Towards Chinese New Year's Eve, several heavy snowfalls were carried out one after another, completely enveloping the entire land in a thick layer of snow. It also makes this Qinghe City even more gloomy.

The freezing of the Yellow River and the freezing of the canal directly plunged this prosperous land and water wharf into a winter break. Although it was a winter break, some of them still found a new job for the wharf - unloading coal. On the Yellow River dam, horse-drawn sleighs loaded with coal are running on the dam, transporting coal from Xuzhou and other places to unloading coal outside Qinghe Chengwai, so that more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in Qinghe County can heat and cook in winter. In the biting cold wind, among the piles of coal piled up like a hill at the wharf outside the city, the coachman wielding a whip from time to time transports a cartload of coal into the coal station, or from then on.

"Old beard, Liuli Factory asked me to send 30,000 catties of coal, and I will send it over now......"

In the shouting in the coal station, the old beard answered.

"I know, I know, there are still tens of thousands of catties of coal in this glaze factory! It's all over the year, and I don't know how to send someone to settle the account! ”

As soon as his words fell, someone over there laughed.

"What's the matter, old beard, are you still worried that the old man will not be able to pay your host?"

As soon as the man's words fell, there was a burst of laughter, as if everyone had heard some kind of joke. As we all know, this glaze factory is different from the weapons factory and other factories, this is the factory under the name of the envoy, the craftsmen in the factory are craftsmen invited from Boshan, Shandong, although the glaze factory is just a new building, not known to outsiders, but because of the relationship with coal, the people in the coal station also know this glaze factory.

Although the distance from the coal station to the glaze factory is five or six miles, but the horse-drawn sleigh is only half an hour to transport thousands of catties of coal to the glaze factory, the carriage driver just entered the glaze factory, he saw a few soldiers wearing red tweed, just to see these soldiers, his heart is muttering.

"Isn't that the master of the scripture strategy here?"

It's really coming.

Even Zhu Mingzhong couldn't remember clearly, this was the first time he had come to the glass factory, in the factory, Zhu Mingzhong frowned, his face looked thoughtful, and looking at the pile of broken glass, his expression looked very solemn.

Flat glass and mirrors, this is the goal set by Zhu Mingzhong in winter. The reason why these two "light industrial products" were chosen is because of the profits stored in them, not to mention the flat glass applied to windows, even the profits of glass mirrors in this era are enough to make anyone crazy. At least in the next few years, mercury glass mirrors can bring tens of thousands of times more profits.

It is precisely because he knows the profits, Zhu Mingzhong will order people to invite the best glaze craftsmen from Boshan in Shandong, and the glaze production begins. Boshan's glazed glaze began to be produced in batches in the Tang Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty began to take shape and became increasingly prosperous. Of course, what Zhu Mingzhong wants is not glass, but glass.

In order to produce glass, Zhu Mingzhong ordered people to mine quartz sandstone in Xuzhou, and the silica sand crushed and processed by it was used as a raw material for glass. This is because the quality of natural silica sand is relatively poor, and quartz sandstone is generally used as raw material, while Xuzhou has rich quartz sandstone resources. As for the natural soda ash and miscanthus salt, which are necessary for the production of glass, they are all purchased from Henan, and Nanyang has been an important source of natural soda ash since ancient times.

The raw materials for the production of white glass are not complicated, and the production process is not a problem, only the traditional glass production needs to be improved to produce white glass, but it is not so simple to produce the flat glass in Zhu Mingzhong's heart.

There is snow floating outside the window, snowflakes fall on the half-open window, because the temperature of the room soon melts the snow, the glass window reflects the red of the room, compared to the cold outside, the temperature in the factory is because of the relationship between the kiln and the annealing furnace, as high as twenty or thirty degrees, although it is a cold winter, the craftsmen in the factory are still wearing single clothes, busy in front of the furnace.

In the workshop, a craftsman holds an iron flattening shovel around the stall platform, quickly flattening the glass that has just been removed from the flattening furnace, and in the busyness of the workers, the flat glass pieces are removed from the stall platform.

“…… The process of blowing tube spreading method is: the iron blow pipe is poked into the furnace, a small amount of liquid glass is dipped in, and after being taken out, while turning, the liquid glass is slowly expanded into a spherical shape by blowing air through the blow pipe, and then placed in the hemispherical iron groove to continue to rotate to make the spherical shape. There is a little cold water in the iron trough to cool down. At the same time, cool the other end of the blowpipe with water for easier handling. After the glass is slightly cooled, then the blow pipe is probed into the pool furnace, dipped twice, and repeated many times until the liquid glass becomes a ball with a diameter of about 20 cm, and then put it in a scoop-shaped iron trough, while continuing to cool the lower end of the blow pipe with water, while blowing air from the upper end, so that the spherical shape gradually expands and becomes a cavitation. During the blowing process, the blow pipe should be rotated from time to time to make the spherical cavitation thickness uniform. If the temperature of the glass is lowered, the blow barrel is heated deep into the oven to soften the glass bubbles. At this time, the blow pipe is suspended in the air and hung in the deep trough, and the air is blown from the upper end, and the glass bubble slowly falls into the trough under the influence of gravity, forming a cylinder.

At this time, the thickness of the glass cylinder is uneven, generally thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. However, the glass cylinder has been cooled and solidified, and can no longer be blown, so it is heated in the oven again, and taken out after melting and softening, and swings and rotates in the deep groove, and blows at the same time to make the thickness of the cylinder wall uniform. If it is cooled again, it will be re-entered into the oven, and so on, and finally blown into a glass cylinder with a length of more than two meters and a uniform thickness. After the glass cylinder is blown, it is stimulated by cold and heat to produce dark lines, and then it is lightly struck while turning, and the bottom is removed from the blowing cylinder; Then use the same method to cut into several sections, each section is longitudinally dissected, and finally into the spreading furnace to spread the cylinder into a flat glass ......"

Zhu Mingzhong, who has been silently observing the glass production process after witnessing how these craftsmen invited from Boshan blow the glass into shapes and then spread the glass into pieces, has repeatedly connected the glass production process he has seen with the process in front of him in his mind.

Although in the case of the "blowpipe spreading method", the description itself is easy to implement. However, when Zhu Mingzhong built this factory to practice this process, he found that this description greatly weakened the requirements for skills in manufacturing, and it was only a few hundred words, which could not fully explain the key to flat glass manufacturing.

Just like now, although most of the craftsmen in the glass factory are craftsmen invited from Boshan with high salaries, they are no strangers to blowing glass, and the blowing process seems to be smooth, and they have successfully manufactured pieces of flat glass, but Zhu Mingzhong knows that there are few qualified pieces of these glasses.

Even the first dozens of tests failed without any suspense, either the large cylinder could not be made at all, or the glass produced was also unevenly thick, and even when spread out, it would sometimes shatter.

"It's really not good, just go directly to the plate pouring method!"

Looking helplessly at the extra baskets of broken glass on the ground, as well as pieces of uneven thickness and clumps of glass on the mirror, Zhu Mingzhong thought to himself.

The flat pouring method, invented by the French, began to be mass-produced in France at the end of the 17th century, and by the middle of the 18th century, the annual output of flat glass in France had exceeded 1,000 tons, most of which were used for window glass and carriage window glass.

The advantage of the pouring method compared to the manual blowpipe spreading method is that it can produce a larger glass size, at least two or three times that of the blowing method. And the technical requirements for workers are also much lower. The disadvantage is that the investment in fixed assets is very large, if the former spreading method is still in the handicraft workshop manufacturing stage, then the pouring method is similar to modern industrial production.

"But in this way, there will be a problem with the market capacity at that time, can you accept so much flat glass at once?"

And the surface of the flat glass produced by the pouring method is relatively rough, and it also needs to be grinded, which is completely different from the smooth and clean surface of the blowpipe spreading method without grinding, which is also the key reason why the blowpipe spreading method has been occupying the mainstream of the market, and even until the 20th century, the flat glass produced by the introduction of German technology and equipment in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty is also produced by the blowpipe spreading method, but the manual blowpipe has become a machine blowpipe, although the pouring method is more suitable for the production of thick glass, but it was replaced by other processes in the early 20th century.

"It's really not good, you can test the pouring method first......"

When he was wondering in his heart, Zhu Mingzhong heard the joyful shouts of craftsmen from there.

"It's done, it's done, sir, you see, this glass, there is not a single lump on this glass, and the thickness is exactly the same......"

Seeing the old man coming over, Hou Mingde, who was sweating, pointed to a piece of glass, showing off a little proudly, he who has been blowing glass for generations, can be said to be the best glass maker in the factory, but even so, when blowing this kind of big glass bubble, he still encountered many problems, after all, he has never blown such a large glass bubble in the past.

However, he is good at pondering, and in the continuous failures in the past, he constantly summed up his experience, blowing long glass bubbles from small to large, and slowly mastered the skills.

"I'll see!"

Standing in front of this half-human-high glass, Zhu Mingzhong carefully observed the surface of the glass, the transparent and bright glass was no different from the flat glass of later generations, and when he looked back through the glass, there was no deformation at all.

That's right, that's the kind of glass!

This is exactly the glass that Zhu Mingzhong needs, maybe this flat glass is not big, but Zhu Mingzhong knows very well that with such glass, what kind of changes will it bring to life, at least the house can become brighter, and it will also bring another profiteering product.