Daqin Engineering Corps

Shen Bing made up his mind, if he couldn't do it, he would make up an excuse to get over it.

Then Shen Bing threw in some rags, wheat stalks, red vines and fishing nets that were also chopped into small pieces and mixed them together.

Then start pulping.

The process of pulping is actually similar to the principle of making rattan shell. The purpose is to remove the impurities and only leave the fibers.

The difference is that rattan armor needs the whole section of fiber that can be woven into armor, while papermaking needs broken, short and small fibers that can be pulped.

This process takes the longest time, and the ancients had a time-consuming indigenous pulping method:

Chop the straw and soak it in gray water, and then pat it on the sunny stone slab.

Then let it undergo natural wind, sun, rain, corruption, oxidation and other processes. After a few months, it will become a slurry, and then rubbed and mixed with water to make papyrus.

Although this method is convenient and labor-intensive, it takes too long and Shen Bing cannot wait that long.

A quicker method is to use steaming at high temperatures to disperse the wood fibers rather than clump them.

This is a bit like a modern pressure cooker. After cooking for a long time, lean pork, chicken, etc. will be crushed, and then smashed and roasted to remove the moisture, which is the meat floss...

This effect is also required for papermaking, which is to boil the bark and wood fibers that are still agglomerated into pulp.

Although this time is much faster, it still takes more than ten days.

To be exact, it should be sixteen days.

First steam for eight days, and then wash off resin, mud, sand and other impurities while the wood fiber is still unmelted and broken... This can improve the quality and color of the paper.

Then soak it in lime water and cook it for seven to four days... Cross out this sentence, it is used for alchemy.

Fifteen or six days of non-stop cooking will be enough.

Then enter the next step: put the cooked raw materials in a stone mortar for pounding rice and pound them.

Then put the smashed things in the wooden barrel to see the situation, mix with some water, stir, stir, stir... until it becomes a paste.

This is to allow the short wood fibers to fully intertwine, so that the paper produced is more uniform in thickness and has more tension.

There should also be a bleaching process at this point, which can make the paper look more comfortable.

But Shen Bing's requirements are not that high, so this step is directly omitted.

Finally, brush a layer of this paste-like pulp on the copying board, or dry or dry it, and when it dries, peel it off and it will be a piece of paper.

Not to mention, Shen Bing was still quite nervous when the paper was drying and peeling off.

The reason was that he had thought for so many days and still couldn't come up with any good excuses, and the soldiers had to take turns watching the fire, cooking and washing for so long, it was a bit unreasonable to say it was just a joke.

If this fails, it will damage his prestige as a captain!

If I knew it earlier, it shouldn't be so high-profile and should be done secretly. Even if it fails, not many people will know.

However, Shen Bing was very lucky.

After the paper was dry, it was peeled off... Although a section was broken in the middle and the paper was still yellow, it was still formed.

This made Shen Bing so happy that he finally had some paper to use.

Wei Xi stared at the piece of paper in Shen Bing's hand in a daze. He didn't understand the use of this thing that Shen Bing had made for so long.

Shen Bing didn't say much, picked up a pen, dipped some ink, and scratched a few strokes on the paper... Shen Bing didn't dare to write, just kidding, wouldn't it be tricky to write calligraphy in front of the ancients?

Perhaps because the wood fibers are not compact enough, the ink spreads quickly.

Shen Bing secretly thought that the pulp should be thicker next time.

Seeing this scene, Wei Wei was stunned:

"Captain, this thing... can actually write?"

Shen Bing replied:

"Otherwise, what do you think I spend all my time doing with this thing?"

"You come to try?"

As he said that, Shen Bing took off another piece of paper, this time because of his experience, he took off the entire sheet.

Wei Xing took the pen in response, hesitated for a moment and then swayed it, but what he wrote was Qu Yuan's Nine Songs.

I didn't expect Wei Wei, a military general, to have such literary talents.

It was written flamboyantly, forcefully penetrating the back of the paper, and flexibly stretched... Shen Bing secretly rolled up the paper he was trying out and stuffed it into his sleeve with an embarrassing expression on his face.

After a long while, Wei Xing finally put away the pen happily, looked at his work with satisfaction and sighed:

"This thing is very good, just like that silk..."

"No, this subordinate thinks it's better than that silk silk."

"Especially this thing is still made of tree bark, isn't it..."

Thinking of this, Wei Xi stared at Shen Bing with wide eyes.

Shen Bing nodded, the era of big papermaking is coming.

On the surface, papermaking just makes writing easier and cheaper.

But in fact, it is far from that simple when it is carefully studied. Its appearance is even more important than modern computers.

The reason is that in ancient times, the dissemination and learning of information and knowledge were greatly limited because there was no suitable carrier for recording words.

For example, if a farmer wants to record and disseminate in detail the production methods of sinking soldiers and water carts and overturning carts, they must simplify the text and pictures as much as possible.

Because only in this way can the difficulty and time of writing on the bamboo slips be reduced.

If there were too many words and annotations, it would take a bag of bamboo slips just to make the waterwheel.

Even so, Xu Yingna needed dozens of people to rush to make it overnight, and it would take several months to distribute "On Agriculture" to the whole country.

Moreover, there is another problem after the simplification of the pictures and texts: it is difficult to understand.

Even if I read it, I don't know what to do, I just know that there is such a thing.

This is also the reason why many people went to Shen Bing's engineering battalion to study on the spot.

Even if someone has learned it and wants to record the method and pass it on to future generations, there will still be problems of simplification, so it is often lost after a few generations because the information is getting less and less.

But with paper it's different.

Paper has the advantages of being light, easy to carry, cheap, and records a large amount of information.

So you can record the production process in detail, as long as you want, in as much detail as you want.

After seeing this method, later generations can follow it step by step, so it is easy to learn.

So knowledge and technology can easily spread through space and time...space refers to the breadth in the same period, and time refers to the span of time.

Therefore, papermaking is not just as simple as making a piece of paper, but an information revolution, the first information revolution in human history.

Chapter 168

Shen Bing asked the censor, and the Qin State strictly enforced the "prohibition of the two businesses of the people", especially prohibiting the army from doing business.

Because they think that if the military is in business, it only wants to make money.

After earning money, you will enjoy it, and then you will be greedy for life and afraid of death, and fight wars without peace of mind.

There is some truth to this statement.

If the army cannot do business or do other things, there is only one way to go: meritorious service and promotion.

So the whole army can only think about how to make meritorious deeds and how to kill the enemy.

And if you can do business, of course you will be half-hearted:

The business failed and there was no heart to fight.

If the business is successful... then why fight?Go home and enjoy yourself!

The Song Dynasty was the first to allow the army to do business, so its combat effectiveness was so low.

In addition, there will be a series of corruption issues such as many unclear power-money transactions.

Therefore, in principle, Shen Bing cannot do business.

It’s okay to play around the edges, such as asking relatives and friends to do business and support him behind the scenes... But Shen Bing is alone at this time, where can he find such a reliable person?

Of course, Shen Bing couldn't help it.

What Shen Bing wants is not wealth.

As I said before, in this troubled world, if you don't have your own influence, no amount of wealth can be kept.

So Shen Bing's goal has always been clear: power, or power.

It's just that sometimes wanting power also needs money, like now: Shen Bing lacks money for armor.

Since you can't do business, then...

Shen Bing asked the censor:

"What if I use something in exchange for wages?"

"It's not illegal, is it?"

Supervisor Shi was taken aback for a moment, then replied:

"It's not illegal."

"But this thing can't be something in the army, such as military rations, armor..."

Shen Bing smiled and replied:

"Don't worry, the censor, it is naturally not a thing in the army."

Shen Bing was relieved after asking these questions, and he immediately invited the two old men who made the armor.

According to Ren, the two old men were well-known basket weavers in Daliang, and they were brothers, one named Jing and the other Wei.

This name is easy to remember, as soon as you hear it, you can tell that it comes from a family of weaving baskets or weaving cloth... In ancient times, warp and latitude refer to the horizontal and vertical lines in weaving cloth or weaving baskets.

This time the two old men were not as scared as before, but they were still a little timid.

Shen Bing asked:

"Dare to ask the two old men, can Shen Bing use other things to pay for his wages?"

The two brothers Jing and Wei looked at each other, and then replied in a low voice:

"But I don't know what the captain plans to pay for his salary?"

"If it can be exchanged for rice, my brothers will not refuse."

This is reasonable.

As the saying goes, food is the most important thing for the people. At this time, the people usually think most about whether they can survive.

So in their eyes, no matter what it is, as long as it can be exchanged for rice grain, it will be fine, and then the value will be calculated based on the amount of rice grain.

In other words, the standard for measuring prices in this era is not gold, silver, etc., but food.

Shen Bing said:

"Don't worry, old man, this thing can be exchanged for rice."

After speaking, Shen Bing counted ten pieces of paper and divided them up, saying:

"These are the deposits!"

"The two old men should go to rich people or scholars to change."

"Old man, try as much as you can."

"If you can't change it, the old man will take it and return it to me!"

Although ten sheets of paper are not many, they are the first paper to be circulated on the market in this world.

As long as you have a little vision, you can know their value.

Brothers Jing and Wei stared blankly at the thin sheets in their hands, their eyes full of suspicion.

But anyway, Shen Bing said so, if you can't change the rice, you can use it to return it, so what's wrong?