Chapter 97 Prince Yu’s Thoughts

Zhu Zaigui and others walked to Zhang Erhe's side. At this moment, the place was already hot and the red stove was burning.

Zhu Zaigui glanced at the coal next to the stove and didn't make a fuss.

Because through more than half a year of understanding, Zhu Zaigui has already realized that coal has been used for more than a thousand years.

Moreover, the Mentougou Coal Mine, which is the closest to Beijing, is still an asset of the palace, and the palace has specially dispatched eunuchs to supervise the work there.

So when Zhu Zaigui saw the coal, he knew without thinking that the coal must have been transported from Mentougou.

Zhu Zaiqi looked at the stove again and asked, "How are the preparations going now?"

Zhang Erhe trotted over to Zhu Zaigui and said, "Your Majesty, everything is ready now and we can start the furnace anytime."

Zhu Zaigui hummed and said, "Then hurry up. My time is very precious, and my money is very tight. You can't just burn the coal like this."

Zhang Erhe nodded awkwardly, "I know I was wrong, I will start right away."

Zhang Erhe quickly took action and put the raw materials for making glass prepared on the side into the high-temperature furnace one by one.

The scorching heat soon turned these raw materials red, and after a while, you could see with the naked eye that these raw materials gradually turned into a hotter golden color under the action of the high temperature and began to soften.

When Zhang Erhe saw the softened raw materials, he immediately stretched out an iron skewer and wrapped the melted and deformed glass blank. Then he skillfully turned the skewer and continued to circle the melted liquid glass onto the skewer.

After rolling it to a certain extent, Zhang Erhe pulled the iron skewer out of the furnace.

I saw a piece of golden glass wrapped on the head of the iron skewer and exposed to the outside air. As the temperature in the air dissipated, the golden glass rough blank began to gradually cool into red, and finally gradually cooled into colorless transparent glass.

Although the glass on the iron skewer has faded to colorless at this point, it is still very high and cannot be touched directly by human hands.

But after reaching this step, Zhu Zaigui was already ecstatic, because he knew that this was already a success!

The next thing to do is to transform the production method of this small furnace into a process-based industrial manufacturing method.

After all, Zhu Zaigui will need a lot of glass products in the future, and the single-person small furnace production method must be transformed into a larger-scale, process-based, multi-person operation method, which can be considered a success.

Otherwise, we have to rely on Zhang Erhe to burn and roll it with an iron stick every day. How long will it take to burn and roll it before we can supply it in batches?

Therefore, improvements in these industrial processes must also be put on the agenda.

Zhu Zaigui said, "Not bad, not bad, very good. I like it very much. But I am not satisfied yet. You should communicate with the craftsmen who make colored glaze and think of a way to see if the method of making this transparent colored glaze can be expanded and streamlined."

"I don't have high requirements for this transparent glass. I don't need to carve every bottle as carefully as I do for colored glass. What I need now is glass bottles that can be produced in large quantities with the same specifications. Do you understand?"

After Zhu Zaigui said this, Zhang Erhe quickly replied: "I understand!"

Zhu Zaiqi nodded in satisfaction, "I understand. If you need any help or have any ideas, you can tell Chief Steward Teng and Supervisor Zhang. As long as it is a reasonable request, I will approve it."

Zhang Erhe bowed excitedly, "Thank you, Your Majesty!"

After watching the manufacturing process of transparent glass, Zhu Zaigui was in a good mood. Next, as long as the problem of large-scale production is solved, it will be even more perfect. "Meng Chong, I have one more thing to tell you."

When Meng Chong heard Zhu Zaigui's voice, he immediately replied, "The prince ordered."

Zhu Zaigui said: "Go and buy some green tea leaves. You don't need to use the best ones, just ordinary ones will do. Then find someone to try to grind these tea leaves into fine tea powder. It will be very useful to me when the time comes!"

When Meng Chong heard this, he became even more excited.

Tea powder?

This is definitely a big move!

In the past, who would have thought of grinding tea leaves into tea powder?

After all, the era of Song tea had passed for more than three hundred years, and the popular way of drinking tea now is to brew it directly with boiling water, so Meng Chong couldn't guess what Zhu Zaigui wanted to do for a while.

But that's not important!
Because in Meng Chong's mind, the most important thing is to get things done according to Zhu Zaigui's requirements.

As for what happened next, it was not something Meng Chong could guess.

So after Meng Chong calmed down, he immediately replied, "I'll do it right away!"

Zhu Zaiqi waved his hand and said, "Go quickly. I am also a little impatient."

Zhu Zaigui asked Meng Chong to collect tea leaves and make tea powder, which was actually to replicate a classic tea drink.

In the world before Zhu Zaigui traveled through time, when bottled green tea, a tea-flavored bottled beverage, was launched, it became popular all over the country!
The Chinese people's love for tea can be said to be engraved in their bones.

Now, as long as he can produce the bottled green tea beverage and after a few years of market cultivation, Zhu Zaigui will dare to directly sell bottled water which is even more profitable.

After all, the people of the Ming Dynasty have not yet experienced the joy brought by bottled drinks.

So Zhu Zaigui decided that as long as Zhang Erhe could master the large-scale production technology of glass bottles, he could first put a batch of sweet drinks with the fragrance of green tea on the market for trial.

When these dignitaries like the special feeling that comes from bottled drinks, Zhu Zaigui will strike while the iron is hot and launch more flavors of drinks to continue cultivating their consumption habits.

Once this habit is established, bottled water, the extremely profitable "nature's transporter", will naturally come online.

It is conceivable that by then, these people who are accustomed to consuming bottled beverages will inevitably turn to bottled pure water with extremely light taste in order to further highlight their uniqueness and elegant sentiments of being indifferent to fame and wealth.

In this way, whether it is a mid-range flavored beverage or a flavorless beverage that is deliberately portrayed as high-end, it will become a weapon for the second-generation rich and "elegant" gentry of the Ming Dynasty to show off!
Therefore, in order to earn money from these self-righteous gentry and landlords, Zhu Zaigui had to spend some time to unexpectedly gain control of them.

Otherwise, it would be too low-end to expect the consumption of second-generation rich people like Yan Shifan who have poor self-control and love sweets.

Therefore, we still have to find a way to make the product more high-end, package the colorless and odorless pure water into an elegant drink that is different from flavored drinks, and make it the favorite of most of the sanctimonious gentry and landlords.

This is Zhu Zaigui’s ultimate goal!
(End of this chapter)

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