In Cai Huaishui's float glass factory, the flames of burning large amounts of firewood are whirring. The temperature in the factory www.biquge.info pen & fun > pavilion is very high, even in the middle of September of the lunar calendar, when the autumn wind is gradually rising, Li Zhi is sweating profusely by the heat wave in the glass cellar.

Li Zhi has only been standing for a few minutes and sweating so much, how hard is it to work in the factory all year round? Li Zhi secretly said that he wanted to increase the wages of the workers of the glass factory in the future. At present, the monthly income is three taels and seven dollars a month, and Li Zhi thinks that it can be increased to at least four or five dollars a month.

Of course, the most important thing to do things for Li Zhi is not the monthly money. This time, the distribution of Liaodong Grange made the people understand that the reward of Grandpa Guo is a big deal! Which of those old workers who have followed Li Zhi for many years doesn't have hundreds of acres of fertile land in Liaodong? These granges can harvest more than 100 taels of rent a year, far exceeding the wages of the work.

Now Tianjin is looking forward to Li Zhi, the prince of Tianjin, to expand his territory again, and if he takes another place like Liaodong, it will inevitably be another reward for meritorious deeds.

Of course, although the monthly money is not as good as the income of the rewarded grange, the amount of the monthly money is an important indicator of the contribution of the workers and soldiers to the public service of Tianjin. The higher the monthly money, the higher the contribution value, and the larger the grange will be divided at that time. Therefore, although the main income of many workers is not monthly money, they still work hard in the factory to exert their enthusiasm and want to increase their monthly income.

After the defeat of Liaodong this time, the reward system for meritorious deeds made the employees and soldiers under Li Zhi's command full of enthusiasm. According to the words of Tianjin Daily, it is "everyone works hard, everyone strives to be the first, and they all want to make their own achievements in their respective positions."

Li Zhi gave the workers of the future glass factory four taels or five dollars a month, believing that the workers would squeeze their heads in and endure the heat.

Of course, Li Zhi did not come to the glass factory today to set wages for the workers, Li Zhi came to see Cai Huaishui using the float method to make flat glass.

In the past, Li Zhi has not developed flat glass because of the shortage of soda ash raw materials.

Soda ash is the main material for firing glass. Now the largest soda ash mine in Daming is in Xiangyang. This large mine does not mean that Xiangyang has large reserves, but that the mining volume is large. The population in Xiangyang is dense, and the soda ash mining has a long history, so the mining volume is second to none in Daming, and it is the main source of soda ash before Li Zhi.

However, Xiangyang's mineral reserves are limited, and with the continuous expansion of Li Zhi's soap factory and glass factory, Xiangyang's soda ash has been in short supply.

Moreover, the thief Li Dingguo made a lot of trouble in Huguang, and it became more and more difficult for Xiangyang's mines to be transported to Tianjin, and the freight was rising steadily.

However, with the expansion of Li Zhi's power, Li Zhi has been able to take the initiative to dig minerals in various places, so new sources of raw materials have emerged.

After copying and beheading the Shanxi Jin merchants at the beginning of last year, only the Datong Wang family was left among the eight Jin merchants. Wang Pu had the heart to defect to Li Zhi, and often came to Tianjin to get close to Li Zhitao, so the Datong Wang family was ready to listen to Li Zhi's dispatch at any time. After the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Mongolian tribes were very in awe of the Ming Dynasty, and with the help of the Datong royal family, the trade routes from Shanxi to Mongolia became very smooth.

After Shanxi's trade routes were smoothed, Li Zhi had another way to obtain soda ash from Mongolia.

In Mongolia there is a alkali lake called Chagan Nuoer, which has huge soda ash reserves. The soda ash of this alkali lake is easy to mine and is almost open-pit. However, the Mongols did not have the demand for soda ash, and the amount of soda ash has been very small. Occasionally, some are exported to Zhangjiakou, which is called "mouth alkali" by Shanxi people.

When Li Xing raided the Jin merchants in Shanxi, he learned of the existence of this huge soda ash mine by coincidence. Li Zhi got the news, so he naturally wouldn't let go of this source of raw materials. At the beginning of the year, through the Datong royal family, he made the Mongolian tribes occupying this alkali lake expand the amount of soda extracted on a large scale, and transported a large amount of soda from Zhangjiakou to Fanjiazhuang.

In this way, Li Zhi has the soda ash needed to develop the glass industry.

As a result, Li Zhi started the production of flat glass.

Cai Huaishui, the head of the glass factory, pointed to the annealing kiln and said: "As Grandpa Guo said, the method of pouring molten glass on the molten tin liquid surface is very exquisite, and the flat glass produced is thin, flat, and completely transparent. Back in March, we produced flat glass using this method. ”

Li Zhi nodded.

Cai Huaishui continued: "What is difficult is the control of annealing. As you said, if you don't anneal slowly in the annealing cellar, the gravitational pull inside the glass, oh no, the stress can't be removed. ”

Cai Huaishui obviously didn't understand what Li Zhi meant by "stress". However, the lack of theory did not prevent the technician from relieving the stress in practice.

"We started with the same annealing process as the glass wine container, and we were able to get the first batch of flat glass. However, the glass obtained in this way consumes a lot of firewood and occupies the annealing kiln for a long time, which is extremely costly. A piece of glass with a length of one meter and a width costs two cents for firewood alone. ”

"For glass wine vessels, one penny and two cents are nothing, but Grandpa Guo, you said that you want to produce flat glass that ordinary people can afford, so this penny and two cents is out of place."

"So what we have tried and tested repeatedly in the past six months is to explore the annealing process. Numerous attempts were made, but the annealing time was cut in half. ”

"Later, Grandpa Guo, you reminded your subordinates that you can add bauxite to the glass, which improves the strength of the glass. Finally, the annealing time was reduced to a quarter of the original amount. In this way, one square meter of glass only needs three cents of silver annealing cost, plus the cost of mouth alkali, firing cost, miscellaneous and other costs, the total cost is only seven cents. ”

Cai Huaishui led Li Zhi to the warehouse, held up a one-square-meter glass to show Li Zhi, and said, "Grandpa Guo, this is our finished product." ”

Li Zhi followed Cai Huaishui to the warehouse before he felt cooler and wiped the fine sweat on his head. He took Cai Huaishui's glass and looked at it carefully, and felt that the glass was basically qualified. The entire glass is very flat and transparent in the dim light of the warehouse. Li Zhi took a closer look and felt that it seemed to be slightly yellowed.

It is probably the addition of impure bauxite that causes the glass to turn yellow, but this yellow light is not easy to detect and does not affect the daily use of the glass.

Li Zhi knocked the surface of the glass, and the glass made a muffled thumping sound, but it did not crack.

Li Zhi nodded and said, "Okay, Cai Huaishui, you did a good job." I declare that your monthly money has been raised to forty-two a month! The thirteen workers who participated in the trial production of flat glass were all increased by one level of wages. ”

Cai Huaishui was overjoyed when he heard Li Zhi's words. I think that when Cai Huaishui first followed Li Zhi, his monthly money was only four taels, but now it has risen to ten times the original amount.

Cai Huaishui got more than 2,000 acres of dry land in Liaodong this time, and he contracted the land to the service team, and his annual land rent income was more than 800 taels. If the monthly money is increased again, then the benefits will be greater when the meritorious deeds are rewarded.

Cai Huaishui has relied on Cui'er for life all these years, raised four children, and six people a month eat and drink and buy things indiscriminately, and they can't spend ten taels of silver. Now that his income has risen again, he no longer knows how to spend his huge income.

Cai Huaishui knelt on the ground and said loudly: "Thank you Grandpa Guo!" ”

Several workers next to him were even more excited, their faces flushed, and they all knelt on the ground.

Li Zhi doesn't like workers to kneel for him when they have nothing to do, but these workers are used to kneeling to express their feelings. Li Zhi smiled, waved his hand and said, "Let's all get up." ”