Novel Western Inventions

After inspecting this ship, Edward led everyone to check the cargo on board one by one. Eight of the ships were loaded with spices, all of the highest quality, which made Lily extremely satisfied.

Cynthia Wu looked at the remaining six ships and asked curiously, "Why are there still half the ships not loaded with spices?"

Edward chuckled, "These six ships are filled with things the Princess Consort herself asked me to buy."

Lily nodded and said to Edward, "How many of the items I wanted did you manage to get?"

Edward replied, "I did my best to gather them. I managed to buy most of them, but some of the things you mentioned, Princess Consort, the people in France have never even heard of."

"Great, show me!" Lily Evans was visibly excited and full of anticipation. Cynthia Wu found it odd—why did Lily Evans care more about these personal items than the spices?

What could possibly be more important than spices, which were as valuable as gold?

Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter were both curious. They couldn't imagine what could be so valuable that Lily Evans would dedicate half the ship's space to it, choosing not to load spices but instead spending money to ship these items across the ocean.

With curiosity piqued, Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter followed closely behind Lily Evans.

When they reached the cabin, Edward opened the door. Lily Evans rushed in eagerly, with Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter right behind her. As everyone saw what was inside, Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter both looked stunned.

"What is this? It's a ball, but it spins!" Cynthia Wu curiously touched a sphere that was mostly blue.

"That's a globe," Edward explained.

"A globe? What's that supposed to be?" Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter were completely baffled. It was their first time seeing such a strange Western contraption.

The cabin was packed with these odd Western gadgets.

"This is... a spinning jenny, a generator, a steam engine, a train model, a car engine..." Lily's eyes sparkled with excitement as she looked at these products, each radiating the aura of modern industrial civilization. Her voice trembled.

"Wow, Princess Consort, you really know all of them!" Edward was stunned. He'd thought Lily Evans had only heard the names somewhere and wanted to see them, but to his surprise, she recognized every single item without missing a beat!

Lily's mind was completely absorbed by these items; she was so excited she barely noticed Edward.

In her previous life, Lily had visited museums abroad, where many early industrial revolution artifacts were on display, so she recognized almost all these things.

Seeing all these items, Lily quickly deduced that France was currently in the early to mid-stages of the Industrial Revolution. New inventions and technologies were emerging in droves. Clearly, science and productivity were advancing rapidly. In just a few decades, after the industrial transformation, France would officially enter the age of modern industry, leaving the agrarian Jin Dynasty far behind.

Lily remembered the humiliating memories from modern Chinese history, when her homeland was bullied by foreign powers.

Although this world was completely different from the history of Lily's previous life, the patterns of history were eerily similar. According to her calculations, in fifty years at most, the Opium War of her past would repeat itself in this timeline, and in her old age, her children and grandchildren would all be caught up in the fires of foreign invasion.