[Infrastructure] After being mistaken for a god

Yi Nan stretched out his hand and pinched it lightly, crushing a bead that had just been cast with a model.

This result frightened all the craftsmen—is the fresh material developed with great difficulty so fragile and vulnerable?

They hurriedly went back to check the other finished products, round, square, rhombus... They tapped lightly one by one, and none of them was as fragile as the one crushed by Yi Nan.

Only then did the craftsmen feel relieved, and they all let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the one crushed by the young lady just now should be a special case.

Yinan stuck out her tongue quietly, thinking that Daniel really fulfilled his promise and reserved her strength different from ordinary people.In the future, she really has to be more careful in her actions, lest the jokes she made when she first arrived in the previous era happen again and scare others.

"Miss Ishtar, please give this new jewelry a name."

The old craftsman, who was clamoring to be dismissed and left, now greets Yinan respectfully and obediently.

At the moment, he admires the lady of his employer's house with all his heart: At the beginning, the lady scolded him because she had no aesthetic taste and lack of vision. Looking back now, she really scolded him absolutely right.

As for how Miss Ishta came up with this miraculous method of turning ordinary sand into jewels, he didn't know.But everyone honored Miss Ishtar as "the noble Avell", a person who has been favored by the gods.It shouldn't be surprising for Miss to know this, right?

Yinan immediately told people solemnly: "This is called 'glass'."

"Glass?" A craftsman looked confused and raised his hand and said, "Miss, I seem to have heard of this thing before. People from the west, people from Canaan, they seem to know how to make this thing... ...Call it, call it a gift from the gods."

The faces of the other craftsmen suddenly darkened.

After all, the lady told them that they are pioneering and making something that no one in this world has ever done - who would have thought that someone told them that this thing was not their first, and there are other people in the far west near the sea Know how to make glass.

Unexpectedly, Yi Nan smiled: "That's right."

In human history, glass first appeared on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the time when humans fired pottery, they accidentally knocked and placed quartz sand in the pottery kiln. pieces of glass beads.Humans like its bright surface, so they take it out as decorations and call it "glass".

Inan's introduction of glass production in this era is actually just another step up the technological tree.

"This material may appear in other people's pottery kilns by chance, and it is even considered a gift from the gods. But have you ever seen anyone try to control it, produce it, and make it?"

"The gods are fair to all, and they will allow everyone to have access to this material-but how to use it, how to make it useful...the gods cannot teach everyone. It must be done by We explore by ourselves, keep trying, and verify repeatedly.”

Yi Nan's gaze scanned all the craftsmen.

Don't work hard, don't try, just wait for the pie to fall from the sky... a gift will drop, will it really drop?

The craftsmen looked at each other and finally nodded.

In the days that followed, the workshop became a testing ground for craftsmen——

They began experimenting with various glass formulations.

The first time the glass was fired directly with sand, the color was not pure after cooling, to be precise, it was a little greenish.

But Yinan earlier ordered people to purchase all kinds of seaweed from Eridu: these seaweeds have been sunburned to ashes, and they are placed in jars one by one, with marks on the jars.

Yinan asked people to mix the ashes from different types of seaweed with sand and send them together to the kiln for firing.

The first crucible, the glass that was fired was dark green;

The second crucible, the glass from which it burns is pink;

In the third crucible, the glass that was fired turned out to be sapphire blue...

The craftsmen were all shocked: It turns out that burning seaweed into ashes and adding sand can make the burned "glass" show different colors?

In this way, as long as they can find all kinds of seaweed, wouldn't they be able to burn glass of any color they want?

But Yinan was not satisfied all the time.She directed the craftsmen to test and test until all the seaweed from Elidu had been tried.

The artisans would hear her repeating the word "manganese dioxide"—but no one knew what it meant, and it never existed in their language.

In the end, the artisan who had been in charge of purchasing seaweed in Eridu came back and brought back a kind of seaweed that had never been sent before, and said that this kind of thing is not common in Eridu, and it must be imported from the Euphrates River. It can only be found in small fishing villages in Haikou.

With the mentality of "trying it out", Yinan, together with the craftsmen, burned this rare sea vegetable to ashes.The artisan in charge of purchasing this sea vegetable felt a little distressed, and said: "People in the fishing village cook and eat this sea vegetable. It is very delicious...It is said that it has a meaty taste."

It's a pity that no matter how delicious it is, this sea vegetable is still burned to ashes. After filtering out impurities, it is added to the sand, and then sent to the kiln for firing.

When the glass in this furnace was fired, all the craftsmen and the slaves pulling the bellows were shocked.Their eyes could no longer move away from the freshly baked glass in front of them, and some were almost moved to tears.

I saw that the glass was completely transparent, so pure that it had no color.

But through this glass bead, you can see all the colors in nature, bright and clear.

"It's beautiful—"

"Just like crystal."

"This...is the glass given to us by the gods!"

The artisans held their breaths and admired the transparent glass beads in front of them, as if they had just made crystals that could only be found in mines.

Crystal is so expensive, but the raw materials of the glass beads in front of you...sand and seaweed, how much are they worth?

The craftsmen are already imagining that they will replace the places where crystals should be inlaid on all kinds of jewelry with this kind of glass...

Just as he was thinking beautifully, he heard Yi Nan say with a smile: "Stop, stop dreaming."

"Crystal is crystal and glass is glass."

"We can't use glass to earn money for crystal without conscience, it will get us into trouble."

The craftsmen thought for a moment: ... also.

The dream of dropping silver in the sky woke up immediately, and everyone sighed.

"But there are many things that could not be made with crystals before, but now they can be made with glass." Seeing the depression of the group of people in front of him, Yinan quickly changed the subject, "For example, wearing glass beads Do you think there will be a market for the finished curtains?"

The craftsmen were all startled when they heard this.

Miss Ishta's family was originally the noble Aviru, the leading nobleman in the Uruk region—but her family is not yet rich enough to decorate it with crystal beads that can be threaded into colorful curtains.

But if you think about it carefully, if you replace crystal beads with relatively cheap glass beads and wear them into curtains, then not only princes and wealthy businessmen, but even middle-class people can afford them.

There is a door! ——The artisans look at me and I look at you, and gradually they all look happy.

They immediately chattered together:

Some people say that glass beads of different colors can be used to wear bead curtains of different colors, which are colorful;

Some people also say that it would be good to use colorless and pure glass beads to form curtains, comparable to crystal curtains;

At this time, someone immediately suggested whether the surface of the glass beads could be polished to create a cut surface, so that the glass beads could also reflect the crystal and bright light like crystal beads;

Some people even suggested that colored glass beads should be wrapped in colorless or other colored glass to create a layered effect...

At this level of discussion, Yinan felt that there was no need to worry about it anymore. These craftsmen who are proficient in jewelry craftsmanship, even if they lack aesthetics or lack of innovation, they will give birth to some of their own after obtaining such new materials. idea.

She directly found the youngest craftsman among all the craftsmen, because this craftsman was too young to get involved in everyone's discussion.

She enlisted the craftsman's help to make a long, hollow copper pipe.

The production of the copper pipe is very simple. The long and narrow copper sheet prepared in advance is heated and bent into the shape of a pipe, and then the joint is beaten hard so that there is no gap between the copper sheets, and the copper pipe is made.

Yinan asked the young craftsman to carry the finished copper pipe to the excited craftsmen.

"What did you all discuss?" She asked with a smile, expecting that the group of people in front of her should have achieved fruitful results.

Sure enough, there are all kinds of novel ideas. The craftsmen used their "ordinary" imagination to imagine all the details of the life of the rich and the aristocrats, and embedded all the uses of "glass" they could think of.

"You think that's it?" Yi Nan smiled cunningly.

"Then what else?" The craftsmen looked at each other, feeling a little flustered - they had all been ridiculed by Yi Nan for their aesthetics and foresight.

Yi Nan nodded to the young craftsman.The young man immediately pushed a crucible filled with glass material into the kiln, and performed the procedure that everyone had performed countless times in the past few days. into an extremely viscous state.

The young craftsman put one end of the copper pipe in his hand into the crucible, and dipped a large amount of glass liquid.He brought the molten glass close to the flame in the kiln, then held the other end of the copper pipe, and blew lightly into the copper pipe.

This is like a magic trick, the glass liquid at the other end of the copper tube was blown into a large hollow bubble.The red-hot glass gradually becomes thinner under the action of blowing air.

Yi Nan reminded the young craftsman to keep turning the copper pipe so that the glass would not slowly sag due to gravity.

The young craftsman did so, and when he took the whole glass bubble out of the kiln, the glass bubble was round and transparent. To paraphrase the words of the most experienced craftsman: "This is even rounder than the roundest gourd in the vegetable garden. .”

"But... what's the use of this thing?"

When the glass bubbles on the copper pipe were taken out and turned upside down on a rack to cool, several craftsmen gathered around it, asking questions in one go.

"This...let's talk about it at night." Yi Nan smiled mysteriously.

By night, the glass bubbles blown out with copper tubes had cooled completely.Yinan invited all the craftsmen to the workshop, and then asked the youngest craftsman to use a small bronze file to make a circle of cracks on the edge of the glass bubble, and then tap it lightly. This is completely transparent. The glass bubbles were removed.

Yi Nan held the glass bubble in his hand and shook it lightly. He should be very satisfied with the texture and transparency of the entire glass.

She asked Apu to go to Boan's place to get some wine - this kind of wine brewed from the grape-growing area in the middle and upper reaches of the Euphrates River was originally introduced as a health potion, but now it has gradually become compatible with locally brewed beer. The competition begins.

It's just that these wines are all stored in wooden barrels and shipped from far away places. The price is still more expensive than beer, and only people like "Noble Aveiro" have them.

Apu poured a little of the wine from the barrel into the bubbles in the glass in Inan's hand.

Yi Nan lifted the glass bubble with one hand, letting the wine sway gently inside.At the same time, she said to the people around her, "Come on, bring the torches and oil lamps closer."

People hastened to bring all kinds of lighting equipment closer, illuminating the glass bubble in Yi Nan's hand, and also illuminating the wine syrup inside--I saw her white as jade hand gently shaking, and the wine contained in the glass bubble The paste, like rose-colored satin, reflecting the dazzling light--

This color, such luster... the entire workshop was silent, and everyone was stunned.

After a long time, Apu smiled embarrassingly: "It turns out that putting wine in a transparent cup is so beautiful."

Yes, the purplish red wine, when served in a khaki earthenware cup, is like a brown sour potion—it is not attractive to a little girl like Apu who has no alcohol addiction.

But who would have thought that these wine syrups, when they were contained in the glass bubbles that had just been trial-produced by the workshop, immediately changed their appearance, not to mention drinking, even just looking at the wine contained in it is a kind of pleasing to the eye enjoy.

Yi Nan gently supported the round glass bubble at the bottom with three fingers, and asked, "What do you think is missing?"

"Lack of a bracket..." Some craftsmen had vaguely thought of it.

"There's a handle missing!" Among them, the craftsman who loves beer the most thinks about this problem from the perspective of a drinker, "If it were me, I would make a single-leg stand on the ground, which can not only prop up the cup, but also It can be used as a handle so that you don't have to hold it in your hands all the time."

"Very good." Yi Nan pointed to the craftsman and said with a smile, "Just for this idea, I have to buy you a drink."

"I'll leave this wine glass... this bubble to you, and I'm sure you can make the most beautiful and practical glass."

She handed the glass of red wine in her hand to the craftsman in front of her.The craftsman knelt down on one knee excitedly, holding the red wine glass in both hands, thanking the nobleman for the gift—then he lowered his head, drank the red wine in it, then raised his head, and said to Yi Nan excitedly: "Iss Miss Ta, I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep all night, seeing this cup, I'm already full of ideas."

"It must be the gods who stuffed all these fresh ideas into my head. How can I usually think of these? It must be like this!"

The craftsman who likes to drink said very excitedly.

The other craftsmen said to him in unison: "We are with you!"

"Seeing this, who can sleep at night?"

Everyone is gearing up, planning to light the kiln again and work all night to try out the ideas and ideas that come to their minds inexplicably.

Yi Nan smiled, not intending to interfere with their enthusiasm for work, but simply let them try it themselves.She immediately supported Apu's hand and went back to her residence to rest—after all, in the eyes of everyone, she was still the weak Miss Ishtar.

The next day, when she came to the workshop again, there was a lot of people in the workshop—the craftsmen all stayed up all night, more than one night, and they even pestered Boan to send several energetic Valdu to come help them.

As soon as Yinan entered the workshop, he saw a goblet on a wooden stand in the workshop—that goblet was almost the same as the modern goblet in terms of shape.The base of the cup is made separately with a glass mold, and a little bit of molten glass frit is used to firmly stick to the glass bubbles blown out in advance.

The edge of the glass bubble has also been polished smooth without any roughness.

"Very well, even these small details have been thought of one by one."

Yi Nan looked at the goblet carefully, and praised her craftsmen a lot in her heart.

Although the craftsmen in her workshop are not very good at making jewelry, they observe life very carefully and can apply craftsmanship to these details of life.

Yi Nan couldn't be more happy: She just... found the correct way to open the workshop and craftsman?

In addition to the goblet, the craftsmen also made a curtain made of glass beads.

Over the course of the night, these craftsmen came up with the method of piercing the glass with a sharp iron needle while the glass was not fully solidified.

Transparent and colored glass beads are pierced with holes and threaded one by one to make a bead curtain.

Each bead string on the bead curtain has its own characteristics:

Either a solid color: emerald green, peach pink, royal blue...

Or dress in rainbow colors;

Either transparent glass beads without color;

Either it has been carefully polished, and the glass beads are polished to a smooth surface and a rough surface, which can reflect different light.

Yi Nan gently picked up the bead strings on the bead curtain, then let go, and the bead strings hit the others, making a crisp and pleasant sound.

At this moment, the craftsmen stopped their hands and turned to look at Yinan.

"Miss Ishtar, we are waiting for your instructions and instructions."

They have worshiped the lady of the employer's house to the extreme, and they can't remember that these things are actually thought of by themselves and made by themselves.

"I have nothing more to tell you." Yi Nan replied with a smile.

"You can send someone to invite the jewelry middleman from Babylon."

"A middleman? Now?"

"Is that all right?"

The craftsmen looked at each other: "I'm afraid we won't be able to make enough glass products before the middleman comes."

Yi Nan shook his head lightly: "No, no more varieties are allowed. Let's focus on the glass cups and bead curtains first."

"In addition, we don't need to hurry up. When the middlemen come over, we just need to let them see the samples."

Just need to see samples?How can this work?

This... This is against the rules!

The craftsmen scratched their heads. They once again realized that Miss Ishtar was just a young lady from the employer's family, and she probably didn't have that much experience in doing business.

But Yi Nan persuaded them with a smile: "You invite the middlemen first! Let them have a look at the samples first, and there is no loss—"

As a result, the middlemen who traveled between Uruk and Babylon were invited to the jewelry workshop, and saw the beaded curtains shining brightly in front of them, and the goblets as transparent as crystals.

"This, this..."

It was the first time for the middleman to see items of such material and shape, and after asking, he immediately learned that these items had extremely strong practical value.

Then I asked about the cost and labor cost of these things-the middleman opened his eyes.

At this moment, there is only one thought in his mind: get rich!

The middleman has always known that Ishtar's workshop is easy to bully, and he will be flattened and rounded by others.Whatever he says, the other party will do.

So, the middleman wiped away the admiration in his eyes, put on a look of indifference, and asked, "How many finished products do you have now?"

When I heard that there was no finished product in the workshop, the owner of the workshop just wanted to send samples to Babylon to arouse the interest of buyers-the middleman was immediately unhappy.

The usual strategy of middlemen is to buy out at a low price at the place of origin, and then ship the goods to the destination and sell them at a high price.

The workshop of Ishtar's family wanted to talk to him about agency sales and share, but there was no way.

So the middleman said angrily:

"To be honest, what kind of place is Babylon? Gold falls from the sky, silver is spread on the ground, and agates and crystals are hung on the windows of ordinary people."

"You take these things to Babylon, and I don't know if anyone can take a fancy to them. Why don't you be more productive and hand them over to me, and I might be able to think of a way for you on the outskirts of Babylon..."

At this time, a luxuriously dressed young woman walked out from the depths of the workshop.

Her astonishing beauty made the middleman's knees almost go limp, and a thought immediately came to his mind——

I can do whatever she wants.

Unexpectedly, the young woman only ordered softly: "Write down this person's name, and the workshop will never cooperate with this person in the future."

When he was kicked out of the workshop, the middleman shouted while jumping around:

"Just by you, even if you travel all over the Euphrates River Basin, you can't find a middleman who is willing to cooperate with you."

His curse might be real.Ishtar's workshop has been searched for a long time, but there is really no middleman who is willing to cooperate with them.

Either because they are not sure about the prospect of these "glass" products, or they are scared away by the workshop's new concept of "sales agency".

Yi Nan heard that the workshop could not find a suitable middleman, so he thought for a while and said:

"It's simple, go find the youngest, most excluded, and most laid-back middleman in the neighborhood."

"Even if he never had a successful jewelry business, I have a way to make him stand up in this business."