Chapter 351 Luo Chong Papermaking (Seeking votes and subscriptions)

Luo Chong is a man who does what he thinks and is vigorous and resolute. Once a new goal is set, he will start to handle it immediately.

Arrange the construction of the four teaching buildings and the weaving factory to continue weaving woolen cloth. Now the remaining four-fifths of the raw materials are all earned by the Han tribe. It is more appropriate to use them to process some cloth used by their own tribe. The women also have time to spend more time on it, such as dyeing, weaving some patterns and so on.

These do not need Luo Chong's attention. It is appropriate to let the tribesmen make inventions and creations by themselves. This is conducive to the progress of the Han tribe, rather than relying on Luo Chong to teach them all.

The most important thing is in Luo Chong's yard. The three corns and two soybeans are growing very well, and there is a possibility of breeding new seeds. Luo Chong specifically told Xiaodie to take good care of them. This is the future of the tribe and so on. It is as important as rice. After Xiaodie confirmed that she understood it again and again, Luo Chong took people to the new city area to develop paper.

There was no other way. Although Hanyang City had all kinds of facilities and equipment, the site was ready, and the new city district was still undergoing construction, the raw materials for papermaking were there. If they were transported to Hanyang City for papermaking, it would be too much trouble. Moreover, those materials were not easy to transport, and even if they were transported, the cost would be too high.

Luo Chong rode on Huishan, and several skilled carpenters who were selected followed Luo Chong. They also drove an ox cart, which was full of various carpentry tools. Luo Chong took these carpenters to start papermaking in the new city.

The journey was safe and sound. It took several people a whole day to get to the new city. It was already evening when they arrived at the place, and they just happened to have dinner here. Dashu arranged a newly built house for Luo Chong and his team as a place to sleep and work. There were five large tiled houses in a row, and an east wing room as a kitchen. The house was empty and there was nothing in it, not even a window or door. It was just a newly built rough.

But Luo Chong didn't care. At least there was a kang, with a mat on it, which was much better than sleeping on a pile of grass in the cave in the past two years. Although there were no doors or windows, it was summer now, and it was cool to open the windows

. Papermaking was not a matter of one or two days, so several people settled down in this newly built house. Now the raw materials had not been collected in place, but people could not be idle. Luo Chong asked several carpenters to start making some simple furniture and work equipment, such as a large table, a wooden board for pressing paper, etc.

He arranged tasks for several carpenters who followed him, and then Luo Chong went to find Da Shu and Shu Da, asking them to allocate carriages and manpower, and collect pulp from the pulp trees on the South Mountain from tomorrow, and find some sword grass from the northern mountains to weave finer and thinner mats, which would be used when making paper.

The two also agreed to it and immediately mobilized resources to fully cooperate with the leader's task. Although they didn't know what Luo Chong wanted those things for, they were used to obeying orders, and Luo Chong was unwilling to answer such questions.

Both of them knew very well that every time at this time, the leader must be coming up with something new, so it was useless to ask now. Even if Luo Chong explained it, they would not understand. It was better to wait for Luo Chong to come up with something. Then they would understand it as soon as they saw it.

The next morning, the two teams set out to collect raw materials. It was easier to collect sword grass in the north, but it was more difficult to collect pulp in the mountains and forests in the south.

They had to bring a lot of buckets when going up and down the mountain. When they arrived at the place, they would first use the engineer shovel to cut a notch at the bottom of the tree trunk, then use the bucket to collect the pulp inside, and finally collect it in a large bucket and transport it over.

There are many such materials. The pulp of a single burst-belly pulpwood can fill several 100-liter barrels. Moreover, the pulp is very viscous. If you want to use it to make paper, you have to dilute it with water before you can use it. So it is still sufficient. The material of just one tree is enough for Luo Chong to use for a long time and make a lot of white paper.

However, after Luo Chong looked at the pulp raw materials, he felt that the natural pulp was always soft and it seemed that the fiber strength was not enough and it was easy to be pulled and broken.

But Luo Chong was not discouraged. There are many materials for papermaking. If one kind doesn't work, you can add something else. Although there is single-element paper, such as bamboo paper and straw papermaking, in short, don't think about these.

There is no bamboo here, and there is no straw here for the time being. Moreover, the steps of straw papermaking are also very troublesome, and the pollution treatment is also very serious. If it is not done well, it will cause great harm to the water source. Although these cannot be used, there are still many other things that can be used to make paper.

The bark from wood processing and the shorter hemp fibers left over from linen spinning can also be used to make paper, and the demand is not very large. Just mix them a little and add some to the ready-made pulp.

These natural pulps do not need to be processed. At present, the main processing is bark and hemp fibers. These things are still very hard and the color is not white, so they need to be boiled first.

Luo Chong asked the carpenters to build a simple stove in the yard and set up a big pot to boil the bark and hemp fibers.

Of course, if the normal process is followed, these things do not need to be boiled. They can be directly placed in the pool and soaked in water. The microorganisms in the water can decompose them, and then soak them until they turn white and fade. However, Luo Chong does not have the time. If he soaks them, it may take several months. How can he wait?

So he boiled them directly. It is not impossible to boil the materials directly, but if you want to boil the bark in a short time and boil it until it turns white and fades, you need to add some chemical agents. This thing is of course alkali, that is, soda.

The role of alkali here is to promote the decomposition rate of fibers, but this is papermaking, so Luo Chong did not use soda ash directly, because there is something better than soda ash, that is lime.

As we all know, lime is also a high-alkali substance, no different from soda ash, but if this white powder is boiled with bark hemp balls, it will be easier to make them white, and these lime powders will also adhere to the fibers, so that the final paper will be whiter and smoother. In ancient papermaking, adding lime is an indispensable step.

Finally, after it is cooked, it is fished out, mixed with the natural paper pulp and pounded together. After the fibers are fully mixed, it is mixed with clean water and poured into a large pool. Then comes the key step of making paper with a thin mat.

(End of this chapter)