After hearing Sun Laojiang's hard advice, Chu Tianxiu couldn't help but look at him in surprise.

It seems that the ancients still knew that bark was much cheaper than hemp. If bark fiber could be used to make paper, they would naturally not have to use expensive hemp skin to make paper and compete with the common people for raw materials for cloth clothes.

But knowing is not enough to solve the technical problems.

The bark contains a lot of lignin, pectin, and protein, and the portion is much higher than that of ermush. This directly leads to the difficulty of degumming and beating the bark, which is much higher than that of ermush.

The bark cannot be cleaned from the glue, and it is made of "oil paper". The water cannot stick to it, let alone ink. Why do the ancients use it for paper that cannot be written?

Papermaking requires good alkali.

Only with high-quality alkali can high-quality paper be made.

Cai Hou Paper solved this key difficulty and was able to truly popularize papermaking.

"There is only one reason why the bark is difficult to degreasate, that is, the quicklime is not alkaline enough. Switching directly to desalinate wood ash with stronger alkalinity will be much better."

Chu Tianxiu smiled.

The old craftsman Sun used quicklime.

Cai Lun switched to wood ash.

They are all naturally occurring alkalis. The alkalinity of lime and wood ash changes, allowing tree bark to be used for papermaking, bringing earth-shaking changes to papermaking.

Since Cai Lun, papermaking for one or two thousand years has been made almost all of them with wood ash.

But before this, the paper craftsman obviously did not notice the use of wood ash.

"Tree ash...can this be used?"

When the old craftsman Sun heard this, he felt a little confused.

This wood ash comes from easier sources than quicklime. The stove is covered with wood ash, so there is no need for capital.

However, he had never heard of it, wood ash could be used to replace lime.

I don’t know where this little marquis who never does rough work comes from?

"I'll know if you try it!"

Chu Tianxiu said.

This hemp paper workshop stocks up some raw materials, and papermaking tools are ready-made.

They experimented with the effect of wood ash in the simple hemp paper workshop.

Chu Tianxiu asked Mr. Sun to boil the hemp skin with two large pots and boil water, and add wood ash and lime respectively to see the effect of degumming.

One hour later, two pots of hemp skin were released.

Old craftsman Sun kept rubbing the two kinds of numb skins with his rough hands and looked at them carefully.

One pot has been completely degummed, while the other pot has only a small amount of it. The degumming effect of boiling the squid with wood ash is obviously higher than that of boiling the squid with quicklime.

He finally showed surprise when he saw the two kinds of degreasing effects of erotic skin.

I switched to wood ash, and the degumming effect was indeed greatly improved. The glue used to remove tree bark must be much better than quicklime.

This is the technology that craftsmen are most excited and dreamy of!

"Okay...so useful!"

Mr. Sun was so excited that he couldn't speak. Once the cheap bark could be used for papermaking, the cost of papermaking would be greatly reduced.

There are many scholars and literati who buy paper in Dachu as if they are crossing the river.

How much paper can his small paper workshop sell?

Chu Tianxiu smiled and said, "My marquis has dozens of acres of wasteland outside the city and is preparing to build a large papermaking workshop. He has sent people to level the land and build workshops, and invited a group of workers to come.

Mr. Sun, you are in charge of this new papermaking workshop and are responsible for making paper for this Marquis.

Remember, the most critical technology of papermaking is the secret of my little marquis. It must not be leaked, so that no one will compete with us for the papermaking industry.”

He thought that after a long time, papermaking would eventually leak out.

But at least we must be strictly guarded in the past few years.

It would be better to earn some money from the papermaking workshop, so she thought that she would only spend money randomly.

"Yes, the villain will keep it strictly confidential! The villain makes degreasing water by himself. Others only help with some irrelevant rough and stupid things and do not allow them to participate in secret techniques."

Old craftsman Sun was busy.

Chu Tianxiu then visited Sun Laojiang's simple hemp paper workshop to see the hemp paper making technique used by Sun Jiangren's family.

The Sun family’s hemp papermaking technique is simply rough and terrible.

Mr. Sun’s wife is responsible for cutting the hemp skin. She soaked the peeled hemp skin in a small pond and soaked it for a month, which took a very long time.

"Don't soak it in the future, just boil it!"

Chu Tianxiu said.

Then mash the soaked squid skin into pulp.

This job was done by Mr. Sun’s three sons, who were constantly beaten with hand-made stone hammers.

Exhausted, extremely low efficiency.

"This manual pounding will be changed to water grinding and ox grinding! Use water power in the water season, and use cow power in the dry water season."

Chu Tianxiu said.

Finally, it's the dryer.

Mr. Sun could not afford to buy charcoal to dry paper, so he put it on the roof and hung it naturally. The three stupid sons of the Sun family took turns to guard against being stolen.

If the sun does not come out, you will not be able to dry the paper.

This is purely God’s reward for a bite of food... If it’s rainy for ten consecutive days and half a month, then eat bran!

"The paper should be changed to a baking wall and bake paper with charcoal fire. Paper will be produced continuously every day."

Chu Tianxiu shook her head.

No wonder the monthly output of this hemp paper workshop is only one hundred hemp paper, which is pitifully low.

"Yes, little marquis!"

Mr. Sun humbly followed Chu Tianxiu's butt, nodded desperately, and pricked up his ears to listen, fearing that he would miss a word.

This is the exclusive skill taught to him by the little marquis. Of course, you have to record it carefully and keep it secret.

His confidence has increased greatly at this moment. As long as he follows the little marquis, his three sons may be able to marry a wife.

Chu Tianxiu was about to leave Sun Jiangren's ma-paper shop when suddenly he thought of an extremely critical question.

"By the way, the last procedure is to add some spice powder to the water when washing the bamboo mat. The paper made must have aroma!

I'll send someone to send you some spices. This is the top priority, and it's more important than anything else I said above!"

He reminded seriously.

"Little Marquis, why do you need spices in the water?"

Old craftsman Sun was stunned.

He had fully understood the magical effect of wood ash. He, the old craftsman, understood the improvement of other craftsmanship at once and was convinced.

But what magical effect does this spice play, which is more useful than wood ash?

Besides, this spice is extremely expensive!

Many of the spices in Jinling City were transported by merchants from Western Regions to risk their lives. One or two spices and one or two golds are affordable for those who are dignitaries.

Adding spices to paper will cost you to fly into the sky, it is much higher than hemp paper.

"Of course, the paper made by me must be refreshed and full of fragrance when you hear it! Only then can you suppress... luck!"

Chu Tianxiu smiled.

Mr. Sun still didn't understand what Xiaohunhou wanted to do. He thought for a while and whispered, "Little Marquis, if the fragrance is born on paper... in fact, it's okay to use the fragrance of flowers! There are many flowers outside the city, and it's not expensive."

"Flower fragrance? This method is also good, saving spice money!"

Chu Tianxiu was surprised, thought for a while, and immediately said, "Lao Jiang, do you estimate how much the cost of making paper in bark?"

"The bark is too cheap and can't be taken out of the countryside outside the city. The little marquis wanted to have fragrance on the paper, and using petals did not increase the cost.

The cost of making this paper...the villain estimates that the maximum cost is only one percent of the cost of hemp paper, and the rest are craftsmen and workers' expenses.

If it is a large workshop to make a lot of paper, the paper price is surprisingly cheap.”

Old craftsman Sun quickly calculated, his face full of joy.

"Okay, work will start tomorrow!"

Chu Tianxiu nodded slightly.

Old Craftsman Sun is an expert in making hemp paper. He has done this job for generations and naturally understands the cost of making paper.

As long as you break the trick, Chu Tianxiu doesn’t need to mention more about the rest.

He had already instructed Di'er to go to the outskirts of Jinling City and start construction of a huge new workshop immediately.

According to his design, the river's water conservancy should be used to make water hammers and pulp to save labor costs. The process should be greatly improved from all aspects to improve the efficiency of papermaking.

Once the new workshop is completed, the production of paper can be very large.

"Well! Before the workshop outside the city is built, you can use a new process to make paper as soon as possible in this paper workshop. I will make the first batch of paper for me as soon as possible. I am in a hurry to use it!"

Chu Tianxiu ordered.

"yes!"

Mr. Sun nodded repeatedly.

...

In the following days, Chu Tianxiu took Sun Laojiang to the new papermaking workshop on the outskirts of Jinling City every day, and personally guided the entire process of papermaking.

Because Chu Tianxiu asked to build a good workshop as soon as possible.

Di'er invited hundreds of stonemasons and carpenters to build workshops from Jinling City in one breath.

Various tools for cutting, washing, soaking wood ash, steaming, mashing, beating, paper making, drying paper, and uncovering paper, steaming, cooking, and baking tools are started at the same time.

In fact, Cai Hou Paper’s tools are very simple.

The biggest tool is the water grinding hammer and the cow grinding hammer. In the water-enhancing season, use hydropower hammers to crush the bark to make pulping. In the dry season, use cow power to crush the raw materials to make pulping.

The houses are made of wood.

The construction of the new paper workshop is very fast, and it has taken shape in just two days.

It took less than 2,000 taels of silver to match the tools needed for the new papermaking workshop.

Mr. Sun followed the little marquis and listened to Xiao Hun Hou's guidance on every detail of papermaking. He was extremely excited. The little marquis was so powerful that he was simply a god.

He learned more new techniques in the past or two days than he had accumulated in half his life.

The newly created water conservancy hammer, which only requires one person to operate, is worth the tiring hand-made pulp of ten big men.

His three sons slurry together was worth more than 30 manual labor.

Boiling tree bark greatly accelerates the degumming rate. Several charcoal fire walls dozens of feet long were built to dry paper, regardless of the weather, and they kept producing paper day and night.
Chapter completed!