Chapter 40 Don’t love the country, love inventions
During the Three Kingdoms era, sweetness was mainly candied fruit and sugarcane juice.
However, their craftsmanship is low.
Therefore, although the taste is sweet, the taste is not pure, just like the previous salt.
Salt has a bitter taste.
Candied sugarcane juice, in addition to sweetness, also has some strange flavors.
It’s just that people in this era, who have not tasted things from later generations, will think it’s pretty good.
But Liu Chan is different.
He came from more than 1,800 years later. After more than 1,800 years of development, many crafts have been improved and many new crafts have been born.
Big man——
A small imperial court located in a corner.
There is Qiang Wei in the north and Sun Wu in the east.
If he wants to survive in this troubled world, Liu Chan doesn't want to become the Adou in history.
He needs to change.
The first thing that needs to be changed is, of course, the national strength of the Han Dynasty. The Shu Han regime in history was that Zhuge Liang attached great importance to handicrafts and developed the salt industry, iron industry, etc.
Because Zhuge Liang needs to fight to stabilize the rule of the Shu Han regime.
At the same time, he also has a belief - to conquer the Central Plains and revive the Han Dynasty.
All of these require money.
This money will not fall from the sky, nor will it be born on the ground.
You can only find a way to make money by yourself, otherwise you can only reach out to the common people.
But the population of Shu is sparsely populated.
Later, when Liu Chan surrendered to Wei, the Shu Han household registration he submitted showed that there were 280,000 households in Shu, a population of 940,000, 120,000 soldiers, and more than 40,000 officials.
Of course, later generations of experts and scholars pointed out that this was not the real population data of the Shu Han Dynasty.
For example, there are the residents of wealthy families, military households, official households, farmers, and the population in minority areas.
These are not included in the state and county household registration, so the actual population of the Shu Han regime may be about three to four million.
Even if there are three or four million people.
The population that can really pay taxes to the court will be greatly reduced. This is why Zhuge Liang vigorously developed handicrafts such as Shu Brocade.
Because he needs money.
He needs a lot of money.
For a long time in the late Shu Han Dynasty, Shu brocade became the main source of military expenditures for the Northern Expedition launched by Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wei.
If you search for this information, you will find a lot of information about Liu Chan as a time traveler and Liu Chan as a fan of the Three Kingdoms.
Of course he knows where he is.
How difficult it is to stand out among the three kingdoms of Han, Wei and Wu, or to live in peace for a longer period of time.
After all, many people in later generations said.
Zhuge Liang is a great guy.
But he can't change his destiny.
The Shu Han must perish.
Of course, in the original history, Shu Han was indeed the first country to perish among the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu.
You know you can’t do something, but you still have to do it.
This is called ignorance of current affairs.
This sentence makes sense, Liu Chan also thinks it makes sense, and Zhuge Liang naturally understands it very well.
But can they just muddle along and wait for Wei to attack them, or surrender to Cao Wei in advance?
Impossible——
It is impossible for Zhuge Liang to do this.
Liu Chan doesn’t want to either.
He is aware of the historical process, and he also has a mind that is 1,800 years in the future.
If we don’t go through a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it be a waste to travel through this life?
Zhang Shao’s reminder.
Let Liu Chan have a sudden enlightenment.
He refined salt before, which quickly caused a sensation. Wu State even sent envoys to purchase the refining method.
Although the State of Wei did not send an envoy here.
But Liu Chan already knew it.
The Wei State had already begun to purchase large amounts of refined salt from Chengdu through various methods.
Maltose.
Although it is not needed by people every day like refined salt, once it is put on the market, it will definitely crush the market of candied fruit and cane juice.
The sugar industry also needs to be taken seriously.
After having this idea, Liu Chan went to Zhuge Liang again and brought him his newly made maltose.
After Zhuge Liang tasted it, he was overjoyed and later said that he would specially arrange officials to be responsible for making sugar.
Received Zhuge Liang’s approval.
Liu Chan immediately became busy.
There are too many crafts that he knows well in his mind and can be made in this era.
Within the next one year.
He first purified the liquor, that is, using a simple distillation method to purify the turbid rice wine of the Three Kingdoms into a high-quality liquor.
Then the papermaking technology was improved. Although the previous paper was invented by Cai Lun, its technology was naturally not as advanced as the improved technology in the 21st century.
Although Liu Chan could not make as exquisite paper as later generations, he could still mass-produce straw paper.
Later, he developed the preserved egg, also known as preserved egg, which became popular in the Three Kingdoms. He knew this skill since he was a child.
In his previous life, he was a child in the mountains. When he was a child, he often watched his elders make preserved eggs. The making method was not complicated.
Just use lime and plant ash, mix it into mud to wrap the chicken and duck eggs, and then find a jar to marinate for ten days and a half, and the fried preserved eggs are ready.
Plant ash can be seen everywhere.
Lime did not exist in this era, but Liu Chan was not a fool. He asked people to find some soft stones, burn them with fire, and finally grind them into powder. Although it was not as good as the lime of later generations, it was enough for pickling preserved eggs. After these three technologies were developed, Liu Chan continued as before. Every time he successfully developed one, he informed Zhuge Liang of the technology, and Zhuge Liang then arranged for officials to take charge.
Zhuge Liang was very excited.
He was particularly cautious about every new craft Liu Chan gave him.
Among them, liquor, paper, sugar, and salt were produced by the imperial court with dedicated officials. The imperial court opened workshops for production, and the craftsmanship was never allowed to flow into the private sector.
Zhuge Liang had people promote the processing of preserved eggs around Chengdu, but the manufacture of lime was still the responsibility of the imperial court.
If ordinary people want to make preserved eggs, they need to buy lime from the court.
Then the imperial court set up an office to recycle the preserved eggs produced before they were put into the market.
Because of the advent of preserved eggs, chicken and duck breeding quickly became popular in Shu. Almost every household would breed some chickens and ducks, and after laying eggs, they would make preserved eggs and sell them to the court.
The imperial court put the recovered preserved eggs into the market.
Soon the preserved eggs were sold as far away as Wei and Wu, bringing a lot of income to the Han Dynasty.
As for high-quality liquor, paper, and maltose, they are produced in workshops run by the imperial court, and the technology is also in the hands of the imperial court. The output is not as high as preserved eggs.
However, the influence is not small, especially paper and liquor, which are mainly circulated in the upper class society. This is Zhuge Liang's deliberate move.
He raised the prices of liquor and paper.
Although it is not as popular as preserved eggs, its influence is not low.
It has only been on the market for half a year.
Liquor and paper became luxuries of the upper class in the Han, Wei and Wu kingdoms.
June 20, 226 AD.
Cao Pi was seriously ill and ordered Chen Qun, the general of the Zhenjun army, Cao Zhen, the general of the Chinese army, Cao Xiu, the general of the eastern expedition, and Sima Yi, the general of the Fu army, to accept the imperial edict and jointly assist the heir, Cao Rui.
"Give me another cup of Shu wine!" Cao Pi glanced at Cao Rui in front of the bed and said with a smile.