Chapter 297: Hong Liang: Does this count as a kiss? Making White Sugar!
Li Mo snatched the sugarcane from Hong Liang’s hand.
He peeled back the untouched end and took a bite.
The juice was plentiful and much sweeter than he had expected.
“Why don’t you just go and get your own if you want to eat? Why do you have to steal mine?”
Hong Liang pouted her little face, complaining bitterly.
“Here, where did you get this sugarcane?”
Li Mo handed back the bitten sugarcane, spitting out the remnants in his mouth.
“What sugarcane? This is called Zhe!”
Hong Liang paused for a moment, holding up the sugarcane to emphasize.
“In the kitchen, there’s cut-up pieces.”
Looking at the end Li Mo had bitten, she hesitated on whether to eat it like that.
The way it’s referred to during this time shows how tough it is.
Mu jia shi, which means wood as hard as stone.
Li Mo chuckled, “You have cut pieces available but you’re gnawing on this stick? What’s the point?”
Hong Liang rolled her eyes at him, pouting, “What do you know? The fun of eating Zhe is just this. You start from the not sweet part and it gets sweeter as you eat more.”
Just like some people who like to cut a watermelon in half and scoop it out with a spoon.
Cutting it into pieces loses its soul.
Hong Liang grabbed a sugarcane and walked to a deserted place. She looked at the section she had been gnawing on for a long time, then glanced at the end that Li Mo was chewing on.
She licked her lips and took a crunchy bite, a small piece snapping off.
The sweet juice burst forth in her mouth, leaving an endless aftertaste!
As she chewed away, Hong Liang suddenly froze.
Thinking of something, her little face gradually turned red.
Does this count as a kiss?
“Did my husband discover something?”
Li Mo and Fei Yan continued towards the kitchen. Based on Fei Yan’s understanding of him, Li Mo wouldn’t show interest in something for no reason.
“That’s right, I thought of something.”
Li Mo lightly nodded.
Seeing the sugarcane reminded him that the formula he recited was missing a line.
One sulfur, two nitrate, three charcoal.
There was one more line to go.
Add some white sugar to the mix!
In fact, records of sugarcane date back to the Warring States period:
In “Chuci. Invoking Souls,” it is recorded: “Mian Bie Bao Gao, there is some Zhe juice.”
“Zhe juice” refers to what we now know as sugarcane juice.
However, during this period, sugarcane juice was only for drinking and had not yet been used to make sugar.
It wasn’t until the Northern and Southern Dynasties that the technique from India of making sugar from sugarcane juice was introduced to China, allowing ancient people to start using sugarcane juice to make sugar.
Before the Ming Dynasty, sugar was mainly red or black.
In ancient times, the traditional cost of sugar production was extremely high, making it affordable for only a few.
As a result, its price was also very expensive.
Later, it became an important strategic resource.
White sugar could provide the necessary calories; it is a high-calorie food that can quickly replenish energy on the battlefield.
Not only that.
White sugar, due to its high density and high caloric content, is also an important fuel additive.
Li Mo finally understood why the gunpowder he mixed didn’t have the desired potency.
It turned out he was missing this vital component.
The next day, Li Mo had several large bundles of sugarcane sent from the foot of the mountain.
They were all piled up in the backyard.
Making sugar from sugarcane requires squeezing and boiling.
Li Mo instructed the maids to wash and cut the bundles of sugarcane into sections.
The house had a juice-making girl but lacked a juice extractor.
Then use the traditional pressing method.
One pound of sugarcane can yield about four ounces of juice.
But this is under the circumstances of improved varieties and having a juicer for future generations.
In actual operation, one pound of sugarcane produces about two ounces of juice.
After pressing several large bundles of sugarcane, you can get about twenty pounds of juice.
This juice is then poured into a vat and boiled over fire until it turns into a black-yellow syrup, which solidifies into brown sugar once cooled.
The freshly pressed juice is muddy and contains many impurities, so the resulting sugar will be black-yellow.
The maids are there washing the sugarcane while Li Mo tidies his clothes and starts to press the juice.
Heavy stones are pressed down on the wooden wedges to squeeze the sugarcane between two pieces of wood.
The sound of thudding draws a crowd of curious onlookers.
Hong Liang looks enviously at the sugarcane being cleaned by the maids, covering her teeth with a pained expression.
She had chewed too much yesterday, and her teeth still hurt now.
“What is my husband doing?”
Jing Ni, accompanied closely by the ever-present Duanmu Rong, walks over and asks while Li Mo is busy collecting the residue.
Li Mo replies while continuing his work, “Making gold.”
In ancient times, there was a saying, “One tael of gold is equal to one tael of sugar.”
White sugar was considered a top luxury.
There is indeed some truth to saying he was making gold.
“If you can really make gold, I wouldn’t have to be so busy every day. We could just sit at home turning stones into gold together.”
A melancholic voice came from Zini, who had taken a break to come and watch the commotion.
There are too many businesses at home; although she doesn’t have to do everything herself, managing the daily accounts keeps her quite busy.
Fortunately, Nongyu and Lady Hu can now handle things independently, which lightens her load a bit.
“Don’t believe me? Just wait and see how I turn this into gold.”
Li Mo chuckles lightly.
Once the finished product is made, with Zini’s shrewd business acumen, she will definitely see its commercial value.
In ancient times, the two most important and profitable things were salt and iron.
However, both of these goods were under government control.
While the Qin State claimed to manage them, they were actually in the hands of private individuals.
That individual is Lü Buwei.
Lü Buwei had absolute power in the Qin State when he was alive, so a profitable business like this could not be left to others.
If he did it, it was a legal government-run enterprise.
If others did it, that would be illegal trade.
They would be torn apart by chariots!
Yet now, it all benefited Li Mo.
The profits from just these two businesses accounted for half of his total income.
The potential profits are immense!
Although sugar was not a necessity in ancient times like salt, it held a similarly important status.
To monopolize the sugar supply of the world would yield astronomical figures.
Who would complain about having too much money?
Moreover, sugar could be included in the military supplies of the Qin State.
The state would foot the bill, which is a secure and substantial project!
Ordinary people couldn’t even dream of this!
Unknowingly, he had become a part of the evil monopolistic capitalism.
Hong Liang leaned over the bucket filled with juice, stretching her neck to look inside.
Then she disdainfully exclaimed, “Why is it so dirty? You’re not planning to make this for us to drink, right?”
The freshly extracted sugarcane juice was yellowish-green and looked extremely murky.
“It’s not for drinking; it’s for eating.”
Li Mo took out the residue from the press and shoved a few new stalks in.
Hong Liang rolled her eyes, “Are you calling drinking water eating water?”
Li Mo chuckled and said, “Just wait until I make it, and you get caught sneaking some. Move aside, I’m going to smash it.”
Hong Liang had a particular fondness for sweets.
You could tell from the candied fruits she carried with her.
I wonder if her exaggerated development is due to her sweet tooth.
The fat on her body seems to have found its place, piling all up on her prominent bust.
Quickly, a pile of sugarcane was pressed into a bucket of yellowish-green liquid.
He poured the sugarcane juice into a prepared vat next to him and set it on the fire to boil.
As the liquid cooked, it reduced and thickened.
Eventually, it formed a black-yellow sticky substance.
When Hong Liang saw this ghastly appearance, she frowned even more, pursing her lips in disgust.
No way would Hong Liang eat even a bite of that stuff even if she died from craving it!
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