Because the amount of advanced paper sold overseas by Datang is not very sufficient, so, at the moment, Egyptian papyrus is still very popular, of course, this is used by the poor and not very wealthy people in general, the paper used by the high-level is already Datang's paper, and even the nobles' wives and ladies can use Datang's Hushu Bao, but the price is much higher than Datang, after all, Yang Zhao has not opened the factory overseas, these products are all transported by merchants from the capital of Datang, after counting the transportation costs and profits, Naturally, the price is much higher.

After all, many technical talents need to use it when drawing with Li An, and they also need paper to write reports to the imperial court, so naturally they can't sell paper, after all, the purpose of Li An's trip is to open up the maritime Silk Road and seek benefits for the Tang Dynasty, not to sell goods, Li An's fleet is a pioneering team of the Tang Dynasty, not a caravan used to make money.

The limitations of papyrus were great, so in many cases, the Egyptian hierarchy preferred to use parchment and vellum instead of papyrus.

Compared to papyrus, parchment and kraft paper are more durable, less susceptible to destruction in a humid environment, and much more advanced than papyrus.

However, the interesting thing is that parchment is made of parchment and cowhide, and kraft has nothing to do with cowhide, which is very interesting.

The so-called parchment paper is made of sheepskin, sometimes calfskin, and the method of making it is not very difficult, that is, the sheepskin is soaked in lime water, the wool is removed, and then scraped thin on both sides, dried in stretching, and sanded, so that it becomes a thin writing material like paper.

Parchment paper has a tight structure, strong oil resistance, water discharge, high wet strength, non-breathability, good elasticity, and high strength folding resistance, which can be used as a book wrapping cover, and can also be used as a cover night for books, which can make books not so easy to break.

Of course, the parchment paper of later generations has not used parchment and calfskin, after all, technology is advancing a little bit, and the use of plant materials can maximize the cost, if the use of parchment, the cost is too high.

As for kraft paper, it is made entirely from the wood fibers of conifers, and it is only because this paper is very strong, like cowhide, that it is so named.

In the field of application, kraft paper is very wide, such as envelope bags, asphalt paper, cable protection paper, insulating paper, cement bag paper, etc., all of which are made of kraft paper.

However, there is also a legend that kraft paper was originally made of kraft paper, otherwise, why is it called kraft paper?

Of course, these are no longer important, anyway, in later generations, whether it is kraft paper or parchment, it is made of plant fibers, and it is impossible to make paper from cow and sheepskin, because the cost is too high to consume.

Historically, whether it is papyrus, kraft paper, or parchment, it is far inferior to Chinese paper, which is also the material guarantee for the brilliant development of Chinese civilization!

After all, if there is no paper, the development of culture will be greatly limited, and it will not be able to meet the needs of most people to learn culture, because learning culture must have paper to spread, and only a large amount of paper can print a sufficient number of literary works, so as to promote the further prosperity of culture.

Before the advent of paper, the writing materials used by the Chinese civilization were mainly bamboo slips, and a small amount of cloth materials, the bamboo slips were very heavy, and it was extremely troublesome to use, and the cost of cloth was very high, and it was not suitable for large-scale popularization, so this greatly limited the development of the Chinese civilization.

After the emergence of paper, this situation has been greatly alleviated, the most important thing is that paper is not only more convenient and easy to use than bamboo slips, but also cheaper, which is the premise that paper can be popularized on a large scale, otherwise, if the price of paper is very expensive or not easy to use, then it will definitely not be popularized.

Paper carries civilization and is an important tool for the development of human civilization, even if there are more advanced e-books in later generations, the value of paper still cannot be replaced.

Li An is still very familiar with papermaking, there are many papermaking workshops in Chang'an City of the Tang Dynasty, these Li Ang have personally visited, of course, he is very familiar, but for Egyptian papyrus, Li Ang does not know much, and does not know much about how these papers are made, and generally only knows a general process.

"Xiaolu, do you want to see how these papyrus turned into papyrus?"

Ang Lee asked.

Li Xiaolu hurriedly smiled and nodded: "Of course I think about it, I'm afraid that others may not show it to us!" ”

Obviously, any kind of technology is confidential and cannot be casually known to outsiders, otherwise, if this confidential technology is known to the whole world, a large number of people will soon imitate it, and in this way, the people who originally mastered this technology will lose huge benefits.

However, Ang Lee is not worried about this, because he has a way to convince the person who has this technology, after all, Ang Lee's identity and ability are extremely strong, and no one dares to suspect that Ang Lee wants to steal the secret of papyrus, after all, Ang Lee has mastered too many secret technologies, and these techniques, some of which are far more valuable than papyrus.

"Not necessarily for us, haha! As long as I come forward, who else dares to say a word, I have heard that the Osman command controls a papyrus workshop, not far from here, so we will go now and see who dares to disagree. ”

Li An said very domineeringly.

Li Xiaolu smiled slightly at the corner of her mouth, cast a look of envy and adoration at Li An, and nodded her head to express her willingness to accompany.

Soon, Li An took Li Xiaolu and drove to a papyrus workshop under the control of the Ottomans, because Li An was active in Egypt, so in addition to the Tang soldiers and horses guarding the way, there were also many Ottoman troops, as well as guides and officials who could speak the Tang language.

When Ang Lee made this request, the officials under Ottoman naturally reflexively objected, because the production of papyrus was a very important industry under Ottoman's command, and if the secret was leaked, it would cause huge losses to Ottoman, and this was a responsibility that his subordinates could not afford.

When Li An heard this, he looked at this Ottoman subordinate very unhappily, and reprimanded: "Isn't it papyrus, it is a very important industry in your eyes, but in the eyes of our Datang, it is a pile of garbage, a pile of useless garbage, and it won't be long before no one buys papyrus, because we Datang have better and cheaper paper." ”

As he spoke, Li An took out a piece of paper from his body, put it in front of the eyes of his Ottoman subordinates, and said sharply: "This is the paper invented by our Datang, in Chang'an City, such a thick dozen is only a silver coin, much cheaper than your papyrus, and it is also better than your papyrus, do you think I will covet your papyrus technology, I just want to see it, in addition, how this papyrus is made, I also know, isn't it just using the tuber of sand grass, and then ......"

After Ang Lee finished speaking, Osman's subordinates looked at Ang Lee in surprise, he never expected that Ang Lee was so familiar with the process of making papyrus, although what he said was rough, but what he said was basically correct, which surprised him too much.

In addition to being surprised, he also had to agree, so as not to upset Li An, besides, he also knew that the performance of papyrus was far inferior to Datang paper, and it was a matter of time before it was eliminated, and Li An was such a noble person, Datang also had countless advanced technologies, and there was really no need to learn the technology of papyrus, which was simply a thankless thing, and a fool would do it.

Li An's scolding let Ottoman's subordinates obediently lead the way, which made Li An's heart very happy, and Li Xiaolu next to him was also very happy, feeling that it was so interesting to be with Li An.

The papyrus workshop was chosen to be located close to the sea because of the ease of transportation, and after the paper was made, it could be transported by ship to various small countries along the Mediterranean coast, thus earning a fortune and providing sufficient financial resources for the Ottomans.

Li An and his party of several hundred people soon arrived at the papyrus manufacturing workshop, under the leadership of the Ottoman subordinates, Li An went in very smoothly, because it was a production workshop, so it was relatively dirty and messy, and in order not to interfere with the work of the craftsmen inside, Li An only brought ten guards into the workshop, and the rest of the guards all stayed outside the workshop, and surrounded the workshop, not even a fly wanted to fly in.

Ottoman's men led the way in front, and constantly told the craftsmen to be careful not to get dirty things on Lian's body, otherwise, they would be good-looking.

Li An took Li Xiaolu's hand and walked inside, looking at the craftsmen who were working from time to time, and looking at the half-finished papyrus.

"Li Shilang, it's so dirty in here! There is also a strange smell. ”

After Li Xiaolu entered the workshop, he suddenly found that he was in the wrong place, he didn't seem to like it here, yes, he didn't like it at all, this is also very normal, no woman in the world wants to go to the workshop, even in the later generations, girls are very disgusted with the workshop, just look at it and don't want to enter the workshop, because the environment of the workshop is always the worst, and the treatment is also the worst, and there is no worse job in the world than the workshop.

It was only to accompany Ang Li that she came to the workshop to have a look, but fortunately she just had to take a look, if she was asked to do this all year round, she would definitely not be able to stand it.

"It seems that the manufacture of papyrus is really troublesome, it is too troublesome, Xiaolu, let's start from scratch, step by step, I'll tell you, okay."

Li An said.

Li Xiaolu nodded and said, "Okay, it's all up to Li Shilang." ”

According to the steps of making papyrus, Ang Lee first came to the process of peeling, which is the first process of making papyrus, and it is also the simplest process, ordinary people only need to look at it to learn, that is, to peel off a layer of hard skin on the outside of papyrus, which can be said to be very simple, but it is more tiring.

The peeled papyrus inner stem will be transported by the workers to the adjacent courtyard, where there will be special workers responsible for slicing the round papyrus inner stem, of course, not horizontally into small round slices, but vertically cut into rectangular slices, which look very much like the linguine of later generations, of course, much thinner and wider than the linguine.

Li Ang carefully explained these two steps, until Li Xiaolu fully understood before stopping, although it was just a meeting in Pingshui, but Li Ang sometimes has this urge to be a teacher, this feeling is quite good.

Most of the workers in the papyrus workshop are men, and a few are women, but the men's work and the tiring work are done by men, and women are mainly responsible for auxiliary work, such as where care is required, women need to do it.

In the first two processes, Li An took a look, most of them were men working, and because Li Xiaolu was beautiful and had a faint fragrance on her body, when Li Xiaolu appeared, all the craftsmen who were working were distracted, not only the men were distracted, but even the women were also distracted.

Ottoman's subordinates felt that these craftsmen were too rude, and scolded them with their eyes from time to time, letting these craftsmen work hard, but the temptation of beauties was too great, and these craftsmen who worked always couldn't control themselves, and always secretly plagiarized Li Xiaolu, even if they were reprimanded, they didn't change in the slightest.

Because of the distraction during work, several craftsmen cut their hands and bleed, but he himself didn't feel the pain at all, and still peeked at Li Xiaolu from time to time.

"These dirt buns, I'm afraid I've never seen such a beautiful beauty as Xiaolu in my life, and I'm stupid to look at them, haha!"

Li An smiled and joked, he didn't mean to be angry at all, although the eyes of these craftsmen were a little impolite, but Li Xiaolu was not Li An's wife and concubine, just a plaything, making others envy their playthings, they could see it but couldn't eat it, this feeling was not very good, very happy.

After slicing the inner stems of the papyrus, the artisan places the small flakes into a pool of water, where they need to soak for a week before moving on to the next step.

Of course, the manufacturing process in the workshop is continuous, and now the processed ones are just being soaked, but the flakes that were soaked a week ago have already been fished up and the next step begins.

"Do you know why these little flakes are soaked in water for so many days?"

Li An looked at Li Xiaolu and asked.

"Why!"

Li Xiaolu asked.

"It's to get rid of the sugar inside."

Ang Lee replied.

"Why, there's sugar in this grass, is it sweet?"

Li Xiaolu asked curiously.