In December of the 26th year of the reign of King Qin, Anlu County, located in the south, was also very cold, but a workshop located a few miles away from the county seat was still smoking smoke.

As soon as Heifu, dressed in a thick fur coat, stepped inside, he felt a wave of heat hit him: everyone inside was working in summer clothes, still sweating hot, and the air was filled with a sweet scent of cane.

"Zuo Shu is here!"

A voice that sounded sweeter than cane sugar sounded, but it was Heifu's distant cousin "Hiko".

He was originally a vendor making caramel for a living in Yunmengxiang, but now he has become the owner of this brown sugar workshop with the help of Heifu's investment.

Dozens of his subordinates also saw Heifu at this time, and they all threw down their work, hurriedly bowed to the ground, and bowed to Heifu.

"Hurry up, it's important to watch the heat!"

Heifu was very helpless, he arrived in Jiangling in November, sent Li You south to Changsha in the middle of the month, and sent Ye Teng's family north to Xianyang at the end of the month - although Heifu, who had been single for a long time, coveted the Ye family girl, but it was not good to go with him, and he received an edict from the King of Qin to let him arrive before mid-spring in February, and there was still time to go home.

When he returned to his hometown this time, he could be regarded as feeling the treatment of some provincial and national-level leaders from small counties in later generations returning to their hometowns. The Anlu County Commander Yonghe, who worked with Heifu, had been transferred, and the new county commanders, county officials, and county lieutenants ignored their image as national cadres, and actually went out of the city gate to greet him......

Heifu finally got rid of them, and returned to the newly moved home two years ago with his brother, followed by the village officials and elders who almost broke the threshold.

The only people he took the initiative to invite to his house were the families of Dongmen Leopard, Lixian, Xiaotao, and Ji Ying. Heifu pleaded guilty to them, saying that he had caused everyone to not be able to return to their hometowns, but he would definitely try his best to find a way to give his subordinates the opportunity to return to their hometowns to visit relatives, or let their families go to Nanchang and other places as soon as possible.

Heifu also personally went to each township, asked the three elders of the township to help him gather the families of the soldiers of the Southern Expedition, feasted them, and told them one thing.

"The king's order is hard to disobey, I have to go to Xianyang to wait for the call. But An Lu has five hundred children, and Heifu will never leave them alone! I bought two big ships in Jiangling, which can carry hundreds of people, and go back and forth to Xiakou, Xunyang, and Pengze once a month. ”

As soon as these words came out, An Luren, who originally had a little complaint about Heifu, was shocked and moved to tears. Some elderly fathers scolded Heifu at home for abducting their children and never returned, but they held his hand tightly and were excited.

"Although the county lieutenant has become the head of the left, he still does not forget the children of the county, and regards us as the township party......

After getting the understanding of the soldiers' families, Heifu felt that he had so much money and it was worth it!

The reward of the King of Qin, the plundering of the treasury of the Chu State and the Jun of E, Fanyang, plus the "fire consumption" of the gold mine mined by gold, Heifu now has a net worth of 100,000 yuan, which is worth more than 1 million!

But those two big ships alone cost Heifu one-third of his property and handed them over to the two Jiangling boatmen introduced to him by Zhao Tuo as the bows......

Of course, these two ships not only carried people, but also transported seeds, farm tools, cloth, grain and other materials in Nanjun and Yuzhang by the way. Hugh said that these are all legitimate goods, even if Heifu wants to bring some contraband, Zhao Tuo, who is in charge of Peng Lize's defense and checkpoints, is Heifu's brother, and he will wave his hand to let him go.

In addition to the two large ships, Heifu took out a third of the gold and opened this brown sugar workshop near the county seat of Anlu.

In addition to the wild sugarcane that he found in Yunmengze and planted for three or four years and was slightly improved, there were also varieties found by Heifu during his tenure in Jiangling, from the old palace of King Chu in Jiangling. After all, it is the sugar cane that is squeezed for the king of Chu to drink, which is much sweeter than the wild cane.

In this way, the brown sugar workshop has the possibility to operate.

Outside the workshop, more than a dozen cows or bad horses pull the wooden mill to squeeze out the sugar juice in the sugarcane, and then pick it into the workshop by the young people.

In the workshop, more than a dozen stoves and kettles are lined up, and during the time of boiling sugar, the whole pot stove is non-stop, and it has been burning. The firemaster continuously adds firewood to the stove to ensure that the fire is stable during the sugar boiling process.

Several sugar boiling masters, trained by Heifu's cousin Hiko, first steamed and filtered the freshly squeezed cane juice to remove impurities and dregs from the cane juice, and then poured them into the kettle, constantly stirring up and down.

Under the boiling of the fire, the water in the cane juice is evaporated, and the sugar juice slowly condenses, turning amber, floating and undulating in the cauldron and giving off a sweet taste. Finally, the master extinguished the fire at the bottom of the kettle, and then scooped the steaming brown sugar juice into the wooden trough and flowed into the "sugar tray" to precipitate and cool, forming a brown sugar cube......

Tasting the freshly baked brown sugar, Heifu nodded with satisfaction, and asked about the sugar rate, and Hiko told him: "I just boiled out fifty catties of brown sugar sugar after a thousand catties of sugar cane." ”

Three years ago, when they first made sugar, the sugar yield was about 2%, and it took 20 catties of brown sugar to boil out thousands of kilograms of sugarcane.

Now, after using the new varieties from Gangneung, the sugar yield has reached 5%, although it is still far from the 10 or 20 percent that was common in later generations, but it has been a great improvement.

At present, a total of more than 2 million catties of sugarcane have been harvested, which can be boiled out of 10,000 catties of brown sugar......

Hiko nervously asks for the price that Heifu expected, and Heifu gives him three different prices.

"Anlu can sell it for 100 yuan, and the villagers don't want to make money. Gangneung needs to sell for 150 dollars to earn a cost and freight. If it is sold to Xianyang, Kanto ......"

Heifu was ruthless and shouted a price: "Depending on the distance, two hundred to four hundred dollars!" Can't be missing! If it is sold to Qi and Yan, it will cost 500 yuan! ”

Yan almost bit his tongue, he secretly calculated the account, counting the cost of planting sugarcane and boiling sugar, it was only fifty yuan per catty, and Heifu was too ruthless.

However, in Hef's view, even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sugar was a luxury, not a necessity, so the American plantations were so profitable, so why was it more expensive to set their own prices? In the future, if you want to be able to make sugar, the price will have to double!

Moreover, the common caramel in these years is not cheap, mainly because they come from grain, the output is small, and the government does not advocate it, and the Chinese family can't eat it several times a year.

Brown sugar is different, sugarcane is good to grow, or sugar is boiled in the slack season, and some are manpowered. This is still the first year, and every year after that, Heifu plans to expand production, so that when people all over the world mention Anlu, they think of brown sugar, and their mouths are full of sweetness!

Not the birthplace of public toilets, and the smell of non-existent ......

He has made up his mind: "I will leave for Xianyang in the middle of the month, you have to boil out at least 2,000 catties before this, go north with me, and find a way to sell brown sugar in Xianyang!" ”

In the Qin State, every workshop, market, and stall, whether rented or bought, had to have a clear owner, so that it was convenient to collect taxes and avoid inheritance disputes.

For example, Heifu's subordinate Man told him one thing, there was a vacant land in Jiangling Guanfu City, and some people once pulled him into the tenant as a coffin shop, but Man refused, and later because someone secretly bribed the operation of the defendant, there was also a "Rui theft and sale of public land case" to ......

At the same time, government officials are not allowed to do business openly, so this property, Heifu is named in his mother's name.

Although in the view of Confucianism: the child wife has no selfish goods, no selfish animals, no selfish tools, dare not be private, dare not be private. But in the Qin state, women undoubtedly had property rights.

For example, according to the "inheritance law" of the Qin State, if Heifu unfortunately dies, his property must first be passed on to Zinan, that is, his son. Of course, he is still a bachelor now, and he doesn't have a wife, where did he come from? So next, it is the turn of "making the father like the mother", if the parents are dead, it is the turn of the widow, daughter, and grandson, and the brothers are ranked behind.

Again...... Could it be that Daqin only allows the widow to clear the mines, and does not allow the old woman of Anlu to boil sugar?

Heifu's mother only cared about the turnips, winter sunlows, and onions in the field, and when she was eating, she was shocked to hear that Heifu had listed an industry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in his name. I just felt that I couldn't sleep well at night, and said that Heifu might as well take the money to Xianyang.

"Or give more surprise, he is in Jiangnan, I feel pitiful when I think about it." The mother felt sorry for her little son and was about to wipe her tears again.

Heifu hurriedly comforted her and said: "I went to Xianyang, and it did cost a lot, and it was far from enough to rely on the harvest in the fields and Yulu, so I had to buy some industries in Nanjun and Yuzhang. ”

"Are you going to grow sugarcane and extract sugar in Yuzhang as well?" Heartfelt reaction.

"Yes, yes."

Heifu said to his brother: "The climate in Yuzhang is hotter than that in Nanjun, and it is also suitable for growing sugarcane. I have 49 hectares of land in Nanchang, and I leave a few hectares to grow the grain that is taxed, and the rest is all sugarcane. Tomorrow autumn and winter, a brown sugar workshop will also be opened in Nanchang, which will be sold exclusively to Huainan and Huiji. Excluding costs, freight, and hiring fees, the two workshops add up to make millions of dollars a year, which should not be a problem! ”

"Millions of dollars!"

Zhen and his mother were a little frightened, and her mother chattered that she couldn't take anything away when someone died, and she would make so much money, and at the same time reminded Heifu: "You are now the head of Zuo, and there has never been such a high-ranking person in the county, and no one dares to marry you, but you are not young anymore, and you are already married to the lady of the Yan family, so it's time for you to marry a wife?" ”

The more the mother talked, the more angry she became, and finally pointed to the eleven-year-old Yang and said, "Is it delayed later than Yang?" ”

The older young man Heifu smiled: "My marriage, my mother can rest assured, Heifu has fallen in love with a lady......"

"Is that true?"

As soon as this remark came out, the whole family was shocked, and the mother was so happy that she was about to cry, she always thought that her son's vision was too high, and he didn't like this or that. He and his sister-in-law glanced at each other, and they were relieved. Niece Yue's eyes widened, wondering who the lucky woman could be taken by Uncle Zhong.

Wei Duyang raised his head and said in surprise: "I thought that Uncle Zhong would always be single, not for the sake of not being a marquis, and not getting married!" Heifu's ambition was also mentioned to his family.

"You've been single!"

Heifu stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth, and while the family asked, he pretended to regret and said: "It's just that she just went to Xianyang with her family, so I can only wait until I get to Xianyang, and then think about courting relatives and other things......"

This rhetoric finally suppressed a new round of forced marriage in the family.

The military career has come to an end, and the marriage event is indeed on the agenda, although Heifu has managed his lower body sensibly in recent years, but it is not a matter to continue to be alone like this, relying only on his left and right hands.

Instead of marrying a woman who has never met and doesn't know her appearance and temperament, like many people in this era, it is better to start with a good cabbage that has some good feelings and has grown!

In these years, it is rare for a noble woman to be polite to a black guy from Qiantou, and even say things like "Be proud of your meritorious deeds, and don't be ashamed of your family......

Moreover, if this can be done, it will also be profitable for Heifu. Although Ye Teng has a bad reputation in South Korea, he has been operating in Gangneung for seven years, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is "a protégé and a former official all over Nanjun". And now, those subordinates promoted by Ye Teng have scattered to Jiujiang, Changsha, Dongting and other counties.

Thinking of this, Heifu set a small goal for his trip to Xianyang, which will leave tomorrow.

"A husband should be 2,000 stones, and a wife should marry Ye Zijin!"