Regardless of whether what Liu Tan said was true or false, Lu Xuan pretended not to hear it.
In the education Lu Xuan received since childhood, liking someone means giving them money and status. The higher the status and the more money one gives, the more one can express his or her love.
Although material things cannot represent all of love, if someone is unwilling to provide even material things, then there is not much love left.
Lu Xuan truly loves Liu Tan. If he doesn't, with his abilities, he might set his sights on the Central Plains.
Why did they have to fight the Xiongnu to the death? The Xiongnu were so fierce and had few resources.
But for Liu Tan, he would rather give up such ambition.
This is the kind of love he has, but he feels it is not enough to express. But what is Liu Tan missing?
In terms of status, he is a prince of the Han Dynasty, and he chose his fiefdom himself, so there is no need to compare whether he is good or bad. Anyway, everyone from the emperor and empress to the crown prince likes him very much, and the two most powerful princesses also like him very much.
As for money, not to mention that Liu Che and Chen Ajiao gave him money from time to time, Liu Tan himself had a copper mine, and the Suixie gold produced by the Suixie gold mine was in short supply.
Lu Xuan was in deep sorrow. What did he have? He only had a little gold.
So even if Liu Tan didn't need it, he would try to give as much as possible, at least to express his gratitude.
Seeing Lu Xuan didn't say anything and turned to stroke the candle, Liu Tan knew that the communication had failed. Helplessly, he said nothing more and continued to fight with his candle.
To be honest, Liu Tan still hasn't figured out how to solve the problem of candle solidification.
He knew that if he wanted to make candles from animal fat, he would have to use sulfuric acid.
However, the problem is that even if he knew how to make sulfuric acid, there are still many other steps involved, and each step is extremely difficult given the current level of technology.
But this is based on the fact that he clearly knows how to make sulfuric acid. So the question is, does he know it?
No, he doesn't know.
In the end, he could only make soft candles. That is, after reacting the oil with a strong alkali, he obtained not only soap but also glycerin, and the main component of the candle, stearic acid, existed in the form of glycerin.
Then use the wick to immerse it in stearic acid over and over again, wait until it condenses and then immerse it again, wrapping it layer by layer until a candle of the specified size is formed.
In order to fix the shape of the candle, Liu Tan finally had someone wrap it with a layer of bronze. Anyway, this thing can be reused, so there is no need to worry about waste.
During this process, Liu Tan also improved the wick.
Because Liu Tan remembered that traditional wicks needed to be constantly trimmed because they did not burn completely, but in later generations, this was no longer necessary because the wicks were made of three strands of rope wrapped together. In this way, during the burning process, the three strands of wick would separate and hang down to the center of the candle, burning more completely.
Liu Tan simply adopted this method.
There's no way around it. The light is inside the lantern, and we can't just send someone over to fish it out and trim the wick every now and then, right? That would ruin the atmosphere.
After making the candles, Liu Tan tried them out. Although the candles made from stearic acid were softer than the candles he had imagined, the advantage was that they did not produce the black smoke from burning oil, and they burned more completely and the flames were brighter.
Liu Tan was so happy that he replaced all the lamp oil in the entire palace with this kind of candle.
Once the candle issue is resolved, the lantern issue is half resolved.
The other half is to calculate the amount needed to keep the lanterns burning for a night.
He doesn't need to worry about this, someone will naturally take care of it for him.
The fundamental reason why the lantern issue is half resolved is what was mentioned before - people cannot watch lanterns in the cold wind.
No matter how beautiful it is, the cold will steal your attention.
Yes, Liu Che's clothes were definitely warm, but he had to show his face, right? The wind in the Northern Territory in winter was so strong it could make one question life—well, that's what Liu Tan had heard. After all, he hadn't spent much time in the Northern Territory last winter.
Therefore, glass windows are of paramount importance, and at this time, experiments on crystal glass have also reached a certain level.
Oh, crystal glass is the name given by Liu Tan. The crystal is real, but the transparency of the glass has never satisfied Liu Tan. If it is made too thick, the transparency will not be enough, and when looking through the crystal, the objects on the opposite side will be somewhat distorted.
If it is made too thin, the hardness of the crystal will not be enough and it will be very fragile. This worries Liu Tan very much, so he starts trying to add other things to increase the hardness of the crystal glass.
There is no need to talk about the final result, but we can only remind the craftsmen to be more careful, be careful when making it, and be even more careful when installing it.
Liu Tan found that he missed glass more and more, especially tempered glass. Before, he thought that it was no problem to live without glass and his living standards were not affected at all.
However, the problem now is that he finds that many of the things he wants to do cannot be done without glass.
The first is lanterns. If he had glass, he could make more and more beautiful lanterns.
Then the most important thing is the glass windows, which can be said to be the most practical thing.
However, the existing technology can only produce glass.
Although it seems that these two things are similar, in fact, the glass that Liu Tan knows is soda-lime glass, while colored glaze is lead-barium glass. The chemical composition is completely different. Even if you work yourself to death, you can't burn them to the same effect.
Moreover, lead-barium glass contains heavy metals, so it is impossible to use it to make tableware.
However, Liu Tan remembered that the main purpose of adding those things was to lower the melting point of quartz sand, because the melting point of quartz sand was too high and could not be achieved with the limited level of technology in ancient times.
In the past, even if Liu Tan had this idea, he just thought about it and he didn't have much interest in making glass.
But now that he has coal, he can definitely give it a try.
Liu Tan remembered that in his previous life he had seen someone make glass by mixing sand with other things, and he couldn't help but feel eager to try it.
Although the land around Shuofang City is barren, it cannot be considered as real desert.
Liu Tan asked someone to get it, then added pure alkali and limestone into it and mixed it, and then asked someone to burn it.
The final firing result was not satisfactory. The reason was that the sand contained a higher content of soil and was not completely desertified, so the quartz content was insufficient.
As for pure sand... Liu Tan looked at the map, pointed at the desert, and said, "Send someone to tell Li Buyan to help get some sand from the desert."
Huo Guang, who had just stepped into the main hall and was about to report to Liu Tan, stopped in his tracks when he heard these words. He suddenly felt a headache: Have they had enough of playing with mud and are now playing with sand?
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