Chapter 44: The Earthen Sugar Mill

Wen Tong established his base of operations in Xuwen. The Qiwei Escort Agency, acting on instructions from their patron, Guo, was prepared to offer “Manager Wen” the finest hospitality. Learning of his preference for tranquility over the city’s clamor, the agency’s Leizhou branch had a new house built for him on a sugarcane plantation just outside Xuwen County. The residence was immaculate, furnished with brand-new pieces. They had intended to hire servants, but a retinue had already been dispatched from Guangzhou by mule cart—an extravagance that left the local branch manager speechless.

Wen Tong and his retinue settled into the sugarcane estate, a property that was, for all intents and purposes, a well-appointed farmhouse. Beyond the main house lay a vast yard for stacking harvested sugarcane. Just outside the plantation walls stood the earthen sugar mill, a separate compound that also housed several oxen.

After a night’s rest, Wen Tong began his inspection. He had expected to find a staff of managers and craftsmen, but his inquiries revealed the plantation was deserted. The entire operation, from the fields to the mill, had been the private domain of a single family, who managed every step from planting to pressing. With the sale of the property, its workforce had vanished.

A sense of unease settled over Wen Tong. Without local hands, he was navigating blind. Sugarcane processing was a notoriously labor-intensive business, demanding a huge workforce at harvest time. In his own era, the logistics were simple: farmers brought their cane to the factory for weighing and purchase. Here, he owned the land and the cane that stood upon it. He now faced the daunting task of hiring seasonal laborers for harvesting, cleaning, and bundling—a role better suited to a seasoned landlord or foreman, not a factory manager. The question loomed: how would he manage?

He glanced at his Qiwei escorts; their blank stares confirmed they were as clueless as he was.

“A difficult task?” Chang Shide asked, noticing the worry etched on Wen Tong’s face.

“We’re operating blind without local expertise,” Wen Tong sighed. He summoned Li Biao, Zhou Shizhai’s young apprentice, who had already become fluent in Mandarin during his time in Lingao.

“Go and make inquiries around the plantation,” Wen Tong instructed. “Find out if any local farmers bring their sugarcane here for processing. If you find any, invite them to the estate. I wish to speak with them.”

“At once, sir,” Li Biao replied, and promptly departed.

Wen Tong consulted the land deed. The estate’s sugarcane fields totaled just over one hundred modern mu—a pitifully small operation. His attention then turned to the sugar mill.

He had visited traditional earthen mills on the Leizhou Peninsula before and was familiar with the fundamental process: “oxen pulling stone rollers to press the cane, pots and stoves to boil the sugar, and pottery vessels to separate the molasses.” It was a primitive method by modern standards, yet remarkably advanced for its time.

The mill occupied a large plot, with space for stacking both raw cane and the bagasse left after pressing. The main structures were a conical shed and a sprawling thatched hut. The entire setup was astonishingly crude. There were no bricks or tiles, and even wood was used sparingly. It was a classic “grass-thatched and mud-walled” affair.

The pressing shed, a conical structure supported by an internal skeleton of bamboo poles, rose thirty feet from a fifty-foot base. Its roof was a thick layer of thatch, rice straw, and sugarcane leaves. A separate sugar-boiling house contained a series of “Kongming” cauldrons and an assortment of equipment: wooden rollers, large pots, stoves, and earthenware jars.

The mill had lain dormant for months, and a thick coat of dust covered everything. The floor was packed earth, littered with a foul carpet of sugarcane leaves, husks, cow dung, and splintered firewood. The building was drafty, and mouse droppings were scattered everywhere, even speckling the inside of the sugar-boiling pots.

Wen Tong knew that even modern sugar factories were not paragons of cleanliness, but the squalor here was profoundly dismal. Launching his enterprise from such a place would be a monumental challenge.

His entourage saw the deep furrows in Manager Wen’s brow and knew he was displeased, though they could not fathom why. The sugar mills throughout Leizhou Prefecture were all like this. What could he possibly find so dissatisfying?

Emerging from the pressing shed, he found a clean stone in the yard and was about to sit when a young man in a blue tunic and a small cap scurried over. The man carried a folding chair, which he swiftly opened and placed for him.

“Please, have a seat, Master,” the young man murmured, his head bowed.

Wen Tong was startled. A local who spoke Mandarin was a rarity. “Who are you?”

Liao Dahua, the manager of the Qiwei branch, hurried to his side. “This is Wen Xiu, Manager. Patron Guo sent him from Guangzhou specifically to serve you.”

“Wen Xiu? That’s a rather girlish name,” Wen Tong remarked offhandedly.

A flush instantly colored the servant boy’s face. He clasped his hands and fell silent.

“Is he meant to be a beauty?” Chang Shide remarked, sizing up the boy. Wen Xiu was sixteen or seventeen, with fair skin, red lips, and delicate, almost feminine features. Chang Shide’s gaze fell on his peculiar hat, which resembled an oversized skullcap. “Has Manchu fashion already crept this far south?”

“What kind of hat is that?”

“It’s a ‘Six Harmonies’ cap,” Liao Dahua explained hastily. “It was designed by the founding emperor of our dynasty—”

“What? The skullcap was invented by Zhu Yuanzhang?” Chang Shide muttered, astonished. He had always assumed the headwear, a perfect complement to the queue hairstyle, was an innovation of the Qing Dynasty.

At the sound of the emperor’s name spoken so freely, both Liao Dahua and Wen Xiu blanched. “Master Chang, be careful!” Liao Dahua whispered urgently. “That is the name of our founding emperor. It cannot be spoken so casually.”

“So I’ve heard, though I’m not clear on the details. Yu E’shui mentioned it once,” Wen Tong said, then his eyes narrowed. “Why haven’t you brought a chair for Master Chang?”

For the sake of appearances, Chang Shide’s official title was “Master Advisor,” a designation meant to prevent any confusion among the locals about the chain of command.

“Wen Qing is bringing a chair for the Master Advisor. I will fetch it at once,” Wen Xiu replied. He had initially dismissed the dark-faced, stubble-jawed man with the crew cut as one of Wen Tong’s foremen. In this era, a dark complexion marked one as lower class, a prejudice Chang Shide had encountered frequently in Lingao.

A moment later, Wen Xiu returned with another young servant. They carried not only a stool but also a tray with two cups of tea.

Chang Shide settled into his seat, took a long, satisfying sip of tea, and grinned at Wen Tong. “You know, coming out here isn’t half bad. This is the life! I wonder if there are any maids?” He scanned the yard expectantly.

“Reporting to the Master Advisor,” Wen Qing replied with a respectful bow, “there are no maids. We have only hired two scullery maids for cooking and laundry.”

“That Guo fellow has no sense of propriety. How can we possibly manage without maids—” He trailed off, noticing the two young servants covering their mouths to hide their laughter. He had spoken carelessly, undermining his authority.

Wen Tong, however, was preoccupied. He instructed Liao Dahua to find the mill’s former workers. “If they are willing to return,” he said, “we will welcome them with better pay.” Liao Dahua agreed and dispatched his men.

With the messengers gone, Wen Tong and Chang Shide sat facing each other under the vast 17th-century sky. A faint breeze drifted by, carrying a strange perfume of cow dung, sugarcane, and raw sugar. They sipped their tea, encircled by more than a dozen men standing in silent, breathless attention. The scrutiny was unnerving. They finally persuaded Liao Dahua to take a seat, but the rest of their retinue remained standing, ever watchful.

“I admit, I was nervous when they told me I was being sent on a trip,” Chang Shide said, his eyes gleaming. “I always figured Lingao was the safest place to be. I never dreamed I’d be out here living like a feudal lord. If I’d known, I’d have signed up for intelligence work. That fellow Guo Yi has probably taken a few concubines by now, or at least four or five serving girls!”

“You could have one too, if you wished,” Wen Tong said, his tone disinterested. His mind was already wrestling with the weight of his new responsibilities.

An hour later, the search parties returned. They had found three of the mill’s former workers. Speaking through a translator, Wen Tong learned that none were skilled technicians. The mill, they explained, required a team of five: a sugar master, a cane presser, an ox handler, a stoker, and a general laborer. The family who had owned the plantation had performed the skilled tasks of sugar boiling and cane pressing themselves.

“If the master wishes to make sugar, he must hire a good sugar master to oversee the work,” the former stoker advised. “Without one, it is difficult to control the fire or know how much lime to add. The quality of the sugar depends on it.”

Wen Tong nodded. He asked if they could demonstrate the production process. The stoker replied that they could, but warned that without a proper sugar master, the final product would likely be unusable.

“Tell them to proceed,” Wen Tong instructed the translator. “The quality of the sugar is not important.”

The three workers conferred briefly before setting to work. They enlisted two of the escorts for assistance, led an ox from its pen, and hauled over several bundles of sugarcane. Mindful of Manager Wen’s earlier displeasure with the mill’s condition, Liao Dahua had his men hastily clean the area and wash the equipment.

First, the workers stripped the sugarcane and tied it into bundles, stacking them beside the wooden roller press. The rollers, fashioned from incredibly hard lychee wood, were put into motion. One man fed the cane into the press while another drove the ox that turned the main roller. A set of wooden gears transferred the motion to a second roller, and the cane was squeezed between them three times to extract its juice.

For the final pass, the workers tightened the rollers to their maximum setting, ensuring the bagasse was pressed as dry as possible. The extracted juice trickled down a groove in the press’s base, flowing through a bamboo pipe into a large earthenware jar to settle.

Wen Tong observed intently. The pressure exerted by the wooden rollers was significant, but he knew it was less efficient than the stone presses of the later Qing dynasty. He picked up a handful of bagasse and squeezed; even after three pressings, a surprising amount of juice remained.

After forty minutes, the ox was lathered in sweat, its pace flagging. The labor was clearly exhausting. As the workers moved to switch the animal, Wen Tong inquired about their output. They processed four bundles per session, they told him. Over a full day and night, the ox would be changed thirty to thirty-five times. It was no wonder the mill maintained a team of four or five animals.

He had a bundle of cane weighed and made a quick mental calculation. Working around the clock, this method could process a maximum of 2,000 kilograms of sugarcane. To make matters worse, the workers mentioned that the wooden rollers frequently broke, forcing costly and time-consuming repairs.

“Are there any presses made of stone?” Wen Tong asked.

The workers shook their heads. Among the thirty to fifty mills in the district, not one used stone.

Wen Tong nodded grimly. It seemed the stone roller was indeed an innovation of the Qing dynasty. A stone press could process 2,500 kilograms a day—a significant leap in efficiency.

After settling, the sugarcane juice was skimmed of debris and poured into large iron pots arranged in a triangle. Wen Tong saw no obvious production advantage in this configuration and speculated it might be a way to concentrate heat.

As the juice heated, just before reaching a boil, the former stoker used a large ladle to skim the foam and impurities from the surface. Then, he took a pinch of lime from a bag, wrapped it in a sugarcane leaf, and dusted it into the pot.

“Lime?” Chang Shide asked, surprised.

“A clarifying agent,” Wen Tong explained. “To get cleaner crystals, you have to remove impurities from the juice. Modern factories use lime because it’s effective and, like in this era, easy to obtain. Other options like sulfur dioxide or superphosphate are out of the question here. Some traditional methods use plant ash.”

“But doesn’t it dissolve into the sugar? You mean we’re eating lime in our sugar?”

“No,” Wen Tong explained patiently. “It triggers a chemical reaction that neutralizes and precipitates the impurities. The final product, whether it’s white or brown sugar, is completely free of lime.”

“That’s a relief.”

The juice had turned a pale yellow. The workers transferred the contents to a second pot to continue the slow process of evaporation, then began a new batch in the first.

The now-concentrated syrup was ladled into the third pot, where a worker added a splash of oil.

“What did you just add?” Wen Tong asked.

“Peanut oil,” the worker replied.

“Peanut oil?” Wen Tong was baffled. He recalled from his research that early European sugar makers used milk as a decolorizing agent, while the Chinese used egg whites. The principle was the same: using protein to bind with and remove impurities. But oil wasn’t a protein.

Puzzled but intrigued, he continued to observe. Once the cane liquid had been cooked down to a thick paste, it was poured into “earthen funnels.” Wen Tong recognized them from Qing-dynasty illustrations. They were nearly identical: conical vessels, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, standing about a foot high. A small hole at the tip, plugged with straw, was positioned over a large earthenware jar. In these funnels, the sugar would slowly crystallize. The molasses, laden with impurities, would drip through the straw into the jar below, leaving behind the purer sugar crystals. A single funnel, he learned, could yield about ten kilograms of brown sugar.