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Text Chapter 858 Developing the Sugar Industry

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    When L¨¹ Dai's army took control of all the islands in the South China Sea and captured the Malay Islands, and when Zhou Yu's army captured the Ryukyu Islands, L¨¹ Bu happily announced the establishment of the Chinese Imperial Navy, with L¨¹ Dai as the marshal, and Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, and He Qi as the marshal.  Admiral of the Navy, the Bohai Sea Division was renamed the Bohai Fleet, the East China Sea Navy was renamed the East China Sea Fleet, the South China Sea Navy was renamed the South China Sea Fleet, and the Ocean Navy was renamed the Ocean Fleet.

    Lu Bu promoted Zhou Yu to a one-star general in the navy. In addition to naming the islands, Lu Bu also wrote in his reply that "it is not advisable to pretend to be an overlord. It is better to use the remaining brave men to chase the poor bandits" and let him continue to occupy the remaining islands.  The forces of the First Army were pushed to the vicinity of the Japanese Kyushu Island and began to plunder the Japanese people along the coast there.

    After Zhou Yu took the order, he left Jiang Qin to lead a brigade to defend and build the Ryukyu Islands. The remaining troops set off from "Destroying Japan Island" and successively captured "Yakushima", "Tanegashima" and "Zengjima", and finally advanced to "Zengjima".  "Fujiang Island", "Goto Islands" and "Zhongtong Island" stationed troops and horses on these three islands, echoing the Gan Ning Bohai Fleet on "Jeju Island".

    After receiving the news that Zhou Yu¡¯s tribe was stationed on Fujiang Island, the Ganning tribe on Jeju Island sent Lu Meng to lead two brigades to capture Tsushima Island between Goryeo and Japan to intercept Japan¡¯s trade.

    Since then, the 50,000-strong naval fleet of Zhou Yu and Gan Ning has begun to frequently harass the Japanese country. According to the agreement reached between Lu Bu and Queen Bimihu of the Yamatai Kingdom, the naval fleets of Zhou Yu and Gan Ning are helping the Yamatai Kingdom deal with her small hostile country.

    Those small hostile countries sent fleets many times to deal with Zhou Yu and Gan Ning's navy. However, they are still in the period of slavery. Their shipbuilding technology is very poor and they cannot use bows and arrows. The Chinese Imperial Navy fleet has strong ships and powerful guns and annihilated them all. Those  Small countries have no choice but to maintain a defensive posture.  Their merchant ships had to pay high tolls in order to pass through the waters blocked by the Bohai Fleet and the East China Sea Fleet.

    At the same time, the 10,000-strong navy of Taiwan's garrison set out from Keelung Port to take over the defense of Pengjia Island, and then moved northward to capture the Diaoyu Islands, Huangwei Island, and Chiwei Island.

    Since then, the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Bohai Sea and the Japanese Sea have all been under Lu Bu's control.

    At this time, under the management of Gu Yong, the Taiwan government was engaged in farming, mining, and ethnic integration, and everything was prosperous.  Taiwan is beginning to flourish.

    Gu Yong¡¯s farmland is not just about rice, but also some mung beans, sesame and soybeans.  In addition, there is more sugar cane. Taiwan is hot and humid and rainy, which is especially suitable for the growth of sugar cane. With sugar cane, there will be sugar.  Taiwan's sugar industry is another major income generator.

    Sugar was a rare commodity in this period. Until the early Tang Dynasty, sugar was still a tribute and only the royal family could taste it. After the middle of the Tang Dynasty, it gradually became popular among the people. By the Song Dynasty, sugar workshops had begun to be established among the people.  There are all kinds of sugar snacks, but sugar or desserts are still very expensive. Think about the late Eastern Han Dynasty six or seven hundred years ago, and in other countries.  The price of sugar is even more expensive, especially in places such as Japan and the Roman Empire that produce little or no sugar. The price of sugar is even much more expensive than the price of salt.

    Lu Bu never thought of developing the sugar industry when he arrived, and Gu Yong even less thought of it.  But others thought of it, because Lu Bu once issued a decree: "One person is short-term. Three people are wise. Three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang. For the development of the country, it requires the collective efforts of everyone. Anyone who contributes to the development of all aspects of the country  Those whose suggestions are effective will be heavily rewarded!¡±

    Zhang He, an immigrant from Yongning, had accidentally discovered that sugarcane could be used to produce sugar. He also saw that the climate in Taiwan was more suitable for the growth of sugarcane than in the mainland. At the same time, there was a lack of sugar production in all industries in the country, so he offered his advice to Gu Yong.  Create sugarcane plantations and then make sugar.

    Gu Yong vaguely realized that this would be a big industry, so he sent a letter to Lu Bu for instructions. Lu Bu was overjoyed and ordered Gu Yong to reward Zhang He heavily and ask him to go to Yongning to bring back sugar cane seedlings.

    Zhang He received a heavy reward and happily returned to Yongning, where he retrieved a large number of sugarcane seedlings. Based on these sugarcane seedlings, he began to plant sugarcane on a large scale and began to cultivate sugarcane seedlings, and then expanded sugarcane planting.

    There are many sources of sugarcane seedlings, the most important of which are sugarcane stems, because buds will grow on the sugarcane nodes. The method is to take the entire sugarcane stem, cut it into sections with double buds, and then plant them flat or diagonally.  In addition, the ratoon method can also be used, that is, when the raw sugar cane is harvested, the cane head is not dug. After harvesting, it can be cut, rooted, soiled, and fertilized.

    The growth period of sugarcane is mainly affected by temperature and variety. It takes about fourteen to eighteen months in Taiwan, but the growth period of ratoon can be shortened, only twelve months.  However, sugarcane with insufficient growth period not only has low yield, but also has low sugar content.  The suitable planting periods for sugar cane are August and September for autumn planting, and February and March for spring planting. Because the sugar production period is from November to April of the following year, autumn planting sugar cane has sufficient growing period, while spring planting sugar cane has a sufficient growing period.  Sugarcane needs to be harvested later to accommodate this.

    As the supervisor of the Sugar Division of the Taiwan Farming Department, Zhang He summed up a crop rotation system in specific work to avoid waste.??Field resources also do not affect sugarcane growth.

    First of all, it was a pity that the land was not fully utilized due to the slow growth of young sugarcane. At this time, Zhang He instructed the sugarcane farmers to intercrop other short-term crops to grow together with the sugarcane seedlings and harvest them before the sugarcane tillers grow up to increase land income.  .  But there is a condition that needs to be adhered to, that is, intercropped crops cannot have too many adverse effects on sugarcane cultivation.  Suitable crops include groundnuts, beans, garlic, etc. These crops were grown after corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes were brought back from Central and South America.

    Secondly, after the sugarcane seedlings grow up, a complete crop rotation system begins to be applied.  Usually the first phase of sugarcane is new planting, followed by the second or third phase of ratoon, then the first or second phase of rice, and then back to new planting.  Before the rice is harvested at the end of the season, newly planted sugarcane is planted in the mushy soil between the rice plants, which is called paste sugarcane.  Its advantage is that it does not affect the growth of rice, allows sugarcane to be planted earlier, and can also save the cost of land preparation and border construction.  The one intercropped with the first-stage rice is called the first-stage sugarcane, also called spring-planted sugarcane.  Intercropping with second-stage rice is called second-stage sugarcane, also called autumn-planted sugarcane.

    Because of the growth cycle of sugarcane, the sugar farm can only be operational for more than two or three months within a year. At this stage, private funds may not be wasted.  In addition, because of the huge profits of the sugar industry, Lu Bu thought of the increasing military expenditures and gave up the plan of dividing profits with the people. He decided that the Taiwan government would open a sugar farm, and all profits would be monopolized by the East China Sea Fleet and Taiwan's local guard force.

    Several large-scale sugar farms were opened in Taiwan and equipped with sugar-cooking equipment. Because the sugar-cooking period was during the slack season, cattle were temporarily requisitioned and the power of the animals was used to grind the mills. The source of the workers was from Taiwan.  The garrison and the auxiliary troops of the East China Sea Fleet only need to be started for two or three months and will not affect military operations.

    After sugarcane farmers harvest the sugarcane, they remove unnecessary cane leaves, soil, roots, etc., then bundle it into oxcarts, and then transport it to the sugar factory.  After being transported to the factory, it is carefully cleaned and then sent to the "stone car" for pressing.

    The stone cart is made of two cylindrical stone mills made of granite. The stone mill is pulled by oxen. The sugar cane is crushed through the two cylindrical stone mills to obtain the sugarcane juice and produce bagasse.  A stone cart consisting of two stone mills required twelve or three oxen to pull the grinder. Later, a combination of oxen pull and water wheel push was used, which allowed multiple pressings to squeeze out all the sugar juice in the sugarcane pith.  .

    Then heat the sugar cane juice, and then add lime to purify it to allow the impurities to precipitate to obtain a clearer sugar cane juice. Then boil the clear juice until it becomes soupy. When it becomes sticky to your hands, stir it with a wooden stick while cooling to make the syrup even.  Brown sugar, which crystallizes into granular form, is commonly known as brown sugar or brown sugar.  When cooking, impurities and foam will be produced, which can be fished out with a wooden ladle. After cooling and settling, it can be used as pig feed or used to make wine.  ,

    Generally speaking, if a double-milled stone car is used to make brown sugar, if it relies entirely on the power of oxen and manpower (using twelve oxen and twenty sugar boilers), it can process about 10,000 kilograms of sugar cane every day and boil it into brown sugar within the same day.  .

    Although this kind of brown sugar and brown sugar have their own wonderful uses, their value is very low. The brown sugar occasionally sold on the market is only sold for more than 200 yuan. If the white sugar comes on the market, people will probably buy it if the price is ten yuan.

    However, the productivity in the third century AD was not enough to support Lu Bu's use of modern chemical processes to extract white sugar from brown sugar. He could only use indigenous methods. This required repeated exploration by Zhang He and other sugar workers until they found a processing method suitable for this era.  method.

    First, take out the large, complete and relatively unclean particles in the brown sugar, put them into a funnel-shaped pottery jar, pour yellow mud water over and over again, so that the black residue flows out through the holes, and the sugar in the upper layer will naturally turn white, and the upper layer will become whiter.  The whiter it is, the whiter it is.  In this way, you can take out the white sugar in the upper layer, the brown sugar in the middle layer, and the brown sugar in the lower layer. This kind of brown sugar is not that much better than unrefined brown sugar, but it is somewhat lighter in color and can be sold more expensive).

    As for the black residue that flows out, it is called molasses and can be used to make wine.  After the brewed wine is filtered, it is mixed with rice wine brewed from rice, and it can be drunk or used as cooking wine.  The ratio of rice wine to rice wine is about six parts rice wine and four parts molasses wine.

    The slurry formed by adding lime to sugarcane juice is called "filter mud" and is an excellent fertilizer.  Bagasse is the waste leftover from the sugarcane crushing process. It can be recycled and dried in the sugar field and used as firewood to cook sugar. Sugarcane branches, leaves and bark are also the main source of fuel.  Basically, there is no need to source sugar fuel from outside.  In fact, often because there is too much bagasse, the excess bagasse can be used as compost. Later, I discovered that bagasse can actually be used to make paper pulp, so I used it to make paper pulp.

    As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. The idea was good, but at the beginning of the development of the sugar industry, problems arose in the management of the sugar cane plantations.  Gu Yong reported to Lu Bu Feige: "I originally planned that all these sugarcane plantations should be owned by the government and the army, and the sugarcane farmers would only receive salaries, but I found that the people who planted sugarcane were far inferior to those who farmed them.The working people are diligent.  Zhang He suggested that changing the sugarcane plantation to private ownership would stimulate the people's energy. I wonder what the Lord wants?  "
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