Sun Jian smiled and did not rush to reply. Instead, he looked at the two men with a serious gaze and slowly said after a while: "Old Cao, Old Jiang, you are the people I can trust."
Upon hearing this, Lao Cao and Lao Jiang were both stunned, feeling as if they had been bathed in a spring breeze.
A warm feeling welled up in their hearts. If they weren't both men, they probably would have been moved to tears by Sun Jian's words.
“Sun Jian…I…”
Old Jiang hesitated, deeply moved, but unsure how to express himself.
"I said okay!"
Seeing that the two men's eyes were red, Sun Jian rolled his eyes at them and said, "You're both grown men, who are you trying to impress with this? Stop standing there, put your things away and hurry up and tidy up. I'll teach you salt-making techniques!"
"good!"
The two responded in unison and quickly returned to their rooms. They first hid the documents and deeds to the house and land, and then rushed to the backyard with some loose silver. In front of Sun Jian, they distributed the loose silver and copper coins to everyone.
The villagers were overjoyed to see the broken silver and copper coins, and their enthusiasm soared because everyone had received some.
Following Sun Jian meant not only good food, drink, and lodging, but also wages even before they started working, which made everyone even more devoted to him.
Sun Jian didn't delay any longer and continued to use the same method as before in Sunjiazhuang, dividing the salt-making process into five parts, four of which were completed by villagers in four different rooms using an assembly line method.
As for the final and most important part, the environment, it was completed by Lao Cao, Lao Jiang, and Gou Sheng.
Only these three people knew the full picture of salt-making technology.
While this method can effectively prevent the leakage of secrets, it is not foolproof.
Sun Jian knew that while many villagers might be loyal to him at this moment, human nature was not what it used to be, and one should always be wary of others.
At the very least, if someone becomes disloyal to him in the future, that person will need to first unite with the craftspeople from the other four workshops to integrate the crafts, and at the same time, he will need to win over one of the three—Old Jiang, Gou Sheng, or Old Cao—in order to uncover the whole story.
Otherwise, it would be absolutely impossible!
Sun Jian first went to the first room, and after explaining the confidentiality agreement to the villagers, he took Lao Cao, Lao Jiang and Gou Sheng and began to guide and teach them step by step.
"Listen up, everyone. The first thing the family will learn is: crushing and boiling."
"There are five large iron pots and five wooden ladles here."
"You need to first crush the coarse salt blocks with a wooden pestle, and then put these small salt fragments into a pot to boil."
Sun Jian patiently taught everyone from the side.
Everyone can quickly learn the crushing process, but the boiling process is a technical skill.
It is necessary to control the heat and technique, especially to stir and turn the mixture constantly so that the moisture can evaporate evenly, thus removing many impurities from the resulting crystals.
"Wow! Look, small grains of salt are forming around the edge of the pot!"
"Yes, yes, it's absolutely amazing! How come we never noticed it before!"
When Sun Jian successfully operated the device, everyone looked on incredulously, both excited and thrilled.
Sun Jian rolled his eyes at them helplessly a few times and continued teaching.
After teaching him twice and boiling two pots of the broth, Lao Jiang, Gou Sheng, and Lao Cao gradually learned and mastered the craft.
"Come, sir, let me, Sun Tiezhu, give it a try."
"I'll give it a try too..."
Several villagers began to try it out, and as expected, everyone basically mastered the key points.
However, the salt at this point is yellowish-black, and there are still many impurities inside, with some salt grains still stuck together.
This requires processing in the second and third chambers for secondary purification.
Sun Jian led Lao Jiang and the others to the second room. The purpose of the second room was to burn marble and seashells to obtain lime milk and quicklime. The operation was the same as in the first room. They conducted the experiment twice, with Lao Jiang and the other two practicing once, and then everyone else practicing several times.
As for the third room, which is the core technology that Lao Jiang and the other two need to master, it is to purify and remove impurities.
The fourth chamber is for grinding and filtration, and the fifth chamber is for filtration and drying.
It took Sun Jian three full hours, equivalent to six hours in later times, to finish teaching all the techniques.
When everyone saw the fine, white salt that looked like flour, their eyes lit up.
It's no exaggeration to say that this is pure, unadulterated silver.
"See? When this stuff is ground up, it looks just like granulated sugar."
Sun Jian held up a bag of fine salt and explained to the crowd.
White sugar?
What is this?
Everyone was stunned again.
They had never heard of or seen white sugar, so naturally they didn't know what the white sugar Sun Jian was talking about looked like.
Sun Jian rubbed his forehead, utterly exasperated.
Damn it... I got so excited that I forgot that nobody in this era has ever seen white sugar.
Even in later times, white sugar only appeared during the Ming Dynasty.
Even the surrounding Xia, Zhou, and Song dynasties had never seen this thing before.
"Uh, this...this..."
Sun Jian stammered a little.
"Ah, this white sugar is also something I'm going to give to our workshop. You've all tried sugar figurines, right?"
Everyone nodded in unison.
"Yes, granulated sugar looks similar to this fine salt, but it's very sweet. It can be mixed with rice dumplings and it's delicious!"
"Oh!! I see..."
Everyone suddenly realized what was going on.
Upon hearing about the new product, Old Jiang's eyes lit up, and he quickly asked Sun Jian with a smile, "Sun Jian, when will we start producing that white sugar you just mentioned... hehe."
Sun Jian immediately gave him a hard time, looking righteous and indignant.
"You old fox, can't you just focus on doing one or two things well first?"
Don't you understand the principle of "don't bite off more than you can chew"?
"Hehe, I'm just thinking about the future development of our workshop."
Old Jiang touched the back of his head where Sun Jian had slapped him and said with a forced smile.
"I've handed over the brewing process to you. Once this batch of fine salt is made, quickly produce a batch of high-proof distilled liquor. We can talk about the white sugar later!"
"Yes, yes, hehe."
Old Jiang grinned foolishly, looking like a lackey.
"Alright, alright, it's almost midnight, everyone get some rest. Tomorrow and the day after, get all 1,000 jin of coarse salt refined! We must start producing high-proof distilled liquor the day after tomorrow!"
"yes!"
Everyone responded in unison, and morale soared to unprecedented heights.
After giving Lao Jiang and Lao Cao a few instructions on what to pay attention to when selling and when to replenish raw materials, Sun Jian left the backyard and headed towards the inner courtyard.
After a busy day, Sun Jian was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as he lay down on the bed. Even his washing and grooming were taken care of by Chu Qingcheng.
That night, Sun Jian slept exceptionally well.
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