"Did they say anything else?"
Yi Niang nodded and continued: "They said that our charcoal looks like a big piece, but it is not burned thoroughly enough. It has turned into ashes on the outside and has not turned into charcoal on the inside."
"Did they explain why this happened?"
Liang Chuan's charcoal-burning skills are only half-baked. He usually builds a mound of earth and burns hundreds of kilograms of charcoal, which is enough to sell to a few inns, but this won't work if he meets an expert.
"They just said directly that our charcoal was fired in an earthen kiln. The kiln is not good enough, so the quality of the charcoal cannot keep up."
Liang Chuan chuckled, he is indeed an expert. What kind of kiln is this? It is just a charcoal kiln made by ourselves. I also made it based on my own imagination and imagination of the old charcoal kiln in my hometown. It is definitely not worth mentioning in the eyes of experts.
Yi Niang trotted into the room, returned quickly, and handed Liang Chuan a drawing. Liang Chuan spread the paper and saw that it turned out to be the construction drawing of the charcoal kiln.
Liang Chuan couldn't believe his eyes. Regardless of whether the drawing was genuine or not, or where the two people came from, they actually gave up the charcoal kiln drawing so generously. You must know that in a certain sense, this thing is equivalent to a trade secret. If more people know about it, it will definitely be difficult for them to do business.
Could it be that they have mastered this technology and are not just selling charcoal, and they want to use this to attack their opponents? It doesn't seem very similar. They claim to be businessmen from Guanzhong. This is Xinghua. The two places are thousands of miles apart, so business can't affect each other.
"They left this drawing, did they say anything else?"
"Yes, they said that we have many forests in the south, and there are tree species that can be used to make charcoal everywhere. If we have more charcoal in the future, we can transport it to the north for sale. They specialize in the charcoal business, and they are willing to harvest any charcoal they have. !”
This is it. No wonder these people drew the drawings so simply. They turned out to be charcoal dealers. What they do is to collect charcoal from the charcoal harvest at a low price, and then sell it to those who need it at a high price. As a trading company, you don't have to do anything. You can complete a profitable business by relying on the channels in your hands.
They are not afraid that their charcoal-making skills will be exposed. Instead, they hope that others will continue to sell them charcoal, so that their financial opportunities will be wider.
Bai Juyi's "The Charcoal Seller" puts it well: Where can I make money from selling charcoal? The clothes on your body and the food in your mouth. The charcoal a charcoal farmer sells is only enough to buy himself a suit of clothes and a mouthful of food. Why are there so many tree resources in the south, but so few people are doing this business? Is it because they don’t know the technology of making charcoal? No, it’s because they don’t have sales channels.
If materials like charcoal are used and controlled well, they can even influence the policy direction of the imperial court. At this time, most people in Bianjing City still burned firewood and charcoal in the winter. Coal was not widely used in this era. It was only convenient for people in coal-producing areas such as northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, and it was naturally easy to promote. .
If a small charcoal forms a monopoly, it can form an energy status equivalent to three barrels of oil!
If you carry charcoal of the same quality in a bamboo basket and go to the streets to sell it, you may only sell it to peasant women on the street. Even if they can afford the charcoal, the price is extremely low. But once you have sales channels, such as commercial banks or restaurants, or large households in Suzhou and Hangzhou in Tokyo, the amount of charcoal they need is extremely large, the demand is very stable, and the purchase price has enough room for profit, so you can make a profit.
The climate in the south is still over ten degrees Celsius even in the twelfth lunar month. Except for a few days of freezing temperatures when the extreme cold wave comes, the temperature is not too cold. Who among the small farmers would be so delicate and want to light charcoal for the winter? Go to the mountain and pick up some scraps of firewood to make a strong fire!
Therefore, there is no business in making charcoal in Fengshan. The reason why Liang Chuan wants to make this industry big now is because he has Wanda on hand. Wanda can be used as a department store or a chamber of commerce in the future, and charcoal can be placed here to sell retail and bulk goods. In the future, we can rely on sea ships or canals to send them to Suzhou and Hangzhou, and then to Bianjing.
As far as Liang Chuan knows, the amount of coal required by Bianjing is an extremely huge amount every winter. All coal charcoal around Dongjing is supplied to Bianjing and the supply is still in short supply. As long as he can open this road, a money printing machine Even if it is caused, what is transported north is charcoal, and what is transported back is money.
It’s just that this plan is not easy to implement. It takes thousands of miles to travel to Bianjing. Although the quality of charcoal is not heavy, it is large in size, making it extremely inconvenient to transport! The result is that transportation costs compress profits. Unless there are convenient transportation channels, it will be difficult to make charcoal. Continue!
You can’t sell it, but you can still use it yourself! Even if it is sold to restaurants in Fengshan and Xinghua City, the charcoal they need is still a huge amount, and they will make a lot of profits in a year. Those orphans in Chihe have nothing to do, so they can just run this business!
Liang Chuan picked up the drawing. It not only had pictures on it, but also various sizes and construction points. Under the drawings, there were text introductions and instructions. It was a combination of pictures and texts. This was really not about hiding something, but about giving away money. Teach each other.
Liang Chuan even sighed in his heart, if he had met these two noble people earlier, he would have saved himself from building a useless kiln, which burned poor charcoal and was time-consuming and labor-intensive.
The drawings stated that the location of the charcoal kiln should be from north to south, which was completely opposite to the design concept of Liangchuan Nakong Kiln. Liang Chuan had his back against the mountain, and the wind was completely blocked by the mountain. This new type of charcoal kiln uses north wind ventilation to make the flames burn more vigorously, so as to improve the combustion efficiency.
The charcoal kiln is divided into three main bodies, a round hole-shaped burning port, a cylindrical charcoal baking chamber, and a chimney. Looking at the size of this charcoal type, one kiln can produce about a thousand kilograms of charcoal at least. It is even noted below that the conversion ratio of this kind of charcoal kiln is one to five to seven, which means that five to seven pounds of charcoal can produce about one pound of charcoal.
You must know that the conversion ratio of Liang Chuan's muddy earth charcoal kiln at the beginning was only one to ten. That is, it takes one hundred kilograms of wood to burn ten kilograms of charcoal. This kiln is not difficult to produce one thousand kilograms of charcoal, and It can save nearly 30% to 50% of the wood.
According to this charcoal burning method, only about ten kilns can be fired on a hilltop, and the available tree species on the mountain are almost exhausted. At that time, the charcoal kiln will have to be moved to another mountain. Otherwise, one kilogram of charcoal will require five to seven thousand kilograms of wood. How about just relying on manpower to move it without vomiting blood?
"They gave you the drawings. Did I tell you the techniques for burning charcoal?"
"Yes." Yi Niang smiled sweetly and said, "Master Baozheng was next to me at the time. Seeing that I was talking so passionately to them, he was afraid that I would be deceived by them, so he kept pulling me."
Liang Chuan nodded and said: "It is essential to be on guard against others, and it is also good to be more cautious."
"They say that lighting a fire and burning charcoal requires skills. Before lighting a fire, place two finger-thick wooden branches on the chimney mouth to observe the degree of charcoal baking. When lighting a fire, use dry wood to ignite the fire. After the fire power increases and the kiln body is heated, switch to wet wood. The wood is burned slowly over a low fire so that the kiln body of the charcoal baking chamber is slowly dried and the wet charcoal wood is slowly baked. At this time, black smoke comes out of the chimney."
Yi Niang paused and continued: "It will take a day to continue burning like this, and then increase the firepower until green smoke comes out of the chimney, and observe that the wood branches on the chimney mouth have been charred, which means that all the wood in the charcoal baking room has been burned. Carbonization, at this time, seal the burning port and chimney with earth.”
The effect of sealing is the same as how we seal the top of the earthen kiln, the burner opening and the ventilation holes. It allows the charcoal to react without oxygen in the charcoal kiln. It's just that the wood in the kiln only weighs about a hundred kilograms at a time. This new type of kiln has several kilograms of wood, so the sealing and cooling time must be much longer than that in an earth kiln.
"Five to seven days after the kiln is closed, the sealed fire opening, charcoal baking chamber opening and chimney can be opened so that the charcoal kiln can be ventilated and cooled. This is considered done. I remember what the two businessmen told me at the time. You must have heard it correctly.”
Liang Chuan listened patiently, and based on the drawings in his hand, he believed that the two businessmen did not lie to Yi Niang. It was indeed an extremely high craftsmanship for making charcoal. Although it could not be compared with the machine processing of later generations, in the manual era , this has been accumulated over thousands of years of experience.
"Yi Niang, this method seems to be better than ours, so from now on you will be mainly responsible for burning charcoal. But I am worried about these children."
"What's wrong with them?"
Yi Niang's eyes widened, and she was more nervous than anyone else when talking about these children.
"This kiln requires several kilograms of wood, and you only rely on these children... can their bodies bear it?"
Yi Niang pondered for a moment and said: "If a dozen children have to cut several thousand kilograms of wood a day, it is indeed a bit much, but it does not have to be so much every day, and by then I will make some tools such as iron saws, so They cooperated and did not strive to finish the work in one day. It does not take five to seven days. We can prepare the wood during this time. In this case, the work in one day is not particularly large and it is not too tiring."
"Well, since they choose their own path, you have to take care of them. They are growing up now, so they should work in moderation. If they are too tired, they may not be able to grow taller. You have to pay attention. "
Yi Niang spat at him, curled her lips and said, "I don't want to exploit them. If they don't want to do it but choose to come to the academy to study, then I would be even happier. It sounds like I am a vicious woman."
"That's not what I meant. It's just that there are some things you don't know. Accidental collisions will affect the physical growth of children."
Liang Chuan added another sentence: "Yiniang, you know the principle of cutting down trees and burning firewood, but do you know the principle of protecting the sustainable development of the forest?"
