Datang Lingnan King

Chapter 23 Sugar!twice-cooked pork
After they chatted for a while, Feng Daiwen asked someone to host a banquet for them. In fact, Cheng Yaojin and others mainly came to discuss porcelain with Feng Daiwen, and of course weapons were also important.

Everyone sat down separately, Cheng Yaojin asked first: "The old man and his party are mainly here to ask, what is the specific regulation of my nephew's new porcelain, just tell me what you need."

Feng Daiwen knew that it was Cheng Yaojin and the two who were unwilling to take up this big business, so he brought in Zhang Gongjin, Li Ji and others. Zhang Gongjin was born in Jiangnan, and there was a Jiangnan clan behind him. Li Ji guarded the border. Porcelain sales both were of great help.

These days, businessmen do not have the backing of the government, so they are easily taken over by others, and different places need different identities to make it work. Now, even with Li Shimin's face, it is impossible to travel in the world. The biggest power of the Feng family is only in the south of the Lingnan area. The role of Lingnan is not that great, and local officials may not sell it. Instead, they are important officials of the court, and they care more about the Feng family.

Feng Daiwen clasped his hands and introduced: "My nephew will get [-]% of this new porcelain, Princess Qin will get [-]% and the other four layers will be divided by your uncles, but this can only be sold abroad at present, and it won't be too late to sell more exquisite ones from the Central Plains.

As for what was sold, the main exchange was horses, cattle and sheep, and other treasures were gold and silver, which were secondary. "

After a little thought, Li Ji and others understood that what Tang Dynasty lacked now was horses, cattle were also important, and sheep were the most important meat.

"Nephew Xian is very right, so this matter will be arranged by a certain family. It happens that there are one or two managers in the family who are familiar with all places." Cheng Yaojin said with a happy smile.

This is an aboveboard way of reaping benefits, and everyone is naturally very satisfied. Although it is for everyone to share, it doesn't take much effort after all.

Poverty in ancient times, this is what Feng Daiwen felt most deeply. Materials are more important than gold and silver. It is illegal to kill cattle for farming, and they are rare. Regardless of whether they can be killed, they are reluctant to kill them. Sheep are the main meat, and pigs are also called hogs (shi ), also known as zhi (zhi), is still not castrated. It has a strong taste and is usually only eaten by the poor, and the farmers themselves cannot eat enough. The surplus grain from there is used to raise chickens and ducks. As for fish, it is even more difficult to catch, because there are no such materials. The conditions are all grasping by hand, and occasionally shallow water can get a little bit, but there is no way for a long time.

From Zhujiazhuang to Feng Daiwen taught the method of bamboo baskets. Recently, almost every family in the vicinity of Wannian County will lay a few baskets, which has greatly improved their lives.

"It just so happens that Uncle Zhang is here today, and my nephew has a business to share with you all." Feng Daiwen asked someone to bring white sugar. Sugar is a luxury in this era. The royal family only has bee sugar picked by chance in the wild, and the folks only have it. Maltose, but maltose is not very sweet, and sucrose, which is also brown sugar, is only produced in a small amount. There are many impurities and the color is black. This is the reason for incomplete filtration, and it is controlled by aristocratic families.

White sugar is boiled and filtered by Feng Daiwen with sucrose, and the "drip method" is used to decolorize the sucrose.The method is to boil the cane juice to a certain concentration and then pour it into a "waliu" (funnel-shaped pottery), and pour the yellow mud from the top. From the perspective of modern technology, the yellow mud is used as an adsorption decolorizing agent. Prepare sugar.

Lingnan sugarcane was requested by Feng Daiwen the year before last to be planted in large quantities, and it is only now on a large scale. It used to be rare, so it was boiled into brown sugar. This time, Feng Daiwen filtered out white sugar and rock sugar. (Of course, rock candy now comes in large chunks. It is impossible for a large number of particles to be found in modern society. Older people should have seen chunks of rock sugar when they were young).

Li Ji and others looked at the refined salt and white sugar and pieces of white rock sugar in the plate, and asked in a daze, "Is this sugar?" They all tentatively threw a piece into their mouths.

"Well, it's so sweet!" Cheng Yaojin bit a piece of rock candy, with a contented smile on his face full of beards, he bit into it a few times and swallowed it, then picked up a large piece and threw it into his big mouth.

Li Ji and Zhang Gongjin are much more refined. After tasting it slowly, Zhang Gongjin nodded and asked, "Good stuff, can my nephew's white sugar be mass-produced?"

"Not now, it is refined from cane sugar. There is more sunshine in the south, so the sugar cane has more sugar. Uncle Zhang can plant it in large quantities in the south. I will pay for it, and then everyone will send people to build a workshop. The benefits are still distributed like porcelain. I don't know what you think. How about it." Feng Daiwen shook his head and said.

"However, the large-scale planting in the south of the Yangtze River will inevitably affect the grain income. I'm afraid it will be difficult." Zhang Gongjin explained in a difficult way.

"It's not difficult. Uncle Zhang probably hasn't paid attention to it in recent years. The Xiao family has learned two-crop rice in Lingnan, and now there are a lot of two-crop rice in the south of the Yangtze River. Even after paying taxes next year, there will be no shortage of food, and the income from sugar cane It is higher than food, so there is no problem." Feng Daiwen analyzed.

"That's very good. If that's the case, I'll send a message to all the aristocratic families in the south of the Yangtze River to start mass planting next year." Zhang Gongjin's eyes lit up, and she said happily, because if it affects the grain income, it will definitely be stopped by the government. Now that the problem is solved, everyone All have income, of course, the more the better.

In fact, Feng Daiwen made white sugar mainly because he missed twice-cooked pork. As a Sichuanese in his previous life, it was really sad not to have twice-cooked pork for a long time, and twice-cooked pork lacks the taste without sugar. Boil it with white water and wild ginger, and the taste will disappear. Now the pigs in Lingnan and Zhujiazhuang are all castrated since they were young. The castrated pigs not only have no smell, but also don't like to move, and grow meat quickly.

The next few people can be said to have a very happy conversation. Cheng Yaojin and others even ate more than 10 points of twice-cooked pork. They sighed that pork is so delicious. I don’t know that Feng Daiwen’s family now uses iron woks carefully crafted from fine iron. , other people’s families cook, boil, roast, stew, weave, and so on. .For such a small matter, it takes a little effort, and several people agreed one by one.

(End of this chapter)