The next day, Zhao Fuxiang finished handling the matters at hand and rushed to the dock. He was going to see how the filter tank he had built yesterday was doing. If it leaked, he would have to start over.

On the dock, Zhao Fuxiang saw the small boat he hired, which was laboriously traveling between Haidian Island and Xinbu Island under the control of the boatman. According to the inland river ferry, this boat was already not small, with a load of one thousand kilograms, but

It is much worse than a big sailing ship.

There are currently 5,000 shi of brown sugar piled on Haidian Island. It would take 500 trips to transport it by this small boat. Haidian Island is 700 to 800 meters away from Xinbu Island, and the boat can only go back and forth every half an hour. It seems that there is no

It will take ten and a half months to transport all the brown sugar.

Zhao Fuxiang called the boatman Lao Huang over and asked: "Old Huang, when will you finish transporting all these candies?"

Lao Huang, his wife and children didn't sleep last night, and they were about to transport the five hundred stones. Hearing what Zhao Fuxiang said, Lao Huang was embarrassed and said: "Mr. Zhao, my boat is too small, it will probably take ten days!"

At this time, Zhao Fuxiang was scratching his head about the backward transportation methods of the Ming Dynasty. He had known that he would have built a pontoon bridge on Xinbu Island first, so why delay this important matter now.

Zhao Fuxiang looked at the brown sugar on the boat and asked: "Old Huang, is there any way you can transport it all in three days?"

Lao Huang smiled bitterly and said: "Mr. Zhao, if you want to be fast, you have to hire more people! But the wages..."

Zhao Fuxiang hired him for four taels a month to work as a ferryman between the two islands. Old Huang was quite happy at first, thinking that a hundred people on two small islands could do much, but he knew that Mr. Zhao had to transport so much Huang.

Tang, Lao Huang did feel a little regretful just now.

Zhao Fuxiang adheres to the view that problems that money can solve are not problems. Hearing that Lao Huang was short of money, Zhao Fuxiang said: "Money is not a problem. If I give you thirty taels of silver, can it be shipped within three days?"

Money is a lubricant. When Lao Huang heard that Zhao Fuxiang was willing to add money, he immediately became energetic and said: "Since Mr. Zhao is willing to add money, it is not a problem. I will immediately ask my son to go to Fucheng Pier to find a boat and someone!"

The Nandu River is navigable. You can go upstream directly to Ding'an County. There are many boatmen who eat on the river. Lao Huang can hire twenty people for ten taels of silver. If he hires more boats, he will definitely be able to make it within three days.

Finish transporting these brown sugars.

After the matter was resolved, Zhao Fuxiang went ashore and stopped caring about transportation, and went directly to see the filter tank he built.

Seeing the dry green plaster, Zhao Fuxiang reached out and dug it out. He found that the strength of this green plaster was about the same as that of cement. If steel bars were added to it, the effect would be better. However, Zhao Fuxiang now has very little pig iron, so how can he have any steel bars?

, so this filter tank can only do this at present.

Now that the filter tank is ready for use, Zhao Fuxiang asked workers to fill the filter tank with water to test the water tightness. After an afternoon of testing, the waterproofness of the filter tank was perfect.

Now that the feasibility of green ash has been verified, Zhao Fuxiang organized people to dig three more filter tanks of the same size. The four tanks were arranged in height from high to low, and were connected by bamboo tubes. The first one was a rough filter, used to filter yellow waste.

For impurities in the sugar solution, the second one is the sedimentation tank. The preliminary filtered solution enters here, and yellow mud water is added here to allow calcium carbonate to precipitate. The third one is the fine filter tank, which is the last step of filtration. The last one is

The finished product is ready. It should be colorless sugar water now, and then the final step is to boil the sugar.

With the experience of the first filter tank, the workers quickly completed all the filter tanks. After the green plaster was dry, Zhao Fuxiang began to lead people to lay filter materials in the first and third filter tanks.

The lowest layer of the first filter tank is cleaned pebbles, the second layer is slightly finer stones, and the third layer is the finest river sand.

The third filter tank is the fine filter tank. The bottom layer is still made of clean pebbles, but this layer of pebbles does not filter. Their function is to prevent the top layer of filter material from flowing away with the solution. The top of the pebbles

It is still slightly finer stones, and the top is ground brick powder, which is the diatomite mentioned by the old man Zhao Zhikuan.

In order to grind bricks, Zhao Fuxiang even bought a grindstone and a donkey, which finally freed up a little manpower.

It took five days for the four filter tanks to be successfully made. During this period, the boatman Lao Huang worked hard and finally finished transporting the five thousand stones of yellow sugar on the night of the third day. When Lao Huang took over the thirty taels of silver from Zhao Fuxiang,

For a moment, Zhao Fuxiang even saw the joy in the eyes of Lao Huang and his family.

A mere thirty taels of silver could actually make their family so happy. Zhao Fuxiang thought that he had spent hundreds of taels of silver in Cuiyun Tower in one night, and he sighed in his heart that the wealthy family was full of wine and meat!

After all preparations were completed, Zhao Fuxiang specifically chose February 2 to start construction. After all, does the dragon raise its head on February 2? Who doesn’t want a good sign?

The weather was good on February 2, so Zhao Fuxiang let the workers eat early and then started to boil fires and boil water.

In order to maintain the supply of hot water, Zhao Fuxiang bought twenty large iron pots with one blade. When the water temperature reached 30 degrees, he began to pour water into the large vat and add brown sugar cubes at the same time.

In fact, the higher the water temperature, the more sugar will be dissolved, but boiling water requires a lot of wood. Zhao Fuxiang calculated that it is more economical to boil water to 30 degrees. After all, these workers are not familiar with the work, and safety accidents can be avoided at lower temperatures.

Under Zhao Fuxiang's supervision, the workers slowly put the brown sugar into the large vat, and at the same time, a person stirred it slowly with a wooden stick. When Zhao Fuxiang saw that the brown sugar was no longer dissolving, he asked the workers to pour the lime solution into the large vat.

Kong Shouzhen didn't know what Zhao Fuxiang was doing. When he saw the good sugar water poured into quicklime, he screamed in fright.

Zhao Fuxiang turned around and smiled and said, "Brother, something will happen soon!"

As the lime solution was poured in, a chemical reaction occurred in the sugar water in the vat, generating a large number of bubbles. Kong Shouzhen opened his eyes wide and asked after a long time: "Master, what's going on?"

Zhao Fuxiang didn't know what the reason was, but he didn't know how to pretend to understand, so he pretended to be mysterious and said: "Old Kong, this is my family's secret method, and you must never mention it to outsiders!"

Kong Shouzhen was saved by Zhao Fuxiang, and he was very grateful at first. But now that he saw that his boss did not hide his secrets and let himself see the family secrets, Kong Shouzhen felt the kindness of knowing him and knelt on the ground and said: "Please rest assured, boss, Kong

If I'm sorry to my boss, let Kong be struck to death by lightning without a burial place!"

The ancient Chinese were very superstitious, especially scholars like Kong Shouzhen, but now they can make such a poisonous oath, and they are really devoted to Zhao Fuxiang.

Zhao Fuxiang didn't expect that such a trivial thing could win Kong Shouzhen's loyalty. He was secretly amused in his heart, but on the surface he pretended to be generous. He helped Kong Shouzhen up and said, "Brother, you and I are friends of life and death. This

What a mere family secret, you must never make such a poisonous oath in the future!"

Although Zhao Fuxiang said this, Kong Shouzhen became more loyal to Zhao Fuxiang in his heart.

While the two were talking, the solution in the large tank no longer bubbled, and the workers began to pour the dissolved solution into the first filter tank to begin preliminary filtration.

As more and more solution is poured in, filtered solution begins to appear in the bamboo tube and enters the second sedimentation tank.

The four filter tanks dug by Zhao Fuxiang are all six meters square and half a meter deep. According to calculations, they can hold 18 tons of water. However, Zhao Fuxiang only has 20 large pots and only ten large tanks in his hands. The progress of this supply is real

Somewhat lagging behind.

After the workers boiled a hundred pots of water, the solution in the sedimentation tank would be ten centimeters high. Zhao Fuxiang looked at it and asked the workers to pour clear yellow mud water into the solution.

The negative ions in the yellow mud water neutralize the positive ions in the solution, the calcium carbonate particles lose their buoyancy and sink to the bottom of the water, and the surface of the solution begins to become clear.

Seeing that the second filtration was successful, Zhao Fuxiang ordered the workers to open the baffle at the entrance of the sedimentation tank, and the solution entered the third filter tank, which is the fine filter tank.

The filter material in the filter tank was very thick, two feet long, so the speed was much slower. Zhao Fuxiang waited for half an hour after the solution entered the fine filter tank before seeing the clear sugar solution flow into the final tank.

Zhao Fuxiang took half the bowl of solution in a sea bowl and saw that there was no impurity at all. It was exactly the same as water. Zhao Fuxiang stretched out his hand and tasted it again. It was very sweet. It seemed that he had succeeded!

Zhao Fuxiang laughed loudly, handed the bowl to Kong Shouzhen and said: "Old Kong, look, we don't have to worry about money in the future!"

Kong Shouzhen also tasted it, his eyes lit up and he said, "Master, is this frosting sugar?"

"Yes, Lao Kong, have you tried it too?"

"Yes, Kong's wife used to like to steam sugar buns with frosting sugar during festivals. Dani's favorite was them!"

When Kong Shouzhen mentioned his past days, his face paled. Zhao Fuxiang knew that he was thinking of his family again, so he quickly changed the subject and said: "Old Kong, bring someone to boil all this sugar water into white sugar!"

Kong Shouzhen agreed and began to organize people to boil sugar. The big pot that had just been used to boil water suddenly became a tool for boiling sugar.

The water flow from the filter tank was relatively small at first, but gradually became larger and larger, covering the bottom of the finished product tank. As the temperature of the solution water dropped, some white sugar slowly precipitated out and settled at the bottom to become rock sugar. Zhao Fuxiang reached out and took it

I sold a piece of rock candy as big as my fist, thinking that I could make a fortune just by selling rock candy.

In this preliminary test, Zhao Fuxiang used a total of nearly five tons of water and thirty shi of brown sugar. He filtered out nearly three tons of colorless sugar water. After boiling the sugar, he obtained ten shi of white sugar, and the sugar yield rate was only 100%.

30. Of course, the sugar yield is a bit low, but there is nothing we can do about it. All filter tanks are new, and there is still a large amount of solution in the gaps of the filter material. However, as the output increases, the loss will be reduced to an acceptable level.

level.

Nowadays, the industrialization of sugar purification can be considered a success, but the restriction on output has become manpower. Whether it is boiling water or boiling sugar, it requires a lot of labor, especially boiling water uses too much wood. Zhao Fuxiang sighed in his heart: I don’t know where the old man is.

When will the boiler be successful!

Thinking of this, Zhao Fuxiang remembered that he had forgotten something important. The design drawings of the boiler cylinder block and steam engine bearings that the old man needed were still with him. Thinking that he had forgotten such an important thing, Zhao Fuxiang hurriedly left Xinbu Island with Kong Shouzhen.
Chapter completed!