The revival of Shu Han

Chapter 55 The Helplessness of a Weak Country

In late November of AD 258, after friendly and sincere negotiations between the two parties, Ma Guo represented the Fuxing Society, and the Bu Association represented the Xiling Bujia, and signed a package agreement.

The two parties agreed that the Fuxing Society and the Bu family would form an alliance.Fuxingshe provided Bujia's shops with the production and purification method of tung oil, and provided Bujia with toothbrush and toothpaste separately.The responsibility of the Bu family is: as long as the Bu family still controls Xiling, they must ensure the safety and unimpeded flow of the Mi family caravan.

Among the several blockbuster products of Fuxingshe, the production of tung oil is the least difficult, and the mystery of it will be discovered sooner or later.So Guan Yi simply threw it out as a favor.Moreover, taking advantage of this Hanfu victory, Mengzihei on the southern border of Fuling County was hit hard, and Guan Yi extended his actual control line to Wuling County in Soochow for at least [-] miles. It has completely included the largest tung tree planting base in China in later generations - Xiushan County, Chongqing City.Therefore, even if the production technology of tung oil is fully disclosed, Fuxingshe still has an absolute advantage in terms of raw materials.

Compared with tung oil, Buxie, who is also proficient in business, his eyes lit up when he saw a toothbrush-this is a bulky commodity that everyone needs.And it's a consumable - it needs to be replaced every few months!

The toothbrush of this era, Guan Yi can only perforate one end of the wooden strip, and then insert the more delicate bristles.Generally speaking, this is just a question of thinking.But how could the dignified traveler make such a long-term business so that others can easily forge it?He sells toothbrushes with bleached bristles.

It is quite troublesome and dangerous to make bleach in this era.But there is no other way. On the one hand, we have to come up with new products to earn more profits in order to feed more people.On the other hand, to ensure that one's own business routes remain unobstructed, one must have enough interests to bind the Bu family firmly.

To make bleach in this era, manganese oxide and hydrochloric acid are first required.Hydrochloric acid has been mentioned above and can be obtained by dissolving brine blocks in water.Manganese oxide, on the other hand, is a natural ore—the land in Fuling County also has it.

Chlorine gas is produced after the reaction of hydrochloric acid and manganese oxide, which is the most dangerous and troublesome-this is a poisonous gas.Therefore, Guan Yi chose not to let the chlorine gas be released alone, but to directly connect it to the clean water on the other side through the sheep's intestines. When chlorine gas is added to water, hypochlorous acid will be formed.This is the active ingredient in bleach.

This is a very complicated and dangerous process. The production of pure bleach costs much more than the toothbrush itself.But it is very worthwhile to do so: a white toothbrush and a black toothbrush that looks like bristles, what would you choose?

So even if the ex-factory price of the toothbrushes here at Fuxingshe is 200 yuan each.The Buxie, which is proficient in business, even set the sales price at a crazy [-] yuan each, but both parties are very sure—this thing will definitely sell well—you insist on not using a toothbrush for a month, and only use your fingers to clean your teeth. I can understand how the ancients felt when they encountered a toothbrush.

The use of tooth powder started very early, and mineral tooth powder and traditional Chinese medicine tooth powder were widely used in ancient China.On the one hand, this thing is easy to imitate, which will damage the reputation of the traveler.On the other hand, the mouthfeel of tooth powder is really bad, which affects sales.So what Guan Yi sold to the Bu family was toothpaste.

Toothpaste in modern society is mainly divided into several parts.

One is the friction agent. This Guan Yi directly used light calcium carbonate-this is a by-product of preparing sodium hydroxide solution, so it is not for nothing.

The second is the humectant, which can effectively prevent the toothpaste from drying out and hardening.Guan Yi chooses glycerin - it's all ready-made.

The third is the adhesive, which is even simpler.Because its active ingredient is sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, although it sounds high-end, it is actually widely found in all plants in nature.Although limited by the existing technology, Guan Yi can only do one process: alkalization, and the remaining etherification cannot be done because the production of chloroacetic acid is too troublesome, but the adhesive produced by this method has far surpassed this era.

The fourth is spices.Modern people know that its main ingredient is mint leaves.This thing is everywhere in Fuling County.

The fifth is sweeteners.This can be done by adding a little more glycerin.

With a toothbrush, plus a matching toothpaste.It is foreseeable that in the near future, all kinds of willow branches and various tooth powders with unknown ingredients will be squeezed out of the market.It is also because of this that in the face of such a huge benefit, all the unhappiness caused by the boring loss of the Bu family at the beginning was thrown into the sky.The two brothers of the Bu family were very happy to sign an agreement of alliance and friendly cooperation with Ma Guo.

In November of this year, the newly succeeded Wu Emperor, Sun Xiu, worshiped the general Sun Chen as prime minister and Jingzhou Mu, and at the same time made all four of Sun Chen's brothers marquises.After successfully paralyzing Sun Chen, Sun Xiu contacted the veteran Ding Feng through the left general Zhang Bu. When the La Festival was held on December [-], Sun Xiu was arrested and killed at the Great Court Meeting.After that, Sun Chen's family was wiped out by the three clans.Since Sun Liang, the imperial power that had fallen beside Soochow for six years finally returned to the hands of the Sun Wu royal family.

After receiving the news from Jianye, the Bu family brothers, who finally had a stone in their hearts, couldn't bring up the idea of ​​taking revenge on Fuxing Society and Mi's firm.Because in the past November, all the 600 toothbrushes and toothpaste delivered by Fuxingshe were sold out in Jingzhou.Just this month, the Bu family's profit reached [-] million yuan!
In the face of sufficient interests, no matter how great the hatred is, it can be wiped out with a smile.

On the Bu family's side, they were happily counting money, while on the Fuling County side, there was laughter and laughter.

"Guan Zifeng, you say you're not going too far? Toothpaste and toothbrushes are so good, why don't you give them to the Mi family to sell them, but to the Bu family to sell them?"

"Hehehe, brother. The foolish brother listened to this. Who made us big men only have the state of Yizhou now."

Mi Zhao was not at all dissatisfied with Guan Yi's behavior of handing over the monopoly of toothpaste and toothbrushes to the Bu family.Instead of being dissatisfied, he expressed great appreciation for Guan Yi.Because everyone knows that the area of ​​Shuhan is too small, the population is too small, and the domestic transportation is very inconvenient-the potential of this market is very limited.To sell products to more people, we can only rely on the Yangtze River waterway.And the throat of the Yangtze River waterway is now stuck in the hands of the governor of Xiling.

This is also quite helpless for Guan Yi: Shu Han is too weak, and he, a traverser, has to think and think again and again before he comes up with new products.After all, for a weak country, the general improvement in the level of science and technology means that the gap with a strong country will become wider and wider.

For example, in the first year of Jingyao, Fuxingshe actually had a new product: calcium carbonate tablets that could be taken orally.In such an era when the calcification intensity of human bones is far lower than that of modern people, this thing is originally a very good commodity-the cost is very low, but it can be sold at a super expensive price, and huge profits can be obtained.But Guan Yi only dared to let the students of his Fuxing School take it.why?Because the Shu Han has a small population and few soldiers.If this thing is spread and sold, and the population of the three countries has been improved, then do you think this is a disaster or a blessing for the Shu Han?

Another example is potatoes, an epoch-making super weapon. At present, Guan Yi only dares to plant them on a few hills.And because the production technology of this thing is too low, once the seeds flow out, others can copy it.So he had to spend a lot of effort to prevent the seeds from leaking out - he only dared to grind the harvested potatoes into powder and market them under the name of soybean powder.This is because once the potatoes flow out, Wei and Wu, which have more population and land, will benefit much more than the Shu Han, who is small and weak!At this stage, potato planting is spread out, and the only result is that Shu Han dies faster!
Another example is cement. There are limestone all over the mountains and plains in Fuling County. Burning cement should not be too simple for travelers.But does Guan Yi dare to spread the cement and sell it?The ready-made Shu Han army, which was always at a disadvantage, was helpless in the face of the slightly larger Cao Wei rammed earth city walls. If Cao Wei's city walls were turned into concrete, Jiang Wei would be the first to let him go.

There are also revolutionary cavalry equipment such as stirrups and horseshoes, and Guan Yi is even more afraid to mention it: the cavalry of the current Cao Wei has put great pressure on the infantry of the Shu Han.Once the stirrups come out, the combat effectiveness of the cavalry of Cao Wei will increase more than ten times-at that time, the mere [-] cavalry of the Shu Han have improved their combat effectiveness.
So the traveler is in a weak country, and in many cases it is really not that the more inventions and creations, the better.

(End of this chapter)