1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 111 Soap and Matches

"To Qiongzhou Fucheng? Are you alone?" Tao Donglai asked in amazement.Although it was a matter of time before someone was sent to Qiongzhou Fucheng in the north of Hainan Island to inquire about the situation, it was not urgent for the Traveling Group, so the executive committee was not in a hurry to arrange this matter, but He Xi took the initiative to bring it up.

"Mr. Tao, don't be nervous. I don't intend to stay there permanently. I just followed the shopkeeper Zhang to check the situation. By the way, I went to visit the boss of 'An Fu Hong' to see how strong this firm is. He Xi thought for a while and added: "Isn't the executive committee planning to buy a ship? I think you should have discussed this matter with the two shopkeepers this afternoon. I'll come out and take a look at the ship first. quality, let’s discuss the price.”

Tao Donglai thought for a while, nodded slowly, and said, "Sooner or later, we will send someone over there. You may as well make a stop first. By the way, you will also hire some boatmen and sailors there, and the treatment can be relaxed. Once the boat is bought , the plan to open a sub-mine is about to start as soon as possible.”

Now it was He Xi's turn to be surprised: "So fast? This route has never been taken before, is it too risky?"

"We have arranged for the two ships from North America to go to Hongji Port to do field surveys. When they come back, we will start formally preparing materials and manpower." Tao Donglai sighed: "The estimated material consumption in the initial stage of development It will be very big, and the preparation work in all aspects is also very complicated. It can be said to be a miniature version of Victory Port landing! You should also help to check the market conditions outside, and if you think there are any business opportunities, please report back to the base camp in time."

He Xi nodded and said: "Speaking of this, I really have a suggestion. The products we sell outside are luxury goods except for salt. The development of the daily necessities market is completely blank. Should we consider using the existing conditions to develop Some daily necessities with small profits but high sales?"

Tao Donglai said: "Your suggestion coincides with the plan of the executive committee. We just talked about it when we met yesterday. But we don't have the conditions for large-scale production of many daily necessities. Step by step, and often requires the coordination and cooperation of multiple departments, it cannot be done immediately after understanding the production process."

He Xi was aroused by Tao Donglai's words, and quickly asked: "Then tell me first, what products are you planning to develop and put on the market next?"

Tao Donglai raised two fingers and said, "One is soap, the other is matches."

Soap is nothing new in history. The Romans started primitive soap production as early as the 2nd century AD, using animal fat and plant ash to make soap.The Chinese also have a long history of making soap. By the time of the Southern Song Dynasty, the term "soap" had clearly appeared in the books at that time.

Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" clearly records the soap making method, and "Ren Zhai Zhi Zhi" written by Song Dynasty Yang Shiying also has very detailed soap making recipes. "Jasmine Soap" was mentioned in "Jin Ping Mei". From the perspective of later generations, it should be regarded as a relatively primitive soap.Li Yu of the Qing Dynasty recorded in the book "Idle Love Occasionally": "The best soap, after a bath, the fragrance will last for a long time." In the classic "Dream of Red Mansions", there is also a description of Jia Baoyu's use of soap.

However, the soap used by the Chinese is still very different from the soap soaps seen in later generations. The production efficiency and decontamination ability are far inferior to the latter. It is very common in folk use. There is no doubt that even in this comparative In the primitive era, it was still a commodity with huge market potential.

However, the first department to propose soap production at the executive committee was not the Ministry of Chemical Industry or the Ministry of Commerce, but the Ministry of Military Police.The military and police department proposed this plan not out of economic considerations. Their purpose is quite clear, that is, to obtain the by-product glycerin, commonly known as glycerin, through the production of soap.Glycerin is not only widely used in medicine, printing and dyeing, food, paper and other industries, but also has a very important role in the manufacture of nitroglycerin, which is the main component of safe explosives invented by the Swedish scientist Nobel in the 19th century.

Of course, to make nitroglycerin explosives, only glycerin is not enough, sulfuric acid and nitric acid are also indispensable, and even if there are detailed formulas and production processes in the large database of Chuanzhong, it is still extremely dangerous to mass-produce explosives Things can't be done overnight.The development process that needs to be experienced in this process is many times more complicated than those boring text descriptions in the database. It may take many years before glycerin can be truly used in the military field.

The military and police department proposed this plan, but they didn't expect to be able to produce yellow explosives in a short period of time, they just wanted to use it as a pre-research project for future military technology.But in any case, the manufacture of soap or scented soap is indeed a project with good market prospects, and it is not too difficult to put it into production.

Sanya is rich in coconut resources. The metallurgical workshop has produced a set of oil extraction equipment according to the requirements of the Executive Committee. The next step is to build a small oil extraction workshop to produce coconut oil.After two or three years, the oil palms planted by the Ministry of Agriculture on a large scale will begin to bear fruit, and then they will be able to get some supplementary palm oil, so there is no need to worry about the supply of oil used in soap making.Caustic soda, another material needed for soap making, can be produced through the simple method of electrolysis of salt water only after the hydropower station is put into use.From the perspective of technology alone, there are no obvious technical obstacles to the large-scale production of soap.

After the Executive Committee approved the soap production plan, the Ministry of Chemical Industry immediately proposed a match production plan.Their reason is simple, that is, all the materials needed to make matches are already available, and there is no reason not to produce such a daily necessities—even if they don’t sell them, they will use them sooner or later.

The raw materials for making matches are not complicated, mainly potassium chlorate, manganese dioxide, sulfur and other substances on the match head, and the ignition surface coated with red phosphorus.As early as the beginning of the crossing, when the executive committee organized a work team to visit Lidong, it had already discovered the Damao phosphorus-manganese mine located in the inland area. The phosphorus ore reserves here are nearly [-] million tons, and the manganese ore reserves are also over one million tons. Sufficient to support the production needs of the Shuo Group.

However, due to limited traffic conditions, only small-scale mining can be carried out, and then the ore will be carried to the ore processing plant in Tiandu by the people of Lizu Mountain for further processing. Improve mining efficiency.However, even with the current production efficiency, it is more than enough to meet the manganese and phosphorus supply required for the production of matches.

As for sulfur, it still mainly relies on imports at present, but the supply is plentiful, and it is even easier to buy than coal. After all, sulfur is not a necessity of life, and the market will not be as tight as coal.

The most troublesome thing is potassium chlorate, which needs to use potassium-rich raw materials such as plant ash, saltpeter or alum to prepare potassium salt, and then make potassium chlorate after a series of chemical reactions.With the current production level of the chemical sector, it is not possible to manufacture potassium chlorate on a large scale for the time being, which may become a technical bottleneck restricting the output of matches.

Of course, there are still some secondary problems that need to be solved one by one, such as the location of the explosives workshop in the future. Naturally, such a dangerous place cannot be placed in a densely populated area. Even if it is only a laboratory for pre-researching explosives, it must be built in a relatively remote place mountains.In the end, the Executive Committee found a mountain near the mine pit of Tiandu Iron Mine, next to the later Songhe Reservoir, and set aside a piece of land for the Military and Police Department as a future ordnance research and development institute.This place is far away from the residential area, even if the sky is blown up, it will not hurt the No. [-] base and some main production workshops. There is a mountain lake next to it, and if there is a fire, you can get water nearby to put out the fire.

In addition, the packaging of matches has also led to the demand for papermaking. Although there are still a lot of unused paper brought by the traveler so far, and many occasions still rely on the paperless office of laptops and tablets, but we must plan ahead. Sooner or later Still have to rely on pen and paper.What's more, the use of paper is far more than that. If the toilet paper reserves are all used up, don't everyone really want to use things like bamboo and grass to wipe their butts?Therefore, in addition to approving the match production project, the executive committee also included the construction of the paper workshop in the next batch of construction projects list of the Ministry of Construction.

Early the next morning, He Xi left Shengli Port on the merchant ship "An Fu Xing". He was going to Qiongzhou Fucheng in the north of Hainan Island, which is later known as Haikou City.It is where the entire Qiongzhou Island is now governed, and there are more materials and information in all aspects than the small place of Yazhou. For He Xi's business, it is undoubtedly a better stage than Yazhou.

The other merchant ship "Furuifeng" set off an hour later, because shopkeeper Li had been instructed by Schneider to deliberately delay the time.After the "Anfuxing" ship set off, Schneider took shopkeeper Li to the warehouse to pick up another batch of goods unknown to competitors—one thousand catties of refined salt.

Schneider does not plan to support a second local distributor other than Luo Shengdong in Hainan Island. This is not only to take care of Luo Shengdong's interests, but also to avoid competition between the two distributors in the local market .Luo Shengdong has a boat and soldiers at hand, so it is very appropriate to start this private salt business locally. It is a disguised waste of resources to develop one more distributor.The situation of "Furuifeng" is different. The root of this firm is in Guangzhou. If we can use this relationship to sell the private salt produced by the Crossing Group to the mainland, it will be regarded as opening the door to the private salt business. really opened up.

(End of this chapter)