(Thank you Lin Jian and book friend 201 for the tip, thank you.) ）

Li Xiao will not get it by chopping wood and burning charcoal, not to mention that he can't earn a few dollars, and it is impossible to make a fortune by chopping wood and burning charcoal.

There is a saying that ten miles do not sell vegetables, a hundred miles do not sell wood, thousands of miles do not sell rice, this means that several businesses under the conditions of ancient transportation can not be done, the vegetable seller does not sell ten miles away, the firewood seller does not sell a hundred miles away, and the rice seller will not sell thousands of miles away, because the transportation cost alone can not be afforded.

Although Lanxi is only eighty miles away from Chang'an, but if you want to chop firewood and burn charcoal, you have to go deep into the mountains of Qinling, the mountain road is crooked, the road is long and difficult, and it is to chop firewood and burn charcoal, and after burning it, you have to find a way to transport it to Chang'an to sell, and you can't make a few money.

After dinner, there was no nightlife either.

After a while, they went home.

Wan Niang boiled water for Li Xiao on the fire pond to wash her face and feet, and she was very gentle and considerate.

There was no light in the house, so he shoveled some charcoal from the fire pit and put it in a broken clay pot and placed it beside the bed, both for lighting and heating.

Sitting on the bed, Li Xiao was still a little awkward.

I told the story of the night last night, and it was finally dawn. But what about tonight?

Just when he didn't know what to do, Zhao Wan said to him a little shyly, "Xianggong, the slave family can't serve you tonight." ”

"What's wrong?" Li Xiao thought she was uncomfortable, but she hummed and chirped for a long time before she said the reason, it turned out that she came to her aunt.

After listening, Li Xiao actually felt a sense of relief.

It's so good to come to the great aunt at this time, it's really the right time, but it saves him from the embarrassing situation at the moment, otherwise, he can't be newly married Yan'er, and he won't have a round house for a long time, so Wanniang won't be sad. Okay now, come to the big aunt, this is force majeure.

"Then you have to have a good rest these days, don't be too tired to the body, especially don't get cold water and don't go out to blow the cold wind."

"Drink more boiling water, by the way, when I go to the street to buy food tomorrow, I will buy you some brown sugar, make some brown sugar and boil water to drink more."

Wanniang is both shy and warm-hearted, and her husband is so considerate to herself.

"Xianggong, it's okay, it's just that these few days are not very convenient, and it will be over after a few days. Don't buy sugar, it's too expensive. ”

As soon as Wan Niang said this, Li Xiao remembered that sugar was indeed very expensive these days, especially sucrose. He inquired carefully with Wan Niang for a while, it turned out that today's sugar is really a luxury, and more sugar such as honey candy and maltose are eaten on the market, and only the noble family eats sucrose.

At this time, sucrose is generally called sand sugar, also known as frosted sugar. This kind of sugar is actually a kind of sucrose production technology that was improved at the time of Zhenguan, it was originally a kind of sucrose that was paid tribute by the country of Mojie in ancient India when it was loved by the court, the emperor Li Shimin sent an envoy to the country of Mojie to seek the production method of this kind of sugar, and after getting this sugar method, let people study and improve it, Yangzhou local officials tried to produce sugarcane, and finally obtained the sugar regardless of color and taste are far better than the products produced in Mojie other countries, so there is the frosting sugar and sand sugar that are very popular in the upper class of the aristocracy today.

"Sand sugar is yellow?" Li Xiao was very surprised.

According to Wanniang, the frosted sugar in Chang'an is mainly produced in Lingnan, and the weather there is suitable for planting sugarcane, and the frosted sugar produced tastes good, but this frosted sugar is not the kind of white sugar that Li Xiao originally thought.

Sucrose is sucrose, and it is also used to evaporate the heat energy of fire to make sugar, but whether it is Mojieother countries or today's Tang Dynasty, they still don't know how to better refine and make white sugar.

The best frosted sugar is only yellow granulated sugar, which should actually be called yellow granulated sugar, which cannot be called frosted sugar at all, let alone white sugar.

As for brown sugar, there is none, there is a kind of sugar in addition to yellow sugar, and the color is black.

White sugar, brown sugar, now there are none.

Even if it is the current queen, when she comes to the eldest aunt, it is impossible to drink brown sugar water if she has menstrual pain.

Li Xiao was thoughtful, feeling as if he had found a new way to make a fortune.

White sugar is a very common thing in later generations, in fact, ancient China also began to use sugarcane to make sugar very early, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was Zhe syrup, that is, dilute liquid sucrose, and then there was stone honey, this stone honey is a kind of semi-solid sucrose that is more viscous.

After arriving in the Jin Dynasty, cane juice was taken as granulated sugar, which was crystalline sugar with a gritty appearance and a black color. And now the frosted candy made by Datang absorbing the technology of other countries is yellow, and the technology is getting stronger and stronger.

From black granulated sugar to yellow frosted sugar, it also reflects a standard for sugar in recent years, that is, the whiter the more valuable, and the whiter the more popular.

Yellow sugar is more popular than black sugar and more expensive, and it is even more difficult to refine white sugar that is truly like frost.

The key to frosting is also that there is a complete set of sucrose purification and decolorization processes.

At this time, Datang's frosted sugar used the drip method to decolor the sucrose, boiled the cane juice to a considerable concentration, poured it into a funnel-shaped pottery called Wayo, and poured yellow mud from above.

In essence, it is to use yellow mud as an adsorption decolorizer to extract white sugar, but this method is not advanced enough, and the frosted sugar produced is not white enough, but yellowish yellowish-white.

But even so, this kind of frosted sugar, which is not white enough, is still the most popular and highest-priced sugar on the market today, much more expensive than maltose and honey sugar.

Now a bucket of japonica rice costs eleven dollars, and a bucket of salt costs one hundred and ten dollars.

And what about frosting?

The price is ridiculously expensive, one or two silver to buy three catties of sugar, sugar is actually bought with silver, you can know how expensive. Datang gold and silver are not direct currency, they are mostly used as rewards, and the silver production of Datang itself is also extremely low.

In the gold and silver shops in the market, one tael of silver can now be exchanged for about 1,600 yuan.

One or two catties of silver buys three catties of frosting sugar, and one catty of sugar costs more than 500 yuan, which is twenty or thirty times the price of salt and more than 200 times that of rice.

If you buy corn, you can buy more than 200 yuan for two and a half pounds, which is enough for everyone in the village to eat a winter's rations.

"Wan Niang, how much is the cheapest sugar now?" Li Xiao came to the spirit, if he bought some brown sugar that was not pure enough and then purified and processed it, and turned it into white sugar and sold it, it must be a way to make a fortune.

"The cheapest sugar? The cheapest should be the color is not white, the color is relatively black, but it is not cheap, one or two silver can buy ten catties. ”

"The price difference is more than three times, it's profitable." Li Xiao pinched his chin and smiled.

"What's profitable?"

"Wan Niang, let me tell you a secret, in fact, I have a secret recipe that can purify black sand sugar into frosted sugar. Let's buy brown sugar, purify it into frosting sugar, and sell it three times more when it changes hands. ”

Wan Niang's eyes widened in surprise, "Don't laugh, how can you have this kind of ability." ”

"Really, if you don't believe me, I'll refine it for you tomorrow!"