Chapter 191: Glass

"This is somewhat like a tulou," Wu De commented.

"Yes, definitely influenced by tulou. If this building succeeds at Baitu, our future residential areas will all adopt this structure." Wen Desi was quite enamored with his design.

"Mr. Wen, the design is good." Mei Wan's expression clearly said however. "But tulou and our buildings are still different. Tulou outer walls are made of rammed three-compound earth with tremendous structural strength—good ones rival concrete. This is brick-and-timber construction. Designed this way, it might work for security control, but defending against enemy attack would be very difficult..."

"Materials can be improved later. For now, let's see how the overall living experience works." Wen Desi was attached to his design. "Brick-and-timber is temporary. In the future, it'll definitely become reinforced concrete."

"There's another design concern: if each unit has one biogas pit, with only 150–200 residents per unit and no large livestock, biogas output would be very low."

"No problem. Even just for streetlights it's worthwhile." Wen Desi was well aware of such small biogas pits' limited utility, but here the main purpose was fermenting waste so it could be safely applied to farmland, reducing parasite and disease transmission.

"Let's just build two or three unit blocks as trials." Mei Wan conceded.

"Go ahead and build. As for occupancy arrangements, I have some other ideas." Wen Desi turned to Wu De. "Let's go down and talk."

What Wen Desi wanted to discuss was future worker grade systems. He'd thought of this while designing the B-type residence for Baitu Village.

Since Baitu Village residents were mainly technical workers, their treatment should exceed that of ordinary laborers. Otherwise, there would be no wage differentiation to motivate workers. A shipbuilder and a dirt-carrier earning identical wages obviously made no sense and wasn't appropriate.

"Also food. For certain trades, current rations are too low." Wen Desi pointed out. Heavy industry was about to launch. Some strenuous, hazardous jobs couldn't maintain worker health without better nutrition.

To increase rations required establishing worker trades, skill standards, and grades first—otherwise there would be no measurement standards.

"This is hard for me to say. I've never worked in an industrial enterprise. No experience. Anyway, I have no objection." Wu De expressed his position.

Wen Desi studied him for a few seconds, then nodded. "Mainly wanted to consult the labor department's opinion—"

"I just do simple labor management," Wu De said. "The Executive Committee establishing worker grades and compensation systems—I wholeheartedly support it. About compensation, I do have some thoughts."

He then shared his views on current worker compensation issues, mainly that dependents' treatment was too low. Children might be malnourished.

"Cheng Dong proposed at the Executive Committee meeting to implement currency reform after New Year. I think we should seize this opportunity to implement monetary wage systems. Work-point vouchers as simple exchange tokens are increasingly inadequate for current needs."

"You're right." Wen Desi walked as he spoke. "Which currency system do you favor?"

"You mean paper or metal currency? Silver standard, gold standard—things like that?"

"Yes."

"I really don't understand this." Wu De knew Chairman Wen surely had his own research on currency systems. Knowing little, he should say less. "I have no personal views on this issue. I'll follow Executive Committee decisions."

After parting with Wu De, Wen Desi decided to visit the glass factory to check on progress. The factory had completed basic construction just before the holiday. Guo Yi had sent multiple telegrams from Guangzhou urging prompt supply—constantly selling from Fengcheng vessel's inventory wasn't sustainable. Moreover, the negotiation chips they'd offered to Zhu Cailao and Liu Xiang were glass. If they couldn't produce any, it would be both embarrassing and reputation-damaging. Beyond trade, the Chemistry Department had huge future glass needs—after all, this was the only material they were confident of manufacturing that could resist most chemical corrosion. Chemistry was counting on glass for reactors, containers, and various pipes. Starting December 23rd, a glass development team led by Ji Situi, drawing specialists from Chemistry, Machinery, and Metallurgy, had begun trials.

The first requirement for manufacturing glass was high-temperature-resistant crucibles. The team used twenty-first-century crucibles—though Ji Situi knew crucibles could be made from bittern's magnesium chloride. Ancient Chinese metallurgists had made them too. He recalled that in Shanxi's Yangcheng County, a late-Ming fortress called Diyi Fortress had walls built from discarded crucibles from nearby Runcheng iron-smelting town. But crucible-making was specialized knowledge. Poorly made ones could explode during use. Wu Yunduo had experienced repeated crucible explosions until finding a specialized craftsman to teach him. No transmigrator could make crucibles, and Lingao wasn't an iron-smelting center—finding local craftsmen was nearly impossible. So they'd brought crucibles specifically for emergency use.

Glass crucibles were closed-mouth to prevent contamination from coal smoke during smelting. Raw materials were quartz sand, quickite, and soda ash.

Quartz sand was abundant in Lingao—they could easily obtain large quantities of high-quality material. Simple sorting and washing prepared it for use.

As for soda ash, transmigrators currently couldn't produce it. But they had two emergency alternatives. First was wood ash—quite ancient technology that Europeans had used for ages. Seaweed ash worked best. Lingao certainly didn't lack marine products.

The second method was crude Leblanc process soda production. They had Glauber's salt from Guangzhou. After heating to dehydrate, mixing limestone and charcoal in proportion, then high-temperature firing in crucibles, grinding the product fine, dissolving in water with stirring, filtering out the alkaline lye, and evaporating dry yielded soda ash.

Ji Situi considered the second method too troublesome and chose the seaweed-ash approach. Europeans had used it for centuries—should work fine for them.

So Navy chemistry and machinery enthusiast Li Di took people to the shore to collect seaweed in bulk, drying and burning it to ash on site, then barrel-transporting it back.

While Li Di was collecting ash, Mei Wan sent his best masons. Their task was building a set of glass furnaces. The design was quite old—in use by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Advantages were simplicity and not requiring extremely high temperatures.

The first furnace was a fritting furnace—a domed structure with combustion and fritting chambers. Glass raw materials were fritted into glass frit here.

The second furnace was circular with three chambers. The lower chamber was for fire and combustion. The middle chamber's exterior wall had six arched openings for inserting glass crucibles—after insertion, these openings were sealed with earth, leaving only small apertures. The middle chamber's ceiling center had a square opening for heat to flow into the highest chamber. Behind the highest chamber, an opening led to a ceramic annealing tunnel where finished glass products slowly cooled.

Naturally, in this group where all trades were represented, any design received countless improvement suggestions. This glass furnace gained a layer of diatomaceous earth insulation bricks between inner lining and outer bricks. This greatly increased wall thickness but conserved substantial fuel through better insulation.

Considering glass-smelting temperatures needed to exceed 1,200°C—and though technical literature indicated this furnace type didn't require preheating chambers—Ji Situi and the others, prioritizing guaranteed functionality, still added a ceramic pipe from the highest chamber's ceiling to a preheating chamber, directing exhaust heat to supply the bellows for hot-blast operation.

After completing this improved glass furnace, Chemistry and Machinery jointly began glass firing experiments. The first firing took ten hours. Finally, the solid raw materials in the crucible became viscous glass slurry. Everyone immediately tried blowing. The results were bizarre shapes of all kinds.

"How can we sell this?" Xiao Bailang lamented at the misshapen, bubble-filled, greenish glass pieces scattered everywhere.

"Bubbles can be eliminated by stirring. As for color, adding manganese dioxide will make it transparent." Li Di spoke confidently. "But everyone's blowing technique is really terrible. Need more practice."

"Manganese dioxide—can you conjure some?" Xiao Bailang replied unhappily.

"Just saying I know about it." Li Di genuinely didn't know where to find manganese dioxide.

"Actually, no need for manganese dioxide." Ji Situi interjected. "It just acts as an oxidizer. Doesn't have to be manganese dioxide—potassium nitrate is also an oxidizer. Add that instead."

Potassium nitrate meant saltpeter, which they had in abundance. After several more attempts, the glass team finally produced colorless glass the day before New Year's Eve. This accomplishment made many in Industrial cheer: the transmigrator divine artifact—glass—was born!

(End of Chapter)