After Sima Lang returned to the post house, while calming down his embarrassment, he diverted his energy and began to think about what he had seen and heard today.
"A great treacherous person looks like a loyal person, a great fake seems like a true person!" This is Sima Lang's current evaluation of Bai Tu.
What did he eat at the Cavalry General's Mansion before?
Fresh sea fish, vegetables, peaches and plums...
Is having wine and meat considered a luxury? This may be true for ordinary people, but for wealthy nobles, wine and meat are obviously nothing.
Fresh sea fish means ice cubes saved by countless people, not only seasonal fruits, but also the construction of firehouses that waste people and money.
In the Han Dynasty, there were already out-of-season vegetables, but ordinary princes and nobles could not enjoy them. Even the emperor felt that this was too wasteful. During the reign of Emperor Han'an, he banned the use of out-of-season vegetables in the imperial kitchen - tens of millions of dollars a year.
The investment made even the emperor feel uneasy.
However, before at Bai Tu's house, Sima Lang recalled the fresh vegetables...
Not only are they fresh, but they are also in excellent quality. Not to mention late spring, the off-season for fruits and vegetables... Sima Lang rarely sees vegetables of such good quality during the season.
If it were the time when the Han Dynasty could still be protected, these fruits and vegetables would probably be sold for gold if they were placed in Luoyang!
Not to mention, the waiters were all dressed in fine brocade, and the cups used during the banquet were exquisite treasures.
Now the world is in chaos. The former Gonggun princes are now much more diligent and frugal in Xudu, but Bai Tu...tsk tsk.
Sima Lang now even wants to avenge Wang Mang - compared with Wang Mang, Bai Tu is the one who truly deceives the world and steals his reputation. He even... doesn't put any effort into "deceiving" at all. He doesn't even pretend to be pretentious and actually "steals".
So successful?
Of course, in fact, Bai Tu didn't feel that he had ever acted like a traitor.
After all, ice cubes and the like are just the most basic ones, similar to making ice with saltpeter - this technology already existed in the Tang Dynasty, using saltpeter, the main component of which is potassium nitrate, which absorbs heat when dissolved in water.
Saltpeter, freeze the ice in a small basin, and then use the ice in the small basin. Use the ice water in the large basin to dry out the saltpeter again, and it can be used repeatedly.
It’s just that in the Tang Dynasty, this technology was rarely used among the people. After all, saltpeter was the main component of gunpowder, so as a dangerous product, its circulation was severely restricted.
And... even in modern times, China is still a country where potash is scarce, even in total quantity. In ancient times, the source of potassium saltpeter, that is, fire saltpeter, was also very limited.
However, it is not a big problem for Bai Tu, because the potassium in the sea can be said to be almost "endless". Using natural zeolite, potassium can be "replaced" from the bitter brine left by sun-dried salt - clinoplasmite in China
The reserves are abundant, especially in the Jiangdong area.
Baitu did not specifically mine saltpeter, but used Pang Tongna's "potassium chloride", which is different from the main component of saltpeter, potassium nitrate, but has similar heat-absorbing effects.
The reason why potassium is extracted is not specifically to make ice for Bai Tu, but to be used as fertilizer...
Potassium fertilizer is one of the important types of chemical fertilizers!
It can increase the protein content of grains, increase the vitamin C of fruits and vegetables, improve the size, color and storage stability of fruits and vegetables.
Although there are no chemical fertilizers in later generations, pure green crops are highly praised, but we have to admit that the emergence of chemical fertilizers is definitely a huge progress of civilization. If there were no development dividends for mankind from chemical fertilizers, productivity would not be so high that people would dislike chemical fertilizer crops...
…
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, naturally no one disliked chemical fertilizers, just like Sima Lang... I have eaten green food all my life, and today I tasted the out-of-season fruits and vegetables with chemical fertilizers for the first time. It was so "really fragrant" that I slandered Bai Tu in my heart, thinking that this
It is a manifestation of "arrogance and extravagance".
Of course, the production and use of chemical fertilizers are still in a very early stage. Pang Tong is still debugging it, and it is still far from being used by civilians.
Now it is mainly used in conjunction with glass greenhouses as an important auxiliary means for breeding. In the short term, the focus of increasing agricultural output is to cultivate excellent varieties. The popularization of chemical fertilizers will have to wait a while.
As for the glass greenhouse...
It is indeed a bit luxurious. With a few government-run glass factories, it will definitely not be popularized among the people. It is only used for breeding. In terms of off-season planting, Pang Tong is still researching cheap alternatives that can be used as mulch.
This year, the first batch of breeding products has been cultivated in the natural environment. If successful, it will play a huge leading role in future agricultural development!
The development of science and technology makes Bai Tu very confident about his great achievements in the future.
But now, Bai Tu learned some bad news...or in other words, the bad news was finally confirmed.
"You really didn't find it?" Bai Tu looked at the document in his hand and couldn't help but muttered to himself, while rubbing the corners of his eyes in distress.
"What's not found? You mean the kind of stone that can warm the fire? It's just a folk legend, don't take it too seriously." Seeing this, Lu Lingqi explained from the side.
That's right, just last month, when Bai Tu decided to take advantage of today's gradual recovery of agricultural production and reduce the pressure of disaster relief to improve productivity, he discovered a fatal problem - Chengji World...
No oil or coal.
It is said that in the "Geography" of the Han Dynasty, there are already records that "there is flammable water in Gaonu County" and "stones are produced in Yuzhang, which can be burned for fuel." Logically speaking, the former should be oil, and the latter should be coal.
A few days ago, Bai Tu decided to mine a wave of coal as a high-efficiency fuel. As for the steam engine... it is not difficult in principle.
However, when Bai Tu told Lu Kang and others about this matter, Lu Kang and others looked at Bai Tu with strange expressions. Yu Fan, who had just returned from Poyang County, even shouted directly, telling Bai Tu not to do it.
Believe the nonsense of folk magicians.
That's right, they have never heard of the saying "stones from Yuzhang can be burned for fuel". Stones that can be burned... No matter how you hear this, it sounds like it was said by a liar and an alchemist!
At first, Bai Tu thought it was because of popularization issues that people didn't know about coal. He gave the example of "Geography", but the result...
I sent someone to fetch "Geography" from the study, and found... there is no such sentence!
Bai Tu clearly remembers that this sentence is on his hard drive.
When he first discovered this, Bai Tu even wondered if there was an evil god hiding somewhere around him. Should he learn how to act?
For a long time, the overlap between Cheng Ji's world and the world before Bai Tu's time travel made Bai Tu a little careless.
It's natural to think that you can find coal...
However, the details in "Geography" were different, which made Bai Tu realize that something was wrong - after all, they were not the same world. Even if it really wasn't, there seemed to be nothing surprising.
So under the "death struggle", Bai Tu specially organized a survey team. Although he was very baffled by Bai Tu's behavior, he looked for stones that could be burned for no reason, and even black springs that could be burned.
You look like you're lame!
Fortunately, other aspects of Baitu were relatively normal, and the so-called survey was only a team of a hundred or so people, and it was not a waste of time and money, so except for the upright Yu Fan, no one paid much attention to it.
What Bai Tu has in his hands now is the survey team's report document, which has completely confirmed the bad news - there is no coal in Yuzhang.
Even when he had just learned about the differences between the "Geographical Chronicles" editions, Bai Tu went back to look at the records of oil in the Chengji edition. Sure enough... there were no records of fierce fire oil, Lishui, etc. It can be basically speculated that oil is also
Doesn't exist!
Regarding Bai Tu's depression, Lu Lingqi felt like coaxing a child.
After all, in Lu Lingqi's opinion, it is naive enough to believe in "burnable stones" for no reason, but she is actually depressed because she cannot find them... What is this if not a child?
"Obviously there are other things, but petroleum and coal...wait a minute, don't they even have fossils?" Bai Tu couldn't figure it out.
"Huh? What fossil? Wang Fu Stone?" Lu Lingqi asked doubtfully.
"Ahem, it's nothing..."
"Don't feel bad! Can't we burn charcoal?" Lu Lingqi comforted her like a child.
Bai Tu rolled his eyes and said helplessly: "This is not a problem of burning charcoal. There is no coal...forget it, I'm fine." Bai Tu also understood that it was difficult to explain to people who didn't know what coal and oil were.
How important is it.
It is a trivial matter that there is no fire oil that can be used for fire attacks in war, but in industry there is no oil as the "blood of industry", which greatly affects the development prospects of Baitu's technological tree.
This is not just a matter of fuel. Countless industrial products, from artificial plastics to asphalt, lubricants, etc., all use petroleum as raw materials.
It can be said that without oil, there would be no modern industrial civilization.
However, in the Chengji world, it seems that there is currently no oil, or even... not even coal!
If the lack of oil limits the upper limit of Bai Tu's technology tree, then the lack of coal directly frustrates Bai Tu's current development plan - without coal, charcoal can only be used as the main fuel.
Well, during World War II, when a certain mustache was in trouble internally and externally, due to lack of resources, he did have charcoal-burning tanks...
Just burning charcoal, burning all the wood in the Greater Khingan Mountains into charcoal, is far from enough to display modern industry - that is to say, in terms of resources, it is impossible to copy the modern technology tree.
"How about... how about asking the woodcutter to cut more firewood every day?" Lu Lingqi didn't understand what Bai Tu was worried about.
"No, don't bother the woodcutter... wait! Woodcutter?" Bai Tu suddenly thought of using woodcutter to extract the Artemisia annua potion - of course, the woodcutter here is not an ordinary woodcutter, specifically referring to the "cavalry general's internal affairs"
The nameless woodcutter is connected to Steward Li who is responsible for the firewood supply under the steward of Chu Wang.
Although there are no fossil resources, there seems to be another "resource"?
Perhaps if we want to find another way, we should focus on this aspect and try it?
"You are so smart!" Bai Tu looked at Lu Lingqi and said seriously.
When Lu Lingqi heard this, she also said seriously: "Are you too stupid?" After saying this, she laughed first.
From the beginning to the end, Lu Lingqi felt that Bai Tu was innocent and cute this time...