bookcurios Chapter 124 Guangchang County Workshop
Chapter 124 Guangchang County Workshop
In the Zhou Dynasty during this era, winemaking technology had actually matured. However, due to food shortages, winemaking was done privately and was not dared to be sold publicly within the Zhou Dynasty.
The key to winemaking is yeast.
Yeast is a single-celled fungus that belongs to the category of microorganisms, so it can be said that yeast is a biological fungus. It has a complete cell structure and can carry out life activities such as growth, reproduction and metabolism.
First, yeast ferments the sugars in the winemaking process into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is the key step in producing alcohol and determines the alcohol content of the wine.
Secondly, yeast also produces some by-products, such as esters, alcohols, aldehydes, etc. These substances give the wine a unique flavor and aroma.
Therefore, if Mr. Zhao wanted to make wine, it would not be a difficult task at all if he had these techniques.
The technology of distilling liquor did not exist in this era.
Zhao Sheng would not violate the laws of the Great Zhou because of this. Instead, he used his large family to make wine, brought it back for secondary distillation and planned to sell it.
"I want to put this workshop in Guangchang County, but I just need someone to manage it."
The main reason for placing it in Guangchang County was its concealment. Placing it in Dingzhou County would really arouse envy, so he wanted to improve the two places of Weizhou and let more people come to protect it.
Although Li Gengbao could bring grapes and green fruits all the way from the Di tribe, the transportation costs and time issues always made it seem uneconomical.
So he wanted to grow grapes and green fruits around Yangshan County.
When Zhao Sheng raised this question, Li Gengbao felt that he could do it, so he volunteered, "Sir, we can jointly produce fruit wine."
"Li Baiyi, I think if the roads to Bingzhou and Chang'an are repaired, it will be much easier for you to transport barley and fresh fruit, and you can save half the time."
"But I think it's very feasible to develop vineyards and orchards here as you said," Zhao Sheng added.
When Zhao Long and others heard that Zhao Sheng wanted to cooperate with a foreigner to grow fruit, they were a little confused. In their minds, cooperating with a foreigner was tantamount to selling out the country.
Especially since Zhao Sheng is a royal consort.
After Li Gengbao left, Zhao Sheng looked at Zhao Long and the Li family members, who were all puzzled, and said:
“Although I am the son-in-law of the emperor, I am also from the Zhao family of Handan. It is imperative to introduce high-quality breeds to develop our country. With good wine and beverages, we can exchange them for more food, war horses and other supplies.
Don't think it's a big deal. If necessary, we can privately buy and sell them a batch of low-quality ore to make them ambitious, so that we can fight them."
"Then why don't we sell the refined iron directly?" Zhao Long asked still puzzled.
"Are you stupid? We don't even have enough refined iron right now. We're selling iron ore to mess with the alien races and meet our needs."
Zhao Sheng felt that Zhao Long in front of him was good at fighting and had strong execution ability, but for some reason he thought about problems in an extreme way, which was different from Zhao Yongsheng.
Li Lai Xi was concerned about the wine issue, and the most urgent task was to blend the wine immediately.
"My Lord, what do you think of our wine?"
"Your blending method is wrong. So, you provide the Elaeagnus angustifolia wine and ship it to Guangchang County. I will mix new wine for you. In order to distinguish it, this wine needs a name."
"Name? Didn't it have a name before?" Li Lai Xi only then remembered that they had been drinking, but the wine didn't have a name.
Zhao Sheng thought of the military town at this moment, and suddenly an idea struck him: "Let's call it the New Army Bar!"
"New Army Wine? What kind of name is that? It shouldn't be called something like Zui or Jiang. At the very least, it should be called something fragrant. Just call it New Army Wine. What does that mean?"
"Well, we call it New Army Wine here. We don't know what it will be called when it's shipped outside the Xiongnu steppes. It has nothing to do with us."
Li Laixi thought about it and realized that it was indeed just to distinguish wines from different origins.
"Do we need to buy some private liquor?"
"Of course. Your demand is so great, and we can't make wine ourselves. We can only collect some fermented glutinous rice or water wine and blend it here."
Mr. Zhao wouldn't say that it was distilled here.
The distillation technology is all in the hands of the children led by Zhao Erniu and Zhao Hu. After discussing with Zhao Long, they decided to let Zhao Erniu bring the two older children over.
These two people are seventeen-year-old Wang Liushi and sixteen-year-old Gong Jianliugang.
Although Gong Jianliugang is younger than Wang Liushi, he is Wang Liushi's superior.
When Zhao Long was training these children, the internal regulations and assessments were very strict, and it had nothing to do with age.
In the last battle of Guangchang County, many soldiers from Dingzhou County were injured. This time, when building a workshop here, Zhao Long helped select several older people who had no worries to serve as Deadpools.
In fact, it means making distilled liquor for a lifetime, having no worries about food and drink, and being loyal to the prince consort.
As Mr. Zhao jokingly said, it would not be a problem to find wives for them in the future.
The rest of the old wounded soldiers with ties can only do peripheral carrying work. Their salary is not bad, but they are not allowed to access core secrets.
As mentioned earlier, Guangchang County is not a large place. It is located in a southeast direction and has a medium-sized distillery and several large warehouses.
There is some fermented glutinous rice and freshly distilled wine stored in it.
Mr. Zhao has a plan. It is very likely that wine will be brewed here in the future, so the factory area will not seem too large.
Guangchang County is also under expansion. Zhao Sheng plans to build a new city around the old city wall.
In the future, the new city will have sulfur factories, textile mills, breweries, and even steel mills.
In the future, it may not be allowed to enter the city from here. A wide road has been built on the east side of Guangchang County, leading directly to Weizhou City.
Gong Jianliugang and three others arrived in Guangchang County half a month later.
At that time, factories were built very quickly. They used bricks used to build city walls to build factories. How could it not be fast?
The factory building is similar to the Zhenzhong compound, with places to eat and live. Especially those veterans of Deadpool, almost all of them live in the inner rooms, and they are accompanied by guards when they go out for something.
Not to mention that when Zhao Erniu and his friends go out, there are more than a dozen people protecting them openly and secretly.
"Brother Liushi, we're working two shifts today. We're both working hard, and Brother Erniu will still be there to protect us. He'll take care of anything that comes our way."
The tasks of Wang Liushi and Gong Jianliugang were actually very simple. Their main task was to pay attention to the temperature, control the alcohol content, and the proportion of mixed raw materials.
There were no glass hydrometers in this era, but Mr. Zhao made a reference hydrometer based on the density of water and an assumed alcohol content of ten degrees.
The material is still silver. After having a template, I made some more of the same ones.
At this time, Zhao Sheng's control over the alcohol content was entirely based on his own standards.
Even today, liquor stores use the "silver hydrometer" he made as the standard for measuring alcohol content.
A month later, the first batch of new military wine, weighing 10,000 kilograms, was sold to Nalan Xiongying in exchange for cattle and sheep. Zhao Sheng did not want any money this winter.