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Life in Chang'an Chapter 35: Firing Cement (Part 2)

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    The next morning, as soon as Li Min had breakfast, Bai Qing ran to Prince Liang's mansion to ask for an audience. Li Min hurriedly called him in.

    After a while, I saw the dusty Bai Qing running in from outside the hall, bowing his head with two red eyes: "Your Majesty, Bai Qing, see His Highness Prince Liang."

    "Well, get up!" Li Min sipped the tea and said with a smile, "Seeing that you are here in such a hurry, it must be that yesterday's cement has been calcined, right?"

    "Your Highness Yingming, the craftsmen and I worked hard all night yesterday and finally finished calcining the cement. Sure enough, as Your Highness said, what we got was a gray powder. I wanted to invite Your Highness to come and take a look!" Bai Qing replied very excitedly.  .

    "Okay!" Li Min slapped the table, stood up, and went to the prison with Bai Qing. On the way, he specifically asked him to ride with him. As a result, Bai Qing, who was nearly fifty years old, was moved to tears along the way.  He kept telling his gratitude and admiration, and he would definitely follow Li Min's lead in the future.

    It¡¯s still the lime-burning courtyard from yesterday, except that on a mat in the middle of the courtyard, there is a pile of very inconspicuous gray powder.  Li Min walked forward quickly, reached out, grabbed some and rubbed it: Well, it feels good, and it is basically no different from the cement of later generations.

    "Your Highness, is this calcined cement usable?" Bai Qing next to him asked nervously. Although the fired cement was basically the same as Li Min's description, he was still unsure, fearing that he had made some oversights that would cause the cement to become unusable.  .

    "Well, you did a good job. This cement is very well calcined!" Li Min saw that Bai Qing and the craftsmen around him looked nervous, and couldn't help laughing. It seemed that they thought cement was too complicated. In fact, this thing  It's so cheap. Just ask someone to tell him how to make it, and you can make usable cement, let alone these experienced craftsmen?

    Hearing Li Min's praise, Bai Qing and others were relieved. This was something Li Shimin personally told him. Although Li Min couldn't do it, the craftsmen who were mainly responsible for the work were inevitably implicated, at least not  Fined with half a month's salary.

    ??Actually, this is not really cement yet, because it still needs the last process.  Li Min asked someone to fetch the gypsum powder that was ground yesterday, and then added about 3% of the gypsum powder in proportion to mix it evenly. The main purpose of adding gypsum was to slow down the hardening speed of the cement to facilitate subsequent construction.  It was not until this time that the first batch of cement in Datang was truly successfully produced.

    "Bai Qing, ask someone to prepare water, sand and gravel, and dig a five-foot-square pool on the ground. The depth should not exceed half a foot." Although the cement has been made, it is not yet time to dedicate it to his father.  , at least try it out to see what the effect is, and at least be sure of it.

    When Bai Qing heard Li Min's instructions, he immediately led the people to take action. Those who dug holes and those who carried water were all ready in a short time.  Bai Qing and the craftsmen only received orders from above to assist Li Min in baking cement, but as for what the cement was used for, they had no idea. Li Min didn't tell him when he came yesterday, and of course they didn't dare to ask.  .  Judging from Li Min's posture now, he must be testing the effect of cement, so these craftsmen stretched their heads one by one to wait and see. After all, everyone has curiosity.

    Li Min directed the craftsmen to mix sand, gravel and cement with water into a slurry, and then poured it into a square pit on the ground. In order to increase the strength of the concrete, Li Min also deliberately reduced the proportion of sand and gravel, otherwise there would be too little cement.  , Li Min even wanted to make a pure cement board directly without adding sand and gravel.

    After the cement slurry was poured into the pit, Li Min asked people to use wooden boards to flatten it, and then spread a layer of straw. He also told Bai Qing to sprinkle water from time to time so that the concrete would not crack. Bai Qing was still very serious - one by one.  Write it down with a note.

    "It will take at least a week for the concrete to be fully dry. We cannot let the craftsmen wait for these seven days.  So Li Min ordered Bai Qing to let the craftsmen work hard to bake lime in the past few days, and also gave him a task that challenged his patience, which was to let him mix cement and sand in different proportions, and then do the same thing as he just did  Make it into a concrete slab, make a comparison, and find the best ratio.

    Bai Qing was naturally happy to accept the order. Li Min could entrust him with such an important matter, which showed his trust in him. Moreover, this matter was not difficult. Anyone could do it as long as he spent some effort. It was obviously given to him by Li Minbai.  Thanks to Bai Qing for figuring this out, Bai Qing was inexplicably grateful to Li Min.

    After explaining the matter, there was nothing more to do with Li Min.  But now that he has entered the imperial city, Li Min is not in a hurry to return home. He first goes to Li Shimin to report the progress of the cement production. When he heard that the cement has been made and the effects are being tested, Li Shimin was overjoyed and patted Li Min on the shoulder.  He kept shouting, if Li Min hadn't stopped him, Li Shimin would have run to admire the pool of mud-like cement slurry right now.

    After taking care of his father, Li Min went to visit him againThe imperial concubine visited Concubine Yang, but this time she fell into a trap. Concubine Yang was very dissatisfied with Li Min's "confession" to Xiao Wenxin in public at the Five Kings Banquet, so she held his ears and taught him a lesson for a long time, and finally managed to  Find an opportunity to escape.

    Seven days passed in a flash, and two major events happened in these seven days.

    The first was that the Tibetan ambassador insulted the royal family and was caught by the Jinwu Guards. He should have been sentenced to death, but he wanted to make good relations between the two countries, so he only killed a few of the Tibetan ambassador's followers. As for the ambassador Lu Dongzan himself, he was sentenced to death.  He was beaten fifty times and imprisoned for two years as punishment.  Moreover, Taizong Li Shimin also wrote a stern letter to Tubo Zanpu, reprimanding him in a very strong tone.  At the same time, General Niu Jinda was sent to lead 30,000 elite troops into Jiannan Road to closely monitor the Tibetan people's every move.

    The second thing is that the brewing workshop jointly established by Li Min, Li Daozong, Li Xiaogong and other five people has officially started brewing.  Originally, the brewing workshop would not be able to start construction until the end of the month at the earliest, but now that Li Min had produced the cement, he kept the construction of the workshop simple, making do with things like houses and roads for the time being, and replacing them with cement after the cement came out.  Cement is much stronger than masonry and civil structures.

    The yard where the cement was burned was officially set aside by Yu Wenhu to be used as a cement workshop. Bai Qing was fully responsible for it. Bai Qing would go to Li Min's house every morning to report on all matters related to the cement workshop. Of course, the setting of the cement was even more important.  The key point of the report is that before dawn today, Bai Qing came to report that the cement had finally solidified into strong and durable concrete.

    When Li Min heard the news, he immediately fell out of bed, got dressed as quickly as possible, went to the front hall to find Bai Qing, and the two came to the prison together.

    In the yard of the cement workshop, in addition to the cement board that Li Min personally supervised, there are also cement boards that were later made by Bai Qing, some of which are almost dry.  The first cement board was already surrounded by craftsmen. From time to time, everyone touched the cement board with their hands and discussed something in a low voice.

    "Quickly get out of the way, Your Highness is here!" The attention of these craftsmen was attracted by the cement slabs beneath them, and they didn't even notice the arrival of Li Min and Bai Qing. Bai Qing directly shouted out the reminder, which made them quickly get out of the way.  the way.

    Li Min smiled and nodded to the craftsmen, and then quickly walked to the cement board. The straw on it had been swept away, revealing a very flat cement board.  Li Min stepped on it with his foot and found that it had indeed condensed.

    "Someone, dig out the cement board!" Li Min ordered excitedly.  Immediately, craftsmen who had been prepared early came forward to dig. After a while, a half-foot-thick cement slab was dug out and erected by the craftsmen using sticks.

    "Your Highness, this cement is really a strange thing. Who would have thought that after calcining a few common materials, it can actually bond gravel and sand. It is also extremely hard. Even if it is not as good as marble, it is probably not much different.  ." Bai Qing tapped the cement board with his fingers and said with admiration.

    "Well, you have to try it before you know whether it is strong or not. Go get a big hammer!" Li Min will not be fooled by the appearance of this cement board. He believes that only practice is the only criterion for testing truth. If you want to  Do you know if cement board is strong?  It's very simple, just hit it with a hammer a few times and you will know.

    After a while, a craftsman brought a sledgehammer with a hammer head the size of half a watermelon. Li Min took it and tried it. It felt OK, and then he swung it and hit it hard on the cement board.

    "Bang~" With a muffled sound, Li Min felt his hands were numb from the shock, and his arms were also aching. Looking at the smashed cement board, only a few debris flew out and made a shallow dent.  That¡¯s all.

    "Hiss~, it's so strong!" The craftsmen around him all took a breath and exclaimed in unison.

    Li Min then hit him a few more times, and finally he was so shocked that he lost all feeling in his arms, and then he stopped. Although there were traces of being hit on the cement board, it was not enough for a cement board with a thickness of half a foot.  What kind of.

    "Haha, the quality is good!" Li Min nodded with satisfaction. The quality of this cement board is almost the same as the boards made of general cement in later generations. Of course, this is mainly because the craftsmen have polished the material very finely.  From calcination to subsequent hardening, everything is done with great care. If mass production is to be carried out in the future, without the help of later generations of machinery, the quality will probably drop a bit, but it will be enough to meet the needs of Datang at this stage.

    "It's all because of the master's skillful command that we can make such a wonder as cement!" Bai Qing would not miss any opportunity to flatter Li Min. Seeing how happy Li Min was, he immediately joined in the fun and flattered him.

    "Hahaha~, I'm just talking. Without the help of Bai Qing and all the craftsmen, how can cement be made? You are all waiting here. I will go and ask my father to take a look and help me by the way.  Please take credit, everyone!" Li Min smiled.He patted Bai Qing on the shoulder and praised.

    After Bai Qing and the craftsmen behind him heard Li Min's words, their faces almost burst into laughter. Bai Qing wanted to be humble, but Li Min had already turned around and was about to leave. But as soon as he reached the door, he suddenly turned around again  He said to Bai Qing: "Don't forget to invite Brother Yuwen here. He also has a share of the credit here."

    Bai Qing was shocked and immediately agreed. After watching Li Min leave, he immediately trotted to invite Yuwen Hu. At the same time, he was also rejoicing in his heart. If Li Min hadn't reminded him, he would have really forgotten to invite Yuwen Hu.  Bai Qing's immediate boss, and they were all selected by Yu Wenhu, so of course he deserves a share of the credit.

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