Northern Dynasties

There is a courtyard in a remote part of Jingzhou City. It doesn’t look very eye-catching, but the inside is heavily guarded. There are more than 300 strong armored soldiers guarding it. The leader of these soldiers is Zhang Shinu, the governor of the tent under the command of Duke Xihe. .

This place is heavily guarded, but it is not a secret retreat arranged by Li Tai for himself, but a workshop.

After patrolling the camp outside the city for a week, Li Tai did not go straight back to the state capital after returning to the city, but came to this workshop to inspect it again.

When entering the workshop, the first thing you see is piles of sugar cane.This kind of stuff is also available in Mianbei, but they are basically wild, small and tough, and even the juice is sour, so the existing ones in the workshop are mainly cut down during the attack on Xiangyang.

Before Linghu Yanbao led the rear army to go south with many empty carts. Originally, Li Tai thought that the Southern Dynasty was rich and prepared to pack spoils of war, but even though Fancheng was captured, he had no savings.In line with the principle that thieves don't go empty-handed, they cut down a lot of sugar cane and pulled them back.

Nowadays, sugar production between Jianghan and Han is gradually becoming industrialized. The area of ​​sugarcane planting is expanding year by year. The families of powerful families also have a certain number of craftsmen. The sugar they make is either medicinal or Buddhist. Rarely used for dietary seasoning.

One is that sucrose itself is a luxury with a high cost, and ordinary people can’t afford it; the other is that those who can afford it have better choices, because the sucrose or stone honey produced by the current technology has many impurities, poor quality, and heavy water content. , the degree of crystallinity is not high, and the taste is not good, it is easy to return to slurry, and it is not resistant to storage. Compared with other types of glutinous rice, it is not outstanding.

Among the military and civilian population that Li Tai brought back from Fancheng were artisans who made cane sugar, and these people were selected to be responsible for the processes of squeezing juice and boiling pulp.

At present, the extraction of cane juice in the south is mainly done manually first, and then the bagasse is milled with stones. This method requires a lot of labor, takes a long time, and the extracted cane juice has a lot of fiber and impurities. It is necessary to add a filtering process. Naturally Make labor costs higher.

In this workshop, Li Tai uses a sugar cart with wooden shaft gears for rolling, which saves labor and labor and is quite efficient. The only disadvantage is that the wooden shaft gears are easily damaged.In fact, it can be replaced by a stone wheel, and he has already set up his staff to polish and manufacture it, but the time is too short, and it has not yet been completed, so he will use it for now.

The process of making syrup is also very simple, just continue to heat and boil. What you need to pay attention to is the heat and constant stirring, so that the impurities float up and the water evaporates faster.This process is also known as flooding.

When this process is completed, the cane juice becomes dark brown syrup, and after cooling and hardening, the syrup turns into dry hard sugar lumps, which is the origin of the name stone honey.Today's cane sugar products in the Nanliang area are mainly of this type, and there may be slight differences in quality due to skill and heat, but in fact they are all inferior sucrose.

A further process is to add lime water or shell ash into the syrup and stir evenly to deacidify the syrup and remove impurities, and can help the crystallization and solidification of the syrup.The sucrose produced in this way is the red granulated sugar or black granulated sugar familiar to later generations. Although the impurities are further reduced, it is still not honey-removed.

The various sugar-making processes in the workshop have been relatively open up to this point, and most craftsmen have participated in it.As for the subsequent sugar removal and color washing, this is the real core and must be kept secret.

There are white granulated sugar production steps in "Tiangong Kaiwu", which is the well-known method of pouring sugar with yellow mud and water in the travel circle. It is famous for its simple operation and easy rollover.

Such a process is going on in the big rooms at the core of the workshop. First, a hole made of pottery is prepared, and the bottom is plugged with hay, and then syrup is filled into the hole. Pour the mud solution into the funnel and pull out the plug under the funnel, and wait for the yellow mud solution to pass through the deserted sucrose and drip down with molasses and other substances to achieve the effect of honey removal and color washing.

This process usually lasts three to four times, more than a month or longer. It is convenient to get high-quality white sugar on the funnel. Of course, it depends on the quality of the syrup.

Therefore, the yellow mud water sugar production is not a shower, but a leakage. If the syrup is not sufficiently removed from impurities and acids during the cooking process, it will not have too strong crystallization ability, and the final product will not be In the sandy structure, the adhesive board is hard, and nothing can penetrate into it, let alone achieve the effect of decolorization.

Rows of tile leaks were placed in the big house at this time for the color washing process, and the top of the tile leaks needed to be sealed with mud to prevent water from evaporating.

Li Tai smashed a few mud seals to check the effect of washing the color crystals inside, and he was quite satisfied, while the craftsmen brought from Shangyuan looked at the Lord with resentment, and then gave the smashed tiles a look. Leakage and filling mud seal.

Since the craftsmanship is still in the stage of grinding and researching, the scale and output of the workshop are not large. Li Tai asked Cai Dabao to tell Xiao Xi that he would give him ten stones. It may not be possible to get together ten stones of white sugar in five years.

The reason why he didn't bring white granulated sugar with him when he gave the gift for the first time, and gave Xiao Xi a chance to show off his wealth and slap his face, was because at that time, there was no sign of this thing at all, and the sugar cane cut from the south hadn't been unloaded yet. , not to mention making it into white sugar.

In addition, there is another point that makes him not feel at ease to release this thing at this moment, that is, this thing is a bit super-class, and he is a bit out of control right now.

Although white sugar is not as essential to life as table salt, it is more addictive. Once it is released and mass-produced, the sensational effect it will bring is not inferior to the discovery of a huge salt well or gold mine.Huge benefits naturally come with huge risks, making people crazy and irrational.

Once Li Tai is able to supply this kind of commodity stably and continuously, it will inevitably attract powerful people from all walks of life to spy on and covet him, and the troubles will definitely be more than the benefits.

Although he is not afraid of challenges, he also knows when to score. When he came to Jingzhou, his foothold was not stable, and the entire Mianbei area was in turmoil and desolation. Xiao Laoqi from Jiangling led his troops up, and now he has to run away with a bucket.

Therefore, until the power is strong enough to deter all parties, or the power distribution can be connected into a network to fully conceal the origin of this product, Li Tai does not intend to provide this product to the market in batches.

As for the bragging about Xiao Xi, it's all just talking, how can it be taken seriously?If you really believe me so much, then I have to say, I am your father!
Although Li Tai was going to play a rogue, but I have to say that the effect of this cowhide is really good.Cai Dabao and his party hadn't left for more than ten days, and they went back and forth in a busy way. Calculating the time and distance, they turned north almost as soon as they returned to Xiangyang.

This time Cai Dabao still did not come empty-handed, and the gifts he brought were much more unpretentious than last time, only fifty catties of bran gold and ten buckets of pearls.

So it is always necessary to pay back when you come out to mess around. It was really cool for Li Tai to throw money at people when he first entered the state, but now he is dizzy and loses his temper after being shaken by King Yueyang's big hand.

And the family is really rich, no matter how much Li Taisa goes out, it will always be in the pot, and it is easy to recycle, but it is difficult for Xiao Xi to get some money back from himself, but he doesn't mind at all. , is still generous.

Cai Dabao came again this time, naturally it was for the frosting sugar, on behalf of King Yueyang hoping to purchase a batch, and respectfully presented Xiao Xie's autographed letter.

Li Tai took the letter and unfolded it, he couldn't help feeling that the clan clan in Nanliang had a high level of education, not to mention their IQ, and this letter from Xiao Xi was so smooth and smooth, that Li Tai's calligraphy skills made Li Tai feel ashamed.

His superficial European-style calligraphy can still bluff people in Kansai, but compared with characters from the Southern Dynasties, except for the structure of the strokes, it is useless elsewhere.

Although Xiao Xi gave Li Tai a little Southern shock with his calligraphy, the tone and wording of this letter are very modest. First, he thanked Li Tai for the two gifts, and especially expressed his liking for the last gift.

In this letter, frost sugar was specifically named, and I hope Li Tai can supply a batch so that he can present it to the imperial court, so that his grandfather can also taste the taste of the Western Dynasty.Xiao Xi said to himself that because he thought that His Majesty had never tasted this delicious food at such an old age, he was so worried that he could not sleep or eat. He hoped that Li Tai could help him fulfill his filial piety, and if he had a little thirty stones of white sugar, he could Buy with gold and silver goods.

After Li Tai read this letter, not to mention whether the price offered by Xiao Xi was reasonable or not, just seeing the figure of [-] shi was a bit overwhelming. He seriously doubted that this buddy also came from time travel?Do you know that your grandfather didn't take a bite of sweets when he died, so you plan to kill him with white sugar when he is alive?
Not to mention that Li Tai didn't have thirty shi white sugar at all, even if he did, he wouldn't be able to sell all of them to Xiao Xi.

In the eyes of ordinary people, white sugar may be a precious and luxurious condiment that can be used to make a fortune, but in Li Tai's eyes, it is a first-class strategic material that can help him rebuild the Nanyang Basin into a prosperous and prosperous world The famous city has become the solid cornerstone of his great career!

Xiao Xi's enthusiasm for white sugar can be said to be extremely high. He himself proposed a relatively high price in the letter, but then said that if Li Tai felt that the price was still not high enough, they could talk to each other.

Li Tai was delighted to see this place again, it seems that no matter how rich and wealthy a person is, he doesn't think money is too hot, before he was rejected to meet him, but now seeing the product of white sugar, Xiao Xi couldn't help but invite him.

Of course, he also hopes to meet with the other party and finalize a medium-to-long-term cooperation plan, so the efficiency of communication between ten days is too low.However, it is impossible to lead an army to attack Xiangyang again just to see the last one.Besides, it is already the middle of winter, and there is no sugarcane to cut in the fields.

So Li Tai proposed a location and a meeting procedure, and then asked Cai Dabao to send a letter back, trying to meet Xiao Xie a year ago.