Huo Guang prepared scrunchao (straw crushed in a mortar) and zhupi (green sandalwood bark crushed in a mortar) and waited for Qiuxiang to come back.
"Mr. Huo, are your next steps different from my father's?"
"According to your description, it is different."
"How to do it?" Zhang Lu's curiosity prompted Zhang Lu to blurt out this question.
Huo Guang wanted to answer his questions, but with a flash of inspiration, he took back the words he was about to blurt out and said instead: "This is my secret recipe, I can't tell you so easily."
He originally planned to make it in this yard, but when Qiu Xiang came back with a laborer pulling half a cart of star fruit wood, Huo Guang decisively chose to take the crushed materials back to his house.
Before leaving, Huo Guang said to Zhang Lu: "I still want all the materials in your courtyard. Come and get them later. I will go home to make paper later."
Zhang Lu looked at Huo Guang's back with a lonely expression. Huo Guang seemed very confident that he could make paper. However, Zhang Lu had been making paper for so long and knew the difficulties. He returned to the yard alone and looked at the materials all over the yard.
Somewhat dejected.
Huo Guang left at this time, firstly out of confidentiality, and secondly because he wanted to see what Zhang Lu was thinking. This was a craftsman who was familiar with the papermaking process. Although they did not make good enough paper, he learned the early process.
Over the past few decades, he has become familiar with it, and he also has his own persistence in papermaking. I believe he would not give up if his family circumstances had not forced him to do so.
After the papermaking technology was verified to be usable, Huo Guang needed someone to help him manage the papermaking, just like the salt industry. He couldn't just make salt in the back by himself.
Compared with salt making, paper making is a little different. Salt is a necessity, and paper is an improvement. Without paper, the world will still go on the same way, but with paper, it can become better. Scholars, learn from the scholars.
I believe that students of Taoism will very much welcome this kind of paper that is easy to carry and can write clearly. It can perfectly replace the bamboo tablets carried by scholars today, and it can also replace bamboo slips.
Once the royal documents were delivered, a bag of bamboo slips had to be carried by several people. It would be much easier if paper was used.
There is no limit to the money you can make from paper. It can go as high as a temple, or it can relieve Huo Guang's pain in the toilet.
Huo Guang took all the materials back, and Huo Zhongru stopped scolding him this time. Experience told him that Huo Guang could always discover strange things from the subtleties, which is also one of the most desired talents of a stylist.
"What is this?"
"Shattered straw."
"What is this?"
"Shattered green sandalwood bark."
"What is this?"
"Starwood."
Huo Zhongru couldn't figure out the reason for a bunch of unrelated things, but he said patiently: "What do you want to do? Add it to the steel war horse? Although my father doesn't understand the steel war horse, I think it should be added.
It must be a bit stupid."
"Father, this is made of paper."
"Paper? What's it for?"
"I'll explain it to my father after we finish it later."
"Okay, then I'll go to the Shaofuyuan first."
"Father, have you just woken up?" Huo Guang looked at it as it was approaching noon. The young master in this county must have been too leisurely.
Huo Zhongru smiled awkwardly: "I took a nap, ha...haha." He smiled and walked out.
It was not easy for local officials in ancient times to be lazy for a while.
Huo Guang turned his attention back to his materials and told Qiuxiang: "Find the largest basin in our house."
Four people from Xiangjia brought out Huo Zhongru's bathtub. The tub was big enough for two people to take a bath together. Widow Wang looked a little embarrassed, but she did not dare to have any objections to what Huo Guang did.
Huo Guang began to have people pound the star fruit wood. Of course, it was not necessary to crush it completely like straw and green sandalwood bark, but just beat it a little.
The sap of star fruit wood is sticky and can be used as an adhesive. This was the most missing step when Zhang Lu and others made paper. They had obviously completed such tedious steps, but they lacked this simple adhesive.
Things like these need little by little improvements from future generations until someone comes along who thinks of this key point.
The sticky carambola vine juice was drained out, and then Huo Guang took out a bamboo woven flat plate that he took from Zhang Lu's house and resembled a small mat.
He poured the scrawled skin and scrawled grass into a wooden bucket filled with water, and then poured in the carambola vine juice. Huo Guang didn't know the correct ratio, so in order to ensure there was no waste, he divided all the materials into three parts and mixed them several times.
try.
After the materials were poured in, Huo Guang found a wooden stick and kept stirring the solution until the scribbles and scribbles in the solution floated slowly in the water like catkins, and it felt almost ready.
Huo Guang carefully put the small mat into the water and began to scoop out the paper pulp like the craftsmen in the video tutorials he had seen before.
Although it looked like a simple process in the video, Huo Guang felt it was extremely difficult. He was a hard worker and always didn't do things evenly, but he managed to endure it and spent an hour and a half, even taking care of food.
Instead of eating, Huo Guang made ten preliminary pieces of paper, pasted them on smooth wooden boards, and left them to dry in the sun.
But he was so tired that he fell asleep while lying on the rocking chair.
When he woke up again, the sun had already set most of the way to the west, and Zhang Lu was standing in the yard, looking attentively at the ten pieces of paper Huo Guang had made.
There should have been a process of squeezing and dehydration, but Huo Guang's own skills were limited and he thought it would be better to just dry it in the sun.
The paper has taken shape under the hot sun. Although it is made of fine materials, it is still different from the rice paper in Huo Guang's mind. The production technique is too rough.
"When did Shopkeeper Zhang come?" Huo Guang rubbed his sleepy eyes. He could easily get confused after taking too long a nap at noon.
Zhang Lu, who was addicted to carefully observing the papers, came back to his senses and said: "Master Huo, I thought you might need some more materials, so I came to deliver them to you."
Huo Guang smiled slightly. Why did he deliver materials to his door? In the final analysis, he was just curious about how he made paper. He wanted to come and have a look. Unfortunately, he hesitated for too long. If he had come earlier, he could have seen the process.
I walked to the template and tore off a piece of paper. Because of my carelessness, I almost tore half of it into pieces and it still stuck to the board.
The crisp sound of the paper breaking made Zhang Lu even feel a little heartbroken. In his eyes, the pure white paper, which was like a work of art, fell so casually in Huo Guang's hands, but the crisp sound made him more certain that this paper should be
The perfect paper that my father once dreamed of.
Of course he can come in because Huo Guang told him before going to bed that if Zhang Lu comes, let him come in.
When Huo Guang was sleeping, he looked at it countless times and carefully, not even daring to reach out and touch it for fear of destroying the paper. He suppressed the ecstasy in his heart. He originally thought that making paper was the old man's wishful thinking, but now he saw this
After reading the paper, he realized that it was not only the old man who was fantasizing, but also himself. And he was even more lucky, he saw it.
He was extremely sure that this was the paper he was after, and regretted that he had not seen the production process.
Huo Guang ignored him and walked away with the paper.
Zhang Lu looked at Huo Guang's hurried away figure and suddenly fell to his knees with a plop and shouted to Huo Guang: "Master Huo, please teach me the art of papermaking."