A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

Xiao Pingtai hurriedly went to pull Aji, but Aji was really tough. He got up after patting his butt and smiling silly. His straw sandals were broken, but luckily I brought a spare pair to put on for him.

While checking whether there were any injuries on his arms and legs, Xiao Pingtai scolded him with a smile, "If you keep running around, you will fall into a ditch one day. Let's see what you do." Then she helped him pat the dirt on his clothes.

Xiaoping was relieved to see that he was fine. It turned out that Aji stepped on a small bunch of fruits (the fruit drop period of the sumac tree is not so early, one month in advance), and then slipped. The fruit had not been trampled to pieces even when it was strong. Xiao Pingtai pointed to the fruit and asked the farmer. Seeing that Aji was fine, the lacquer farmer casually said it was the fruit of the lacquer tree.

Xiao Pingtai was confused, "Why don't you collect the fruits? These are all seeds."

The lacquer farmer laughed when he heard this, "This lacquer tree has been producing lacquer for thirty years. Lacquer can't be grown everywhere. The lacquer fruits are inedible and don't need to be collected and planted, so naturally they just fall to the ground." "

Then the lacquer farmer picked up a few lacquer fruits from the ground. Anyway, his hands had long been stained black by raw lacquer and lacquer trees, and he casually crushed the lacquer fruits with his fingers. It took a little force to crush the fruit.

Xiao Pingtai understood it at a glance. The skin of this fruit was almost waxy. The fruit was only a little bit big. If you peeled off the skin, there was basically nothing left to eat. What's more, it's slightly irritating. If you eat it with the skin, it's like eating wax that will sting your throat. No one will want to eat it.

However, it is precisely because the outer skin of the lacquer fruit is rich in wax that it is generally difficult to rot quickly. The seeds inside cannot come into contact with water and will not germinate when they fall to the ground. Then naturally no one would think about dealing with this kind of thing, and it would naturally fall to the ground without anyone caring about it.

At this moment, an idea flashed in Xiaopingtai's head. Yes, the wax fruit is rich in oil and the skin is rich in wax.

Then why not grow sumach trees, collect the fruits that no one wants, and then make candles? The example of Uesugi Takayama is obvious. (The following contents are all written based on historical facts. Uesugi Harunori made a profit of 6,400 taels of silver in one year, and this was because he only used lacquer fruits)

So he turned around and asked the lacquer farmer with a smile, except for lacquer fruits, all the cocoas, birches, maples, maples, etc. on the mountain. As long as the fruit has a waxy outer skin and oil inside, I'm willing to buy it for twenty cents per hundred catties. If I'm willing to deliver it to Shanuchi Fuzhong City, I'll add an additional fifty cents.

The lacquer farmer looked at Xiao Pingtai in disbelief and asked bluntly if he was joking. Xiao Pingtai was definitely not joking, so Xiao Pingtai gave the lacquer farmer a hundred dollars and asked him to tell the farmers in nearby villages the news. As long as you bring one hundred kilograms of fruit to Yamauchi Fuzhong City, you will be given seventy cents. You can definitely do this job.

Xiaopingtai first let Aji (fourteen years old). Xiaopingtai thought he was a child, but he was basically an adult at that time, so when he took him to fight, no one thought it was inappropriate. During the Warring States Period, everyone was between fifteen and sixty. He ran back to talk to Uncle Tsunaliang, and then he walked around the villages, paid a small deposit to the clan leaders of each village, and asked them to collect fruits from various trees on the mountain and send them all to Yamauchi Fuchu Castle. .

Then Koheita temporarily hired two farmers to lead the way and spent nearly ten days traveling through various valleys and basins in Hida. He encouraged the people in each village to go to the mountains to pick up fruits and told them that they could exchange them for money. Then Xiaopingtai took the first batch of citizens who collected the fruits and sent them to Shanuchi Fuzhong City. The first batch alone exceeded four thousand kilograms.

On the Fuzhong City side, Uncle Tsunliang got the news from Aji and had already prepared to come. He first bought several houses near the river and temporarily leveled the land nearby. Workers were also prepared in advance and dozens of men and women were purchased. Preparations were made, such as stoves, cauldrons, firewood and other things, and a craftsman who knew how to make beeswax was hired.

Xiao Pingtai paid the first batch of farmers who came to deliver the fruits according to the quantity, and told them how much they needed, and paid them immediately after they delivered them. They told them to go back and continue their propaganda. The fruits were piled randomly on the flat land outside the house.

Then Xiao Pingtai pretended to be a public servant and used the identity of the Uchida County magistrate for private purposes. He distributed county books and called on the people in the area to use their off-farm time to go to the mountains to collect fruits. They also sent them to Fuzhong City. The same amount of 20 yen and 100 catties of fruit was paid, and an additional 20 yen was added. Ten cents of foot money. The farmers in the mountains will send less. After all, the people in the mountains will be busy with the autumn harvest soon, but there will be a lot more after the autumn harvest is over.

These fruits are left to dry for three to five days, and then they are crushed with a round stone roller, and the skin and flesh are easily separated from the seeds.

Then collect the crushed fruits and pass them through water. The seeds, skin and flesh will immediately separate into layers. Put the peel and pulp directly into the pot and add water to cook. Then filter out the impurities and cook again to get the slightly yellow original wax. Just pour liquid wax into the wooden mold, add a worthless kapok wick, and then close the other half of the candle to combine the two sides. It can be made into the most ordinary candle.

Although Xiao Pingtai is sure that the quality of this candle is good, after all, it was all from books before. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn't be sure.

Now that the finished product was ready, he immediately inspected a few of each batch and found that there was no smoke when burning, and there was no pungent smell of paraffin. As for the fruity aroma, the fragrance of vegetation is not there either. It's just an ordinary wood wax, and it's made very successfully.

Then, since I was in business, I couldn’t help but Xiao Pingtai also wanted to make more money, so she experimented with a few more batches. How much water can be added to the original wax without affecting the burning of the candle and reducing the proportion of raw materials.

After experimenting with various ratios and determining the best ratio, the workers worked at full capacity to make the materials they could supply every day. Moreover, these workers were all bought by Uncle Tsuna, and they didn't need to be paid. Xiaopingta just said that the person with the highest output could have unlimited rice for dinner, and he completely settled them.

After all, most of these people are civilians who were arrested and sold during the Beixin War, and they can be considered half fellow villagers. Although I make you work ten hours a day, I don't care if you have enough to eat. As farmers, you may not be able to have enough to eat every day.

With the end of the hot autumn harvest, starting from the end of August, farmers from all over the country sent a large number of fruits, up to more than 200,000 kilograms. The men and women who bought it were already skilled at their work. The packhorse pulled ten mills to grind the fruits day and night. The seeds are collected and waiting for the custom-made oil press to be delivered and the oil is pressed together.

In more than a month, a total of 160,000 candles weighing about half a catty were made.