After testing all the silkworms, the Jiangnan Group's main force began to withdraw from the three counties of Huzhou.

On the day when the troops withdrew, the streets of the three counties were deserted, and the common people all ran to the riverside to see them off. There were no flowers or banners, no touching scenes of reluctant farewell and tears. They just quietly stuffed jars of homemade wine, baskets of peaches and watermelons, and loads of dried vegetables and salted fish... into the boats that the work team members were riding, and then shyly ran away, not caring whether they would sink the boat...

The people of this era are not yet so conscious, and are even somewhat numb. But as long as one is a human being and does not believe in a god, one will definitely be grateful and know who is good to him.

Although the final result has not yet come out, the people appreciate it!

They escorted the Jiangnan Group's fleet all the way to the edge of Taihu Lake before reluctantly turning back.

"What a touching picture! The employees of the group and the people of Jiangnan are connected in heart..." Wang Shimei, the publicity director of Jiangnan Group and Wang Shizhen's cousin, was so moved that he wiped away tears and said to several publicity officers who were drawing quickly, "Quickly record these pictures. I want them to be put on the front page of the next issue of Jiangnan Newsletter!"

Alas, this warm and touching scene suddenly changed...

~~

However, not all of the work teams have withdrawn. After all, we will have to wait until the summer silkworms hatch to know whether the anti-epidemic efforts are successful.

Zhao Hao left a 30-member working group consisting of agricultural technicians, medical students, and Jiangnan Textile representatives in each of the six counties to continue tracking and monitoring the hatching and growth of summer silkworms.

Silkworm farmers in various counties also started to get busy. They had to add green color to the silkworm eggs so that they could hatch summer silkworms.

The so-called "Dianqing" is the great wisdom of the working people of our country. Because silkworms have evolved a characteristic in nature that allows silkworm eggs to hibernate first and then begin to develop after the weather warms up after wintering. In biology, this is called "diapause".

Diapause can help silkworms avoid harsh winters, but it is not friendly to silkworm farmers, as their silkworms can only be raised once a year. Especially in the warm Jiangnan region, after the spring silkworms make cocoons, there are still long summer and autumn seasons to continue raising silkworms.

However, no matter how high the temperature is, the eggs laid by silkworms will not move. They have to freeze over the winter and then start to develop silently the next year. This greatly limits the production of raw silk around the world... Why is Japan so short of raw silk? Isn't it because the production of silkworms they raise is too low?

Only Chinese silkworm farmers invented the method of "accelerating the development of silkworm eggs" as early as the Song Dynasty to relieve the dormancy of silkworm eggs and allow them to develop more than ten days after being laid. This made it possible to raise summer and autumn silkworms in addition to spring silkworms, and the output naturally increased dramatically.

They will intervene from the beginning of the mating process. After two hours of mating, they will manually separate the male moth and let the female silkworm moth lay eggs. They will then leave it for half a day to allow it to be fully fertilized. Then, they will soak the mulberry paper with silkworm eggs in warm water for more than ten seconds, quickly take it out and dry it.

After about eight days, a blue spot will appear on the top of the black silkworm egg, which is called "dotting blue". The blue-dotted silkworm eggs will soon hatch. This is the so-called "inducing blue".

According to Ma Yilong's speculation, this method is to use warm water to remove the heat from the surface of the silkworm eggs, making them mistakenly think that the weather has become cold. Then the temperature slowly rises, and they think that spring has arrived. When the conditions are met, diapause is lifted.

In order to prove his guess, he put the silkworm eggs in an ice cellar for a period of time and took them out after that. He found that the greening rate was indeed successful and much higher than that of simply using warm water.

Zhao Hao also gave him a new method. Washing with a dilute sulfuric acid solution can increase the greening rate to 80% without putting it in an ice cellar. It can also effectively kill the bacteria in the silkworm sand and moth powder attached to the silkworm eggs, playing a good disinfection role.

In fact, using a dilute hydrochloric acid solution would be more effective, but currently Institute 04 can only obtain hydrochloric acid in the laboratory by mixing concentrated sulfuric acid and table salt and heating them. However, the cost of such large-scale production is obviously too high.

First, there is not enough concentrated sulfuric acid. Although thousands of years ago, alchemists had already mastered the method of calcining pyrite or sulfur to produce sulfuric acid.

But the difficulty of industrial production is completely different, okay? Zhang Jian and Qu Rukui spent countless brain cells, countless failures, and a lot of money to build three tower-like reaction devices that could barely produce 100 kilograms of concentrated sulfuric acid per day.

The reason why it is said to be reluctant is that the reaction device malfunctions from time to time, and each time the furnace has to be shut down for several days for maintenance.

Sulfuric acid has so many uses that the daily output of 200 kilograms is not enough to fill the gaps between our teeth. But Zhao Hao told Zhang Jian and his team not to worry and to use it for internal use in the research center first. Run the current preparation device for a year, and then consider expanding production capacity after it is improved and perfected.

Therefore, the production of hydrochloric acid from sulfuric acid can only be done in the laboratory, and industrial production is currently impossible.

~~

In fact, for industrial production, not to mention sulfuric acid, even salt is unaffordable.

Jiangnan Group has not been involved in the salt industry in China. After all, this thing is too taboo. Otherwise, Pudong, with its vast coastal mudflats, would be a perfect natural salt field. Unfortunately, so many eyes are staring at Jiangnan Group. How dare Mr. Zhao mess around?

So we can only count on the lawless overseas, but the problem is that the Jeju Island currently controlled by Master Zhao is not suitable for a salt field... Although it is surrounded by the sea and has sufficient seawater resources, it does not have a flat beach to dry salt.

The problem in Japan is the same. The rugged coastline makes it impossible to build a salt field. The temperature is too low, and the evaporation of salt is too slow when it is dried.

Although Jeonra Island is known for its subtropical marine climate, it is affected by the Little Glacier and the temperature cannot rise. So after Zhao Hao asked someone to investigate, he gave up the plan to set up a salt field in Jeonra or the outlying islands of Japan.

However, Zhao Hao would not give up salt as an important strategic resource and chemical raw material. He set his sights on the treasure island of Taiwan - the Budai Salt Field in the southwest of Taiwan, which is known as one of the three largest salt fields in my country along with the Changlu Salt Field in Lianghuai and the Yinggehai Salt Field in Hainan Island!

Although the Yinggehai Salt Field has not been built yet, you may encounter bald pirates when you go there... The fog is because Hainan Island is already a well-known place for the imperial court, and it is very inconvenient to have Qiongzhou Prefecture watching. Taiwan Island is still a foreign land occupied by pirates and natives, so the difficulty of occupying it is naturally much lower.

Moreover, Taiwan is also the forward base for the future southward march to Luzon. After Mr. Zhao completes the preparations, he will lead his troops southward to help the Ming Dynasty recover Taiwan from the pirates...

~~

It seems like they were talking about silkworms, how did it get to the point of recovering Taiwan?

We have strayed off topic, let’s get back to the topic.

In short, with the dual support of Mr. Zhao and Ma Yilong, the greening rate of silkworm seeds in the six counties of Jiahu has reached more than 80%.

In mid-May, the larvae hatched one after another. The silkworm farmers quickly cut the tenderest mulberry leaves into small cubes and sprinkled them on the dustpan. Then they took the silkworm seed paper in one hand and the silkworm chopsticks in the other hand, and evenly patted the back of the silkworm seed paper to make the larvae fall into the dustpan. Then they scraped the larvae with goose feathers, arranged them into a round shape, and sent them to the disinfected silkworm room that was reopened.

What followed was careful care day and night.

The silkworm farmers' spring harvest was ruined, and now they can only rely on summer and autumn silkworms. They are more careful than taking care of babies. Moreover, they obey the instructions of agricultural technicians and do whatever they are told to do, fearing that all their previous efforts will be wasted because of their own reasons...

The inspectors of the working group were also very nervous. They also worked day and night to conduct random inspections in each village. If there was a problem reported, they would rush to inspect it immediately, fearing that the diseased silkworms would not be discovered in time and the disease would spread again.

Fortunately, the previous disinfection work was done very well. The random inspection found that the number of one-year-old silkworms still suffering from white muscardine disease and rust disease was less than one in ten thousand, and they were concentrated in more than ten silkworm houses. It should be because some moths were missed during the inspection, or there were pathogens that were not disinfected.

After the diseased silkworm houses were thoroughly disinfected, no new cases were found in the testing of second-instar silkworms.

There were also no new cases of third-instar silkworms, and the young silkworms had passed the period smoothly. This made everyone feel relieved.

First, the fact that there has been no new cases for such a long time basically means that the pathogen has been eradicated. In fact, in this era, silkworms are raised by families, not large-scale silkworm factories. As long as silkworm farmers pay close attention, the pathogen will not spread so easily...

Second, if we survive the silkworm stage safely, even if there is another outbreak later, we can always keep 70% to 80% of the harvest...

The encouraging result is that there were also no new cases of fourth-instar silkworms.

There are still no new cases of fifth-instar silkworms.

After the adult silkworms made cocoons, there were still zero new cases!

The silkworm disease that ravaged six counties in the spring disappeared completely, as if it had never appeared...

And perhaps because of the passive selection of breeding before, and the subsequent use of scientific incubation, sanitary disinfection, and scientific feeding, other diseases disappeared, and finally the cocoons produced were numerous, large, and white, and the harvest was even better than that of spring silkworms!

~~

When the good news reached Jiangnan Building, Mr. Zhao jumped up from his boss chair, hugged Jiang Xueying who came to announce the good news, and kissed her hard in front of several directors.

Wang Mengxiang and the others quickly turned their heads away in embarrassment. Why don't you know the occasion? How shameful! It's great to be young...

Jiang Xueying lost all her dignity as the CEO and fled with a whimper.

The directors wanted to laugh but didn't dare to, their faces turned red from trying not to laugh.

Zhao Hao smiled shamelessly at the directors and said, "Great, zero new cases for a month, I think we can declare complete victory!"

"Haha, it's so exciting... Oh no, I'm talking about this Spring Thunder Operation." Wang Shimao coughed awkwardly twice and quickly changed the topic: "Don't underestimate the small noise, it's just like a war."

"You almost scared me to death." Wang Mengxiang also laughed and said, "I'm talking about the cost. It's about 300,000 taels in total."

"Is it a lot? Not much." Mr. Zhao was thick-skinned and didn't care about their teasing. He said to himself: "It prevented the spread of the epidemic, strengthened the cohesion of Jiangnan, and increased the people's confidence in the group. It also established a set of epidemic prevention and control systems. These are priceless!"

"You are right, sir." The directors praised him one after another: "No matter how we explained it before, ordinary people didn't understand what science is. Now they all know the benefits of science."

"But we still can't relax completely." Zhao Hao continued excitedly: "These six counties are free of pathogens, but other counties still have them, and there is still the possibility of an outbreak. Therefore, the county development companies and Jiangnan Textile should do a good job in regular monitoring of silkworm diseases. The earlier they are discovered and dealt with, the smaller the losses will be."

"In addition to silkworm disease, the same is true for infectious diseases of humans and animals. I think it would be better to set up a special epidemic prevention committee to be responsible for it..."

Secretary Ma was beside him, taking notes quickly, but she felt so jealous. She also wanted to kiss him, in public...