Gentlemen, listen to the sword chant

Chapter 18 The art of papermaking, the way to make money

That night, Chen Ci and Yu Xiong chatted happily and drank until late at night, which brought them closer together. In the end, Yu Xiong asked Chen Ci to stay here until dawn.When Chen Ci thought about it, with Fan Chu around, he couldn't refuse, so he slept in the military station all night.

Early the next morning, Chen Ci and Fan Chu rode back to Taoyuan Town, and Yu Xiongfei wanted to personally bring a battalion to see them off, saying that he was guarding against revenge from the Dongying people, but Chen Ci did not refuse.

Back in Taoyuan Town, the news about the soldiers encircling Dongying Street yesterday has already spread.

Taoyuan Town is not far from Guangling City. Such a big event happened. It can be said that it was a huge wealth, and it was a huge wealth. There was a lot of news about it.As soon as I entered the small town, I could hear many working people talking about the whole story of this matter with great relish. When it comes to emotional parts, they will give thumbs up and praise the courage and strategy of the statement.

As soon as Chen Ci came back, the old owner came to visit and chatted with him for a long time, trying to persuade Chen Ci not to get too close to the military.The statement agreed on the surface, but he didn't take it seriously in his heart, not to mention that he needs Yu Xiong's help now, in the future he will also organize his own troops, and it is inevitable to travel with the military.

When we were in Guangling yesterday, Chen Ci and Yu Xiong went to the bank to get gold, and then went to buy pens and inks.When the princess heard that Chen Ci was back, she trotted out and threw herself into Chen Ci's arms. Chen Ci was in a good mood, thinking that this girl had never left Chen Ci since she set off from the capital, and he had only left for a day. Princess I couldn't hold back anymore.

"Guess what gift I brought you?"

"What?" the princess raised her head and blinked.

"Look." Chen Ci took out a brush and inkstone.

The princess's eyes were suspicious.

"Hey, you will know in two days." Chen Ci thinks that this era is really boring, there are no entertainment facilities, and the common people are busy farming every day, just for three meals a day.Oh, it’s okay for those who are rich, eat and drink, go shopping in brothels, and listen to music, but generally they still lack enough spiritual entertainment.

"Old Fan, you order a few people to chop some bamboo. If you want old bamboo, the more the better; then help me get some quicklime."

Fan Chu didn't ask why he did things, and took orders to leave.

Quicklime is calcined from limestone. It originated very early and was needed for building city walls. It is easy to get.

To make paper, it must be made quickly and well. Chen Ci’s first choice for a short period of time is to use bamboo as the raw material. The reason is that bamboo is soft and easy to boil under high heat, and then smashed into flocs.

With Chen Ci's knowledge, it would be idiotic to make the fine quality restaurant paper of the previous life, but it is still no problem to make ordinary rough paper, and that is enough.

He ordered his subordinates to guard the courtyard, no one is allowed to enter, even if the old owner of the villa comes, he must be notified.

The old proprietor was worried about the princess's boring stay in Taoyuan Town, so he sent people to Guangling City to buy a high-quality guzheng and many rhythm books.

It is not difficult to make paper, the principle is not difficult, but the difficulty is to make good paper towels.

Fan Chu and a few followers came back carrying a lot of old bamboo, and he himself borrowed an ox cart from a fellow villager in Taoyuan Town, and brought a lot of quicklime.

Chen Ci ordered them to cut the bamboo into sections, and prepared lye with quicklime.

These require little effort.

easy.

Everyone stood in the courtyard, looking at Chen Ci's busyness, with a confused look on their faces.Taking advantage of this spare time, Chen Ci asked them to dig a big pit, and then smoothed the walls of the pit with mud and stones.

Chen Ci prepared several large barrels of lye, and ordered people to pour the lye into the pot, and put the cut bamboo into the pot to boil on high heat.

The purpose of doing this is to separate the raw materials, that is, the bamboo is degummed in the lye by retting or steaming, and dispersed into fibers.Generally speaking, paper made from bamboo is yellow paper, yellow paper for the dead, but it doesn’t matter. Generally speaking, in modern times, in order to make the quality of paper better, alkalization and degumming are a very long process, but Chen Ci heating the solution , will speed up the process.

After boiling for an hour, the bamboo has grown cottony, and it was almost ready, so the statement asked the followers to pour the lye from the cauldron into the dug pond.This thing is not a one-time consumable, and the next time the bamboo is fibrous, it can also be recycled.

Next, beating is the process of cutting and pounding to cut off the fibers and broom the fibers to become pulp.This process is a physical labor, and it is difficult for these saber-carrying subordinates who came out of the prime minister's mansion in the capital to do this kind of physical labor with their arms bare and with a sledgehammer.

After beating for half an hour, the bamboo was beaten into something sticky like mud, which is pulp.The next step is papermaking, the pulp is infiltrated with water to make a slurry, and then the pulp is scooped out with a bamboo mat, so that the pulp is interwoven into a thin sheet of wet paper on the upper bamboo mat, and then dried, the paper is completed.

After all this work, the sun has already faded away.

Seeing that a layer of paper pulp was spread on many bamboo mats, Chen Ci was satisfied, and asked the followers to move them into the house, and then move them out to bask in the sun at the beginning of tomorrow.

Seeing this scene, the princess was surprised: "Husband, are you acting as a hero?"

"Huh? What is Hexu?" Chen Ci was full of astonishment. Could there be paper in this era?

"Oh, it doesn't seem to be..." The princess took a closer look and shook her head.

Chen Ci searched the memory of the original owner, and soon realized that the preparation of the bamboo paper mentioned by the princess was similar to the preparation of the bamboo paper in Chen Ci.

That is, when drawing silk for silk weaving, the people in the palace will make silk floss from the leftover cocoons and diseased cocoons by floating wadding.After the wadding is finished, there will be some residual wadding left on the bamboo mat, which is similar to pulp, but the amount is small.When the number of wadding is increased, the residual wadding on the bamboo mat will accumulate into a layer of fiber sheets, which can be peeled off after drying and can be used for writing.

To put it bluntly, this is still the category of cotton, which is often used for important military documents to pass on thousands of miles of flying geese.

But Chen Ci’s bamboo paper is different, it can be mass-produced on a large scale. Although the quality may not be as good as that of “Hexuan”, it has high economic benefits.

The princess looked at the paper pulp on the mats, and then at the bamboo piled up in the yard. Thoughtful, she looked back and smiled: "Husband, did you use bamboo to make a hexa?"

"It's not Hex, it's paper."

"Paper?"

Again, there is a concept of paper in this era, but in a broad sense it also refers to the concept of silk or light cotton cloth.

"You'll know in a few days."

Chen Ci rubbed her head, then looked at the dark night, thinking that this era is really bad, and she should go to rest so early.

Still the same sentence, those who have no money go home to sleep with their wives in their arms, and those who have money go to brothels to find sex and listen to music.

There are no entertainment facilities these days.

Still sleeping in separate rooms.

Chen Ci felt that even though he and the princess were husband and wife, after all, it was a marriage contract made by the emperor, and there was still no affection.Feelings have to be cultivated slowly, there is no rush.One day, the princess will find that the statement is different, and she will take the initiative to ask to share the same bed.

(End of this chapter)