Chapter 149: Glass

“This looks a bit like a tulou,” Wu De commented.

“Yes, it is indeed influenced by the tulou. If this design is successful in the Baitu pilot project, all our future residential areas will adopt this structure,” Wen Desi said, deeply enamored with his own design.

“Wen Zong, this design is not bad,” Mei Wan’s expression clearly showed his disagreement, “but there’s still a difference between a tulou and a house like this. The outer walls of a tulou are made of rammed earth, which has great structural strength. A good quality one is comparable to concrete. This is a brick-and-wood structure. If it’s designed this way purely for security control, it’s fine, but it would be difficult to defend against an enemy attack…”

“The materials can be improved in the future. For now, let’s see how the overall living effect is,” Wen Desi said, having a particular fondness for his design. “A brick-and-wood structure is only temporary. It will definitely become reinforced concrete in the future.”

“Well, but there’s a problem with the design here: if each unit has its own biogas digester, the population of each unit is only 150-200 people. With only these people and no large livestock, the biogas output rate will be very low.”

“It doesn’t matter. Even if it’s just used to light the street lamps, it’s fine.” Wen Desi was well aware that a biogas digester of this scale would have limited effect, but its main purpose here was to ferment feces, making it safe for use as fertilizer on farmland and reducing the spread of parasites and infectious diseases.

“Let’s just build two or three unit buildings to try it out,” Mei Wan conceded.

“You build it first. As for arranging for people to move in, I have some other ideas,” Wen Desi said, then turned to Wu De. “Let’s go down and talk.”

Wen Desi and Wu De discussed the future employee ranking system. He had thought of this issue by chance while designing the Type B housing for Baitu Village.

Since the residents of Baitu Village were mainly various types of skilled workers, their treatment should be better than that of ordinary employees who only provided manual labor. Otherwise, it would not be conducive to creating income disparities and promoting workers’ enthusiasm. A shipwright and a laborer carrying earth earning the same wages was obviously unreasonable and inappropriate.

“There’s also the matter of food. The current ration standard for some future job types is too low,” Wen Desi pointed out. Heavy industry was about to be launched, and for some strenuous and toxic jobs, it would be difficult to ensure the workers’ health without improving their nutrition.

To increase the ration level, the job types, technical standards, and ranks of the workers had to be established. Otherwise, there would be no scale.

“I can’t say much about this issue. I’ve never worked in an industrial enterprise, so I have no experience. Anyway, I have no objections from my side,” Wu De expressed his attitude.

Wen Desi looked at him for a few seconds and nodded. “I’m mainly seeking the opinion of the labor department—”

“I just manage the laborers simply,” Wu De said. “The Executive Committee now wants to establish a ranking and remuneration system for the employees, and I fully support it. Regarding the issue of remuneration, I have some thoughts.”

He then shared some of his views on the current employee remuneration issue, mainly that the treatment of employees’ dependents was too low and that the children might be malnourished.

“Cheng Dong proposed at the Executive Committee meeting that a monetary system should be implemented after the New Year. I think we should take this opportunity to implement a monetized wage system. The simple exchange coupons like work point vouchers are increasingly unable to meet the current needs.”

“Yes, what you said makes sense,” Wen Desi said as he walked. “Which monetary system do you support us implementing?”

“Are you talking about paper currency or metal currency, silver standard, gold standard, and the like?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know much about that.” Wu De knew that Chairman Wen must have his own research on the monetary system. He knew little about it, so it was better to say less. “I have no personal opinion on this issue. I will follow the arrangements of the Executive Committee.”

After parting with Wu De, Wen Desi decided to visit the glass factory to see the progress of the glass trial production. The infrastructure for this glass factory had been completed before the New Year. Guo Yi had already sent several telegrams from Guangzhou, urging the Transmigration industry to supply goods as soon as possible. It was not a long-term solution to keep selling the inventory from the Fengcheng. Moreover, glass was also the bargaining chip they had offered to Zhu Cailao and Liu Xiang in their peace talks. If they couldn’t produce it after all this time, it would not only be a joke but also damage their reputation. Besides trade, the chemical department would also have a great demand for glass in the future—after all, it was the only material they were confident they could manufacture that could withstand corrosion from most chemicals. The chemical department was also counting on using glass to make reaction vessels, containers, and various pipes. Starting from the twenty-third of the twelfth month, professionals from the chemical, mechanical, and metallurgical groups were drawn to form a glass research team, led by Ji Situi, and began trial production.

The first requirement for making glass was a high-temperature resistant crucible. The research team used crucibles brought from the 21st century. Although Ji Situi knew that high-temperature resistant crucibles could be made from the magnesium chloride in bitter brine, and that ancient Chinese smelting craftsmen could also make them—he remembered that the walls of Dimi Castle, an ancient fortress built in the late Ming Dynasty in Yangcheng County, Shanxi, were made of discarded crucibles from the nearby iron smelting town of Runcheng—making crucibles was a specialized skill. If the technique was not mastered well, they could easily explode during use. Wu Yunduo had once encountered the problem of self-made crucibles repeatedly exploding. It was only after learning the technique from a specialized craftsman that he succeeded. It was obviously impossible for anyone among the transmigrators to know how to make crucibles, and Lingao was not a major smelting town, so the possibility of finding a local craftsman was minimal. Therefore, they had specifically brought a batch of crucibles of various sizes for emergency use.

The crucibles for making glass were closed-mouthed. The reason for this was to prevent the glass melt from being contaminated by soot during the smelting process. As for the raw materials, they were quartz sand, quicklime, and soda ash.

Quartz sand was an abundant mineral in Lingao, and it was easy to obtain a large amount of high-quality raw material. After simple selection and washing, it was ready for use.

As for soda ash, the transmigrators did not yet have the ability to manufacture it, but they had two emergency methods. One was to use plant ash as a substitute. This was a very old process, and European countries had used this raw material for a long time. The best plant ash for making glass was from seaweed. In Lingao, there was certainly no shortage of marine products.

The second method was to use a simple version of the Leblanc process. They had Glauber’s salt purchased from Guangzhou. After heating and dehydration, it was mixed with limestone and charcoal in proportion and fired at high temperature in a crucible. The resulting product was ground into a fine powder with a millstone, dissolved in water, and then the lye was filtered out and evaporated to obtain soda ash.

Ji Situi, considering the second method to be too troublesome, decided to adopt the first method of using seaweed ash. This method had been used in Europe for hundreds of years, so there shouldn’t be any major problems for them to use it.

So, Li Di, a chemistry and mechanics enthusiast from the Navy, led his men to the seaside to collect a large amount of seaweed. After drying it, they burned it into ash on the spot and then transported it back in wooden barrels.

While Li Di was collecting plant ash, Mei Wan sent his best masons. Their task was to build a set of glass furnaces. This method was very old, having been in use since the 16th-17th centuries. The advantage was that it was simple and easy to implement, and the smelting did not require a very high temperature.

The first furnace was a material sintering furnace. This was a furnace with an arched roof, divided into a combustion chamber and a sintering chamber. The glass raw materials were sintered into glass frit in this furnace.

The second furnace was circular and consisted of three chambers. The lower chamber was for adding fuel and combustion. The outer wall of the middle chamber had six arched openings for placing the glass crucibles. After the crucibles were placed, these openings were blocked with clay, leaving only a small hole. The top of the middle chamber had a small square opening in the center, allowing heat to flow into the highest chamber. The highest chamber had an opening at the back, leading to a ceramic annealing tunnel where the finished glass products were placed to cool down and anneal gradually.

Of course, in this group with people from all walks of life, any design would receive countless suggestions for improvement. In the construction of this glass furnace, a layer of diatomaceous earth insulation bricks was added between the inner furnace bricks and the outer furnace bricks. This greatly increased the thickness of the furnace wall, but the insulation effect could save a lot of fuel.

Considering that the temperature for making glass was at least 1200°C, although they knew from technical literature that this type of glass furnace did not require a preheating chamber or the like, Ji Situi and others, from the perspective of ensuring a certain level of usability, still added a ceramic pipe to the highest chamber at the top of the circular furnace to guide the exhausted hot air into a preheating chamber for hot air blasting.

After completing this improved version of the glass furnace, the chemical and mechanical groups jointly began the glass-making experiment. The first firing process lasted for 10 hours, and finally, the solid raw materials in the crucible turned into a sticky glass slurry. Everyone immediately started trial blowing, but the things they blew out were bizarrely shaped, of all sorts of forms.

“How can we sell this stuff?” Xiao Bailang sighed, looking at the glassware of different shapes, with many bubbles, and a greenish color.

“The bubbles can be solved by stirring. As for the color, it can be made transparent by adding manganese dioxide,” Li Di said with confidence. “But everyone’s blowing skills are really terrible. We need more practice.”

“Manganese dioxide? Can you conjure some up?” Xiao Bailang said with dissatisfaction.

“I just know about it,” Li Di admitted that he didn’t know where they could find manganese dioxide.

“Alright, we don’t actually need manganese dioxide,” Ji Situi said. “It acts as an oxidizing agent. It doesn’t have to be manganese dioxide. Potassium nitrate is also an oxidizing agent. Adding that will do.”

The so-called potassium nitrate was saltpeter, of which they still had a considerable amount. After a few more attempts, the glass experiment team finally produced colorless glass the day before New Year’s Eve. This achievement made many people in the industrial department cheer: the transmigrator’s divine artifact—glass—was born!