After taking in Yan Pu, Ding Huai's mood could only be described with one word, it was exhilarated. With an expert in internal affairs, he could do other things in peace. The most important thing about this other matter was to make money. Before the Yellow Turban Rebellion happened, he had to make money quickly.
At the end of the Han Dynasty, if one wanted to achieve great things, they first had to have money. Only with money could they recruit soldiers, buy horses, and hoard grain. In history, if Cao Cao did not have the support of Chen Liu and Wei Hong, he probably would not have been able to raise the first five thousand troops. How could he have faked the imperial edict to attack Dong and gain a good reputation of being loyal to the monarch and loving the country? This caused many talents to flow to Cao Cao. Otherwise, no matter how capable Cao Cao was, he would not have any achievements without soldiers under him.
Hanzhong was just a base that Ding Huai had set up in Yizhou, Jingzhou, and Yongzhou. It was also a chess piece for him to attack Yizhou, Jingzhou, or Yongzhou in the future. Ding Huai's real business base was in Qingzhou, but he did not have the chance now. However, if he did not have money and food, even if he could really take over Qingzhou in the future, he would not be able to support many troops, let alone recruit refugees.
The only difference between the wars of the Three Kingdoms Era and modern wars was that the Three Kingdoms Era was an era of cold weapons, while modern wars were a competition of weapons of mass destruction. But whether it was cold weapon wars or modern wars, they were all based on the economy. Without a good economic foundation, the war would never be won.
The reason was very simple. Many places in the war needed money. Soldiers needed to be paid, soldiers needed money for compensation, armor and weapons needed money, horses needed money, food needed money, and after occupying a prefecture, money was needed to restore the local economy. Therefore, without a strong economic foundation, in the end, they would not even be able to get food. The soldiers would not even have food to eat, so how could they fight?
As Ding Huai had studied history before coming to the Three Kingdoms, he did not know much about other things. However, there were two things that Ding Huai was very clear about the principles and production techniques, which were paper and beer. Before Ding Huai became a tour guide, he had worked part-time in a paper mill and a beer factory. For a talented student like Ding Huai, it was not too difficult to learn these things.
Paper is a sheet-like fiber product used for writing, printing, painting, or packaging. Generally, it was made from a water suspension of plant fibers that had been processed through pulp processing. It was interlaced and combined on a net, and then it was dehydrated, compressed, and dried. According to archaeological discoveries, during the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 8 B.C.), China already had hemp fiber paper. The quality was crude, the quantity was small, the cost was high, and it was not popular.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, in 105 AD, Cai Lun summarized the experience of his predecessors in Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and improved the paper-making technique. He used bark, hemp, rags, old fishing nets, and so on as raw materials to make paper. It greatly improved the quality and production efficiency of paper, expanded the source of paper raw materials, reduced the cost of paper, opened up a prospect for paper to replace bamboo and silk, and created favorable conditions for the spread of culture.
However, despite Cai Lun's improvements, the paper of the Eastern Han Dynasty still had a rough surface, and the paper was relatively thick. The paper's smoothness was not ideal, and it was quite troublesome to manufacture. As a result, the price of paper remained high, and it could only be used by some officials, wealthy merchants, and landowners. Ordinary people could not afford it.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, beer was no longer a product. Not only did it not exist in China, but it was also probably not available on the entire Earth. This was because the person who invented beer had not yet been born, so Ding Huai replaced this person as the first person to produce beer in the world.
The beer production process was mainly divided into four parts: malting, fermentation, and canning. Although the three processes of making wheat, digesting, and fermenting were not as convenient as in modern times, they were still possible with Ding Huai's efforts. However, Ding Huai did not have any good ideas about canning because glass had not appeared in the late Han Dynasty. The biggest drawback of beer was that if it was not sealed well, it would change its taste over time.
Therefore, before Ding Huai's beer could be introduced to the public, there were only eight people who drank it first. They were Ding Huai, Yan Pu, Gao Shun, Pang De, Cheng Lian, Xu Rong, Ma Jun, and Zheng Hun.
Ma Jun was an early mechanical inventor in ancient China. His name was Deheng, and he was from Fufeng (now Fufeng, Shaanxi). When he was young, his family was poor and his life was very hard. He had no money to study, so he studied hard and went deep into reality to seek knowledge. Ma Jun had a strong interest in machinery and was good at research. He finally achieved many achievements and became a representative inventor in ancient China. Ma Jun had only been a small official in his life and had no great achievements in politics. Only his inventions and creations had contributed to the development of production and human civilization. Ding Huai was the only one who knew about Ma Jun's abilities. After all, Ma Jun was not very famous at this time, so Ding Huai sent someone to recruit Ma Jun from Fufeng.
Even Ma Jun was helpless about the fact that beer could not be canned. Ding Huai could only put this aside in disappointment. However, this did not affect Ding Huai's sales of beer. Once beer was accepted by people at this time, there would definitely be a large number of people coming to Hanzhong to buy beer. Once they bought the beer, they would have to think of a way to bring it back. Perhaps they could find a way to can it among these people.
The alcohol content of the wine brewed during the Han Dynasty was extremely low. People usually drank in stone and bucket quantities.
Therefore, the common people of Hanzhong Prefecture soon accepted the beer with the same low alcohol content. Except for the bitter taste at the first sip, the beer was simply too refreshing. Soon, other wines could not be sold in Hanzhong. All the hotels changed to beer. People rarely drank the previous wine, although the price of beer was much higher than the previous wine because it had the same alcohol content as beer. However, the taste of it was simply incomparable to that of beer.
If the beer made by Ding Huai could not be sealed, it could no longer be drunk after two days. Therefore, the beer produced by Ding Huai could only be sold to a few counties around Hanzhong Prefecture, and the farthest they could reach was Chang 'an. However, after reaching Chang' an, the taste was not as delicious as the beer produced by steel. Even so, Ding Huai's beer was still very popular in Chang 'an.
Not long after, Emperor Ling of Han, who was far away in Luoyang, also learned of this matter. He had also asked Ding Huai to send the beer to Luoyang. Ding Huai, who had received the Spirit Emperor's edict, did not dare to delay at all. He sealed the beer that had just been produced in a jar and sent it to Luoyang by one of Ding Huai's subordinates, Whirlwind, riding a fast horse. In the middle, six good horses were changed. Finally, after a day and a night, the beer was sent to Luoyang. At that time, the Spirit Monarch was hugging a palace maid to sleep. When he heard the news of the beer, the Spirit Monarch hurriedly ordered someone to bring it over. He drank a big mouthful without even putting on his clothes. Although Ding Huai had only been producing beer for less than three months, the reputation of beer had already spread throughout the various regions of the Great Han Dynasty. The Spirit Monarch had long heard that this type of beer was several times more delicious than any other type of beer in the world, which was why he was so eager to drink beer.
Although it had been a day and a night, Ding Huai had spent a lot of effort to seal the beer. After all, it was for the emperor, so the taste of the beer was no different from that of freshly produced beer. After the Spirit Monarch took the first sip, he immediately felt refreshed. As the emperor, he had tasted all kinds of good wine. There was really no wine that could match the taste of beer.
The delighted Spirit Monarch immediately issued an edict to Ding Huai to increase the amount and frequency of wine delivery every day.
Ding Huai, who received the imperial edict, was overjoyed. Originally, delivering wine to the Emperor was a money-losing business. Not only could he not ask the Emperor for a single cent, but it also took up manpower, horse power, and financial resources. But why was Ding Huai overjoyed?
There were several reasons for this. Firstly, the Spirit Monarch had yet to think of letting Ding Huai build a beer production process in Luoyang so that the beer production could still be firmly controlled by Ding Huai. After all, the profits from monopolizing the beer were the greatest. Even if the Spirit Monarch gave such an order, Ding Huai would still use various reasons to avoid it. Secondly, by frequently sending wine to the Spirit Monarch, not only could he maintain his status as a popular person before the Spirit Monarch's death, but it would also allow him to be further promoted. Third, Ding Huai had been ambitious for a long time. If he wanted to dominate the Central Plains in the future, he had to build a powerful cavalry army. Originally, Ding Huai had no reason to buy horses in Hanzhong. Otherwise, he would be accused of having evil intentions. However, after this incident, Ding Huai could legitimately buy a large number of horses from Liangzhou. Everyone knew that although the horses in Liangzhou could not compare to the horses of the nomadic ethnic groups in the surrounding areas, they were still the best horses in the Great Han Dynasty. Fourth, Ding Huai could also use this as an excuse to formally train the cavalry. Although the number could not be too large, he could also take the opportunity to recruit one or two generals in the name of the emperor.
Originally, the best candidate for the cavalry general in the Three Kingdoms Era was Lu Bu, but Ding Huai did not dare to accept him. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Ding Huai also sent people to look for Huang Zhong, Gan Ning, and Hua Xiong. However, he was disappointed. Huang Zhong was not in Nanyang, Gan Ning was not in the eight counties, and Hua Xiong had defected to Dong Zhuo.
After receiving the reward, Ding Huai was extremely frustrated, but there was nothing he could do. He could only give up and hope that he would have another chance to recruit the three of them in the future.
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