A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

Do you think Xiaoping is over?

of course not!

If you can only sell straw sandals and mats, how can you make a lot of money? The package plan promised is a package plan. Absolutely no corners cut.

The salt fields by the sea and the swamps along the river are long and big, but there are only so many of them. There will definitely be some residents who cannot be taken into account and will not be able to enjoy the dividends of development, and it will still be impossible to achieve universal prosperity.

After all, with the exception of more than a thousand military service households and public households, most civilian households are actually in the fourth and fifth grades of the fifth-class estate book according to Chinese parlance. The first class is the samurai family, the second class is the family of the official, and the third class is the military service family. The remaining number is more than 50,000, and the number of households is nearly 10,000. Even if they die, they will not be ranked, and they are too lazy to fight. The lowest level households brought by the group.

Most poor households are not caused by laziness or disease, but by heavy taxes and frequent military service. Even if he works day and night, he can only earn enough for food and clothing. No matter how much rice is grown through intensive cultivation, it will not fall into their hands in the end. Ninety-nine percent of it must be handed over to the lord and daimyo.

Of course, in today's era, wealthy people are considered to be able to have enough food and clothing. Xiao Pingtai's goal is to allow as many poor people as possible to have more income and eat rice cakes during the New Year.

So this involves fishery again. The last time Xiao Pingtai went to the Enshutan coast for inspection, it was to check how many shellfish the local fishermen who fished for seafood in offshore boats could catch in a day. Obviously, the quantity is huge, but the price is not high (except for abalone, okay), and the market is like that.

Based on the current situation, Koheita arbitrarily believed that a system of unified purchasing and marketing (actually still a monopoly) should be implemented. That is, he specially dispatched Yuli and Tongxin at Ejiri Port and ordered all fishermen in Ejiri to only send their catch to Ejiri Port for trading. sell. While imposing a transaction tax, all cheap shellfish from fishermen will be purchased. Make sure you get enough shellfish every day for the next step.

Of course, Xiaopingtai didn't care about the few dollars of meat in his shell, but what he cared about was the shells that were randomly discarded.

Some of the functions of shells have been discovered by some people at this time, but they are neither standardized nor large-scale, and Xiao Pingtai is going to do this current unique business.

Bei Hui!

What is shell ash? It is the fine ash produced by calcining shells. This is a good thing. In ancient times when building materials were scarce, fireproof materials were hard to come by. In ancient times, there were often stories saying that a certain piece of clothing was too good to be bad, and that clothes made of burnt cloth were on the same level as rare treasures.

Who doesn’t understand the principle that water and fire are merciless? Things that can naturally prevent fire become rare treasures. Especially Japanese-style buildings built with large quantities of wood will be destroyed immediately if caught in a fire. If there are any auxiliary fire-proof materials available in buildings, they will definitely be in demand.

It makes sense that as a plaster used for plastering walls, limestone-fired plaster is also fire-resistant. But the shell ash fired from the shells miraculously has excellent fire resistance and can also prevent rain and moisture. (As far as the writer’s superficial knowledge of chemical properties is concerned, the main components of lime and shell ash are CaO. I have little talent and knowledge, and I don’t understand why shell ash has excellent properties.)

The preparation process of shell ash is not difficult. First, hire people to break the shells to get the meat and collect the shells. After the shells are briefly rinsed, they enter the kiln and control the heat in the kiln (this is key. People at the time did not know it, but Xiaopingtai knew that the optimal temperature is 800 degrees. This is also the best way to prevent others from plagiarizing. The best way is not to burn shell ash at this temperature, its effect just won’t work!) In the best condition, after the shells are calcined at high temperatures, they are still intact when they come out of the kiln. At this time, use a watering can to sprinkle a little water on them. As if by magic, those shells will disintegrate themselves in the water mist and turn into powder.

Then these coarse shell ash powder with coarse impurities is finely sieved to obtain fine and usable shell ash. Of course, this cannot be used to paste walls immediately, because the shell ash itself does not have enough adhesion after adding water to turn it into plaster and paste it on the wall.

Therefore, people at that time were still exploring how to use it. Later, Kato Kiyomasa discovered a good method, so this secret method was used in the construction of Osaka, Fushimi, and Kumamoto. In order to keep it secret, he even put aside his reputation as a samurai and signed a confidentiality agreement with the craftsmen involved in building the city, promising not to disclose it.

Of course, it is obvious that he is not the only smart person in Japan, let alone the whole world. Aside from the smart man Kato Kiyomasa, Ikeda Terumasa soon discovered the benefits of shell ash in business operations, so he also adopted this method when transferring Harima to rebuilding Himeji Castle. (Unfortunately, the "White Heron Castle" Himeji Castle that was restored in 2015 did not adopt this method because it was too troublesome. The white wall plaster on Himeji Castle now is made of plaster of Paris produced nearby in Nimi, Okayama Prefecture. , many cultural relics and historic sites in Japan are just for everyone to laugh at, just to deceive us foreigners. Many of the restored historical monuments are not as good as inventing historical monuments.)

Gossip aside, Koheita plans to keep the method of firing and using shell ash secret for the time being, and plans to establish a special Yamauchi clan construction organization group (similar to Omi's Anatazo and Hida's carpentry).

Let’s continue with the use of shell ash. Due to the chemical properties of shell ash, when using shell ash, you need to boil a large pot of dried seaweed first, and then stir the shell ash with thick and thick seaweed juice (filter out the seaweed before use). This is not enough, during the process of mixing the stucco, it is necessary to add masa, which must of course be torn into small pieces of fiber.

Then when pasting the wall, apply three layers of plaster to truly prevent fire, water, rain and snow. From high temperatures of more than 30 degrees to extreme cold of minus 20 degrees, there will be no cracks.

The mortar mixed in this way will last for a century!

That's right! Just a century!

With such unique secret skills and professional skills, are you still afraid that you will have no food during the Warring States Period in Japan when you were building cities for many years? joke! I'm afraid I'll be too busy in the future.

Moreover, if the shell waste is used, the shell meat can also be used. They were pickled with Yamauchi's own salt and soy sauce. Those who didn't have time to pickle were boiled in a large pot and given to the hundreds of ashigaru left behind in Ejiri Castle to drink the broth.

As for those shellfish meat pickles, they are sold in inland areas such as Jiaxin Kanto. Anyway, the shellfish ash can make money. These can be sold at low prices and squeeze the market. It also benefits society by allowing mainland people who have never been able to eat seafood to eat seafood. This is another sum of money. No matter how small the mosquito is, it is still meat, so you can get whatever you can.