parties naturally rushed into this field in high spirits, and no one did the laborious work of planting mulberry and sericulture. In this way, the silk industry gradually declined in Europe.

The European silk industry has not fallen behind, and the focus of production has naturally returned to East Asia. China and Japan quickly filled this gap. At present, China is still the largest silk producer in the world, with an annual output value of nearly $654.38 billion, more than three times that of India, the second place.

To sum up, the ancient West could produce silk and naturally raise silkworms, but their technology was much behind that of China, and the manufacturing cost of silk was very high, so it could not be popularized. Bullshit. Over.