If measured in terms of gold, silver and treasures, Dong Zhuo was undoubtedly the richest man in the Han Dynasty at that time.

He sent out troops to loot the entire Luoyang and openly ordered the excavation of the emperor's tomb. The gold, silver and treasures that Dong Zhuo looted were piled up like a mountain. In order to store all the money, he even built a Meiwu and used high walls to protect his wealth.

But the result?

In the end, the Xiliang army was obviously very rich, but still died of poverty.

Why is this?

The reason is that in their simple and stupid perspective, money equals wealth, and jewelry equals a lot of wealth, but are these things really wealth?
Is it these gold, silver and jewels that are needed to dominate the world?
No, it relies on the material reserves produced by the people, including food, weapons, and war horses.

And these things either have to be made by people or maintained by people. Generally speaking, they are all classified as productivity, which is the ability of mankind to transform nature to obtain materials.

No matter how valuable gold, silver and jewelry are, they are just a pile of dead objects. If they are simply hidden in a warehouse, they will lose the attributes of a general equivalent and will no longer be wealth.

But if they are put into production, the entire industrial chain can be put into operation and turned into a river with a continuous flow of wealth and gold.

So Dong Zhuo robbed a lot of money, but eventually died of poverty in Chang'an City.

But Wang Jing couldn't let himself go down the same old path. For him, having money alone was of no use. This money had to be used in the market to buy various supplies to be real money. Otherwise, it was just a pile of dead money, no different from the stones stored in a warehouse.

Of course, the main reason is that Wang Jing no longer cares about the profits of the middle and lower reaches of the furniture industry. He thinks it is enough to retain an original brand to fleece the big players. As for the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain, those hard-earned money should be left to others to earn on their knees.

He, Wang Jing, the dignified Marquis Qi and General Wei of the Yanhan Dynasty, of course he wanted to stand and make money!

After Wang Jing and Yang Xiu parted ways, they decided to go to the glass factory to see the progress of the glass trial production.

This glass factory completed the entire infrastructure project before attacking Yanzhou last year.

Since the task of revitalizing the industry was completed, Wang Jing obtained the formula of glass.

But this thing in ancient times was definitely high-tech, and it was not something that could be produced by just anyone caught on the street. Wang Jing couldn't even find the corresponding chemical personnel to turn the formula into reality, so he could only let Shi Zimiao, the alchemy fanatic, work part-time as a half-baked chemist to study how to come up with the complete process flow of the glass formula.

Starting from February of the previous year, Wang Jing had to draw personnel from Qiqiao Pavilion and select a group of talented people from the craftsmen. He then created several professional groups such as chemical engineering, machinery and metallurgy. The glass research group headed by Shi Zimiao began trial production.

Before this, Shi Zimiao had always been good at refining elixirs, and no one could match him in burning things. No one knew how to burn big items better than him!
That's why Wang Jing found him to develop how to burn glass. Professional matters should be left to professionals.

Shi Zimiao also took this matter very seriously.

Ever since he got the periodic table from Wang Jing, Shi Zimiao regarded Wang Jing as the reincarnation of an immortal. After all, in Shi Zimiao's view, the periodic table contained the laws of heaven and earth and the great principles. How could a mortal comprehend them out of thin air?

If Wang Jing had not firmly refused, Shi Zimiao would have even wanted to take down all the portraits of the Taoist ancestor in his home and hang up Wang Jing's portrait instead as a sign of respect.

Wang Jing was very young, so naturally he didn't want to be framed and hung on the wall. The thought of it was shameful, so he was repeatedly forbad to do so, which made Shi Zimiao very sad for a while.

Shi Zimiao is obsessed with researching elixirs of immortality and always thinking about becoming an immortal. He seems extremely unreliable, but he is surprisingly focused and serious in scientific research. He is quite suitable to be the chief engineer of the chemical industry.

After some research, Wang Jing confirmed the process flow. The first condition for making glass is to have a high-temperature resistant crucible.

In the glass formula, Wang Jing also specifically reminded Shi Zimiao that it is best to use magnesium chloride as the material so that a high-temperature resistant crucible can be made.

This technology is not available at the moment, but Shi Zimiao, together with several craftsmen who knew how to smelt, successfully made one according to the requirements of the recipe.

Don't underestimate this point. You should know that making crucibles is a special technology. If this technology is not mastered well, it can easily explode during use.

In other words, Shi Zimiao has been refining the so-called elixir for many years and has rich experience in refining the crucible. If another person were to come over, it would be a question whether he could survive to make the crucible.

Shi Zimiao and his men made the crucible for making glass into a closed style. The reason for doing this was to prevent the glass liquid from being contaminated by coal smoke and reducing its purity during the smelting process.

As for the raw materials for refining, Shi Zimiao ordered his craftsmen to collect some high-quality quartz sand, quicklime and soda ash.

There is no shortage of quartz sand in Luoyang, which has many rich mineral resources. It is easy to collect a large amount of high-quality raw materials. After simple selection and washing, they can be used as they please. There are no such high requirements in this regard for the time being, after all, we are not making chips.

As for soda ash, this thing is one of the three acids and two bases, and is a chemical product with extremely high purity. Not to mention that Shi Zimiao is just a Taoist priest, even if he is a god, he can't make it now.

So Shi Zimiao could only come up with an emergency solution through experiments based on the Chemistry textbook given by Wang Jing. There were also hints on the glass formula.

If you don’t have soda ash, you can actually use wood ash instead.

This is actually a very ancient craft. In human history, glass appeared quite early and is not a product of modern times.

The ancients discovered that many minerals crystallize at high temperatures when they were firing things.

For example, European countries used wood ash as raw material to make glass for a long time. At that time, it was one of the mysterious alchemical formulas.

After summarizing their long-term experience, European alchemists discovered that seaweed ash is the best wood ash for making glass.

Unfortunately, Luoyang has big rivers but no sea, and Shi Zimiao could not get a large amount of seaweed, so he had to give up.

Afterwards, Shi Zimiao racked his brains, consulted many craftsmen, and with the reminder of Wang Jing, he finally discovered the use of Glauber's salt to refine glass, and the effect was very good.

Sodium sulfate is not a strategic material at present and can be bought with money.

Buy Glauber's salt, heat it slightly to dehydrate it, then mix limestone and charcoal in proportion and put it into a crucible and burn it at high temperature. Grind the refined product with a grinding wheel, stir it in water to dissolve it, filter out the alkaline brine, and evaporate it to get soda ash.

This method is too troublesome, but without seaweed, we have no choice but to make do with it before Wang Jing occupies Qingzhou and other coastal territories. Anyway, if the cost is high, we can just sell it at a higher price.

So Shi Zimiao applied for a large sum of funds and first set up a factory that specialized in producing soda ash using traditional methods. After producing the raw materials, he transported them in wooden barrels to the glass factory for processing.

While Shi Zimi was collecting Glauber's salt, Zhai Jie was also taking action. He sent the best bricklayers in the road construction team to help.

The first priority of these bricklayers from Yanzhou was to build a glass furnace. The method they used was also very ancient. The only advantage was that it was simple and easy, and smelting did not require very high temperatures.

Seeing that the manager paid them enough wages, the bricklayers worked extra hard and were much more enthusiastic than when they had done labor service for the government. In just a few days, they worked overtime and built two large furnaces.

The first furnace had a strange shape, with a dome, and was divided into a combustion chamber and a sintering chamber. It was used to sinter materials. The raw materials for glass had to be sintered into glass melt in this furnace.

The second furnace is a very ordinary round shape, consisting of three chambers.

The lower chamber is used to add fire to combustion. There is an arched opening on the outer wall of the middle chamber, which is used to place the glass crucible. After the crucible is placed in, these openings are blocked with soil, leaving only one opening.

There is a square opening in the center of the top of the middle chamber, through which heat can flow into the uppermost high chamber.

Behind the high room, there is another opening leading to the outside. This place is actually the annealing tunnel for pottery. After the glass products are completed, they are placed here to gradually cool and anneal. During the discussion stage, the design of the furnace alone made Shi Zimiao's hairline move up a lot, because there are too many craftsmen involved, and any design will eventually receive countless suggestions for improvement.

Some even conflict with each other, which is really frustrating.

Fortunately, there is the glass formula that can be used as a reference, so Shi Zimiao doesn't have to be as unsure as a blind fly.

Finally, the furnace was built. Shi Zimiao made a lot of new designs in the structure of the glass furnace. He added a layer of diatomaceous earth insulation bricks between the inner bricks and the outer bricks of the furnace.

This method is very clever. It successfully increases the thickness of the furnace wall, and the insulation effect can save a lot of fuel. It can be regarded as a successful process improvement.

Considering that the formula specifically mentioned that the temperature required to refine glass was very high, Shi Zimiao added an additional ceramic pipe outside the high chamber in the center of the top of the circular furnace.

The function of this pipe is to guide the exhausted hot air into the preheating chamber and supply the blower for hot blowing.

After completing this improved version of the glass furnace, Shi Zimiao continued to lead the entire chemical engineering team composed of Taoist Qi-refining practitioners to begin intensive action.

Not only that, because a lot of mechanical devices are needed when refining glass, Shi Zimiao also joined hands with the Mohist Mechanical Group managed by Zhai Jie to work together and start the experiment of firing glass.

The first firing process took so long that the solid raw materials in the crucible eventually turned into a sticky glass slurry.

Shi Zimiao also asked someone to try to blow it according to the technical ideas provided in the recipe. As a result, the things that came out were weird and messy. Not only were they not in human shape, they were not in any shape at all.

"How can I sell this?"

Shi Zimiao sighed when he saw the glassware in front of him with different shapes, many bubbles and green colors.

This thing was too different from the real thing described by Wang Jing, which made Shi Zimiao feel uncomfortable. Although the nobles of the imperial dynasty were not good people, their aesthetic taste was still online. They liked delicate and exquisite things. They would only dislike shoddy things, no matter how good the materials were.

After all, the Yanhan Dynasty lasted for four hundred years, so which aristocratic family didn't have its inheritance passed down from generation to generation?

They are not nouveau riche and would not go out wearing all kinds of gold chains, as that would be too embarrassing.

The same goes for glass products. If you want to sell glass at a high price, the defects must be reduced as much as possible, otherwise it will not be able to compete with those exquisitely crafted jewelry and jade.

"The problem of bubbles is mentioned in the formula given by the master. We can try to solve it by stirring. As for the color disorder, the formula also says that as long as manganese dioxide is added, the produced glass will become as transparent as water and guaranteed to be flawless."

One of Shi Zimiao's disciples seemed confident: "As for the problem of poor blowing skills, I think the workers should practice more on their own."

"Manganese dioxide, can you conjure one up for me?"

Shi Zimiao rolled his eyes. He had already memorized the periodic table, and he thought that after thoroughly understanding it, he might be able to ascend to heaven, so he studied it very seriously.

But this does not mean that he can produce any element. He knows about many elements, but he has no idea how to refine them.

For example, uranium is said to have its own spiritual light, but he doesn't know how to refine this natural treasure that contains tremendous power.

"I knew this would happen."

The disciple really didn't know where to find this manganese dioxide. If he asked others about it, they would probably be dumbfounded.

Zhai Jie pinched his chin, thinking, and then said: "In my opinion, there is no need to use manganese dioxide. It acts as an oxidant in the formula. According to the records in the book "Chemistry" compiled by the master, there are many choices for oxidants. Isn't potassium nitrate also an oxidant? Why don't we add it in and give it a try?"

Potassium nitrate sounds complicated, but it is actually saltpeter.

This thing is actually very easy to find. It’s not everywhere, but you can definitely buy it with a little money, so I quickly got a lot of it.

According to Zhai Jie's suggestion, Shi Zimiao tried several times and finally made colorless glass a few days ago. He also secretly reported the good news to Wang Jing.

Glass is the number one Pokémon for making money in countless time-travel stories.

Although some of the plots are too exaggerated and bizarre, the profits from glass products are actually extremely astonishing, and their role in promoting modern science is beyond imagination.

Even if it is only sold as jewelry, glass is very popular in the market. Don’t think that only women like shiny things. In fact, even men like them!
After Wang Jing received the good news, he rushed over to inspect it immediately. Although the first piece of glass made by Shi Zimiao contained a large number of bubbles, which were so dense that his vision was blurred.

Although this does not affect its specific use, it seriously affects its appearance.

You know, appearance often determines the value of a thing.

However, it was common for early glass products to have color casts and bubbles. Wang Jing was accustomed to the crystal clear modern glassware, so the first generation product in front of him was still a little rough to him. But in Shi Zimiao's eyes, such a treasure was simply a godsend, much better than the colored glaze made by the royal craftsmen in the past.

Crystal clear, sparkling, flawless!
Unfortunately, Wang Jing was still not satisfied, and he told Shi Zimiao, "Your quality control is good, but you still need to keep up the good work and continue to develop better technology. Your next task is to find a way to eliminate all the bubbles in the glass."

The presence of bubbles is definitely the biggest flaw in glass products.

Glass with bubbles and glass without bubbles have two completely different prices.

The former can only be sold as daily necessities, but the latter can be sold as luxury goods to exploit the rich!
Shi Zimiao scratched his head, revealing a helpless expression: "The formula mentions how to eliminate bubbles, but that requires adding something called a clarifier, but I haven't found it in all of Luoyang."

Wang Jing studied the formula and found that one of the clarifiers mentioned in it was actually arsenic.

At that time, arsenic was only circulated in a small area around Lujiang, and it did not become truly famous until the Eastern Jin Dynasty, so it was impossible for Shi Zimiao to find it in Luoyang City.

However, Shi Zimiao did not know about arsenic trioxide, but he knew about arsenic stone, which was used frequently in alchemy.

Arsenic trioxide can be obtained as white powder after sublimation of arsenic stone. This refined product is named arsenic trioxide because it is as white as frost and snow.

When Shi Zimiao heard that they were going to use refined arsenic, his eyes widened: "Ah? Arsenic is a highly toxic substance. After being refined, it becomes even more toxic. Are you really going to use this stuff to make glass?"

Arsenic is a highly poisonous substance that can kill people!

If the glass produced is sold and someone dies, would it be considered murder for money?

However, now that Wang Jing had arranged the task, Shi Zimiao could only try his best to complete it, so he finally bought arsenic stone, refined it into powdered arsenic trioxide, used it as a clarifier, and added it directly into the glass liquid.

When arsenic enters the glass liquid, steam is generated due to the high temperature. These arsenic vapors exist in the glass slurry in the form of large bubbles. During the process of stirring the glass slurry, the large bubbles will gradually absorb the bubbles scattered around, and eventually take the bubbles away smoothly.

Seeing that this method was indeed feasible, Shi Zimiao couldn't help but exclaimed: "Great, it actually works!"

Although the process was indeed fine, other problems arose. Adding arsenic to the hot glass liquid and sublimating it into highly toxic arsenic vapor made the production process simply too horrific. How many lives would be lost?
You know, in this day and age, there are no gas masks.

All it takes is one improper operation and all the workers on the entire production line will be sent to prison. (End of this chapter)