Chapter 134: 133. Soap and Shampoo Project
Lie Fan hearing what Jia Xu said becomes silent, his projects need a lot of money, especially for the wages and materials of each project. Realizing this, Lie Fan began to think about introducing soap and shampoo, maybe something new as well to collect the money needed for his projects. As for his personal money, sorry he needed it to pay for his family's expenses, and why use his money when he could use the province treasury.
Making Soap and Shampoo is not that hard, many traditional ways are very easy to do in this era. He only needs to collect the ingredients needed, which means some of the projects need to be halted first as he needs to raise the money needed.
Lie Fan: "Told everyone that from now on except for one of the ship projects and the Gunpowder projects, halt the development of others projects and halt the production of the Chu-Ko-Nu and Saddle for now."
Jia Xu: "My Lord if we wanted the productions, I'm afraid that many of our men will not receive Chu-Ko-Nu and arched saddle reducing the combat capabilities and we will have limited stock of them."
Lie Fan: "It's a small price to pay, we needed to collect some money for a new money-making project. Make sure that the ship project that isn't halted is the treasure ship, it has the largest cargo holds which was essential for transporting our logistics and soldiers."
Jia Xu: "Yes My Lord, then how about the payment of the Shipwrights, Craftsmen, and Alchemists we have collected?"
Lie Fan: "Pay them accordingly to their original wages, but tell them to have their own farm or maybe join the Tuntian System as their food subsidize will be halted for now."
Jia Xu: "I agree with that My Lord, I think the money-making project My Lord has will be very successful like our wine and copper mirror that helped us sustain the projects My Lord has."
Lie Fan nods his head, soap and shampoo will make an entirely new industry that no one can imitate him. He will be the sole controller of this industry for a while and have a monopoly over the industry, a large amount of money will enter his pocket and potential competitor is very low.
After congratulating the Shipwrights and Craftsmen, Lie Fan gives them bonuses do the successful Fuchuan Warship project. Lie Fan then with Jia Xu and his bodyguards alongside his 1,000 soldiers go back to Huai'An.
Lie Fan stayed in Huai'An for a while, he spent some time with his Father and Mother while also looking through the Book of Knowledge technique for making soap and shampoo.
The cold process of soap making is the oldest way of making soap, he found out that he has to combine fat or oil (animal or plant-based) with sodium hydroxide lye and then blend in addition of essential oils and colorants as required. This treatment causes a chemical reaction called saponification which takes up to 48 hours
Sodium hydroxide lye called lye water is made by leaching ashes in water, usually using white wood ashes which China has abundant. Lie Fan immediately copied the technique, for fats, he will use animal fats as it's easier to look for.
He also decided to open up a large ranch to house pigs, cows, and chickens which can help him have his own meat source and collect animal fats at the same time. This can help him reduce the expenditure in the long run as he has his own supply of animal fats.
As for shampoo, he decided to use the techniques used by ancient Greeks and Romans where they used a variety of ingredients to make shampoo. Lye water mixed with olive oils, herbs, and clays is the primary usage, it's almost the soap as the soap-making technique.
Collecting all of this information, he called for his mother and Jia Xu to meet him in his Father's study. There he explained to them this idea, saying how this would change the people's livelihood increasing their health and at the same time bringing them large amounts of money.
For nobles and merchants class, they can be sold with different soaps and shampoos which have a lovely scent that they can mixture with herbs and flowers. Yu Yan and Jia Xu are reading the scrolls which contain the recipe and technique needed to make soaps and shampoos.
Yu Yan who has a merchant instinct instantly recognizes that this will be a huge success, more than the copper mirror and wine industry they have now. They can make this smaller, not as big as the one described in the recipe, or make a big one and cut it into small pieces.
This will help in ensuring that the industry will not reach an impasse as everyone already has soaps and shampoos, then the soaps and shampoos they but it's not finished yet which makes people not buy soaps and shampoos until it's finished.
Jia Xu: "My Lord, these soaps and shampoos are such a great way to reduce the chance of sickness from becoming an epidemic. I'm sure that this will become a huge success, Noble ladies and merchants ladies will immediately buy it knowing that it can make them smell fragrant and their skin smooth."
Yu Yan: "Fan'er I don't know how you managed to get this or even if this is your own idea, I even wanted to have this thing immediately for my usage. I see that it needs a large amount of animal fats and White wood, don't worry since I returned to Huai'An I have expanded our enterprise controlling all of Huai'An's industry."
Lie Fan: "Mother! What a great surprise, then I will give this project to you to handle. I will stay in Huai'An for some time to help you with some of the menial tasks, after that I will return to Xiapi."
Lie Fan, Yu Yan, and Jia Xu then began to coordinate together to begin building the soap and shampoo industries. Lie Fan was surprised that what Yu Yan said was true, the entirety of the Huai'An industry now had the presence of Yu Merchant Group becoming the biggest Merchant in Huai'An.
All of the merchant's clans either became a partner, merged into the Yu Merchant Group, or were eliminated. Now Lie Shang and Yu Yan controlled the lifeline of Huai'An, making their position more secure than ever, and the resources Huai'An had could be invested in the Soap and Shampoo project.
This means that Lie Fan doesn't have to spend a single dime on expenditures on ingredients, the Huai'An ranch industry and fishing industry alone can sustain the project in its early phase. Lie Fan spent almost a month in Huai'An before he managed to make a foundation for projects that could start anytime.
Due to his position now as Xu Province Governor, he can't spend a long time away from Xiapi for now until the central government is truly paralyzed. Lie Fan and Jia Xu bid their goodbyes to Lie Shang and Yu Yan who will handle the soap and shampoo-making project with the help of the Oriole through the shadow.
Lie Fan and his party spent 3 weeks before they arrived at Xiapi. His return to Xiapi was immediately known by everyone there, especially the nobles and merchants. Lie Fan brings Jia Xu to the Governor's Castle where he called for Chen Deng, Mi Zhu, Wang Lang, and Bu Zhi to meet him in his office.
When everyone arrived, he immediately informed them about the soap and shampoo project that was underway right now in Huai'An. He also informed them about why he halted all of the ongoing projects, especially the one that is in development and in production.
Except for the Tuntian System which self sustained, everything is burning money, and before the new project brings in money everything needs to be hated due to the already heavily burdened financial situations they are in.
Mi Zhu as Lie Fan's Financial Advisor sighs a breath of relief and agrees with Lie Fan's decision. At the same time, he was intrigued by the New project Lie Fan had, after reading the documents containing information about the new project he was sure that this project could help them alleviate the burden on their finance.
Lie Fan is not surprised that Mi Zhu can see the potential of the soap and shampoo market, so he assigned everyone in the room to help his mother handle this new project seeing as their project had been stopped for now.
They can take a turn in visiting Huai'An every month if soaps and shampoos become a hot commodity, then they can begin to sell this all across Xu Province and then slowly all parts of the country. Chen Deng will become the first person to go to Huai'An, he will go to Huai'An next month.
As for the others, they can divide who's turn will be next after Chen Deng. He hopes that this project can be finished as fast as possible so that he can use the profits to continue his entire project to be resumed, as the time for Doing Zhuo rise is getting nearer and he slowly can't use the original trajectory due to his butterfly effect.
[AT: I'm sorry everyone that this chapter is shorter than usual, after handling the event at my university I got a bit sick. I got a fever and my head is a bit dizzy that's why I can only make this much for today sorry!]
_________________________________
Name: Lie Fan
Title: Yellow Heaven Subjugator
Age: 20 Years Old (187 AD)
Level: 14
Next Level: 412.000
Renown: 215
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 5)
SP: 706.700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 775
VIT: 349
AGI: 343
INT: 361
CHR: 93
WIS: 299
WILL: 207
ATR Points: 0
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