Luzhou is located in the southeast of Shizhou. From them, they pass by Shixian County. You have to first pass through the Luliang Mountains, arrive at Fenzhou, and then go southeasternly. Then you can reach the boundary of Luzhou through the entire Fenzhou.

This group of people came from Guyao Ridge in Luzhou, which is the northwest corner of Luzhou. In terms of straight-line distance, the place is not very far away from Shixian County, but Guyao Ridge was originally located in the deep mountains. From them, they came to Lishi County and had to pass Taiyue Mountain first and then Luliang Mountain. The journey here is difficult, needless to say.

The journey was full of dust. Finally arrived in Lishi County, and was stopped by officers and soldiers at the gate of the city. Although they finally entered the city smoothly, some people were still unhappy.

Earlier, the Fan brothers in their village came out to be porters with others. The caravan stayed in Xipo Village, Lishi County for a few days. It happened that Luo Sanlang taught people to make straw paper. They learned the skills and made paper after they returned.

But what was made was not straw paper. Instead of straw stalks were used instead of straw, a batch of hemp paper was made, and tung oil was applied to sell it to the merchants in the city, which made some money.

Everyone in the village was envious, but the two brothers were not satisfied. They also said that there were many merchants in the Lishi Dinghu area in Shizhou, and people from all over the world. If they knew that Guyaoling had cheap and good oil paper, someone would definitely come to them to buy goods in the future.

They taught the craftsmanship of making hemp paper with the villagers and asked the villagers to come with them to sell oil paper in Lishi County. Because the villagers wanted to learn this craft, they responded one after another. However, after they left, they felt that they were hardships everywhere and were afraid of encountering evil people. They suffered and were worried every day.

"Dalang, now I have arrived in Lishi County. How do you think we should sell these oil papers?" After entering the city, someone immediately asked Fan Dalang for advice.

"Let's sell here first." Fan Dalang saw a few stone bamboo squatting under the wall next to the city gate, so he drove his donkey cart over.

In fact, he didn't have a constitution in his mind how to sell this oil paper. With his enthusiasm, he also wanted to learn from Lishi County to lead the merchants to their Guyaoling.

However, the constant doubts raised by the villagers along the way made him feel more and more uncertain. He wondered if he had thought things too simple. With this kind of oil paper, can those merchants travel thousands of miles to their Guyaoling to buy goods? The hardships of the journey will eventually be a waste of effort...

The young man raised his sleeve and wiped the sweat from his neck. The hot sweat mixed with the soil left a black sweat stain on his sleeve, making his already unclean clothes look even more dirty.

Under the scorching sun, he suddenly felt a little regretful. If he had not done these things at the beginning, if he had not taught papermaking techniques to other people in the village, and just kept his home shut and made paper and sold paper every day, his life would have been stable and prosperous.

"Brother, are you hot?" A young man with a kind face next to him asked him.

"It's okay, I'm a little tired, so I'll take a break." Fan Dalang smiled, but couldn't help thinking in his heart, if the market could not be opened, how could the people in their village make so much hemp paper in the future, how could they still sell it at a good price?

"How do you sell oil paper?" Recently, there are often some foreign caravans in Lishi County, transporting all kinds of goods, so many people are staring at the city gate. Now, when they see their pedestrians entering the city, a few people come to the nearby taverns.

"Two cents a piece." Seeing that there was a business coming, Fan Erlang quickly took a piece of grease paper from his donkey cart and opened it to show it to the other party.

The oil paper they brought this time was a large piece. On both sides of the paper with moderate thickness, tung oil was applied. After enough oil, the paper would look very transparent and paste on the window, which was strong and bright.

Windows paper like this used to be relatively expensive. It often cost several cents to paste a window. Even if it is a small wealthy family, they cannot afford to spend this money. This time, each of the oil paper they shipped is enough to paste a window. One piece is only two cents. A slightly more wealthy family should be able to afford this money. Besides, they also heard that the people of Lishi County are quite rich.

"If you buy more, will it be cheap?" The people around him looked a little open when they heard the price. But after all, these people were not ordinary people, but merchants. They were happy and covered their faces.

"We came from Guyaoling, Luzhou. The journey is long and transportation is not easy. Two cents per bill is the least. If you can go to Guyaoling to buy goods in person, the price will naturally be much cheaper." Fan Dalang bowed to the people.

"Guyaoling? Where is it?" A foreign merchant who was not very familiar with Hedong Road asked the people next to him. Although he was a foreigner, he had met many people in the restaurants and tea shops in the city these days.

"That Guyaoling, when you pass by here, you have to pass Luliang Mountain first, then Fenzhou, and then Taiyue Mountain." A middle-aged merchant said with a smile.

"Don't talk about those useless things, the drum waist is too far away. If you give me a hundred pieces of oil paper, you can count it at two cents each." A strong man with a beard all over his face said loudly.

"You bought so much?" someone asked.

"Since you've caught up, then buy more. Relatives and friends can get one, not much." The man said, untiing a string of copper coins from his waist.

"I want ten."

"I'll buy two."

"I'll buy fifty."

“…”

As soon as the transaction was opened, some people in the city also received news soon.

The people in the city are not that generous, and usually only buy one or two pieces, and then ask if they are collecting food, cloth, etc. After learning that the other party only accepts copper coins, some people retreat. After all, the window paper is not suitable for food or clothing, and even if they don’t buy it, it will not affect their lives.

The copper coins of this era are very valuable. Each copper coins are solid bronze weighing one ounce. People stocked up the copper coins at home, not worried that they would depreciate, and even had the possibility of appreciation. I heard that some people had melted the copper coins into bronze ware without permission.

This has led to insufficient circulation of coins on the market, and cloth and grain are more common as currencies.

The reason why these Luzhou people dare to say that they only collect copper coins is because they don’t have to worry about selling the oil paper. If the Fan brothers hadn’t insisted, the oil paper would have been sold out along the way before and would not have reached Lishi County.

Two days later, all the oil paper brought by the Guyaoling people was sold out, and everyone could earn a lot of copper coins. The hardships along the way were also diluted by the joy of making money.

The Fan brothers went to visit Luo Sanlang with a basket of oil paper on their backs.

The two brothers set off before dawn and walked until the sun was three o'clock before they reached the boundary of Xipo Village.

Before he arrived at the entrance of the village, he met Luo Sanlang at the edge of the Luo family sheep pen. He was cutting bamboo strips with several disciples at this time, sitting under the shade of the tree on the side of the road, doing something, but the shape of the thing was something they had never seen before.

"What are you doing?" Fan Dalang and Fan Erlang approached and said curiously.

"I want to use this oil paper to make a lighter sack." Luo looked up at the two brothers and said with a smile.

A squid hat is similar to a squid hat. It is only worn on the head. The squid hat has a handle, similar to the umbrellas in later generations. Generally, farmers use squid hats for families, and mainly use squid hats.

“Why are bamboo strips so sparse?”

The method of making straw hats and squid hats is to weave two layers inside and outside with fine bamboo strips, and then fill the middle layer with bamboo leaves and other objects. The parts of the bamboo strips are generally weaved in fine and firm, unlike Luo Yong's hand. There are only a few bamboo strips sparsely straddle the ground, and no matter how you look at it, it is not strong.

"You will know when I finish it." Luo Yong smiled, stopped the movement in his hand, looked up at the Fan brothers: "Are you two coming to me today?"

"That's right." Fan Dalang said, put down the basket on his back, took out a large pile of tung oil paper from it, and opened the pile of tung oil paper. There was also a small pile of hemp paper that had not been brushed with tung oil: "After I learned the craftsmanship of making straw paper, I returned to my hometown, and after several attempts, I finally made this kind of hemp paper."

"I even brought hemp oil with unpainted tung oil, just right." Luo Yong had just made an umbrella bone at this time, and there was ready-made paper at the moment, so he asked one of his disciples to ride Yan Erfei and ran to Xu Jiake's house to get some leftover tung oil when building the house in the past, dipped some tung oil with a brush, and pieced together a few pieces of hemp paper, and pasted it into an umbrella surface.

Although it was just a simple umbrella, since I heard that the Fan brothers came to Lishi County to sell oil paper, Luo Yong and his disciples had been exploring for almost two days, and several were invalidated. It was not until this morning that he finally had a glimpse.

This is because there are a few ready-made umbrellas in Luo Yong's space. If it is from scratch, I don't know how many years of exploration will be spent. In Luo Yong's memory, the entire Tang Dynasty seemed to have not used umbrellas very much. Umbrellas only became popular in the Song Dynasty. Of course, this may also be related to the popularization of papermaking technology.

Luo Yong was holding in his hand at this time, probably the first umbrella that could be opened and closed in this era. For the seemingly simple small parts, a group of big men spent a lot of time. Fortunately, these people are very capable of doing things, and have made many car chain paring knives, which are quite basic.

In order to shape the umbrella, they carefully wrapped some thin twine between the bamboo branches, which is also a technical job.

The Fan brothers did not expect that they just came to give Luo Yong a basket of oil paper, and they could watch the production process of the first oil paper umbrella of this era.

Later, Luo Yong asked them about the process of making hemp paper, and the two brothers were unreserved and said everything.

They were so excited that there were bamboo, tung oil, and hemp paper in their hometown. They could make oil-paper umbrellas at home.

I think this thing should be more attractive than meringue. Even if it is not easy to sell in Guyaoling, it can be transported to Fenzhou and other places for sale. There is no need to go to Yangcheng, the county just needs to go to Pingyao. Pingyao County in Fenzhou is not very far from their Guyaoling. Those merchants and tourists who travel between Taiyuan Prefecture and Chang'an City should be interested in this thing.

The Fan brothers learned the umbrella making skills and went home happily.

Luo Yong was trying to promote the oil paper umbrella. No matter in any era, publicity was very important. I didn’t see Luo Yong’s previous toothbrushes and other items. Because there was no publicity, few people still care about it. The peony cushion that he had specially promoted has long been popular in Chang'an City.

After waiting for a while, he finally waited for a rainy day.

On this day, Luo Yong rarely patiently went to teach Du Gou to draw sketches for a long time. In fact, it was just something that was learned and sold. When the oil residue buns from the Xu family's hotel were released, Luo Yong said he was hungry and asked him to buy some buns to eat.

Du Gou has lived in Xipo Village recently and has eaten a lot of oil-slag buns from Xu Jiake House. Now that Luo Yong has said that, he thought of buying more to make dinner. Before leaving, Luo Yong asked him to use his oil-paper umbrella. Du Gou didn't think much about it, so he went out with the umbrella.

Don’t say that this oil-paper umbrella is really easy to use. It is very light in your hand. When you don’t use it, you can close it gently and it won’t take up space.

After brushing the hemp paper on the umbrella with tung oil, it has a faint amber color. Although it has no decoration, it looks unique.

In the summer afternoon, between the wind and rain, a man in blue held an oil-paper umbrella and walked slowly on the green country road. He walked all the way to the Xu family's guesthouse, closed the umbrella, and gently shook the rain on it.

The people in the hall looked at him one after another, and Du Gou smiled at the people and went to buy buns with the Xu brothers.

Then……

"Luo Sanlang, are there any oil-paper umbrellas in your house? They are the same as the Du family's husband."

"In fact, you can also draw some flower and bird patterns on it."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't need to draw any patterns, I will be the same as his one."
Chapter completed!