There is a courtyard in the remote part of Jingzhou City, which looks inconspicuous, but it is heavily guarded inside, with more than 300 elite armor guards here, and the leader of these soldiers is Zhang Shinu, the governor of the tent under the command of Xihe Gong.

This place is heavily guarded, but it is not a secret business arranged by Li Tai for himself, but a workshop.

After patrolling the camp outside the city for a week, Li Tai did not go straight back to the state capital after returning to the city, but came to this workshop to inspect again.

The first thing you see when you enter the workshop is piles of sugar cane. This thing is also found in the north of the city, but it is basically wild, the plant is small and tough, and even if the juice is squeezed out, it is sour, so the main ones in the workshop were cut down on the way during the previous attack on Xiangyang.

Previously, Linghu Yanbao led the rear army to the south with many empty cars, originally Li Tai felt that the Southern Dynasty was rich and was ready to load the spoils of war, but although Fancheng took it, he had no reserves. In line with the principle that thieves do not go empty, they cut down a lot of sugar cane and pulled it back.

Nowadays, sugar production between Jiang and Han has gradually become industrialized, the sugarcane planting area is expanding year by year, and a certain number of craftsmen have been raised in the families of the powerful clans, and the cane sugar made is either medicinal or worshipping Buddha, which is basically rarely used for dietary seasoning.

One is that sucrose itself is a luxury product with a high cost, and ordinary people can't afford to consume it, and the other is that people who can afford it have a better choice, because the sucrose or stone honey in the current process has many impurities, product differences, heavy moisture, low crystallinity, and poor taste, easy to slurry, and not resistant to preservation, and is not outstanding compared with other types of syrup.

Among the soldiers and civilians brought back by Li Tai from Fancheng were craftsmen who made cane sugar, and these people were selected to be responsible for the process of juicing and boiling the pulp.

Nowadays, the southern cane juice is mainly squeezed by manual hand, and then the bagasse is milled with a stone, which uses a lot of labor, takes a long time and extracts a lot of cane juice fiber impurities, and adds a filter and sieve procedure, which naturally makes the labor cost higher.

Li Tai used a sugar cart with wooden shaft gears for rolling in this workshop, which was labor-saving and efficient, and the only drawback was that the wooden shaft gears were easily damaged. In fact, it can be replaced by a stone wheel, and he has already worked on polishing and manufacturing, but the time is too short to cause it, and he will use it now.

The process of boiling the syrup is also very simple, just keep heating and boiling, and pay attention to the heat and constant stirring, so that the impurities float up and skim and let the water evaporate faster. This process is also known as catching water.

When this process is completed, the cane juice turns into a black-brown syrup, and after the syrup cools and hardens, it becomes a dry and hard sugar cube, which is the origin of the name stone honey. Nowadays, the sucrose products on the boundary of Nanliang are mainly of this type, or there are slight differences in quality due to skills and heat, but in fact, they are all inferior sucrose.

A further process is to add lime water or shell ash to the syrup and stir it evenly to deacidify the syrup and remove impurities, and can help the crystallization and solidification of the syrup. The sucrose produced in this way is the brown sugar or brown sugar that later generations are familiar with, although the impurities are further reduced, but there is still no dehoneying.

The various sugar production processes in the workshop have been carried out relatively openly until this step, and most of the craftsmen are involved. As for the subsequent production of white sugar, it is the real core, and it must be protected and kept secret.

There are steps in the production of white sugar in "Tiangong Kaiwu", that is, the famous yellow mud water drenching sugar method in the crossing circle, which is known for its simple operation and easy overturning.

Such a process is being carried out in the core rooms of the workshop, first of all, prepare a pottery hole, plug it with hay below, then put the syrup into the hole, wait for it to completely solidify in the sand, and then pour the yellow mud solution into the funnel and pull out the stopper under the funnel, and wait for the yellow mud solution to pass through the sandified sucrose, carrying molasses and other substances to leak down, you can achieve the effect of dehoneying and washing color.

This process generally lasts three to four times, more than a month or longer, and the funnel is convenient to get high-quality white sugar, of course, it depends on the quality of the syrup.

If the syrup is not fully removed from the acid during the boiling process, it does not have too strong crystallization ability, and the final formation will not be a sandy structure, the glue board is hard, nothing can penetrate into it, and the effect of decolorization cannot be achieved.

At this time, rows of tile drains are placed in the big house for color washing procedures, and the top of the tile leaks also needs to be sealed with mud to avoid the evaporation of water.

Li Tai smashed a few mud seals to check the effect of washing the color crystals inside, and he was quite satisfied, while the craftsmen brought from Shangyuan in the rear looked at Lord Lang with resentful expressions, and then added mud seals to the smashed tile leaks.

Because the current process is still in the run-in and research stage, so the scale and output of the workshop is not large, Li Tai asked Cai Dabao to tell Xiao Jing that he would give him ten stones, naturally just bragging about it, as far as the current output of the workshop is concerned, three or five years may not be able to get ten stones of white sugar.

The reason why he didn't bring white sugar and give Xiao Jing a chance to show off his wealth and slap his face when he gave a gift for the first time was because there was no sign of this thing at that time, and the sugarcane cut from the south had not been unloaded, let alone made into white sugar.

In addition, there is another thing that makes him not feel comfortable releasing this thing at this time, that is, this thing is a bit out of line, and he can't control it at the moment.

Although white sugar is not as essential as table salt, it is more addictive, and once it is available and mass-produced, it will cause as much sensation as the discovery of a huge salt well or a gold mine. Great benefits naturally come with great risks, which can make people crazy and irrational.

Once Li Tai can supply this commodity stably and continuously, it will inevitably attract powerful people from all walks of life to spy on and covet it, and then it will definitely attract more trouble than profit.

Although he is not afraid of challenges, but when did he score, when did he come to Jingzhou to gain a stable foothold, the entire northern region was turbulent and barren, and his subordinates were all Guan Longke divisions, and it was just a matter of bullying Xiao Jing who was in a similar situation, if he really wanted Xiao Laoqi of Jiangling to bring troops up, now he has to run away with a bucket.

Therefore, until the power is strong enough to deter all sides, or until the distribution of its power can be connected into a network that can fully conceal the origin of this commodity, Li Tai does not plan to provide this commodity to the market in batches.

As for the cowhide that Xiao Jing bragged about, just talk about it, how can you take it seriously? If you really believe me, then I have to say, I'm your father!

Although Li Tai is ready to play a scoundrel, I have to say that the effect of this cowhide is really good. Cai Dabao and his entourage left less than ten days before they went back and forth, calculating the time and distance, and almost just returned to Xiangyang before turning north.

This time, Cai Dabao still didn't come empty-handed, and the gifts he brought were much more unpretentious than the last time, only fifty catties of bran and ten buckets of pearls.

So when you say it, you always have to pay it back, Li Tai used money to smash people when he first entered the state before, but now he was also dizzy and temperless by King Yueyang's big hand.

And people are really broad, no matter how much Li Tai sprinkles out, he always returns the eggs in the pot, and it is easy to recycle it, and it is difficult for Xiao Jing to pull out a little money from himself, but he doesn't mind at all, and he still makes a generous shot.

Cai Dabao came again this time, naturally for the frosting candy, on behalf of King Yueyang, hoping to purchase a batch, and respectfully presented Xiao Jing's handwritten letter.

Li Tai took the letter and took a look at it, and couldn't help but sigh that the Nanliang clan didn't talk about the IQ, the cultural level was high, Xiao Jing's letter was written smoothly, and Li Tai's calligraphy attainments made Li Tai ashamed.

His shallow European calligraphy can still bluff people in Kansai, but compared to the characters of the Southern Dynasty, it is useless except for the structure of the gestures.

Although Xiao Jing gave Li Tai a little shock to the Southern Dynasty with his calligraphy, the tone and wording of this letter were very modest, first thanking Li Tai for two gifts, especially expressing his love for the latter gift.

In this letter, he specially named the frosting candy, hoping that Li Tai could supply a batch so that he could enter the imperial court and let his grandfather also taste the taste of the Western Dynasty. Xiao Jing said to himself that because he thought that His Majesty the Emperor had never tasted this kind of good taste at such an old age, he was worried that he was restless, and hoped that Li Tai could help him fulfill his filial piety, and then he could buy a small thirty stone of sugar, which he could buy with gold and silver.

After Li Tai read this letter, not to mention that the price given by Xiao Jing was unreasonable, he couldn't hold back a little just by seeing the figure of thirty stones, and seriously suspected that this guy had also crossed over? Do you know that your grandfather didn't eat a bite of sweet food when he was dying, so you plan to kill him with white sugar while he is alive?

Not to mention that Li Tai didn't have thirty stones of sugar at all, even if he did, it would be impossible for him to sell them all to Xiao Jing.

In the eyes of ordinary people, sugar may be a cherished luxury condiment that can make a windfall, but in Li Tai's eyes, it is a first-rate strategic material, which can help him rebuild the Nanyang Basin into a prosperous and prosperous world-famous city, and become a solid cornerstone for his heroic foothold!

Xiao Jing's enthusiasm for white sugar can be described as extremely high, and he has proposed a relatively high price in the letter, but then said that if Li Tai feels that the price is still not high enough, they can meet with each other.

Li Tai saw that this was another joy, it seems that no matter how rich a person is, he doesn't like money, he was rejected when he made an appointment to meet him, but now that he saw the commodity of sugar, Xiao Jing couldn't help but take the initiative to invite.

Of course, he also hopes to meet with the other party and finalize a medium- and long-term cooperation plan, so the communication efficiency of the back and forth is too low. However, in order to meet each other, you can't lead the army to attack Xiangyang again. Moreover, it was the middle of winter, and there was no sugar cane left in the fields.

So Li Tai proposed a location and a process for meeting, and then asked Cai Dabao to send a letter back, striving to meet Xiao Jing before the year.