(New books for collections, recommended votes, please, please!) Your attention is the motivation for my writing, thank you! ）

The silver in Fujian has been almost replaced, Geng Jingzhong turned his attention to Guangdong, Jiangxi and Jiangsu, Zhejiang and several places, although can not occupy all the market, but can make a sum of money, no one thinks that they have a lot of money. What's more, Geng Jingzhong's family business is too big, and the silver has always been in a state of tension, and until the future war, the silver will be like flowing water, and it will not be banned at all.

I remember that Kangxi personally conquered Geldan on TV, and made full preparations before the war: mobilized soldiers and horses, recruited a large number of Mongols who were familiar with the situation as guides, carried 5 months' rations with the army, and formed a huge transport team according to the standard of one civilian man and four horses for each soldier, with 6,000 grain trucks, and transported food and equipment with the army; Prepare a large number of cold and rain protection equipment, prepare a large number of timber and tree branches, and prepare a large number of trees to pave the road when crossing deserts and swamps. The 100,000 army plus 200,000 people, people ate horses, consumed equipment, post-war pensions, etc., and consumed seven or eight million taels of silver at a time, which was almost equivalent to half a year's tax payment of the imperial court. In order to recover Taiwan, it was more expensive, and a few years of naval battles directly used up the three years of taxes paid by the imperial court. This war is really burning money, how can Geng Jingzhong not work hard to make money to prepare for the future!

Fortunately, after he started these things, there will be someone in charge of other things, and he only needs to supervise it a little. What's more, now that he has handed over all these regulatory matters to Li Guangdi to do, he is really idle.

It wouldn't be a good thing if this person was too idle, Geng Jingzhong stayed in the mansion for a while, and there was nothing to do except accompany Yu Xi. Idle, idle, panic! He doesn't like to listen to dramas, and besides, he can't understand the dramas here in Fuzhou at all, and he can't listen to them for three minutes of babbling. No, after staying in the house for almost ten days, I couldn't stand it anymore and plunged into the kiln.

The thought of going to the kiln was not a sudden idea. The idea came to me at the end of the year before when I first started making perfumes! Originally, Geng Jingzhong was going to use glass bottles to fill perfume, but although the kiln here in Fuzhou can also fire glass, the quality is really not good. In fact, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, that is, during the time of Emperor Chongzhen, Western missionaries brought their mastery of glass manufacturing technology to China, and some missionaries also directly participated in the work of the Ming government's Qin Tianjian. Nowadays, almost all kilns around the country can fire glass, but because they do not learn completely, the quality of the fired glass is not good, there are too many impurities, and it is far less beautiful than porcelain, so glassware is not popular with the people. If each kiln can produce pure and transparent glassware, the results can make a big difference.

This time, Geng Jingzhong soaked in the kiln, wanting to see if he could use the knowledge he knew to cooperate with the masters of the kiln to burn out the pure glass. If it succeeds, then the glass mirrors and telescopes in the future will be in place, and there will be no need to spend a lot of money to purchase from Western merchants, and at the same time, you can also make a lot of money.

The materials used to make glass in the kiln are almost no different from those used in later generations, and the kiln is full of quartz, silica sand, and quicklime, and those who are not knowledgeable do not know what these things can do other than pave roads and build houses.

In his high school chemistry textbook, he focused on the physical and chemical changes of firing ordinary glass, and he can still remember the chemical reaction equations. The only raw materials for firing ordinary glass are soda ash, limestone and quartz, which are sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate and silicon dioxide in terms of chemical formula, of course, the higher the purity, the better. I remember that there was a picture of a glass worker blowing glass balls in the textbook, and I still remember it to this day.

And for the masters in the kiln factory, firing glass is already too ripe to be cooked. As long as Geng Jingzhong said the method, they would be able to do it immediately. However, at this time, Geng Jingzhong's kiln was not fully equipped, and he had originally fired glass, but because their glass was not good-looking, he could not sell it, and later returned to his old business to continue firing porcelain. However, this is not difficult for Geng Jingzhong, he ordered someone to immediately prepare a few crucibles specially for firing glass, but the crucibles used to melt molten iron on the side of this crucible Longyan iron ore are different, they are all sealed, that is, to prevent debris from entering the glass solution and affecting the purity!

Before firing glass, it is necessary to fully crush the three raw materials of soda ash, limestone and quartz, calcined them respectively, and then put them into the crucible and cover them with a lid and start to mix and calcinate them in the kiln, melt them at high temperatures to generate liquid glass, and then decolorize them to obtain liquid glass, which can be made into various glass products with liquid glass.

Except for the soda ash for the time being, everything else is easy to find, and Geng Jingzhong bought the best quality limestone and quartz from the merchants in Fuzhou. After the two materials are bought, they are first ground into powder by hydraulic machinery and then calcined separately in the kiln. However, this soda ash searched all over Fuzhou City and couldn't find it, and basically no one knew about it. Geng Jingzhong was annoyed now, several days had passed, and he couldn't even find the most basic raw materials. Ask the master in the kiln factory to find out that the original kiln used to fire glass only plant ash! Geng Jingzhong really felt very speechless, with the addition of plant ash, it was strange that the glass could be clear when it was burned!

Now that the crucible and the other two raw materials have been prepared, this soda ash is missing, Geng Jingzhong is really anxious. When it's okay, it's idle and panicked; Looking for something to do, and it's annoying! After more than a day of hard thinking and meditation, I finally thought of a good solution for him, but I still have to be real.

With the level of this era and the technology he has now, it is absolutely wishful thinking to produce industrial soda ash for future generations. Since the previous masters could burn glass with plant ash, it means that the plant ash should contain alkali. But now you can't replace soda ash with plant ash, you have to find a way to purify it.

As for the ashes of plants and trees, there is no need to worry, Fujian is already mountainous, and the plants and trees are inexhaustible. Many people in Fuzhou City burn firewood, and grass and wood ashes can be taken at will. In less than a day, a large pile of plant ash was piled up outside the kiln. Geng Jingzhong personally put the plant ash into the water to dissolve, after filtering through multiple layers of cotton cloth, and finally evaporating and so on, after a series of treatments, many times to get a relatively pure alkali. In this way, all kinds of raw materials are ready, and they are ready to start firing.

The next work basically doesn't have to be done by Geng Jingzhong himself. Although these masters had never used crucibles, they quickly learned how to operate them. The specially made crucibles are also of high quality and can withstand the high temperatures of the kiln. Mix several ingredients and put them in a crucible, close the lid and start roasting over high heat. There is an experienced master who put some refined salt in the crucible, so that the glass is easier to fire, Geng Jingzhong thought about it and adopted his Jianyi, after all, the actual operation is still good at them.

The master in the kiln was really skilled in making a fire to roast, and soon the furnace temperature rose to a certain level, and the raw materials in the crucible began to melt and react, slowly melting into molten glass. The master opened the lid of the crucible and stirred out some molten glass with a stick, and found that the molten glass at this time was very bright in color and almost no bubbles, which was a hundred times better than the one they fired before. This kind of glass is sure to be very popular when it is made into glass products.

But Geng Jingzhong was very dissatisfied with these glass liquids, he was used to seeing all kinds of glass that could be seen everywhere in later generations, and he was really not interested in this quality of glass. Therefore, he must continue to find a way to decolorize the liquid glass, and pure and transparent glass is his ultimate goal.

Decolorizing liquid glass, I really haven't been exposed to this knowledge before. However, it is mentioned in the book that the materials that can be used for decolorization seem to be activated carbon, or sulfide. There are also some basic and acidic dyes that can also be decolorized. The deepest memory is the bleached rice that is often broadcast in the news in later generations, that is, the moldy rice is bleached with sulfur dioxide to turn it into the same color as normal rice.

But where is he going to get these things now? It's hard to find a replacement! But as long as you know the problem, you can find a way to solve it. One material could not be tested again, and after repeated attempts, even sulfur saltpeter was used, and it was finally determined that saltpeter had a better decolorization effect than sulfur. After a month's work, I finally got a nearly colorless clear glass liquid!

Yu Xiaotian racked his brains and thought for a long time, and finally thought that he could only use saltpeter to replace the use of **, so he continued to experiment, tossed for another month, and even remodeled the furnace once, and finally got a nearly colorless molten glass. Geng Jingzhong couldn't stop clapping his hands happily, he couldn't suppress his excitement, no wonder so many people want to be scientists, it turns out that this feeling is so good!

As soon as the transparent liquid glass came out, the next work became simple again. The workers and masters of the kiln quickly sent the molten glass to the annealing kiln to start annealing, and the temperature of the province was too fast, causing uneven stress and cracking inside the glass.

At this time, a huge iron table was placed outside the door of the annealing kiln. The iron table top is very smooth and has been specially treated. After the temperature of the glass solution dropped slightly and began to come out of the kiln, a few workers poured the still hot molten glass on the smooth iron table, and then other craftsmen used a thick and round iron rod to roll back and forth on the molten glass, and when the glass was flattened, it formed a large block like the tabletop, and a flat glass was made.

The workers in the kiln, whether they were masters or apprentices, admired this prince. For these people who rely on their own crafts to eat, the most admirable person is the most skilled. At the beginning, these workers thought that His Royal Highness the Prince of the World was a whim, and they thought it was novel, so they just bought this kiln to have fun. I never thought that such pure glass would really burn out for him. Thankfully, the workers were people who had seen the world and didn't think the glass was crystal. In this way, everyone in the kiln stared at the flat glass that was still on the iron table with their eyes hooked, and secretly swallowed their saliva, how much silver is such a large piece of glass worth?

The small quantities of glass in the inland market are still imported, and Western merchants sell them for very high prices, and the locally produced glass is completely incomparable. It's just that an ordinary palm-sized glass mirror costs sixty or seventy taels of silver, which is only the price in Fujian and Guangdong, and if it is shipped to the mainland, such as Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan, the price will be doubled.

The pupils of everyone present slowly appeared with the figure of a silver coin, as if this was not glass, but a large piece of silver!

Everything Geng Jingzhong can do has been done, and the rest of the things are no longer in his hands. Although the glass is basically formed, it still needs to be polished, which is a meticulous work, and there are special people to do it. In order to ensure that these masters who have learned the technology keep secrets, Geng Jingzhong rewarded them all heavily, and at the same time left a future for their families, completely binding the workers in the kiln. In the end, Geng Jingzhong found that there was nothing wrong with him here, so he began to go home.