Xinzheng, Zhang Ji's mansion

Today's Zhang Ji Mansion is different from a few days ago, the broken gate is not only renovated, but also made of golden silk nanmu transported from the land of Bashu, the wood is delicate and stable, not only firm, but also diffused with a faint aroma of nanmu, which is definitely the top wood.

Of course, this money will naturally not come from Zhang Ji.

No matter how angry Ji Wuye was in the face of Zhang Ji's threat, he didn't dare to gamble with the life of his only son Ji Yihu, and finally chose to let Jade Tiger gather skilled craftsmen and collect precious wood to build a new mansion gate for Zhang Ji as a gift.

In addition to this new gate, Zhang Ji also left these craftsmen, and in the name of blackmail, asked Jade Tiger to get a batch of trees, mulberry trees and green sandalwood for him.

"Sir, the tree tree, the mulberry tree, the green sandalwood, the jujube wood and the pear wood are all just cheap woods, or I should send someone to Bashu to get some golden silk nanmu back."

The Jade Tiger looked at the craftsman who was peeling the bark of the tree, and didn't understand Zhang Ji's thoughts at all.

Although he didn't know much about carpenter's work, he knew the price of wood, which wood was of good quality, what was suitable for carving, and which was suitable for gate, so that he could make a profit by buying and selling.

According to his understanding, these kinds of wood seem to be very ordinary, and only ordinary people will use them. And Zhang Ji is obviously not the kind of person who will save him money, so he became curious about the reason why Zhang Ji bought these timbers.

In this regard, Zhang Ji simply and generously asked Jade Tiger to go to the courtyard where he would allocate to the group of craftsmen to take a look.

The Jade Tiger took heavy steps, twisted its fat body and followed Zhang Ji to the courtyard allocated to the craftsmen.

To the Emerald Tiger's surprise, he had expected that the courtyard where these lowly craftsmen lived would be very filthy and filled with all kinds of foul smells. But with a gust of fragrant wind, there was only a faint woody fragrance, which made Jade Tiger's hand holding the silk scarf stagnant.

The timber on the ground had long since faded its rough bark, revealing bare trunks, and the ground was covered with bark and shavings of various timbers, as well as some broken fishing nets and rags that could be seen everywhere.

Several shirtless strong men were standing in front of several pots and kettles, pouring the ashes obtained from the burning of plants and trees into the kettle filled with boiling water in front of them, watching the water become turbid little by little, stirring evenly, and then picking up tree bark, broken fishing nets and other garbage-like things from the ground into the jade tiger's eyes, throwing them into the pot, boiling, and stirring continuously.

Suddenly, Jade Tiger thought of something, and his face, which was oily because of too much meat, showed an excited red, and he even grabbed Zhang Ji's cuffs regardless of humility, as if he was afraid that Zhang Ji would disappear in the next second.

"Mr. Zhang Ji, could it be that you studied under the immortal family, and this is refining the elixir of longevity?"

The so-called immortal family is one of the hundred schools of thought, which was jointly established by many monks in the coastal areas of Yanqi.

The reason why it is a coastal area is because the people of the immortal family believe that the immortal mountains recorded in the books exist on the vast sea, such as the legendary Penglai, Abbot, and Yingzhou.

They believe that there are immortals in the world who are immortal and can change freely, and they also believe that as long as mortals take immortal medicine or cultivate, they can also achieve the goal of immortality and ascend to immortals.

It's just that, with their conditions, let alone looking for immortal mountains, they can't even afford to build a sea ship to go to sea, let alone find immortals. And cultivating to become an immortal, even the old immortals of the Taoist family can't do it, let alone them.

Therefore, in order to promote their doctrine, they can only target the so-called elixir.

By fooling the most superstitious ghosts and gods of Chu and the people of Bashu, this group of people began to collect various materials for alchemy. Among them, there are some pills that make people feel hot after eating, and then suddenly feel cheerful and bright, and enhance their physical strength, and many princes and generals have believed in the monks of the immortal family because of this, and they are superstitious about the existence of elixir.

However, there are not many heirs of the immortal family, and alchemy is a high-tech job, which requires a certain amount of luck.

Therefore, whenever those princes and generals meet the disciples of the immortal family, they will regard them as treasures, and they will not hesitate to leave their dignity and beg the other party to refine a furnace of elixir for themselves, even if they can't achieve immortality, they are looking forward to relying on this furnace of elixir to prolong their lives.

And what Zhang Ji asked the craftsmen to do looked a bit like the scene of the disciples of the immortal family refining the pills rumored by the world, so Jade Tiger mistakenly thought that Zhang Ji was training these craftsmen to refine the pills, no wonder he was so excited.

It's just that although Zhang Ji's surname is Zhang, he has absolutely nothing to do with a certain Dragon and Tiger Mountain, and he really doesn't know how to do alchemy.

Therefore, this furnace is indeed not an elixir.

If he knew how to refine the elixir, he would directly make some saltpeter to make ice, which would save him from waiting until winter to let his servants go to the river to get ice and store it in the ice cellar.

He just wanted to attract the attention of the Mo family.

Although it is not difficult to attract the attention of the Mo family as Zhang Ji, the difficult thing is to attract enough attention from the Mo family, and think that sending a master of the Mo family to protect Zhang Ji is an important thing to let go of some prejudices and cooperate with Luo Wang.

Therefore, although he does not know how to burn glass or make saltpeter to hydrate ice, Zhang Ji, who has received Jiuyi education, still has some knowledge of some of the most basic techniques.

As for the feasibility of these technologies, he is not worried.

This is not too difficult a technique, he only needs to teach the general process to these craftsmen.

And he doesn't require these craftsmen to make a high level of craftsmanship, just to complete the process from scratch, which is not a difficult task for these craftsmen carefully cultivated by the Jade Tiger, and then he can implement his next plan.

It's just that when Zhang Ji's side was in full swing to start construction, the Han Palace's decree came again, and it was Hu Meiren, who had not seen him for a few days, to announce his entry into the palace.

(2051 words)

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PS: Once in the chapter on ice cubes, some people complained about why they don't use saltpeter to make ice...... I can only say that it is difficult to judge about the timing of the appearance of saltpeter. Although the Song Dynasty's "Taiping Yulan Yaobu" said that saltpeter had been used as medicine in the Spring and Autumn Period, according to some accounts, the "Xiaoshi" was a very low purity saltpeter and could only be used for general medicinal purposes.

In short, because the record is too vague, I didn't choose to write about saltpeter ice.