Chang'an City is becoming more prosperous year by year.

In spring, birds sing and flowers are fragrant, and there are many tourists on both sides of the Wei River.

Li Kuan also took Cheng Jingwen, Wu Meiniang and others to cruise in the Wei River.

"Prince, these canned yellow peaches are really good things. They have been stored for more than half a year, but they have not turned bad. They taste almost the same as fresh."

On the cruise ship, Cheng Jingwen couldn't help but praise her after eating a can of yellow peaches.

Since last year, using glass bottles as containers, corks, and canned fruits sealed with wax has become a must-have item among the nobles and wealthy merchants in Chang'an City.

Many people go directly to Zhenbao Pavilion to buy a few canned bottles of food, and it will definitely not be a waste of time to give it out.

Especially in the long winter, although there are vegetables grown in the greenhouse, people will not eat meat every day.

But fruit is still very rare.

At this time, canned fruits became a good thing for nobles to entertain guests.

Canned yellow peaches are the most popular varieties.

"Canned fruits in glass bottles are good, but the positioning is rather awkward. If you book a cheaper one, it will make everyone think that glass is a very cheap thing and are unwilling to spend a lot of money to buy glass products such as mirrors.

If the setting is too high, few people can afford it."

Wu Meiniang's perspective on the problem is different from Cheng Jingwen.

She will think more about business value and commercial promotion.

"This is indeed a problem. However, the current output of canned workshops, the needs of the nobles and wealthy businessmen alone, are difficult to meet. This is only sold in Guanzhong. If the canned food is transported to Liangzhou, Yangzhou, Shuozhou and Dengzhou, it will probably be sold better."

The Chu Palace is now rich enough to rival a country, and Cheng Jingwen has no special pursuit of money.

In her opinion, canned fruits are not born to be prepared for the people. Whether it is more expensive or cheap, it doesn’t matter.

Is it easy to sell if the price of canned yellow peaches that cost 1,000 yuan a bottle of canned yellow peaches is reduced to 500 cents a bottle?

"There is no transportation to a relatively far place. In addition to the low number of cans produced by the canning workshop last year, the main reason is that the glass canned food is difficult to transport and it will break if you accidentally.

For merchants, if they accidentally break a box of canned glass, they probably won’t have much money to make in this business.”

Wu Meiniang has a relatively sufficient grasp of the business people's thoughts.

I know what everyone’s concerns are.

"The iron smelting workshop has now begun to produce iron plates for canning. At that time, the price of canned fruits should be greatly reduced and convenient for transportation, so there is no need to worry about the problem of glass breaking."

With the development of Datang sea trade, the materials needed on various sea ships are also increasing.

Not only are there goods transported to overseas for sale, but also what crew members eat on the ship.

In addition to bean sprouts, tea, and red wine, canned food is also a very popular thing.

However, the price of this thing is still a little higher, and ordinary seafarers are a little reluctant to spend this money.

After all, the owner will not equip everyone with things like canned food for free, and all the seafarers will bring them on the boat themselves.

After Li Kuan learned about this, he immediately began to arrange an iron smelting workshop to produce tinplate.

The production difficulty of this thing is not high, after all, it is iron, not steel.

Just coat a layer of tin on it.

Tin is the first metal discovered by our ancestors, and the difficulty of refining is very low.

Of course, tinplate is not difficult to make at all.

The cans in later generations were only a thickness of a few millimeters, which not only saved costs, but also was very lightweight.

But in the Tang Dynasty, it was not possible to do this.

It is excellent to be able to reduce the thickness of the iron plate to less than one millimeter.

Fortunately, the added value of cans these days is high, and even if the cost of a tinplate can is relatively high, it can still be supported.

Besides, with the popularity of canning and the improvement of steelmaking technology, canning is becoming lighter and lighter, which is almost an inevitable trend.

"Will the iron canned food rust? Then there will be no way to eat the fruits inside?"

Cheng Jingwen is not particularly concerned about the specific things in the workshop.

So she naturally didn't know that the iron smelting workshop began to produce tin-plated iron plates.

"Sister, this iron plate is soaked with a layer of pure tin, so that it will not easily cause corrosion. The iron smelting workshop has done many experiments. There is no need to worry about rust at all."

Wu Meiniang showed off her knowledge a little.

"When the yellow peaches are ripe this year, they will be made into canned food in large quantities. This will not only encourage the people to grow yellow peaches, but also make canned food a new weapon for our Chu Prince's Mansion's foreign trade.

Especially on the grassland, there is no fruit to eat all year round. If you sell this canned food there, it should be a market."

Li Kuan always wants to get wool from the grassland herders.

Things like canned food, of course you can't miss them.

"Prince, if the production of canned food is really that simple, then I think it can not only be made into canned fruits, but also process seafood captured in Dengzhou into canned seafood.

At that time, even in the deep mountains, you can taste the deliciousness of sea fish, and some sea fish that are not suitable for processing into salted fish can have new utilization value."

Wu Meiniang's brain is still very useful.

Since everyone talked about canning today, her thinking immediately began to diverge.

In the past, the coastal prefectures and counties of the Tang Dynasty, except for several prefectures such as Yangzhou, were generally poor.

Because everyone has no fishing skills.

Even if luck comes occasionally and catches a large number of sea fish, it doesn't make any sense.

Because you can't eat that much, you can't even sell it.

It will smell bad in less than a day.

However, since the saltpeter ice making technology was spread and the price of salt fell sharply, the living standards of the people in the coastal prefectures and counties began to rise sharply.

Not only do you have to worry about wasting the caught sea fish, but you can also make a profit from how many times you can do it.

It is processed into salted fish, and then frozen and transported to Chang'an City quickly, or directly crushed and used as fish meal. There is even a new way to eat fish balls.

The living standards of coastal prefectures and counties soon improved significantly.

If the sea area can be made into canned food, it will be equivalent to finding a new business opportunity for the people of coastal prefectures and counties.

"Mei Niang's proposal is good! Salted fish have now entered thousands of households, and the people have gradually become treacherous. If there are canned seafood, the prospects are still worth looking forward to.

Especially in the past, fishermen were able to catch a large number of sardines in the sea, but these fish were too small and difficult to use.

But it looks very good to make canned food.”

Canned sardines are the most representative of canned seafood in later generations.

And sardines often move in groups in the sea.

When you encounter a school of fish, it is definitely magnificent.

"Since there are better materials for making canned foods now, I actually feel that I canned food workshops can be set up directly in Lingnan or Nanyang without waiting for the fruits in Guanzhong to mature.

The fruits there ripened in different times than those in Guanzhong, and there are many special fruits that many people in Chang'an City have never eaten before. If they are made into canned food and transported to Chang'an City for sale, they should be very popular."

Although Cheng Jingwen is not in conflict with the world, she is not stupid.

Now that Wu Meiniang and Li Kuan are discussing so enthusiastically, they naturally have to express their opinions so that Li Kuan will not think that he is a vase.

? "Sister's proposal is very good. Didn't the prince always like to eat lychees from Lingnan and durian from Nanyang? If these fruits can be made into cans, they will definitely be very popular."

Wu Meiniang couldn't help but agree with Cheng Jingwen's proposal.

Although we have endless money to spend in Chang'an City, we basically don't have the chance to eat fruits from Lingnan or Nanyang.

Unless you leave Chang'an City by yourself.

However, with the transportation conditions these days, how many people living in Chang'an City are willing to leave?

"As soon as the demand for cans comes, the demand for tin is estimated to increase significantly. There is no large-scale tin ore in Guanzhong area. Instead, there is a tin ore in Lingnan where it is mined. Nowadays, the tin in the iron smelting workshop is transported back from Lingnan."

After the efforts of Guanshishan Academy of Chemical Engineering, many metals have already been formally named and their performance has been studied.

Alloys such as those synthesized by mixing copper and tin have been specially used in bearing use.

"In recent years, many fleets have gone to sea to look for minerals. Although gold or silver mines are not always found, copper or coal mines can be found from time to time.

Minerals like tin mines have been studied thoroughly by craftsmen hundreds of years ago. If you encounter them overseas, you should think of them that are easier to discover."

The people in the Chu King's Mansion gradually had a subconscious mind. No matter what materials were insufficient, they would consider whether they could find the source from overseas.

Because of the situation in various parts of the Tang Dynasty, everyone is already familiar with it.

On the contrary, overseas can bring surprises to everyone from time to time.

Just like gold mines, no particularly rich mineral deposits were found in the Tang Dynasty.

But huge gold mines have been found in Japan, Australia, or the Americas.

"Well, Guanshishan Academy of Chemical Engineering and the School of Geophysics can appropriately expand enrollment this year so that more people can enter emerging fields for study and research."
To be continued...