Zhuge Liang never made decisions when doing things.

So he dared to come up with a down-to-earth investigation solution, so he must have conducted in-depth research, studied things and learned knowledge, and conducted full experiments.

Therefore, the decision-making process here is quite long. It seems that Li Su had done the matter in his last project decision-making meeting, but there are countless supporting work.

Li Su and his party spent much longer than expected in the end, spending almost the whole April in Wancheng, Bowang and Kunyang.

After coming up with your ideas, you will also send it to the horse and give it a ride, teaching the people below how to operate it and how to conduct a comparative experiment and investigation in the future.

Demonstrate by yourself: how to compare and test the geological structure under a certain riverbed and whether it can store groundwater.

Otherwise, based on the IQ of the local front-line officials of the Ministry of Works, they might not be able to do it even if they write down the comparison experimental plan and read it.

It’s like a junior high school student who has written experimental steps clearly in the chemistry textbook and has previewed the textbook. But when he first went to the laboratory, he must have done it. There are still many people who can’t do it.

However, during this month's inspection, running-in and guidance, Zhuge Liang and Li Su were not always so busy.

It’s like the chemistry teacher in the laboratory. He has to give lectures for part of his time, and the rest of his time is just aware of the students’ operations. On the canal construction site, those grassroots workers’ officials execute instructions and try to get the work done, Zhuge Liang can do his own thing.

His wife Huang Yueying was able to help her husband with her own private affairs throughout the whole process, and immediately began to experiment with the creative points that Zhuge Liang thought of.

Starting from mid-April, Zhuge Liang roughly improved the idea and issue of "improving the current celadon firing formula", and then he took the time to take care of it himself. Huang Yueying also helped him every day, and even rushed to transfer some celadon firing craftsmen from Jianwei County, the old nest in the rear.

The messenger took the Han River and the Yangtze River waterway. Even if it was a day and night, it would take more than a month to travel back and forth, so Zhuge Liang himself did not stay so late in Nanyang County, and did not wait for the celadon craftsmen to arrive in large numbers.

However, these Zhuge family craftsmen finally made the first preliminary experiment in May, that is, they mixed a certain proportion of kaolin into the original celadon formula, and burned out porcelain pieces with a clean and shiny surface, white color and yellow-green color.

Of course, this is just the first step for white porcelain or even future blue and white porcelain. It only proves that the incorporation of kaolin is indeed conducive to making porcelain pieces that are white and smooth and clean.

But the color of the formula this time was still not white enough. Instead, the earthy yellow color was heavier than celadon. This was obviously the slightly yellow color of the kaolin, montmorillonite and other components themselves. The light blue color left behind also became less pure.

The market prospects of this kind of half-baked porcelain, which is not up or down, are still worrying for the time being. Unless it can be made of pure white, or at least completely removed from the yellow yellow, the market prospects may be more expensive than those of celadon.

On the other hand, the initial experiment only improved the color of the porcelain, but the physical characteristics of the burned porcelain pieces were weakened, making the porcelain more brittle, hard and brittle.

Moreover, the requirements for cooling control before the kiln are finally discharged are higher. The rough and rapid reduction of the kiln opening temperature as when burning celadon is originally used to reduce the temperature of the kiln, which will cause the light white porcelain to crack rapidly and cause cracks.

Even in subsequent daily use, if the boiling water is poured into the cooler state, this light white porcelain cup will burst. With such physical characteristics, even if you can't make tea with boiling water, it will definitely not be used.

The formula ratio will be adjusted in the subsequent way and the color problem will be completely solved. If you don’t have half a year or three months of physical work, you will be able to do steadily without any fancy experiments.

To solve the changes in the kiln temperature and other technical adjustments to the physical characteristics of the tool, the technical tests in this regard are probably in half a year. The key is that many links of these two experiments cannot be tested in parallel because they will affect each other.

During the process, I had to raise these porcelain craftsmen trained from the rear with high salaries, and the confidentiality work in front was not as easy as that in the Qianwei County in the rear. In short, the expenses of the Zhuge family were still very high.

These top engineers who master the high-end technical details of kilns now receive monthly salary of the Zhuge family of 100,000 yuan, the highest is 300,000 yuan a month, and there is also a market at the end of the year, which is exactly 4 million yuan a year, which is as high as the salary of the deputy minister of the Ninth Ministry of the imperial court.

After all, these businesses earn hundreds of millions of dollars for the Zhuge family every year, and it is reasonable to give the core technology chief engineer four million yuan for a year. If you don’t do this, it is not easy to keep it secret and cannot attract people. However, in the R&D period where there is no return, the investment will become huge.

According to this plan, if the Zhuge family wants to create white porcelain that can be commercially traded, it will have to wait at least one year for construction and technology to run in. The total amount of R&D investment, including salary, will also exceed 100 million yuan.

...

While Zhuge's family was thinking about porcelain there, Li Su used the pitiful chemical knowledge he still had, to figure out how to use montmorillonite slurry to decolorize the brown syrup.

There is no way. Among Zhuge Liang's strengths, physics is stronger than chemistry, and Zhuge Liang did not have any contact with fields such as "decolorization and removal of adsorbents", so he had to go to Li Su himself.

After all, modern people have a lot of contact with these things in their lives. They often change the filter element when drinking water and water dispensers at home. They also know to buy activated carbon bags to absorb and remove miscellaneous materials, so this way of thinking is deeply rooted in people's hearts. After pointing out this layer of window paper, it is easy to think of montmorillonite to remove sugar.

It only took more than a month to get it done.

And the main time is spent on how to purify the purer montmorillonite fine powder without impurities and filth.

Li Su used pulverization and calcination, and then followed up with pulverization and filtration, and basically removed all unknown impurities to ensure food safety.

The subsequent syrup production process went smoothly, and the final step separated the montmorillonite suspension and the sugar solution, which was a little troublesome at the beginning.

However, the buds of the filtration method of filtering turbid wine was later used, and all montmorillonite powder was adsorbed on the buds, while the sugar was completely dissolved in water, and it was a solution rather than a suspension, so it was completely separated.

Brachy grass is also a specialty of Jingchu. It is a kind of white grass, so the cost of getting brachy grass in Jingzhou can be basically negligible.

As early as the Zhou Dynasty, Guan Zhong helped Duke Huan of Qi to dominate and attack Chu, using the excuse that "King Zhao will not return, and the buds will not be tributed." It said that the Chu State did not pay tribute to the Zhou emperor to filter turbid wine, so Duke Huan of Qi wanted to respect the king and expel the barbarians and act as a way for heaven.

In the method of removing sugar-free yellow mud developed by the Song and Ming dynasties, no professional filter grass as purpura was used. Even if you just find some straw to filter it, you can create white sugar, which is nothing more pure than Li Su's pursuit.

Finally, before the end of May, Li Su successfully made distilled and crystallized white sugar.

Moreover, because montmorillonite powder slurry is purer than yellow mud, buds are also better filtration than casual straws. The sugar produced by Li Su is excellent in crystallization, and it directly crystallizes large pieces of rock sugar.

However, there is still a certain gap between the manufacturing methods from experiments and large-scale industrial mass production.

The workshop must be built temporarily, and the location must be selected to ensure convenient water supply, surrounding environmental sanitation and transportation of ore powder. Li Su had no time to worry about these miscellaneous tasks, so he handed them over to his concubine's family and asked the Zhen family members to help him.

Mainly, since 195, the Zhen family has not been able to compete with the Zhuge family of Mi. Zhen Mi focuses on "coordinating all the people around big cities to grow vegetables, sell vegetables and buy rice", and gradually expands to the centralized supply of the breeding industry.

In a nutshell, the Zhen family has made an advantage in creating a leading market industry, that is, a few bites of food, which is not a high-end product. Therefore, selling sugar, a high-consumption daily food seasoning, is still asking their people to help organize production and distribution.

Of course, the technology belongs to Li Su, and the Li family must have the absolute majority. After Zhen Mi married, she also went to her husband and brought many talents and slaves who were good at doing business, so that these people could do it. For the Zhen family, only those who call on the Zhen family's existing resources and sales channels will be given to the other party as appropriate.

Li Su estimated that all this work could be done within three or four months, so the production of white sugar is still at least half a year faster than that of white porcelain.

In early autumn this year, after the sugarcane in Shu was harvested in batches, the residue was roughly processed and removed, and then shipped to Jingbei. It took more than a month to transport the cargo on the road, and it would be almost the end of August to reach Nanyang.

By then, the Li family sugar workshop will be able to complete trial production, and it will be transferred to mass production during the slack season in winter. This winter, sugar can be distributed on a large scale.

Nanyang County is located in a transportation hub, with Hanshui, Danshui and other routes. It is easy to reach water in Jingzhou, and Yangzhou can also sell goods along the river.

Although Luoyang has no waterway, it is just north and Chang'an can transport two-thirds of the way through Danshui. Therefore, the chuckled sugar in Shu first goes to Nanyang and then goes to Danshui to Chang'an. The transportation cost is even lower than the transportation cost of Chengdu directly taking Shu Road to Chang'an.

After the completion of the canal in the future, it will be able to connect and radiate to the Huanghuai region of Kanto. Therefore, under the rule of Li Su, the Bowang area of ​​Nanyang County, which is the area of ​​Fangcheng, Henan in later generations, was destined to become an industrial and commercial distribution center. It is very convenient to sell sugar and porcelain.

However, neither Li Su nor Zhuge Liang were waiting for the final results in Bowang. They were both too busy. As time entered May, the spring farming season was completely over, and the golden period of summer military use in cold northern areas had arrived. Guan Yu had already sent troops north as early as mid-May, preparing to solve the Lu Bu problem this summer.

Guan Yu considered that Li Su also wanted to use Zhuge Liang, and Zhuge Liang's position as an Henan Yin errand had to do things, so in the first stage of sending troops, Zhuge Liang, the "general chief" was not summoned to accompany the army. Guan Yu felt that the progress of the first stage was step by step, and he could only rely on himself.

In fact, Guan Yu did do it, because Lu Bu was seriously injured last year. Before Guan Yu advanced to Jinyang City, Lu Bu did not have any effective resistance. Guan Yu advanced to Taiyuan City, at least in June. Guan Yu hoped that Zhuge Liang would rush to the army before this time.

On the other hand, Zhao Yun, who used troops to revive the occupied areas of Jiaozhou last winter, actually ended the war against Linyi long ago.

It was just because Zhao Yun could not send a message back by land after winning, so he had to take a boat to cross the sea and return to Zhuya first, and then he could send messengers to travel across Nanhai County and Jingnan by land, and come back to report the message quickly.

Therefore, even if Zhao Yun's battle ended before March, his land messenger would have to set off from Nanhai County in April and delivered to Li Su and Liu Bei, but it would not be possible in May.

One day in mid-May, Li Su held a banquet in Wancheng to identify Zhuge Liang: "Aliang, I will do it well after going to Yunchang. I don't need to explain to you. Zilong should have had a letter recently. I will send you good news to you and Yunchang as soon as possible."

Zhuge Liang received the teachings and left, so there was no need to mention it.

Anyway, the farming deployment of so many major projects has been arranged, and the subsequent physical work will be implemented as planned. In summer, this golden season for military use in the north, of course, you should be busy with something else.
Chapter completed!