Chapter 372: Development Path of Qingning Palace and Imperial Manor

When he returned to Qingning Palace, Meng Zhao had already cleared out a large area and built a pig shed according to Ou Zanghua's request.

In addition, Meng Zhao and Bu Erwa joined hands to embark on a piglet selection journey around the county.

Meng Zhao was unfamiliar with how to select piglets and was often at a loss. But Bu Erwa seemed to be born with a keen eye for the health of piglets, and could tell at a glance which piglets were thriving and which were suffering from hidden diseases.

Even he himself could not explain the mystery of this ability, which made Meng Zhao quite cooperative. He just felt it was a pity that this ability could only be used on pigs.

Thanks to Bu Erwa's unique vision, the Qingning Palace Imperial Farm finally welcomed nearly three hundred lively and healthy piglets. They were placed in spacious and bright pig sheds and only needed to eat, drink and sleep every day.

So when Ou Zanghua came to the Qingning Palace Imperial Farm again, what caught his eyes were rows of neatly arranged pig pens, from which the grunts of piglets echoed one after another. They were either playing beside the trough or lying leisurely on the hay.

This good life even makes many villagers envious.

Ou Zanghua walked around the pig shed. Even though it was ventilated, the smell still hit him straight in the face. It was unbearable. He could only tell Meng Zhao, "Hire more helpers to clean up the manure in the pig shed every day. This will not only maintain the environment of the pig shed, but also provide some fertilizer for the farmers."

"Yes!" Meng Zhao responded and casually wrote this down.

"Let's go see the paper mill!"

After he finished speaking, Ou Zanghua moved, as if he was gently lifted up by the wind, his toes lightly tapped the ground, his figure was light, and in the blink of an eye he was out of everyone's sight.

When everyone saw this, they looked at each other in bewilderment and had to catch up quickly.

Only when the unique smell coming from the pig shed gradually faded away did Ou Zanghua stop and turn around to look. The people were still some distance away, so he simply sat on a stone by the roadside and rested while drinking water.

After everyone caught up, we headed to the paper mill together.

This time, Ou Zanghua took Meng Zhao and cut a bundle of bamboo and threw it into the pond to soak.

Then, the two of them worked with the master craftsman to put the previously processed bamboo into a barrel called "Huang" and steam it with lime for eight days and eight nights.

Of course, Ou Zanghua couldn't wait that long, so the two of them followed the master and went straight to the third step - spring pounding processing.

They took out the bamboo that the craftsmen had steamed, put it into a stone mortar, and continued to beat it with a stone pestle until the bamboo was broken into a mud-like state.

At this point, Meng Zhao knocked dozens of times before he felt his arms sore and weak and could not go on any further. Ou Zanghua, relying on his deep inner strength, should have knocked for the entire afternoon.

Then comes the fourth step - pulping and papermaking.

Pour the crushed bamboo material into the sink, and use a bamboo curtain to stir it in the water so that the bamboo material forms a thin layer and adheres to the bamboo curtain, while allowing excess water to flow back into the sink from around the bamboo curtain.

The next step is the fifth step - pressing and drying.

Everyone worked together to flip the bamboo curtain so that the wet paper fell onto the flat plate. This was the original appearance of the paper.

You can pile up several wet papers together, then press a wooden board on them to squeeze out most of the moisture. After the wet papers are slightly dry, unfold them one by one and continue drying.

The drying equipment is also very interesting. Ou Zanghua used to think that it was done directly in the sun, but he didn't expect that the ancients came up with new ideas.

They built a passage with earthen bricks and then lit a fire inside the passage. After the bricks were heated, they pasted wet paper one by one to dry them.

Then peel it off and you will get the final paper.

The whole process is very cumbersome. According to the old master, it takes nearly a hundred days for a batch of bamboo to be turned into white paper from the time it is cut down.

Ou Zanghua used this tricky method, but it took him four days to complete the whole process. He opened his plug-in, and the skill of "papermaking" really appeared on it.

What surprised Ou Zanghua was that this time the papermaking technique was already at the intermediate level.

He decisively spent five points of reputation and upgraded it to a high level.

In a burst of light, Ou Zanghua's gaze traveled through time and space and fell on Hangzhou two hundred years later.

The people here have ugly rat-tail hairstyles, but they are still improving on what their ancestors left behind.

Their bamboo papermaking technology was basically the same as that of the Ming Dynasty, but they reduced the steaming step and added two sun exposure steps, and the paper was pounded with a water pestle instead of being trampled manually.

In traditional papermaking, bamboo screens are mainly used as papermaking tools, but these people use copper mesh.

Ou Zanghua thought for a moment and realized that the copper mesh woven with copper wire is stronger than the bamboo curtain, has a longer service life, and can produce thinner paper.

In addition, they would mix the bark of the Chinese sumac with an appropriate amount of mulberry bark or straw. The paper produced was white and flexible, and had good ink absorption and ink rhyme properties, making it very suitable for calligraphy, painting, rubbing and printing.

After an unknown amount of time, Ou Zanghua slowly opened his eyes and couldn't help but sigh.

Seeing this, Meng Zhao, who was almost exhausted, asked with concern, "Why are you worried, sir?"

"It's nothing, it's the fault of the times." Ou Zanghua shook his head and didn't talk too much about this topic.

After returning to the Weiyang Palace Imperial Manor, he wrote down the papermaking technique and the secret recipe of Xuan paper in his mind and gave it to Meng Zhao, asking him to return to the Qingning Palace Imperial Manor to study this improved version carefully.

After doing all this, Ou Zanghua sat alone in the study, watching the sunset slowly set.

He felt as if he was standing at the crossroads of history. Looking at the gradually sinking sun, his heart was filled with indescribable confusion.

At this moment, a knock on the door brought Ou Zanghua back to his senses. He turned his head and saw Liu Qing walking in with a gentle expression, supported by Shu Yan and Huai Wei.

"Qingqing, why are you here?" Ou Zanghua looked at Liu Qing with a gentle smile on his face. He stood up and helped her sit on the bench beside him.

"Let me see my husband!" Liu Qing waved her hand, and Shuyan and Huaiwei understood and stepped out, leaving the space to the two of them.

Liu Qing tilted her head and looked at her husband. She seemed to have only seen that confused look when she was very young.

At that time, my husband was thinking about practicing martial arts every day and was full of energy. Until one time he had a competition with his second senior brother. Although my husband won, he was not very happy. Instead, he sat alone on the roof and looked at the moon.

Liu Qing just felt that her husband was unhappy at that time, so she climbed up and watched the stars and the moon with him, but she didn't know when she fell asleep. Later, she heard from her mother that it was her husband who carried her down.

"My dear, I remember you used to like a poem very much!" Liu Qing held Ou Zanghua's hand and recited with a smile: "When you are at the end of your rope, you may think there is no way out, but when you turn around, you will find another village."

"I don't know what problem my husband has encountered, but I think that just because my current husband can't solve it, it doesn't mean my future husband can't solve it, right? So why not put it aside for a while, maybe inspiration will burst out and solve it all at once?"

Ou Zanghua was slightly stunned, then he smiled and nodded, saying, "Thank you Qingqing, I was just a little dazed for a moment, it's nothing."

"That's good. I believe in my husband."

Liu Qing looked at Ou Zanghua with sparkling eyes and asked with a smile: "Husband, we have been here for more than 20 days. Can we go back to the capital?"

"Just these two days! Things here are almost done."

(End of this chapter)