"It should be true. [Read the latest chapter] Many sugar industry books say so." Wen Tong was also very nervous. Not to mention himself, even the elders in his family who have always been engaged in the sugar industry have only worked in modern sugar factories and have never seen this indigenous method of sugar production.
However, the effect that appeared next was indeed like magic. After pouring the yellow mud water, after waiting for a while, I looked at the sugar in the tiles. Sure enough, it had become snow-white - of course, this whiteness is relative, compared to the sugar in another time and space. Refined white sugar is slightly dark and yellow in color. It cannot reach the level of "exceptionally white" mentioned in the book.
The top of the tile is the whitest sugar, while the bottom is slightly yellowish brown. Both of these can be considered white sugar, but the former is more expensive.
Wen Tong shook his head. He knew very well why the sugar soaked in yellow mud water was not particularly white: the sugar liquid had not been processed by a centrifuge, and there was still a lot of sugar residue. I wonder if a machine shop can make a centrifuge.
The output efficiency of this process is not high. The sugar in the tiles is actually layered, with the whitest ones at the top, and the darker the color goes down. The color of the sugar at the bottom of the tile is quite dark. He weighed it and found that of the ten kilograms of sugar produced from one clay pot, only about 60% could be considered "white sugar", and the rest was brown sugar and brown sugar. The process is cumbersome and the yield is low. That is to say, in ancient times, such craftsmanship could still make money. As soon as modern sugar-making enterprises appeared, Tutangliao went bankrupt one after another due to cost.
What is produced in this way is just large pieces of loose sugar. To truly make white sugar as fine powder as "icing sugar", a "recrystallization" process must be added. Melt the white sugar again, and then simmer it slowly over low heat. The fine powdered sugar will condense out layer by layer on the surface of the pot. At this time, you need to scrape it off in time with a bamboo scraper to avoid being burned. Discoloration. The process is similar to boiling salt. It is manufactured in the factory using special steam-crystallization tanks. Wen Tong had no choice but to test it himself. Chang Shide helped light the fire, and Wenxiu and Wenqing helped. In order not to hinder the normal production of Tangliao. Wen Tong asked people to build a small sugar house in the sugar cane farm as a sugar laboratory. Four people were crowded into this temporary building in Zhuangzi, which was very smoky. Wen Tong looked at the fire for a while and looked at the pot for a while. He felt dizzy and almost fell into the sugar pot, causing tragedy.
Facts have proved that people who are good at theory may not be good at actual operation, especially in such a primitive and simple environment, the stove burning sugar cane leaves and bagasse is not at all a fire that can be controlled by the manual knob of a gas stove. As far as people can grasp, after adding fuel once, the flames will be strong, and the sugar on the pot surface will burn and change color immediately.
"No, this stove has no temperature control. It's too difficult to adjust the heat." Wen Tong said frustrated. The salary of the fire cook in the local sugar house is second only to the sugar cook, and he does not get the money for free.
To adjust the heat evenly, you cannot use such a dry firewood stove. You must use materials with stable fire and uniform heat. Various gases, charcoal, and briquettes can achieve this effect, or use steam for heating like in the factory, but Xu Wen doesn’t have any of them here.
Wen Tong thought hard for a long time. Finally I thought of a water bath. Heat the container holding the sugar solution through water so that the heating temperature becomes even and there is no problem of burning or discoloration. After several days of testing, the first batch of 5 kilograms of fine sugar was finally harvested.
With white sugar, making rock sugar is easy. The traditional rock sugar process requires boiling the white sugar and then adding chicken and duck egg whites to it for clarification. Wen Tong felt that the cost was too high. The so-called chicken and duck egg whites are actually just protein. He decided to use soy milk instead. Wen Tong simply built a mill in the village and asked the immigrants who knew how to make tofu to make tofu every day, which not only met the needs of the workers in the village, but also made soy milk available at any time.
After adding soy milk for clarification, break the newly harvested bamboo into bamboo pieces of different sizes and place them in the sugar solution. The sugar solution will use the bamboo pieces as the coagulation core and slowly condense large pieces of rock sugar. When collecting, just smash the rock candy and pull out the bamboo pieces. This method was first used in the Song Dynasty.
"It looks pretty good -" Although this kind of rock candy is not as good as the single crystal rock candy of later generations, its purity is also very good. It should be a hot commodity when taken out.
Next step. It is to expand the scale of sugar production. Wen Tong asked people to order pots and utensils for the water bath. At the same time, he hired craftsmen to build a new sugar workshop by the river specifically for boiling white sugar. In order to ensure the cleanliness of the sugar and improve the quality, high standards were implemented when building the factory.
The sugar workshop is built according to the model of a modern factory building. Although wooden beams and columns are used, the entire house is made of bricks and tiles, and no thatch or sugar cane leaves are used to cover the roof. The windows are large to let in the light - to avoid being too dramatic, they are just covered with window paper instead of the planned glass. The floor of the workshop is paved with square bricks, and there are drainage ditches covered with grilles to facilitate flushing the floor. The fifteen stoves for cooking sugar are arranged in a row, which saves space and is easy to operate. The fire and vents are all located under the verandah outside the house, which can be operated on rainy days and avoids the risk of polluting the air and ground by opening air vents inside the house.
All the equipment was newly made, and Wen Tong also had several wells dug by the river, instead of directly using the more polluted river water. They also spent a lot of money to build a warehouse with the same brick structure, specially used to stack sugar products. In addition to white sugar and brown sugar, there are also many candies. Liao Dahua ordered many large vats in the local pottery workshop specifically to store these things - he doesn't know what the shopkeeper plans to use them for.
The workers in the new sugar factory were all selected from immigrants. Wen Tong personally trained them in various operating procedures and formulated a complete set of production rules and regulations.
"Wen Qing!" Wen Tong said, "From now on, the management of the South China Sugar Factory will be yours!"
In fact, both Wen Tong and Chang Shide were worried about entrusting such work to child servants, but they had to do it, except for these two child servants. Very few immigrants can read.
"Yes, thank you for your cultivation, Master!" Wen Qing beat him one thousand times, "Youngsters should do their best!"
"I have a complete set of production regulations and processes here. You have to supervise them to strictly follow the system. No private changes are allowed. If the workers have any ideas, you can tell them on your behalf and I will naturally consider them."
"Yes, sir!"
"Even if I walk into the workshop and see a little candy scattered on the ground, I have to ask only you!" Wen Tong put on the airs of a master.
Wen Qing glanced at him uneasily. Why did the always kind-hearted master suddenly become so severe?
"Yes, I understand, little one. Don't dare to break any rules."
"Go ahead. Take your workers to learn the rules and memorize them all within three days. If you can't memorize them, you won't be given meat on the weekends."
"Then they will have to recite it even if they risk their lives." Wen Qing said with a smile.
"Humph," a smile appeared on Wen Tong's face. Among the two servants, he still liked Wen Qing better. Although he was not good at understanding the master's needs, he looked more likeable, "You have to do the same for yourself." Study hard, have you read the books I gave you every day?"
The book Wen Tong gave him was the "Training Textbook for Aboriginal Business Administration Cadres" jointly compiled by Wu De's Civil Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Materials Committee. It contained ancient and modern industrial and commercial management systems based on the experience accumulated by the Civil Affairs Committee over the past few months. Made up. It introduces the basic management model, how to calculate workload, salary calculation methods, welfare standards, guidance methods for handling accidents and emergencies, etc. This book is the same as the "Handbook of Civil Affairs Administration and Organization". They are all part of the "Aboriginal Work Series", which is still in the "soliciting version" stage.
"The little one studies hard every night. If there are things I don't understand, I have to ask the master for advice."
"If you don't understand anything, you can come and ask at any time in the evening." Wen Tong said earnestly, "You were born as a child servant. Although you know a few words, how can those workers be willing to obey you easily? Only by possessing skills can you have prestige, not just blindly Use the master’s power to subdue him.”
"Yes! Thank you for your teaching, little one."
When Wenqing went to fight, Wenxiu brought a tea tray and brought tea:
"Thank you for your hard work, sir. Please use the tea." Ever since he learned that the two shopkeepers were not interested in "male sex," Wen Qing, who seemed to be relatively honest, had been very favored recently, so he knew that he had to change his ways and hide the coquettishness that had always flowed out in the past. He stood up and looked more dignified.
"Well, where is Master Chang?"
"Went to Hai'an Street."
Hai'an Street is Leizhou's sugar export port. Although it is not a county town, its prosperity is somewhat better than that of Haikang, a county. There are more than thirty sugar shops on the street alone. When Wen Tong went there for the first time, he was really shocked by its momentum - he had seen enough shabby and poverty-stricken scenes in Lingao. The impact is no less impactful than the feeling experienced by Lingao villagers when they visit Dongmen City.
The small Hai'an Street is so lively and prosperous. If it were a large commercial city like Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Guangzhou, the level of prosperity would be even higher.
Wen Tong was a little surprised. Although Hai'an Street is only ten kilometers away from here, they must inform each other in advance whenever they go far. If you go out secretly, you won't be looking for a woman, right? Wen Tong immediately thought: Hai'an Street, where merchants gather and the market is prosperous, has always been a good place for brothels to do business.
"Sure enough, we went to look for wild food!" Wen Tong gritted his teeth: Lao Chang, you are really not a brother. If you want to go to such a good thing, tell me how happy it would be to go together. Now that he and Liao Dahua left, he didn't dare to go out casually. I had no choice but to go to the worker training class in a sulky mood: I taught them 300 basic simplified characters, simple mathematics and statistics. In the future, when the scale of the sugar factory expands, these workers will be promoted to managers.
While Wen Tong was gnashing his teeth at the disappointment of being abandoned and scolding a relatively clumsy worker student, Chang Shide was walking along Hai'an Street, accompanied by Liao Dahua, with the goal: the human market.
Chang Shide originally wanted to go directly to the brothel to solve the problem. As for the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, he was well prepared - he had several boxes of Durex stuffed in his carry-on luggage. However, after Liao Dahua introduced him to several so-called high-end brothels and inquired about their prices, he became dissatisfied. The facilities in these brothels are good, and the women are average-looking even by modern standards. However, there are too many fake procedures. They have to have a tea party, listen to music and drink, and the procedures cannot be completed immediately. To start work, you have to come two or three times in a row to touch the bedside - this is too troublesome, even a "high-end club" in another time and space does not have such a cumbersome process.
Chang Shide didn't know that high-end brothels also functioned as social places in this time and space. The main purpose of dignitaries, wealthy businessmen and wealthy guests was to socialize and meet the needs of cultural life. The higher the level of prostitutes, the more likely they are to sit and chat with people rather than go to bed and practice skills.
Seeing that Master Chang was not very interested in this, Liao Dahua guessed what he was thinking. These maritime merchants had been wandering in the maritime merchants for a long time, so naturally they couldn't wait to make these adjustments. Then he led him to the back alley - there were some more practical "private heads" there.
However, after Chang Shide observed the makeup of the women soliciting customers at the door and the smell wafting from afar, he once again felt that if you want to attract women in this world, it is best to cultivate them yourself. Although Liao Dahua specifically recommended several companies whose women were said to be particularly good at understanding Fengyue, Chang Shide still refused, saying that it would be better to keep a few of his own.
Liao Dahua knew that none of these women were of interest to him. He thought that Australians seemed to have mysophobia, and they probably thought prostitutes were unclean. When he heard that he wanted to raise them himself, he lured him to the human market.
The so-called human market is just an open space, with a few people sitting in a nearby hut drinking tea and chatting. These are all high-end goods. Someone is interested and leads the customers to the nearby room to see the people - Most of them are young women, but there are also teenagers who can be used as pedophiles, so the price is naturally high. There are also some people who really put a straw mark on their heads and sell themselves at a low price.
Chang Shide walked around and looked at a lot of Renya's goods or self-sold goods, but felt that none of them were to his liking. Renya's goods are naturally neatly dressed and look decent, but the price charged is a bit too high. A girl of eleven or twelve years old also costs fifty taels. Chang Shide does not want to raise lolita by himself, nor is he interested in lolita itself. Besides, he doesn't have that much money - he has accumulated tens of thousands from counting coupons.
Liao Dahua saw Master Chang's expression of reluctance and even knew he was disapproving of it. He couldn't understand what he was thinking, so he had to continue to follow.
After walking around again, I suddenly saw an extra stall. There were also several government officials standing, and five or six women of various ages were kneeling or sitting on the ground. The older one is in his thirties and the younger one is only twelve or thirteen years old. Although he is unkempt and has a dark complexion, his nutritional status seems to be pretty good. It's strange that no one asked. He asked Liao Dahua to go over and ask.
Note (this paragraph is beyond 4000 words and will not be charged:
Correction: Haian Street, now Haian Town, is affiliated with Xuwen County, not Haikang County as mentioned above. ! ~!
