Chapter 169

Small garden after noon, the heat is steaming.

It's time for the "elective course" every four days again.

Originally it was just reciting books and listening to that woman explain, which was not difficult for Wang Yang. But as the weather got hotter and hotter, this matter was gradually becoming a bitter task.

At this time, Wang Yang sat outside the house, facing the sun, sweating profusely, his clothes soaked, waving his folding fan listlessly, reciting in low spirits, only feeling as if he were in a big steamer, and even the surrounding air became damp and sticky.

Originally, Wang Yang was famous for his elegant demeanor when using a folding fan, so he could set off a "folding fan trend" in Jingzhou, but now it had nothing to do with being elegant and dashing!

With his sleeves half-rolled up, his face impatient, the folding fan in his hand had no rhythm or elegance at all! Sometimes fanning fast, sometimes too tired to rest, I don't know why it reminded him of roasting lamb skewers! The tragic thing is that he is the skewer of lamb on the charcoal fire, and the even more tragic thing is that he has to fan himself even after being roasted into a skewer!

It's a pity that the hotter it is, the more he fans, the more he fans, the hotter it is, and it's even hotter when he stops! His arms are also sore, and the soreness spreads from his shoulders to his wrists, which is simply suffering! He couldn't help but look forward to going to Xiao Pang's villa to escape the heat tomorrow.

Compared to Wang Yang, Xiao Baoyue, who was sitting in the house, was like being in heaven.

She wore a wide-width dress made of ice silk in indigo satin color, with gorgeous gold-threaded treasure flower patterns on it. Her waist was slender and incomparable, which could be called a disaster; her cheeks were like flowers and jade, which could be called stunning. She didn't wear much makeup, just lightly swept her moth eyebrows, and she looked bright and stunning. Her skin was like jade, and although it was slightly stained with thin sweat, it was full of charm.

Drinking iced plum juice, supporting her chin with her hand, her attitude was lazy; she lightly shook the paulownia flower gauze fan, her long eyes lowered, indifferent.

The house had long been replaced with bamboo mats and jade tables. The ice basin at knee height contained five kinds of iced fresh fruits, and there was a large piece of ice like a small mountain standing in the tripod in the corner of the house. This alone shows that this woman is indeed rich. Because there was no saltpeter ice-making method at this time, the source of ice all relied on the ice stored in the winter last year.

Storing ice requires repairing ice rooms and ice wells, and the storage conditions are very harsh. Even the ice stored in the imperial palace requires a special edict, the so-called "must be secret, without leaking its gas," and the process is cumbersome and solemn. Cao Cao built the Bronze Bird Garden, but there were only three ice rooms and several ice wells in the room. So even in noble families, not many could repair ice rooms. Even if they repaired them, they couldn't store much ice. When it was time to take ice in the summer, ten were not even five. It was not enough for self-use, let alone for sale.

It is precisely because there is very little ice for sale on the market that the Emperor's gift of ice is called glory; a friend's gift of ice is a heavy ceremony. The Yu family once sent Wang Yang a piece of ice, as big as a modern milk box. Wang Yang had previously let Sister Song boil a lot of mung bean soup to remove heat, and now it was just right to make mung bean ice sand, and every person in the house was given a large cup, and then sent a jar to the Yu Mansion, Commandery School, Xie Mansion, Zong Mansion, and Bie Jia Mansion.

The so-called "it is easy to go from thrift to luxury, but difficult to go from luxury to thrift." Wang Yang ate ice drinks, so he often thought about it. Hearing Le Xiao Pang say that Xiangxue Tower had ice for sale, he went there happily! Asked the price, it was equal to gold...

A piece of ice three feet square and one foot five inches thick actually cost one hundred thousand coins! This was the price of a catty of gold at that time!

The matter was put to rest.

In fact, with Wang Yang's current family background, it wouldn't be that he couldn't afford it, but to say that he would take out one hundred thousand coins to buy ice, it really hurt a bit.

So he started to think about saltpeter ice-making. To be ashamed, he didn't know what saltpeter looked like. He only saw saltpeter in the survival game before crossing, looking like gray-white small stones. He didn't know if the game modeling was correct.

As for whether saltpeter can be used to make ice directly by putting it in water, and whether the ice made this way is poisonous, and whether it will be harmful to the body after eating, Wang Yang didn't know at all.

He wanted to get saltpeter first and then do experiments, but he asked around and no one knew what saltpeter was!

He asked some craftsmen to find the Strong Man, but still nothing. Wang Yang had a flash of inspiration and started looking for alchemists. But the atmosphere of alchemy in Jingzhou was not prosperous, and there were only a handful of alchemists in the city, most of whom were not skilled. Wang Yang visited them all, but still worked in vain. Later, through Zong Ce's introduction, he finally found one who understood the way, living in seclusion in the suburbs.

This person was a disciple of the Danyang Tao family, named Hongchang. His clothes were not clean, and his spectrum was strange! There were lice on his body! He boasted that he had the demeanor of a famous scholar in the Wei Jin dynasties who "talked while catching lice," and while catching lice as if no one else was around, he talked nonsense with you! Talking and talking, he just didn't talk about the main topic!

Wang Yang also understood that this is like some people who like to talk about things at the wine table. If they drink well, everything is easy to talk about. If they don't drink well, they don't talk about serious things.

Then what to do?

Can only accompany one.

Accompanying to catch lice won't work. Then accompany to talk nonsense.

Fortunately, Wang Yang can talk, and Zong Ce's talking skill is not weak. The three of them talked from the Five Pecks of Rice Sect to the "Letter of Breaking off Friendship with Shan Juyuan," from Fotucheng to "Winding Finger Soft," from the Empress of Emperor Hui of Western Jin to Pan Yue's "Autumn Xing Fu," and finally talked the old brother into submission. Looking at Wang Yang, he sighed regretfully: "Your talent is beautiful, it is a pity that you are a tree in the forest, and you will eventually be a pillar in the world."

Wang Yang smiled: "If there is no tree in the forest to be a pillar in the world, then how can the Yao forest and Qiong tree be things outside the dust?"

Zong Ce's eyes lit up when he heard it. This sentence was answered wonderfully! Both praise and blame, both blame and praise, it is really full of charm. He immediately called out good!

Tao Hongchang was also in a great mood after hearing it, and laughed: "Huan Wen once ridiculed Liu Tan: 'If I don't do this, how can you guys sit and talk'! Your words are similar, but the wonderfulness of the mechanism is far beyond Huan Wen!"

Then he told everything he knew. First, he had never heard of saltpeter, only "xiao stone." Second, as far as he knew, there are four names for xiao, one is xiao, two is mang xiao, three is ying xiao, and four is pu xiao. He didn't know which one Wang Yang was talking about, and he hadn't seen any of these xiao, and he couldn't distinguish them himself! He only knew that this was a raw material in "water method alchemy." Ge Hong in the Jin Dynasty recorded an immortal prescription, which also used xiao stone, but he didn't know which one he used. However, it is said that the xiao stone Ge Hong used came from Longdao and Shu, and Wang Yang could go to Shu to find it if he was interested. As for Longdao, it was in the hands of the Northern Dynasties, and Tao Hongchang very seriously suggested that Wang Yang should not go there for the time being.

Wang Yang:...

I thank you for the reminder!

Zong Ce suggested that he could send someone to Shu to find it first. After arriving in Shu, he could entrust Tuyuhun merchants to look for xiao stone in the north.

Wang Yang:...

Just want to make some ice, with his current conditions, it is really not worth playing like this!!!!

Just when he was about to give up, Tao Hongchang mentioned that he had a cousin who was an official in Jiankang, and his attainments in alchemy were far better than his. If Wang Yang needed it, he could write a letter to his cousin to ask. Wang Yang had no other way, so he had to do so, but after asking around, he basically understood that the knowledge in this area at this time was surprisingly scarce, so he didn't really have any hope in his heart.

Precisely because of this, Wang Yang felt envious when he saw a piece of ice like a small mountain behind Xiao Baoyue, even this little rich woman Xie Xinghan didn't have such a big scene!

Xiao Baoyue knocked on the jade table with the fan handle, reminding Wang Yang that he was distracted.

Wang Yang took back his stray thoughts and continued to recite: "... Until the restoration of Emperor Guangwu, the southern barbarians were particularly prosperous. In the 23rd year of Jianwu, the Wuling barbarian Xiang Dan Cheng occupied its dangerous pass and raided the commandery and county. Guangwu sent General Wuwei Liu Shang to send troops from Nanjun, Changsha, and Wuling, totaling more than ten thousand, and took boats up the Yuan River to attack them. The barbarian soldiers gathered to guard the danger, intercepted and killed along the road, and the Han army was defeated and all were swallowed..."

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Note: ① The saltpeter that can make ice is potassium nitrate, which belongs to a type of potassium salt. But there was no "xiao" character at this time. Xiao is a differentiated character that appeared later. Originally, it was written as "xiao stone." "Kaibao Materia Medica" says: "Because it can digest various stones, it is named xiao stone."

At that time, xiao stone was often confused with pu xiao, mang xiao, etc. It was not until Tao Hongjing used the fire burning method to identify potassium salt (also the earliest potassium salt identification with written records in the world) that the difference between potassium salt and sodium salt was distinguished. Sodium salt is pu xiao (sodium sulfate). But even so, it remained confused for a long time in later generations. The "mang xiao" brought back to Japan in the Tang Dynasty and preserved in the Shosoin is actually magnesium sulfate, which is Epsom salt! And pu xiao is a mixture of 10% magnesium sulfate and 90% sodium sulfate, with a molar ratio of one to seven. So Li Shizhen said in "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Various xiao, since the Jin and Tang dynasties, various families have held names and guessed, and there is no fixed opinion."

PS. Meng Naichang wrote a textual research article "Examination and Identification of Xiao Stone Names and Realities in Han and Tang Dynasties" based on the test results in Japan, published in "Studies in the History of Natural Sciences." Students interested in ancient saltpeter problems can refer to it.

② "Famous Doctor's Record: Upper Volume" records that xiao stone "grows in Yizhou and Wudu, Longxi, Western Qiang, and there is no time for harvesting."

③ In the Han Dynasty, one catty of gold was exchanged for ten thousand coins. Lu Simian said: "In the Han Dynasty, one catty of gold is worth ten thousand coins. In the Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties, there is no clear record in history. However, history does not say that it is different, so its ratio may not have changed much." ("History of the Two Jins and Northern and Southern Dynasties", Chapter 19) I disagree.

"Xiahou Yang Arithmetic Classic" says: "Now there is one catty of gold, worth one hundred thousand coins, ask how much is one tael?" One thousand is one thousand, and one hundred thousand is one hundred thousand. "Baopuzi" says: "Ancient scale gold one catty, now it is two catties, the rate is no more than thirty thousand." That is, one catty is fifteen thousand. In addition, the "Sun Zi Arithmetic Classic," whose writing era is unknown but can be determined to be roughly in the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, has a question saying: "Now there is one catty of gold, worth one hundred thousand coins, ask how much is two worth?"

Therefore, the fluctuation of gold price should be based on one hundred thousand, not ten thousand. At this time, the gold price in the Northern Dynasties was lower than that in the Southern Dynasties. "Book of Wei: Li Anshi Biography" records the Southern Qi envoy visiting Northern Wei: "The envoy went to the gold and jade shop to ask the price, and Zuan said: Northern gold and jade are very cheap, should it be produced by mountains and rivers?"

④ Wang Yang didn't know that there were other ways to make ice besides using saltpeter, such as ancient Egyptians putting water in porous pottery jars covered with straw, then putting the jars on the roof, letting slaves pour water and fan all night, and then ice could be formed in the morning. This uses heat radiation and accelerated evaporation to cool down. Similarly, Persians would pour water into shallow long stone pools in the desert and return at dawn to collect ice.