Ch 97: White Sugar? And What Is This?
Sun Jian smiled faintly, not rushing to respond. Instead, he carefully studied the two men with a serious look. After a while, he slowly spoke: “Old Cao, Old Jiang, you are the people I trust.”
Upon hearing this, Old Cao and Old Jiang felt as if bathed in spring breezes, standing there dumbfounded.
A wave of warmth surged in their hearts. If they weren’t both men, they might have been moved to tears by Sun Jian’s words.
“Sun Jian… I…”
Old Jiang hesitated, deeply moved, but didn’t know how to express himself.
“I understand!”
Seeing the two men’s eyes redden, Sun Jian rolled his eyes at them. “You’re both men! What’s with this display? Stop dawdling, put things away, and let’s get started. I’ll teach you salt-making technology!”
“Good!”
The two men responded in unison, quickly returning to their rooms. First, they hid the documents and deeds, then, carrying the silver pieces, they rushed to the back yard. In front of Sun Jian, they distributed the silver pieces and copper coins to everyone.
The villagers were overjoyed at the sight of the silver pieces and copper coins, their enthusiasm soaring, as everyone received some.
Following Sun Jian meant good food, good housing, and even wages before starting work. This made everyone even more loyal to Sun Jian.
Sun Jian didn’t delay. He used the same method as in Sun Family Village, dividing the salt-making process into five parts. Four parts were completed by villagers in four separate rooms using an assembly line.
As for the final and most important part, it would be handled by Old Cao, Old Jiang, and Gousheng.
Only these three knew the entire salt-making process.
This method effectively prevented secrets from leaking, but it wasn’t foolproof.
Sun Jian knew that while many villagers might be loyal now, human nature is fickle, and caution is always necessary.
At the very least, if someone later became disloyal, they would need to first collude with people from the other four workshops to integrate the technology, while simultaneously turning Old Jiang, Gousheng, or Old Cao against Sun Jian, in order to discover the full process.
Otherwise, it would be impossible!
Sun Jian first went to the first room. After instructing the villagers on the confidentiality agreement, he began hands-on guidance and teaching with Old Cao, Old Jiang, and Gousheng.
“Listen up, everyone in the first room. You will learn: crushing and boiling.”
“There are five large iron pots and five wooden mortars here.”
“You must first crush the coarse salt blocks with wooden mortars, then put the crushed salt into the pots and boil them.”
Sun Jian patiently taught everyone.
The crushing process was easy for everyone to learn quickly, but the boiling process was a skilled task.
It required controlling the heat and technique, especially the constant stirring to allow for even evaporation of water. This would allow the resulting crystals to have fewer impurities.
“Wow! Look, small salt grains are forming on the edge of the pot!!”
“Yes, yes! It’s amazing! Why didn’t we notice this before!”
After Sun Jian’s successful demonstration, everyone was astonished, excited, and thrilled.
Sun Jian helplessly rolled his eyes at them and continued teaching.
After two hands-on demonstrations, producing two pots of boiled salt, Old Jiang, Gousheng, and Old Cao also gradually mastered this technology.
“Come on, Sir, let me, Sun Tiezhu, try.”
“Let me try too…”
Several villagers tried their hand, and finally, they all grasped the essentials.
However, the salt was yellowish-black, still containing many impurities, with some salt grains still sticking together.
This required further processing and purification in the second and third rooms.
Sun Jian took Old Jiang and others to the second room. Its purpose was to fire marble and seashells to obtain lime milk and quicklime. As with the first room, two hands-on experiments were conducted, followed by a trial run by Old Jiang and the others, and then several more trials by the others.
The third room was where Old Jiang and the others would master the core technology of purification and impurity removal.
The fourth room was for grinding and filtration, and the fifth for filtration and drying.
After working for three hours, equivalent to 6 hours in the modern world, Sun Jian had finished teaching all the techniques.
When everyone saw the refined salt, as white as flour, everyone’s eyes lit up.
It was, without exaggeration, pure white silver.
“See? When it’s ground, it looks like white sugar.”
Sun Jian held a bag of refined salt and explained to everyone.
White sugar?
What is that?
Everyone was confused again.
They had never heard of or seen white sugar, naturally not knowing what it looked like.
Sun Jian facepalmed.
Damn it… In his excitement, he forgot that this era had never seen white sugar.
Even in later times, white sugar only appeared during the Ming Dynasty.
Great Qian, and the surrounding Great Xia, Great Zhou, and Great Song had never seen this thing before.
“Uh, this… this…”
Sun Jian stuttered.
“Ah, this white sugar… is something I will use in our workshop. You’ve all eaten sugar figurines, right?”
Everyone nodded.
“Right, white sugar looks similar to refined salt but is very sweet. It can be mixed with rice dumplings, and it’s delicious!”
“Oh!! So that’s it…”
Everyone suddenly understood.
Old Jiang, hearing about a new product, his eyes lit up, and he quickly asked Sun Jian with a flattering smile: “Sun Jian, when will we produce that white sugar you just mentioned… heh heh.”
Sun Jian slapped him hard, looking righteous.
“Old Jiang, can’t you just focus on one or two things at a time?”
“Don’t you understand that trying to do too much will ruin everything?”
“Heh heh, I’m just thinking about the future development of our workshop.”
Old Jiang rubbed the back of his head, which Sun Jian had slapped, and smiled apologetically.
“The wine-brewing process has been given to you. After this batch of refined salt is produced, quickly produce a batch of high-proof distilled liquor. We’ll talk about white sugar later!”
“Yes, yes, heh heh.”
Old Jiang grinned like a servant.
“Alright, alright, it’s almost midnight. Everyone rest. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, refine all one thousand catties of coarse salt! Production of high-proof distilled liquor must start the day after tomorrow!”
“Yes!”
Everyone responded in unison, their morale at an all-time high.
After instructing Old Jiang and Old Cao about selling precautions and raw material restocking, Sun Jian left the back yard and headed towards the inner courtyard.
After a busy day, Sun Jian was exhausted, falling asleep as soon as he hit the bed; Chu Qingcheng even helped him wash up.
That night, Sun Jian slept exceptionally soundly.
