Chapter 60 19. Lacquer Tree Is More than Just a Plant that Produces Lacquer

Xiao Pingtai hurried to pull Aji, but Aji was really tough. He patted his butt and climbed up, still smiling. It was just that his straw sandals were broken, but fortunately he brought spare shoes with him, so he changed them.

Xiao Pingtai checked his arms and legs for any external injuries, and scolded him with a smile, "If you keep running around, you will fall into the ditch one day, and see what you will do." Then he helped him pat the dirt off his clothes.

Xiao Pingtai was relieved to see that he was fine. It turned out that Aji stepped on a small bunch of fruits (the fruit drop period of lacquer trees is not so early, one month in advance), and then slipped. The fruit was not crushed when it was firm, so Xiao Pingtai pointed at the fruit and asked the lacquer farmer. The lacquer farmer saw that Aji was fine, so he casually said that it was the fruit of the lacquer tree.

Xiao Pingtai was puzzled, "Don't you collect the fruits? These are all seeds."

The lacquer farmer laughed when he heard this, "This lacquer tree produces lacquer for 30 years, and lacquer can't be planted everywhere. The lacquer fruit can't be eaten and doesn't need to be collected for planting, so it's natural to let it fall to the ground."

Then the lacquer farmer picked up a few lacquer fruits from the ground. Anyway, his hands had long been stained black by raw lacquer and lacquer trees, and he didn't care about it. He crushed the lacquer fruits with his fingers. He crushed them a little harder and broke the fruits.

Xiao Pingtai understood it at a glance. The skin of the fruit is almost waxy. The fruit is only a little bit big. If you peel off the skin, there is basically nothing to eat. What's more, it is slightly irritating. If you eat the skin, it's like eating wax that will burn your throat. No one wants to eat it.

However, it is precisely because the skin of the lacquer fruit is rich in wax that it is generally difficult to rot quickly, and the seeds inside cannot come into contact with water, and they will not germinate when they fall to the ground. Then naturally no one would think of dealing with this kind of thing, so it naturally fell to the ground, and no one cared at all.

At this time, Xiao Pingtai had a flash of inspiration in his head. Yes, the wax fruit is rich in oil and the skin is rich in wax.

Then why bother with lacquer trees, collect these unwanted fruits, and then make candles. The example of Uesugi Yingshan is obvious. (The following content is all written in combination with historical facts. Uesugi Zhixian made a profit of 6,400 taels of silver in a year, and it was only because of lacquer fruit)

So he turned around and smiled and asked the lacquer farmer, in addition to lacquer fruit, all the ash trees, birch trees, maple trees, maple trees, etc. on this mountain. As long as the fruit has waxy skin and oily inside, I am willing to buy it at a price of 20 coins per 100 catties. If you are willing to send it to Fuzhong City in the mountains, I will add 50 coins for foot money.

The lacquer farmer looked at Xiao Pingtai in disbelief and asked directly if he was joking. Xiao Pingtai was definitely not joking, so Xiao Pingtai first gave the lacquer farmer 100 coins and asked him to tell the farmers in the nearby villages and towns about the news. As long as you send 100 kilograms of fruit to Yamanouchi Fuchu Castle, you will be paid 70 coins. This job is definitely worth doing.

Kobayata first asked Aji (14 years old, Kobayata thought he was a child, but he was basically an adult at that time, so when he took him to the war, no one thought it was inappropriate. In the Warring States Period, people aged 15 to 60 were considered strong men) to run back and talk to Uncle Tsunayoshi. Then he went to various villages and paid a small deposit to the head of each village, asking them to collect fruits from various trees in the mountains and send them all to Yamanouchi Fuchu Castle.

Then Kobayata temporarily hired two farmers to lead the way. It took nearly ten days to run through all the ravines and basins in Hida. He encouraged the people in each village to pick fruits in the mountains and told them that they could exchange them for money. Then Kobayata took the first batch of people who had collected fruits and sent the things to Yamanouchi Fuchu Castle. The first batch alone exceeded 4,000 kilograms.

Meanwhile, Uncle Tsunayoshi had received the news from Aji and had already prepared to come. He first bought a few houses near the river and temporarily leveled the nearby land. He also prepared workers in advance and bought dozens of men and women. He had done the preparations, such as stoves, big pots, firewood, and hired a craftsman who could make beeswax.

Kobayata paid the first batch of farmers who came to deliver the fruits according to the quantity, and told them to take as many as they wanted and pay them immediately after they delivered them. They asked them to go back and continue to promote. The fruits were piled up randomly on the flat land outside the house.

Then Kobayata used his position as the governor of Uchida for personal gain, widely distributed books of the county officials, and called on the people in the territory to collect fruits in the mountains during the slack season, and also sent them to Fuzhong City. The same 20 coins for 100 kilograms of fruits were given, and 20 coins for the labor. The farmers in the mountains sent less, after all, the people in the mountains were busy with the autumn harvest soon, but there would be a lot more after the autumn harvest.

These fruits are spread out to dry for three to five days, and then they are crushed with a round stone mill, and the skin and flesh are easily separated from the seeds.

Then the crushed fruits are collected and rinsed with water, and the seeds and skin and flesh are immediately separated. The peel and flesh are directly put into a pot and boiled with water, and then the impurities are filtered out and boiled again, and the yellowish raw wax can be obtained. As long as the wax liquid is poured into a wooden mold, and then a worthless kapok core is added, and the other half of the candle is closed and the two are combined. It can be made into a most ordinary candle.

Although Xiao Pingtai can be sure that the candle is of good quality, it is all what he read in the book before. If he has not seen it with his own eyes, he is not so sure.

Now that the finished product is ready, he immediately sampled a few of each batch and found that it burns without smoke, and there is no slightly pungent smell of paraffin. As for the fruity fragrance and the fragrance of plants and trees, they do not exist. It is just an ordinary wood wax, which is very successfully made.

Then, since I was in business, I couldn’t help but Xiao Pingtai also wanted to make more money, so she experimented with a few more batches. How much water can be added to the original wax without affecting the burning of the candle and reducing the proportion of raw materials.

After experimenting with various ratios and determining the best ratio, the workers worked at full capacity to make the materials they could supply every day. Moreover, these workers were all bought by Uncle Tsunaliang, and they didn't need to be paid. Xiaopingta just said that the person with the highest output could have unlimited rice for dinner, and he completely settled them.

After all, most of these people are civilians who were arrested and sold during the Beixin War, and they can be considered half fellow villagers. Although I make you work ten hours a day, I don't care if you have enough to eat. As farmers, you may not be able to have enough to eat every day.

With the end of the hot autumn harvest, starting from the end of August, farmers from all over the country sent a large number of fruits, up to more than 200,000 kilograms. The men and women who bought it were already skilled at their work. The packhorse pulled ten mills to grind the fruits day and night. The seeds are collected and waiting for the custom-made oil press to be delivered to squeeze the oil together.

In more than a month, a total of 160,000 candles weighing about half a catty were made.