British hegemon

Chapter 57 Crude Salt Purification

Over the next few days, Roger spent a pound to buy some nails, timber, and other materials in the market town of Brodick.

They found an open space a hundred yards upstream from the stream on the salt flats, and summoned the carpenter and his apprentice from the Milk House Manor. With the help of the young stable boy, Bald Ponytail, and Black Dog, they built a wooden shed and a thatched hut, erected a salt stove, and set up a large iron pot sent from the manor.

After the "refined salt workshop" was built upstream of the stream, two new thatched huts were also erected at the coarse salt workshop, mainly for the salt workers on duty to rest, so as to fully guarantee the salt production work on the sea salt flats.

Roger also brought over his bald grandmother and ponytail sister, who had recently joined the Milk House Estate. The two of them were put in charge of making slightly more palatable food for the salt workers.

With current technology, Roger's "coarse salt to refined salt" purification technique is extremely easy to learn and can be easily copied.

It wasn't that Roger was patent-conscious, but rather that the high price of "refined salt" in this era was due to the fact that the purification technology hadn't yet been widely disseminated. Therefore, Roger became aware of the importance of keeping the "purification technique," which he hadn't previously paid much attention to, a secret. After all, these "little tricks" were now crucial to his future career.

Roger pondered the question of how to keep it a secret for quite some time.

A while ago, when I was staying here, I did a "coarse salt purification" project. Little Igor was involved in the whole process, and Baldhead and Ponytail got a general idea of ​​what was going on. Missing Tooth and Gambler collected the coarse salt and then shirked their duties, so they probably didn't see the key process.

Little Igor, Baldy, Ponytail, and Blackie are all trustworthy people, so Roger can keep them to learn salt making after he builds the "Salt Workshop." However, Baldy, Ponytail, and Blackie are all bodyguards and will not be able to make salt on their own in the future.

After much deliberation, Roger transferred the two severely wounded but disabled peasant soldiers to Holly Island. They were no longer suitable for marching and fighting, and heavy physical labor was inconvenient for them, but processing refined salt was easier than boiling coarse salt.

Furthermore, Roger planned to train these two men and then use them as technical and management personnel, with them primarily responsible for guidance and management once suitable salt workers joined in the future.

As for Little Igor, Roger found that this talkative tagalong was indeed quite clever and eager to learn. If he could hone his skills for a few years, he might become a good civil affairs assistant.

So he put little Igor in charge of the salt workshop, so that he could learn the craft from him and try to manage it.

On the fourth day, the simple "refined salt workshop" was basically completed. Roger had two large barrels of slightly better quality coarse salt brought from the "coarse salt workshop" on the sea salt beach, and began to produce refined salt in batches.

The process flow is similar to the last one, still involving several steps: dissolving in warm water, filtering the crude salt solution to remove impurities, adding wood ash to the filtrate, and re-evaporating to precipitate salt.

However, this time Roger improved the method by directly adding wood ash. Instead, he dissolved the wood ash in water, placed it in a ceramic jar, and let it stand. He used the wood ash water to remove impurities from the salt water.

Roger spent two whole days personally teaching Igor and the two wounded soldiers how to dissolve coarse salt, make a filter, and filter out insoluble impurities.

Then he let the others operate the equipment while he stood aside to provide guidance. At the same time, he considered from an outsider's perspective whether the salt processing procedures could be improved and how to increase the efficiency of the stove fire.

Unlike coarse salt, the fine processing of coarse salt requires more complex procedures and takes more time. It also consumes twice the fuel because it requires first dissolving the salt in water and then boiling it again.

Even refined salt, which requires more processes and materials to produce, is still just coarse salt with an improved taste in Roger's eyes, as it is difficult to completely remove all the water-soluble minerals.

However, such results have already amazed those around them, after all, they have mastered the "luxury" recipes used on aristocratic tables.

Roger had forgotten most of the physics and chemistry he learned in his previous life after years of working in society. Before he could recall a better method for removing impurities, he had to solve a more practical problem.

The processing of crude salt into refined products is a fuel-intensive industry, and the fuel problem must be solved.

So Roger led his men upstream along the stream and arrived at Peat Bay, located in the northeast corner of Holly Island.

Peat Bay is situated on a flat area on the hillside, surrounded by low green vegetation, and is only about a mile away from the sea salt flats below.

There is a natural spring-fed lake in the area, from which the freshwater stream of Haiyan Beach originates. The lake is not very large.

Roger thought calling it a pond would be more appropriate. Perhaps due to geological reasons, the area around the lake was rich in peat. Roger had his men dig around the lake with shovels in more than a dozen places, and there was peat in the ground up to a person's height.

Muddy Bay truly lives up to its reputation.

Peat Bay has abundant peat resources, and the road leading to the salt flats below the mountain isn't too rugged. Considering that coarse salt processing is a fuel-intensive industry, Roger decided to find a suitable site here when the time was right to build a simple peat mining site, assigning dedicated personnel to be responsible for mining and transporting the peat...

During his time on Holly Island, Roger would engage in other activities besides researching the refining of crude salt.

"Pirate" Olaf successfully resolved the border dispute between Milk House Manor and the neighboring village through a one-on-one fight, and then came to Holly Island. Sergeant Marn will also come to the island after completing his training on the Seawolf.

A group of people gathered together every afternoon to practice swordsmanship, spear fighting, and archery.

Olaf was considered the most skilled in martial arts among the group. After all, he was born a squire and followed the knight from a young age. Even if he didn't learn it by watching, he learned it by observing. Naturally, he could handle longswords, short spears, crossbows, and longbows, and his skills were indeed extraordinary.

However, Roger always felt that Olaf's swordsmanship was too flashy and somewhat performative. He might not be able to beat Olaf in the arena, but if it really came down to a fight to the death, it was hard to say who would win.

Therefore, Roger preferred the techniques honed by Sergeant Marne in actual combat. They lacked aesthetic appeal but were deadly, simple, and efficient. Roger knew he was no match for them.

Bald-headed, ponytail-wearing, and Black Dog were all thugs who started out as street thugs, so their fighting skills were naturally quite good. However, street thugs usually don't use lethal moves and tend to hold back their strength when they strike. Compared to Olaf's skills, which he had practiced since childhood, or Maren's deadly sword strikes, they were far inferior.

So Sergeant Marn and Olaf would occasionally teach a few of the men some basic moves. They didn't expect them to become sword masters; they just hoped that they could save their lives in critical moments and maybe get lucky and inflict some damage on the enemy.

Between martial arts competitions, the group would also take their bows and crossbows into the wilderness to hunt rabbits and hold bonfire feasts, making for a very enjoyable time.

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