Steel Dynasty - Chapter 244

[Chapter 244 The Birth of the Glass Mirror]

“Your Highness, it seems that agriculture is still the foundation of the country, cotton, rape, hemp, etc., these are the next step to promote the cultivation of the people in the fiefdom.”

Xiao Ming had a headache for cotton, Pang Yukun took the opportunity to say, he I feel that Xiao Ming paid too much attention to handicrafts during this period, but ignored the fundamentals of agriculture.

“You are right, but there is not enough food now. It may be difficult for the people to plant these things. After all, they have to bear the risk of not being able to sell them. So, let the production corps do some planting first and wait for the production of food. Continue to promote after stabilizing.”

Xiao Ming said.

Pang Yukun nodded. During this period, he and Xiao Ming have been planning the agriculture and industry of the six states. These are all included in the plan.

“Also, Your Highness, what is this new product?”

At the last banquet, Xiao Ming threw out another bait, but due to the problem of careful production, everyone ignored it. Now Pang Yukun mentioned it again.

“Mirror.” Xiao Ming laughed when he thought of this new product.

The country of Chongqing still uses bronze mirrors, which are very blurry and make it difficult to see the specific details on the face.

Modern mirrors are glass mirrors. By coating the back of the mirror with aluminum, the mirror can clearly reflect people.

But now it is impossible for Xiao Ming to extract aluminum, because the extraction of aluminum requires electrolysis, and the traditional silver mirror reaction requires nitric acid, ammonia, glucose and other things. He also has no way to produce mirrors through chemical silver plating.

After all, some industrial products cannot be produced at all without electricity.

After much thought, he thought that under the current conditions, only three things could be used to obtain a mirror: glass, tin foil, and mercury.

“Mirrors? Bronze mirrors? There are so many of them in the Chongqing Kingdom, I guess I thought there was nothing novel about them.” Pang Yukun said.

Xiao Ming shook his head and said: “What I want to produce this time is a glass mirror. I will show it to you in two days.”

Li Kaiyuan looked excited. After waiting for such a long time, there is finally a new product. He could already imagine that the merchants would fill up the Chamber of Commerce again.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but giggle.

Seeing his wretched look, Xiao Ming reminded him: “The task now is to purchase cotton. If it delays the departure of my fleet, see how I deal with you!”

Li Kaiyuan was startled, “Yes, Your Highness, I am now Just go and get it done, but your highness, you need to hurry up with this mirror.” After saying this, he laughed obscenely again.

“I am about to go to Bowen College to talk to Lu Tong about the silver mirror.” As he said this, Xiao Ming stood up.

After that, Xiao Ming and Li Kaiyuan left the Governor’s Mansion together. One went to the Chamber of Commerce and the other went to Bowen College.

When Pang Yukun mentioned new products a few days ago, Xiao Ming told Lu Tong about preparing mirrors and asked him to prepare tin, mercury and other materials.

Although Xiao Ming did not find any local deposits of tin, tin is a very common metal in the Chongqing Kingdom, and the alloy of copper and tin is bronze. This bronze ware appeared in ancient times.

The same goes for mercury. In ancient times, mercury was still a medicinal material. It was not difficult to obtain mercury. It was also very simple to prepare mercury. It was to heat cinnabar to obtain mercury and sulfur.

Cinnabar can often be seen in the elixir recipes of Taoist priests, which shows how common it is.

After arriving at Bowen College, Xiao Ming went directly to the chemistry laboratory. At this time, Lu Tong was waiting for Xiao Ming.

“Your Highness.”

Seeing Xiao Ming coming, Lu Tong led a group of students and bowed to Xiao Ming.

Xiao Ming nodded and asked, “How is it? Are the materials ready?”

“Everything is ready,” Lu Tong said.

Then he took Xiao Ming to see the mercury and tin in glass containers, and there was a pile of glass on the table in front of him.

Since the preparation of sulfuric acid, students in the entire School of Chemistry have been producing granular gunpowder. Now among the three acids and two alkali, they have prepared sulfuric acid, caustic soda and soda ash, but they have not yet tried nitric acid and hydrochloric acid.

However, the chemistry textbook Xiao Ming gave them already contained methods for preparing nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. During this time, Lu Tong was preparing to try it with students from the School of Chemistry.

Among them, they plan to use high temperature and high heat to decompose saltpeter to obtain nitrogen dioxide and dissolve it into water. As for hydrochloric acid, they plan to use concentrated sulfuric acid and table salt to prepare it. Of course, this is currently just a chemical reaction formula they learned from chemistry textbooks and requires specific operations. Just fine.

But from the look of Xiao Ming, it seemed that he just wanted to hand over the chemistry knowledge to them and let them study the rest by themselves.

After checking the materials, Xiao Ming said: “Let’s get started. I said, you do it.”

Lu Tong nodded. Now Xiao Ming was vaguely interested in letting go of the boss and letting them try everything on their own.

In fact, Xiao Ming also knows what Lu Tong and others are thinking now, but there is no way. Knowledge is not stored in the head, but used for practice. During this time, Xiao Ming has given all the chemical element symbols to Lu Tong. .

They also know the periodic table of chemistry very well. It can be said that his textbooks are much more carefully compiled than junior high school chemistry textbooks, and there are all the simple chemical reaction formulas on them.

For the rest, he could only rely on Lu Tong and others to complete the chemical experiments in the chemistry textbooks and apply them in the chemical industry. Otherwise, what is the use of the knowledge? Moreover, with the current level of science and technology in Great Chongqing, junior high school chemistry knowledge is more than enough, and advanced chemistry will involve electrolysis and the like.

Without electricity, learning is useless.

Taking a piece of glass, Lu Tong stuck a piece of tinfoil paper on the back of the glass. Because the melting point of tin is very low, only more than 200 degrees, smelting the tinfoil paper is very simple, as long as it is slightly heated.

After wrapping the tin foil paper, Lu Tong took out the mercury and poured it on the tin foil paper, spreading it evenly.

At this time, a chemical reaction occurred between the mercury and the tinfoil, turning it into a silver-white liquid, which is tin amalgam. Historical data records that this solution produced by mercury and tin existed in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and although mercury is poisonous , but amalgam alloys are non-toxic.

This silver-white liquid will adhere tightly to one side of the glass and will not fall off easily.

The steps to produce the mirror were completed one by one, and Xiao Ming and Lu Tong quietly waited for the moment when the miracle occurred.

Half an hour later, when the metal solution was completely dry, Xiao Ming picked up the mirror and saw himself clearly in the mirror.

A young, somewhat handsome face, “Hey, it’s the first time in a year that I can see my face clearly.”

Xiao Ming sighed with emotion.

At this time, the mirror in his hand was not much different from the modern mirror, but it was slightly darker. After all, tin amalgam was not as bright as silver.

But even so, this mirror is probably a stunning work.

(End of chapter)