Chapter 515: Ideas about the New County (Please vote and subscribe)

"Yes, I know a way to extract the sweet water inside and make something like salt, but it's not as white as salt, but it's sweet. We in the Han tribe call this thing sugar." Luo Chong took a sip of tea and briefly introduced it.

"Oh? Our Han tribe already has this thing called sugar? Then why have I never seen it sold in the market?"

This time Yun Zhi was even more surprised. He didn't expect that the Han tribe had already made such a magical thing. Could it be similar to the method of making salt?

"Yes, but it's very little and not pure. I saw reddish-brown sugar at the spring meeting in the western valley a few years ago. It looked like dried blood. It was made by a tribe called Zhu, using planted grapes, but it had many impurities and was not as sweet as sweet stalks.

So I never took it seriously until I ate the sweet stalks you got this time, and then I had the idea of ​​making sugar in large quantities." Luo Chong explained again.

The method of making sugar is not so magical. You just need to squeeze out the sweet water, heat it until it becomes viscous, and then dry it naturally. The principle is the same. Even in this world, Luo Chong is not the first person to make sugar. This time, he just improved this step with a more scientific method.

"Really, that's great. As long as the leader can make that thing called sugar, I will transport all the sweet poles here. But, leader, do we need to prepare things to make sugar? Will we have enough time this season?" In fact, Yun

Zhi's question was already a trick, but he was really too curious about the method of making sugar, so he couldn't help asking.

Luo Chong thought about it and there was nothing he couldn't say. After all, there was really nothing technically. Others could learn it just by saying it casually, but you can't do it. If you really want to control it, it's just a matter of a word. Making salt is easier. Isn't it still in the hands of the government?

"As for making sugar, you have seen and eaten sweet sticks. In fact, you put it in your mouth and chew it to get sweet water. The remaining residue still needs to be spit out. Therefore, the sweetness inside is actually in the juice. Why don't we use tools to squeeze out the juice first?"

"Then what? It's still juice. How can we make it the same as salt?" Yun Zhi was even more curious.

"Then pour the juice into a large pot, stir while heating it, until it turns into a caramel color and becomes sticky like glue. At this time, it can be removed from the pot.

If you want to make hard candy in pieces, scoop it out and put it into a pre-made mold. After cooling naturally, you can get amber, translucent hard candy cubes.

If you want to make small grains of sand like salt, pour the boiled sugar liquid on a copper-coated table, and then turn it back and forth with a shovel. During this process, the action of turning the sugar cannot be stopped. After the sugar slowly cools down, it will become brown sugar as fine as flour.

As for turning brown sugar into white sugar, I'm not sure about this. , but the process should be to pour brown sugar into water to dissolve it, and after it is completely dissolved, filter it several times, so that you can get a lighter color sugar water.

Then add some bamboo charcoal to the light-colored sugar water, use the bamboo charcoal to absorb the pigment inside, and finally you can get a lighter color sugar water, and then evaporate the water, and the remaining is the decolorized sugar.

Although I haven't done it, I guess it's still impossible to make sugar as white as salt with this method. At most, you can make light yellow granulated sugar, which should be the highest level that our Han tribe can currently make. "

Although Luo Chong has never made sugar, he has seen some videos with the title "Teach you how to make sugar by hand" in his previous life.

In an era where production and life are becoming more and more advanced, industrialized, modernized, and efficiency-oriented, people have begun to pursue health preservation again. There are too many videos on the Internet such as "pure natural", "pure handmade", "intangible cultural heritage", and "craftsmanship".

The traditional handmade sugar making technique is almost like this. Anyway, it is quite simple in the video. Although the environment here is a bit worse, Luo Chong is the leader. With just one word, all the resources of the tribe can be mobilized. What's the worry about not being able to make a few sugar cubes?

Although Luo Chong spoke in great detail, his speed was not slow, but this made Yun Zhi very difficult. He was listening very carefully, but he had only learned Chinese for a year, so simple communication was not a problem. However, the professional terms that came out of Luo Chong's mouth, such as "dissolve", "filter", "translucent", "mold" and so on, made him confused and had no idea what they meant.

In fact, let alone him, only the elders of the Han tribe and the women who boiled and made salt could understand these technical terms. Other types of work really didn't come into contact with these terms.

However, in this situation, Luo Chong had already said everything he should say, and Yun Zhi couldn't continue to ask, which would seem too deliberate. People who didn't know would think he had some ideas. As a smart person, Yun Zhi wisely didn't ask again.

In the following time, Luo Chong first assigned Yun Zhi several short-term tasks. One was to purchase a large number of sweet stalks and sorghum seeds. Sweet stalks would continue to be sold, but in the future, they would be sold to each other. This was an internal business behavior, so the Ling tribe had to pay more taxes for the time being, especially for high-profit commodities such as desserts.

For the remaining part, they could first experiment with several sugar extraction technologies on a small scale to see if it would work and what professional equipment they needed to develop. Then, after their own tribe began to plant sorghum, they could start mass production.

Another thing was to draw a full map of the swamp, mark out the more than 20 lake islands that Yun Zhi mentioned, and by the way, conduct another "lake cleaning operation" to move all the tribal population in the swamp out. Luo Chong had other uses for the larger lake islands.

As for the tribes and population along the coast around the swamp, they could not be moved for the time being, because Luo Chong had not yet decided where to set up the new county.

First of all, it could not be too far away, otherwise it would be out of the control of the Han tribe, and then there was the issue of development direction.

Judging from the current situation of the Han tribe, the overall sphere of influence of the Han tribe is a belt-shaped range from west to east. There are many mountains in the west, many forests in the middle, plains and swamps in the east, and two rivers in the middle.

Then to the east, there is a large swamp, which cannot be developed on a large scale. To the west, there are mostly mountains, no roads or rivers for transportation, and the cost of ruling is too high, so it can only develop in the north and south directions.

The sphere of influence in the south has not been figured out yet, and Luo Chong also intends to give the southern territory to Liuyang County for development, after all, it is relatively close.

On the contrary, the northern territory is rich in resources, but it has not been actually occupied. The reason before was that there was no one, but now Yun Zhi has promised a population of 50,000, so the Han tribe needs to intervene in the north.

North of Hanyang County, after leaving Fuma Pass, there is a hilly grassland, and then one or two days' journey to the north, there is a forest area and gradually rising mountains. The hilly grassland in the middle, although not very large, is definitely long enough.

In this area, the overall terrain is high in the west and low in the east. The farthest distance explored to the west is the original residence of the Sharp Horn Tribe, where the terrain is relatively high and open, and it is also the place where the Sharp Horn Tribe originally raised saiga antelopes.

To the east, the terrain becomes lower and lower, gradually transitioning to a plain area, and the easternmost end is the edge of the Daze area.

This entire narrow strip of land is full of hilly grasslands, which is very suitable for breeding. If it is completely occupied, this area can be used as a military horse breeding base for the Han tribe, and can also be used to breed cattle, sheep, alpacas, donkeys and other livestock in large quantities.

The area near the two rivers in the middle can be used to build cities and relocate people, and develop farming along the river. Of course, this is not the key point. The

key point is that in this battle of annihilation at Fuma Pass, the cavalry discovered a forest within two days of the northwest of Fuma Pass for the first time. There are not many other trees in this forest, but only Eucommia ulmoides dominates.

Luo Chong knows Eucommia ulmoides not because its bark is a traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, what medical effects does the bark of Eucommia ulmoides have? Luo Chong is still not very clear. The reason why he knows this tree species is another characteristic of Eucommia ulmoides.

Eucommia ulmoides is actually a rubber tree. Its bark, roots, leaves, peels and seeds, no matter which part, as long as you break it by hand, you can pull out white mesh silk in the middle. These white things are actually high molecular polymers, commonly known as rubber, or plastic.

The reason for this is that there is a big difference between Eucommia gum and the rubber of traditional rubber trees. Rubber trees produce liquid gum, and rubber products can be obtained after the liquid gum is collected and processed.

However, Eucommia gum cannot produce liquid rubber. All of its gum is stored in various organs. Another characteristic of Eucommia gum is that it will change its physical form due to temperature changes.

Luo Chong knew this mainly because Eucommia gum is the raw material of special rubber, and many products are used in military industry and high-tech. He has always been more concerned about the military. In addition, China's project to develop Eucommia gum was proposed to the Prime Minister by Soviet experts in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China based on China's actual situation. Luo Chong also has a deep memory of such a major event.

Generally, the bark, leaves, peels and seeds of Eucommia gum are crushed, dissolved and filtered, and then the cotton-like flocs are extracted by alkali reaction. The final product is kneaded into a ball, which looks like chewing gum. After

the water is dried at room temperature, this Eucommia gum will become very hard. If it is pressed into a product, it will become a very hard state after molding. For example, if it is pressed into a cup, it will become a plastic cup after molding, and it will make a banging sound when knocked. However, if the cup made of Eucommia gum is soaked in hot water above 60 degrees, it will immediately become elastic rubber after soaking for a few seconds. You can pinch it as you want, just like a tire inner tube.

In this softened state, if the shape of the cup is changed, then when the temperature cools down again, it will plasticize again in the changed shape and become a hard plastic.

Therefore, this is a high molecular polymer that can change back and forth between the two physical forms of plastic and rubber with temperature changes, so it is called special rubber.

According to this change, modern people generally use this special material to make prosthetic containers, that is, to make a large cup, soak it in hot water first, then put the broken arms and legs in it, and after cooling, it can be changed into the shape that best suits the prosthesis.

Of course, Luo Chong didn't think about making this thing. He was thinking about how to turn Eucommia ulmoides into rubber. The Han tribe does not have much demand for plastic now, but rubber is very much needed.

The first reason is that Luo Chong has already made pencils and is preparing to popularize them on a large scale. If pencils are out, how can its good partner, rubber, not be available? If you want to make rubber, you must first have rubber raw materials.

The second is rubber wheels. Hollow pneumatic tires are not easy to make, but it does not mean that they cannot be made. In fact, the key technology of that thing is not big rubber, but all on that small valve core.

Besides, even if the hollow pneumatic tire cannot be made, it is good to make a solid rubber tire. It is much better than the current wooden wheels. Whether it is anti-skid, shock absorption, or tire grip, it is not comparable to wooden wheels.

In addition, other traditional rubber products can also be made, such as rubber soles, rubber tubes, the key part of the valve core, the "closing valve", and even simple rubber inflatable boats.

Of course, even if it can be made now, the output is very limited. At most, it can meet the needs of rubber, which is already amazing.

Therefore, considering the above, Luo Chong decided to set up the new county in the northwest of Fuma Pass, at the junction of Eucommia forest and grassland, so as to better develop the forest resources here.

On the other hand, if the 50,000 people mentioned by Yun Zhi are all placed in one county, according to the initial construction period, if there are 3,000 people in one county, 16 more county towns can be added. Therefore, adding only one county is certainly not enough. If the other new counties also want to develop like the north, Luo Chong is ready to move them to the east bank of the upper reaches of Ruyang River.

The two banks of this place are also grasslands, with open terrain, which can be used to cultivate farmland for planting, and water transportation is also relatively convenient. More importantly, from this place, a day's journey to the northeast will lead to the magnetite mines around the salt lake, which is also the main source of iron ore for the Han tribe.

If a city is built here to cultivate land, food can be produced nearby to supply iron ore, and docks can be built to develop shipping and send iron to various counties in the Han tribe. It can be said to be a very important strategic location.

(End of this chapter)