Moma Liangshan

Chapter 154 A Fleeting Dream, A Beauty in Troubled Times

Wang Hao quietly looked at the Shu princess and slowly said, "The decline of the Liao Kingdom is in the interest of the Song Dynasty, but the rise of the Jurchens will become a new threat. If one day the Liao Dynasty collapses, I will do my best to protect your tribe!" The Shu princess suddenly said, "A royal family of a fallen kingdom will only face endless pursuit. You are a shrewd and cunning person; I don't believe you would dare to oppose the entire world one day." Wang Hao laughed loudly and said, "The fate of the people is never controlled by the people of the world, but my fate can only be controlled by myself!" The Shu princess gritted her teeth and said, "If one day the Liao Dynasty falls, I hope the fate of the Khitan royal family will be in your hands!" Wang Hao stood up and said, "Thank you very much for your trust from beginning to end!" The Shu princess didn't understand why she chose to believe such a young man. He was just a seventh-rank county magistrate in a remote part of the Song Dynasty. Although his troops were all elite, they numbered no more than a thousand. As for those seemingly fantastical ideas, they were more like a dream!

One day, Wang Hao invited the princess of Shu to visit the glass workshop in Jiaozhou. The history of glass can be traced back to Europe more than three thousand years ago. At that time, a Phoenician merchant ship, fully loaded with the crystalline mineral "natural soda," was sailing on the Belus River along the Mediterranean coast. Due to low tide, the ship ran aground, and the crew went ashore. Some crew members brought large pots and firewood, using pieces of "natural soda" as supports for the pots, and began to cook on the sand. After the crew finished eating, the tide began to rise, and as they prepared to board the ship to continue their voyage, someone suddenly discovered something crystal clear in the sand beneath the pots—this was the first glass. In the fourth century AD, the ancient Romans began to use glass in doors and windows. By the twelfth century, Italian glassmaking technology had become highly developed and increasingly commercialized.

As a person from later generations, Wang Hao was very familiar with the glassmaking process. It was simply a matter of placing quartz sand, limestone, quicklime, moonstone, and soda ash in a crucible in an appropriate ratio, then heating it to 1300-1600 degrees Celsius to make all the materials evenly mixed in a molten state, and finally shaping it artificially according to a pre-designed plan before it was completely solidified.

The glass workshop in Jiaozhou employs over seventy workers, divided into four work areas: material preparation, melting, shaping, and coating, with separate exhibition and storage areas. Wang Hao led the princess of Shu to the finished product exhibition area. Looking at the rows of crystal-clear glass artifacts, the princess could hardly believe such beauty existed. However, this wasn't the most astonishing part. When she stood before a huge mirror, she could only stare in disbelief at her reflection. Wang Hao slowly approached from behind. Although the princess didn't turn around, she could clearly see every subtle change in his expression. Looking at the princess in the mirror, Wang Hao asked, "Do you like this mirror?" The princess unconsciously touched her hair, almost seeing the split ends, and asked, "Is the person in the mirror me?" Wang Hao smiled and said, "Reach out and touch your reflection!" The princess nodded slightly and reached out to touch the mirror. The reflection in the mirror responded in the exact same way. Princess Shu's face beamed with a girlish smile. Suddenly, Wang Hao said, "This mirror is yours!" Princess Shu turned and compared Wang Hao's reflection in the mirror to his real appearance. Finding no difference, she exclaimed, "Such a rare item! Shouldn't you be giving it to your betrothed?" Wang Hao casually replied, "I've already sent sixty mirrors to Tokyo; that's enough for now!" A hint of disappointment flashed in Princess Shu's eyes. Wang Hao said, "This is a workshop. Everything will be mass-produced like ceramics. Holding onto things like this is absolutely unacceptable!"

The earliest glass mirrors were made by attaching tin foil to one side of a flat glass plate, then pouring mercury on top. The tin foil dissolved in the mercury, allowing it to be evenly coated onto the back of the mirror. Ancient China during the Qin and Han dynasties was capable of large-scale mercury extraction; the most typical example is the rivers, lakes, and seas formed by mercury in the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. Tin, as one of the earliest metals used by humankind (the other four being gold, silver, copper, and iron), was often used as burial goods in Zhou dynasty tombs. Tin has excellent ductility at 100 degrees Celsius, so making tin foil was as simple as placing an iron plate over a pot of boiling water and applying pressure. Although making a single mirror took nearly a month, Wang Hao sold a half-length mirror for a high price of six hundred strings of cash.

After visiting the glass workshop, Wang Hao led the Shu princess to the Jiaozhou Ironworks. The Jiaozhou Ironworks currently only has a little over two hundred blacksmiths. As for the blast furnace Wang Hao envisioned, it was still in the planning stages. Blast furnace steelmaking is a product of the Industrial Revolution, but vertical shaft furnaces were already widely used in China as early as the Northern Song Dynasty. While the principles of vertical shaft furnace steelmaking and blast furnace steelmaking are not significantly different, their scale and output are vastly different. According to Wang Hao's plan, a thousand people should be mobilized to build a blast furnace in Jiaozhou, two to three zhang high (approximately 6.6-9 meters). High-quality iron ore from Qiongzhou would then be transported to Jiaozhou by sea, and smokeless coal from Chaoge would be transported via the Yellow River. This would not only provide a continuous supply of weapons and armor for the Jiaozhou army but also allow the manufacture of various industrial and agricultural machinery, further improving production efficiency. At this time, although only a little over two hundred blacksmiths were working at the Jiaozhou Ironworks, it was already producing over three thousand weapons of various kinds each month. Blacksmiths work in groups of three, and with more than two hundred blacksmiths, they would need more than seventy furnaces.

Wang Hao led the Shu princess through the bustling, scorching forging area to a warehouse protected against multiple layers of moisture. The moment the door opened, the Shu princess was stunned by the mountain of weapons and armor piled before her. She exclaimed, "Can you sell me all of these?" Wang Hao nodded, "Of course!" The Shu princess suddenly remembered something and asked, "Aren't you afraid of being punished by your Song emperor for privately manufacturing weapons?" Wang Hao replied, "The entire ironworks, including this warehouse, is a military restricted area. Furthermore, the guards here don't receive any pay from the court; they only take my personal funds." At that moment, the Shu princess finally sensed the hidden ambition within Wang Hao and said, "You seem much more pleasant now!"