In mid-October, Jian Yong finally came back from Luoyang. At this time, almost three months had passed since the day Jian Yong set out.

Jian Yong came here for official business, and the proper reception process was indispensable.

First of all, the officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs came over to question Jian Yong and his party from top to bottom. If there were any meritorious deeds, their merits would be calculated. If there were no meritorious deeds, the journey would be long and tiring, and the marching mileage would be recorded in everyone's files.

As a result of future merit accumulation.

In addition to the normal process, of course the step of catching the wind and washing the dust is also indispensable.

The efficiency of the army was very fast. Before Jian Yong and his party arrived at Julu City, the scouts reported the news early. When Jian Yong and his party had just returned to the city and had just rested for a while, the banquet was ready.

After two harvests of giant deer in June and September, the army's supplies became much richer, and the banquets also became richer.

After working hard for the soldiers along the way, he ate delicious fish stewed with tofu, drank warm millet porridge, and took a bite of steamed buns from time to time. He was very happy.

The soldiers all said that after not coming back for a while, the buns tasted much better and tasted sweeter.

This is not an illusion of the soldiers, the steamed buns have really become sweeter.

Since last winter, steamed buns have slowly become popular in the city. For a long time before the summer harvest, steamed buns are steamed with stale noodles. The steamed buns always have a sour taste. Li Mengxi always thought it might be noodles.

The problem.

After the summer harvest, new wheat was harvested, new flour was ground, and the new flour was used to steam the steamed buns. The result was that the steamed buns were still sour. After several attempts, Li Mengxi realized the problem and suspected that it was a yeast problem.

After that, I spent a lot of effort to change a variety of yeasts, and even fermented them with distiller's yeast, but the steamed buns were still sour.

Finally, his younger brother Xiao Zhuan said that adding some sugar would make it less sour. This inspired Li Mengxi, and he found a solution.

The sourness of the steamed buns may be due to fermentation. Adding a little water from plant ash to the steamed buns can neutralize the sour taste produced by yeast fermentation. Once the sour taste is neutralized, the steamed buns will become sweeter.

In the City Lord's Mansion, after Jian Yong had eaten and drank enough, he began to talk about various aspects of his trip to Luoyang.

I went to Luoyang and delayed my return for a long time. There were two reasons. First, it was difficult to sell things. I came back after hundreds of items were sold out. When Jian Yong said this, he gave Li Mengxi a thoughtful look.

Li Mengxi understood by heart that the things Jian Yong said were not easy to sell were the bronzes and jades that had been unearthed from the tomb.

When Liu Bei heard this, he was very confused. He thought that the paper, liquor, white linen, etc. that Jian Yong brought should be easy to sell.

The second reason why Jian Yong came home late was to collect all kinds of treasures.

When Jian Yong left for Luoyang earlier, Li Mengxi asked Jian Yong to buy a lot of strange and weird things. Jian Yong spent a lot of effort and time, traveled to countless places, and finally bought all these things.

Jian Yong shouted outside, called the ordering soldiers to the front and gave instructions, and the ordering soldiers took the order and left.

After a while, a group of soldiers came carrying boxes and boxes of things of various sizes.

In the blink of an eye, the things were placed on the floor.

Li Mengxi couldn't wait to look through it. He opened a small box and took a look. Inside was a beautiful, shiny stone with natural square crystals.

Li Mengxi took the stone and looked left and right, scratching his head.

Jian Yong came over and explained, "Xi'er, do you think this is the kind of crystal you want?"

Li Mengxi raised his head and glanced at Jian Yong, then looked down at the stone. His eyes were full of doubts. It shouldn't be crystal. The crystal should be exquisite and clear. Moreover, the crystal seemed to be very large, and the thing in his hand was...

Just like some kind of ordinary mineral, like quartz stone.

All in all, something isn't quite right.

Asking Jian Yong how much he spent to buy this thing, Jian Yong showed a pained expression. He said that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy these small pieces of crystal.

Li Mengxi was so upset, Jian Yong was cheated by others for a few broken quartz mines and a hundred thousand dollars spent!

Jian Yong worked hard, and Li Mengxi couldn't say anything, so he could only hide the truth.

Put down the quartz stone and look at other things.

He opened another box and took a look. Inside was a transparent object that looked like a lampshade. Li Mengxi's eyes lit up and he quickly took it out.

In ancient times, transparent things were rare, either crystal or gemstones, which were expensive anyway.

Li Mengxi thought that the transparent lampshade was made of glass or gems, but when he touched it with his hand, he found that the lampshade was soft. He was a little confused. Li Mengxi was even more surprised. His eyes widened in surprise and he looked at the lampshade in disbelief. God, is this possible?

Is it plastic?! But if it were plastic, it would be even more outrageous.

(Could it be made of some kind of gum?) Li Mengxi was thoughtful.

Turning the lampshade over and over, Li Mengxi found that the lampshade was extremely transparent. Although the lampshade was yellow in color and not translucent enough, it seemed that it could not be ground into a telescope lens. However, if we could get this technology, we could improve it and make it highly pure.

With a high degree of glue, the sheets produced will definitely be super translucent and will definitely meet the standards for making lenses.

In later generations, weren’t there [resin] lenses, and wasn’t resin also glue?

Li Mengxi asked Jian Yong how much he bought this thing for.

Jian Yong thought for a while, "More than ninety thousand dollars."

Li Mengxi couldn't help but quiver, the price is so expensive.

Asking Jian Yong again if he had recruited all the craftsmen who made this thing, Jian Yong was stunned for a moment and then said hesitantly, "... I have forgotten about this."

Anyway, Luoyang City is still there. If you forget it, just forget it and just go back next time.

Then, open the third box.

A box of celadon. Celadon Li Mengxi had seen some celadon utensils among the supplies seized by the army. The celadon enamel was thick, the color was turbid and dull, and the color was not bright.

As for the box of celadon brought back by Jian Yong, the porcelain is still thick and the color is still not bright, but the color of the porcelain is extremely pure, like holly leaves, one color deep green.

From the color and the exquisite shape, you can tell at a glance that this is top-grade celadon. This may be the top treasure of Han porcelain making technology.

I asked Jian Yong about the price of these porcelains. Sure enough, this box of celadon cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Behind the scenes, Li Mengxi opened the boxes one after another and saw lacquerware, rare medicinal materials such as rhinoceros horn, bear bile, ginseng, sesame, and various gold and silver utensils.

After opening dozens of boxes, Li Mengxi found a jar of juice that he didn't know what it was. Faced with the unknown, Li Mengxi didn't dare to try it. He looked back at Jian Yong and asked.

Jian Yong was a little hesitant, pointed to the jar and said, "I heard that this is alum oil, but I don't know if it is."

Jian Yong didn't even know what alum oil was, and when he bought it, he didn't know if he was buying the right one.

Alum oil, green alum oil, sulfuric acid.

Li Mengxi looked at the faintly green juice, and he was 80% sure that this thing was indeed green vitriol oil, but the jar of vitriol oil looked too dirty.

Luoyang is indeed a great place. Sulfuric acid is indeed available for purchase. As expected, the Han Dynasty had the technology to make sulfuric acid.

Later, many types of stones were unearthed. The purpose of collecting various types of stones was to smelt various metals when the technology matured.

The last box was a box of dark coal. Finally, there was coal. Li Mengxi smiled immediately.

"Just one box?" Li Mengxi turned around and asked Jian Yong.

"There are plenty. I brought two carts back." Jian Yong replied.

With coal, you can do a lot of things. Coal has many advantages over charcoal, but if you refine coal into coke, it will be much more useful.
Chapter completed!