Chapter 49 Paper and Porcelain
The next day, Paul once again invited Queller Foster to the hall, and he was accompanied by everyone from the Leachman Adventure Group.
Quiller happily guessed: "My friend, you are probably going to show me your 'gadgets' today, right?"
"That's right!" Paul snapped his fingers , turned around and said loudly: "Here comes!"
I saw two servants coming over with two trays and placing them on the table. The trays were covered with cloth, so the contents could not be seen.
Queller said with a smile: "Huh? Is it very mysterious?" Everyone in the adventure group also showed guessing expressions.
"Watch it!" Paul suddenly lifted the cloth on the first skewer plate, "The first one, 'paper'".
"Paper?" Everyone was puzzled. You made it so mysterious just to let us see the paper?
Meru, the leader of the adventure group, looked sullen: "Are you kidding us, Lord?"
Paul shook his fingers and said: "Don't worry, everyone, I am just a piece of paper. Extraordinary, it is not made of sheepskin, but made of very cheap raw materials, and the production process is simple, saving a lot of labor and material costs, and the price is much lower than parchment paper. "
Queller had heard Paul talk about the new type of paper in Port Fulan, so he wasn't too surprised. He picked up a piece of paper, rubbed it, and praised: "This 'paper' is really good, it can replace parchment. If If it can be produced in large quantities as you said that day, the prospects should be very promising. By the way, what is it made of? "
Paul refused: "Sorry, even if you are my friend. Can’t reveal it.”
“Humph! What’s the second tray?”
Open your eyes and look carefully. Oh! I call this thing 'porcelain.'"
“Oh!” Everyone exclaimed after seeing what was on the tray.
This is a porcelain dish, flawless white and crystal clear. This is the first impression everyone has after seeing it.
Similar to medieval Europe, the utensils used by most people in this world are pottery. People with some qualifications use utensils made of metal, such as copper utensils, and upper-class nobles use silver utensils.
However, no matter how you maintain it, metal products will inevitably get rusty and will no longer be as smooth as before after a period of time. The appearance of porcelain is much better, and its appearance is so much higher than that of yellowish pottery and copperware.
Paul introduced proudly: "How is it? Does it look good? And it won't rust!"
Europeans worked hard to obtain the secret recipe for making porcelain, but in the end it was French missionaries Perry Entrecolet, an undercover JDZ agent, spent more than ten years lurking around to obtain the raw materials and secret recipes. After sending them all the way back to Europe, Westerners were finally able to produce local porcelain comparable to Chinese porcelain.
In fact, the biggest core of the secret of porcelain is two things: kaolin (or magnet) and high temperature.
Fortunately, kaolin was discovered not far from Huxin Town. Paul recruited a group of pottery craftsmen, set up a cellar, and began to experimentally fire porcelain.
It was not ideal at first because the temperature was difficult to control and firing porcelain requires a high temperature of over 1,200 degrees.
In order to solve this problem, Paul asked a glass craftsman to make the world's first mercury thermometer. Although there was an error, it was barely enough, but of course it was not possible to directly reach into the cellar to measure the temperature, otherwise It has to be exploded, and the mercury thermometer cannot measure above 400 degrees. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature around the porcelain cellar, and then combine it with the spit temperature measurement method that Paul recalled - spitting into the kiln mouth. The saliva will turn into small jumping water droplets before evaporating, and then judge based on the height of the water droplets jumping. Temperature——Finally, a sustained and stable high temperature of over 1,200 degrees was created.
Another important step before entering the cellar for firing is to apply glaze. If glaze is not applied, although porcelain can be fired, it will be rough.
The glaze is made by mixing pottery clay water with plant ash and stirring evenly. It needs to be filtered before use.
This step greatly affects the appearance of the finished product, but it was not taken into account during the trial production. The perfect glazing technique requires craftsmen to slowly explore it.
When Paul regained Port Fulan, the craftsmen in Huxin Town finally produced the first batch of decent porcelain after a lot of experiments.
The porcelain plate in front of me is one of the trial products. It does not have beautiful pictures like the common porcelain on earth, because the pigment formula used to color the porcelain is a secret, and Paul is afraid of the influence of mismatching. Since the trial product is not painted during firing, let’s resolve the problem first and let the craftsmen slowly study the painting technology.
The trial product was actually not perfect, with many flaws. It was far from being perfect, but it was enough to shock the natives of other worlds like Queller.
Quiller asked excitedly: "You...you want to sell this kind of thing?"
Paul nodded proudly and replied: "Of course, this is just an early experimental product, and There are many flaws, and they are far from perfect. The ones I want to sell in the future will be more beautiful than this, and they will have various beautiful patterns painted on them."
The young master of the Foster family sighed; " This will set off a storm!" Even if Queller hates the family business, he still has some business genes.
Looking at the people in the Leachman Adventure Group who were also staring at the porcelain plate, Paul said loudly: "I announce that everyone present will receive a trial product of porcelain. A certificate was issued in the name of the Mann family, proving that they are the first batch of porcelain in the world. Although these trial products are far from perfect, if the porcelain can sell well, their collection value will be far from immeasurable. ”
Dean in the adventure group said hurriedly: "How can this be allowed? This kind of thing is too expensive, we can't accept it. Oops -" Dean's foot was stepped on hard by Meru, the leader of the group.
Meru worshiped Paul and said: "Lord Graiman, I'm sorry, I deeply regret my misunderstanding of you before. In fact, you are neither lustful nor cowardly. It turns out that you He is a generous, kind, and good man who cares about his people."
Paul crossed his arms and raised his head, "Humph! Have you finally seen my true side?"
Huh? No, was that the image of me before in your eyes? Forget it, if you are happy today, I will ignore the villain.
He said with a serious face: "This is not for free. When you return to the south, you must do more publicity for me."
Queller and Meru agreed repeatedly.
One of them said with a guarantee: "Our businessmen there will definitely compete to ask you for the agency rights."
One's eyes shone: "Get rich, get rich!"
Well, the son of a powerful figure in the council and a famous adventure group should be able to produce quite an advertising effect.
(End of this chapter)