Chapter 1331 - The Uses of Shells
Full light had only just arrived, and already the main road bustled with pedestrians and cargo vehicles. Dai Dehou still remembered his first time on this road—that lively scene of surging traffic had left him so stunned he couldn't close his eyes. Even the streets of those famous ancient capitals from the storytellers' tales probably couldn't compare to Lingao's Bai-Bo Road.
Yet who would have thought the leaders weren't satisfied even with such a road? Later they built the railway too—a road literally paved with iron! Thick iron bars, thicker than an arm, laid on wooden ties. The sheer extravagance made Dai Dehou's heart ache every time he saw it. How much money must this have cost?
The main road and railway ran adjacent to each other, separated from Biaojia River—the leaders had given it the elegant name Wenlan River, but he still preferred the old one. Dai Dehou peered past rows upon rows of camphor wood posts. On the far side, the rice paddies were divided into large square plots. Further away, on the slopes of E-xiang Ridge—now called Gaoshan Ridge—the channels of the water diversion system brought water down from Duozhao Reservoir. Beside them stood rows of flat buildings where the leaders' hired farmhands lived.
Some days ago during the busy autumn harvest, Dai Dehou had worked as a seasonal laborer in the farms' rice paddies. The fields had been filled to bursting with rice waiting to be cut—the heavy golden heads were a joyful sight.
The leaders really have great abilities—even this rice they can make grow so well.
Dai Dehou was exactly forty this year. His ancestors had originally been from Lingao, but a branch of the family had later moved to settle in Danzhou. Though they couldn't be called wealthy and prominent, they had lived in modest comfort. His family had a few mu of thin farmland, and in Danzhou city they had run a small shop selling dried seafood. Food and clothing had never been problems. But a few years ago, Danzhou had suffered storm damage. His family was hit hard, and he himself had been unexpectedly injured. They'd had to borrow money, and these past years things had been tight.
Then the Australians arrived in Lingao. At first everyone thought they were just unusually powerful sea pirates—they'd cause trouble and eventually leave. Who would have thought that within a single year, Australian roads had been built all the way to Nanbao? By then, Danzhou was in a state of anxiety. The original creditor moved away with his entire family and demanded immediate repayment. Forced into desperation, Dai Dehou had sold his farmland at a low price to pay off the debt. Then the Danzhou market was flooded with cheap Lingao fish, and his dried goods business collapsed. He lost a fortune, and his whole family was suddenly without means of support.
Dai Dehou remembered that his family still had clan relatives in Lingao. Though they only exchanged visits during festivals, they could at least provide some help. He had also heard that Lingao under Australian rule had an extremely prosperous market with many business opportunities. So he decided to simply come to Lingao to find a living.
Once here, he discovered that the leaders sold fish so cheaply that his old trade was impossible. He had considered joining the leaders' organizations, but these Australian leaders weren't ordinary sea pirates—working for them required adopting their customs: cutting your hair and changing your clothes.
The Dai family's ancestor Dai Dingshi had been a Song dynasty juren—one of the famous figures in Lingao's history. Though by their generation the scholarly tradition had long since faded, Dai Dehou still carried traces of literary refinement. Besides, his elderly parents were still alive—he couldn't subject them to such indignity.
Fortunately, there was no shortage of work here. The Dai family rented a room from relatives. He took on odd jobs all over; his elderly parents and wife and children did some small-scale trading. Food and clothing were manageable—but living as dependents wasn't a long-term solution.
Not far from a half-finished construction site, the train began to slow and gently pulled into the station. Then came the announcement over the loudspeaker.
"Attention passengers, attention passengers. Majiao New District Station has arrived, Majiao New District Station has arrived. Passengers disembarking here, please queue to exit! Next station is Majiao Industrial Zone Station."
Dai Dehou hurried off the train. This construction site was where he did night work—some employee family housing development. All apartment buildings. Only employees were eligible to buy. From here, it was over three li back, then about two more li to where his family was temporarily staying.
The day shift had already started. Over a thousand workers in blue work clothes labored in full swing. Among them were quite a few men and women in miscellaneous colored clothes, either going back and forth between the train station and the construction site, or under the direction of foremen, carrying and hauling building materials that the crane had just unloaded, or doing jobs like carrying gravel and pushing wheelbarrows. These were casual laborers like Dai Dehou.
"Group 35, everyone come sign in—time to start work!" A head-shaved foreman in blue work clothes came running over holding a clipboard.
Dai Dehou hurried over. Signing in meant pressing a fingerprint onto paper, then receiving tools and starting work.
Casual laborers naturally did simple manual labor, paid by piece rate. Of course, the pay wasn't high—not to mention compared to regular employees.
The benefits for the leaders' regular employees had made Dai Dehou quite envious once he'd learned the details: income several times his own, the whole family able to afford meat every day—seafood meat, of course. Fish wasn't expensive in Lingao; especially the processing plant's fish balls, fish sausage, and such were very cheap. Even families like his who did odd jobs could buy some to eat now and then since moving here. Most importantly, the leaders provided housing for their employees—just paying some currency each month. Much better than his whole family crammed into a side room at relatives' place.
Lingao's population was growing. Around Hundred Fathoms City, there was plenty of work, and making a living was easy. But getting a home was too hard. The leaders' territory was vast and buildings were being built everywhere, but you had to join their organizations to be eligible to buy. As for local people's housing lots—in just a year since coming to Lingao, he'd watched the asking prices shoot straight up. Now even at high prices, few were willing to sell. If he didn't secure a room soon, he might have no place to stand in the future. His family couldn't keep borrowing from relatives indefinitely.
The Bopu seafood processing plant began a new day amid clouds of steam.
The freshest soft-shells collected at first light had now all been carefully de-meated, washed several times in clean water, and sorted into different porcelain vats.
"Right, this vat is all oysters. Fifteen percent will do—that's one and a half cheng!"
Hu Yicheng watched his apprentice record the number, making sure not to confuse the hydrochloric acid concentration. Then he wrote the date and type on a label and stuck it on the porcelain vat lid before looking away.
Different kinds of shrimp, crabs, and shellfish had different shell compositions, requiring different concentrations of hydrochloric acid for dissolution. Processing times and yields also varied, so naturally the purchase prices differed considerably.
Along the wall stood vats that had already begun acid soaking. Hu Yicheng walked over, checked the labels, opened one, and stirred inside with a porcelain rod.
"Yes, like this with no bubbles is correct. This vat can be taken for washing now—wash it several times!"
Watching the workers' rough and clumsy manner, Hu Yicheng couldn't suppress a flash of irritation. The quality of seafood processing plant workers was far below that of the pharmaceutical factory. Only a few of the native managers held Category B credentials; they had to focus on their own duties. The ordinary workers had little education. Carelessness and unreliability were the good ones. A few days ago, a worker had actually drunk hydrochloric acid out of curiosity to see if it was both salty and sour! This had forced him to set aside pharmaceutical factory business and personally come supervise here.
The early-shift workers hardly dared breathe as they began washing with clean water again and again. Since there were no acid-base indicators like phenolphthalein or methyl red, they had no choice but to wash multiple times to ensure neutrality. Low efficiency and water waste couldn't be helped.
Hu Yicheng went outside, where two porcelain steam pots were performing alkaline boiling on the washed raw materials—this required boiling twice in a four percent sodium hydroxide solution.
Then came the decolorization process—previously the most troublesome step. Due to lack of a stable supply of potassium permanganate and sodium bisulfite, they had to continuously experiment with and improve the process, which had delayed mass production considerably.
Currently, they were using a four percent dilute hydrochloric acid soak with continuous stirring for two days, then sun-drying for one day to obtain semi-finished chitin.
After that, it could be sent to the pharmaceutical factory for boiling in forty percent strong alkali for six hours. After washing, dewatering, and drying, the urgently needed product was obtained: deacetylated chitin, or chitosan.
This was a glassy, pure white, transparent colloidal solution. It didn't dissolve in water, dilute acids, or dilute alkalis. It had high viscosity, was resistant to sunlight, heat, and corrosion. It didn't absorb moisture or weather, resisted insects, and was wrinkle-resistant and shrink-resistant.
Due to these properties, it had wide applications. In the textile industry, it could serve as a setting agent to produce crisp shirts with collars that wouldn't deform after washing, or as a high-grade color fixative for dyes and coatings. In the electrical industry, it could serve as a protective coating for special wires or as insulating material. In the papermaking industry, it was a raw material for capacitor paper, banknote paper, coated paper, and other high-grade papers. In the food industry, it could serve as a thickening agent or as a clarifying agent for refined white sugar.
Of course, in Lingao, its current most important use was medical. Though many reagents were still lacking and surgical sutures couldn't yet be produced, making hemostatic dressings using gelatin, glycerin, and chitosan wasn't difficult. Whether for Operation Engine running at full steam in the north or the construction sites all over Lingao, major bleeding from external injuries was very common. These hemostatic dressings could save many lives.
Damn—another vat ruined. Hu Yicheng returned inside and, seeing the panicked look on the worker's face, no longer had the energy to scold.
"Scrap this vat." He waved his hand weakly.
Due to the lack of modern chemical reagents and primitive testing methods, producing pharmaceutical-grade chitosan in Lingao required following the strictest process standards. Extremely stringent standards had been set for the freshness of raw materials—which was why shells couldn't be transported to Hundred Fathoms City's pharmaceutical factory for processing but had to be processed into semi-finished products at the port area's seafood processing plant. Anything slightly off-standard had to be scrapped and sent to the garment factory or paper mill as waste utilization.
Pharmaceutical use required the freshest shell materials. Previously-iced dead specimens couldn't be used for now. The fresh live crustaceans that the Lingao Fisheries Company caught in distant waters usually kept only the most economically valuable; using them for pharmaceuticals would be too wasteful. Of course, as processes improved and such fresh raw materials were no longer needed, they would naturally lower purchase prices or stop purchasing altogether.
(End of Chapter)