Xinzheng, Zhang Ji's Mansion
Today's Zhang Ji's mansion is different from the past few days. Not only has the broken door been repaired, it is also made of golden nanmu shipped all the way from the land of Bashu. The wood is delicate and stable, not only strong, but also permeable. It emits a faint aroma of nanmu, which is definitely top-quality wood.
Of course, this money would not come from Zhang Ji.
No matter how angry Ji Wuye was when facing Zhang Ji's threat, he did not dare to gamble with the life of his only son Ji Yihu, and finally chose to let Jade Tiger summon skilled craftsmen and collect precious wood to build a brand new building for Zhang Ji. The gate of the mansion as an apology.
In addition to this new gate, Zhang Ji also kept these craftsmen and asked Jade Tiger to get him a batch of paper towels, mulberry trees and green sandalwood in the name of blackmail.
"Sir, paper mulberry, green sandalwood, jujube and pear are all cheap woods. Otherwise, I'd better send someone to Bashu to get some golden nanmu."
The Emerald Tiger looked at the craftsman who was peeling off the bark of the tree and didn't understand Zhang Ji's thoughts at all.
Although he doesn't know much about carpentry, he knows the price of wood, knows which wood has good quality, knows which wood is suitable for carving, and which wood is suitable for doors, so that he can make profits through buying and selling.
But according to his understanding, these types of wood seem to be very ordinary, and only ordinary people can use them. Zhang Ji was obviously not the kind of person who would save money for him, so he became curious about the reason why Zhang Ji purchased the wood.
In response, Zhang Ji simply and generously asked Jade Tiger to go to the yard he would allocate to the group of craftsmen to see what was going on.
The Emerald Tiger took heavy steps and twisted its fat body to follow Zhang Ji towards the villa allocated to the craftsmen.
To Emerald Tiger's surprise, he originally thought that the courtyard where these lowly craftsmen lived would be very dirty and filled with all kinds of stench. But as a gust of fragrant wind came, there was only a faint woody fragrance, which made the Jade Tiger's hand holding the silk scarf hesitate.
The wood on the ground has long since shed its rough bark, revealing bare tree trunks. The ground is also covered with bark and shavings of various types of wood, as well as broken fishing nets and rags that can be seen everywhere.
Several shirtless strong men were standing in front of several pots and cauldrons, pouring the ashes from burning vegetation into the pots and cauldrons filled with boiling water in front of them. They watched the water become turbid little by little, stirred it evenly, and then picked it up from the ground. Tree bark, broken fishing nets, and other things that looked like garbage in the eyes of the emerald tiger were thrown into the pot and cooked, stirring continuously.
Suddenly, the Emerald Tiger thought of something, and his face that was shiny from eating too much meat turned red with excitement. He even grabbed Zhang Ji's sleeves regardless of his dignity, as if he was afraid that Zhang Ji would kill him in the next second. Just disappeared.
"Mr. Zhang Ji, could it be that you studied under the immortal family and are refining elixirs for longevity?"
The so-called Immortal Family is one of the hundreds of schools of thought, jointly established by many alchemists from the coastal areas of Yanqi.
The reason why it is a coastal area is because people from the Immortal Family believe that the fairy mountains recorded in books and classics exist on the vast sea, such as the legendary Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou.
They believe that there are immortal immortals in the world who can change freely. They also believe that mortals can achieve immortality and ascend to immortality as long as they take immortal medicine or practice cultivation.
However, according to their conditions, let alone looking for immortal mountains, they can't even afford the cost of building a sea ship to go to sea, let alone looking for immortals. As for cultivating immortality, not even the Taoist gang of immortals can do it, let alone them.
Therefore, in order to promote their own theories, they can only focus on the so-called magic medicine.
By deceiving the people of Chu and Bashu who were the most superstitious about ghosts and gods, this group of people began to collect various materials to make elixirs. Among them, there are some elixirs that make people feel hot after consumption, and then suddenly feel bright and cheerful, and strengthen their physical strength. Because of this, many princes and generals believed in the alchemists of the immortal family and were superstitious about the existence of the elixir of immortality.
However, there are not many descendants of the Immortal Family, and alchemy is a high-tech job that requires a certain amount of luck. Many people have died because of incorrect placement or imbalance of various ingredients in the elixir.
Therefore, every time those princes, generals and ministers met the disciples of the Immortal Family, they would regard them as treasures and would not hesitate to put down their dignity and beg them to refine a pot of pills for themselves. Even if they could not live forever, they still looked forward to relying on this pot of pills. Come and prolong life.
What Zhang Ji asked the craftsmen to do looked a bit like the rumored scenes of disciples of the Immortal Family refining elixirs. Therefore, the Emerald Tiger mistakenly thought that Zhang Ji was training these craftsmen to refine elixirs. No wonder he was so excited.
However, although Zhang Ji's surname is Zhang, he has absolutely nothing to do with someone from Longhu Mountain, and he really doesn't know how to make alchemy.
Therefore, this furnace is indeed not an elixir.
If he could refine elixirs, he could just make some saltpeter to make ice, which would save him having to wait until winter to have his servants go to the river to fetch ice and store it in the ice cellar.
He just wanted to attract the Mo family's attention.
Although it is not difficult for Zhang Ji to attract the attention of the Mohist family, what is difficult is to attract enough attention from the Mohist family and think that sending Mohist masters to protect Zhang Ji is important enough to let go of some prejudices and cooperate with the net. matter.
Therefore, although he does not know how to make glass or make saltpeter to melt water into ice, Zhang Ji, who has received the education of Jiuyi, is still involved in some of the most basic technologies.
As for the feasibility of these technologies, he's not worried.
This is not a difficult technique, he only needs to teach these craftsmen the general process.
Moreover, he does not require the craftsmanship of the finished products made by these craftsmen to be high. He simply wants to complete the process of making something from scratch. This is not a difficult task for these craftsmen carefully trained by the Emerald Tiger. After that, he You can implement your next plan.
However, just as Zhang Ji's work was in full swing, another decree came from the Han Palace. It was Hu Meiren, who had not seen him for several days, announcing his entry into the palace.
(2051 words)
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PS: In the chapter about ice cubes, someone complained about why saltpeter was not used to make ice... I can only say that it is difficult to judge the time when saltpeter appeared. Although the "Taiping Yulan·Bubu of Medicine" of the Song Dynasty states that saltpeter has been used for medicinal purposes in the Spring and Autumn Period, according to some accounts, the "xiaoshi" is saltpeter with very low purity and can only be used for general medicinal purposes.
In short, because the record is too vague, I did not choose to write about saltpeter ice making.
