Chapter 194: 194 good stuff
Chapter 194194 Good things
Just when Tang Mo finished writing his reply, Garza knocked on Tang Mo's door excitedly. Tang Mo happened to fold the letter paper in his hand and put it into the envelope: "Garza, just in time! Your father is still thinking about you. In Roger's letter, I asked him to ask you about your recent situation."
"Me? I'm pretty good." Garza, a brat, said to Tang Mo with a smile: "My homework is very good, and I'm learning swordsmanship from Mr. Weiss recently."
"Well, that's good. I also said in my letter that you have been doing well recently." Tang Mo looked at this former apprentice and found that he had grown to about 1.7 meters tall in a year.
The food in Bunas was really too good, making this little boy who was originally a little shriveled obviously gain weight.
"That's right." Tang Mo sealed the letter with his own lacquer and casually asked Garza, who came in to see him, "Why did you come to see me?"
Garza recalled the purpose of coming here, and immediately reported the good news to Tang Mo: "Sir! The plant you wanted...has been found!"
"Huh? Which plant?" Tang Mo asked people to go around to collect seeds of various plants, hoping to find ways to cultivate hybrid crops, so he couldn't remember for a moment what kind of seeds he found.
In fact, Tang Mo didn't need to think too much, Garza explained: "On a merchant ship that came to us recently, there was an old sailor. There was a plant in his hometown. After drying it, grind it into pieces and light it with fire. You can inhale it. I heard that once you get used to the weird smell, it will be very comfortable. "
“That kind of plant does he have?” Tang Mo was stunned for a moment, and then asked ecstatically.
Garza nodded immediately and said affirmatively: "Yes, and there are many."
“A lot?” Tang Mo became even more happy. He even felt that he must be addicted to smoking now.
"Yes, in his hometown, many people have the habit of swallowing the smoke after lighting this plant. Every time he goes home, he will bring out a lot of this stuff, and he will light it and smoke it when he is bored at sea." Garza continued to nod. Answered Tang Mo's question.
"Did you bring the things?" Tang Mo asked quickly without pausing for half a second.
Garza nodded again and answered Tang Mo's question: "Yes, there are dried leaves and ground powder."
"Bring it here and let me have a look! Go! If it's what I'm looking for, that would be great." A smoker who had been looking for cigarettes for more than a year finally found a store that sells cigarettes. Tang Mo now felt that he finally There is some hope.
Tang Mo has always been looking for tobacco. This is a habit for him, and tobacco is also a hugely profitable industry.
Someone once joked that if more than a billion people each smoked a pack of cigarettes, the country would have funds to build aircraft carriers. Although this is a joke, it also illustrates the huge profits in the tobacco and alcohol industry.
Different from food-related beverages, the cultivation of cigarettes and tea hardly takes up fertile land, so there will be no conflicts over land.
At a time when the food self-sufficiency rate is not too high, cigarettes and tea are definitely more worthy of investment and promotion than wine making.
Of course, before promoting it, Tang Mo needed something like this to comfort his empty and lonely soul.
Subsequently, he saw the old sailor and the plant that the other man had brought with him. Just as he had guessed, this thing was tobacco leaves, something he had been thinking about day and night.
"I'm glad you can donate these things. This is exactly what I need." Tang Mo nodded, put the tobacco leaves and broken tobacco leaves on his desk, and nodded to the old sailor.
The other party was also surprised, because he had never seen anyone outside his hometown being obsessed with this kind of thing.
Even these outsiders don’t even know what this thing is called, let alone ask what it does and what it is used for. But the young man in front of him seemed to value these worthless grass leaves very seriously.
"This is the reward you deserve." Tang Mo gestured casually, and Garza understood it and handed the other party a gold coin in his pocket.
For a sailor, a gold coin is already a lot of reward, so the old sailor's face was full of joy.
"Next time you come here, bring the seeds of things! If possible, I also want live plants. Tell your captain that I will buy these things from you..." Tang Mo twisted some pieces of grass leaves and said, Spread it horizontally on a piece of cut white paper and said without raising his head.
"A boatload of this, exchange for 500 gold coins! You are innocent... Do you understand? Of the 500 gold coins in this boat, 200 of them are yours. I will help you explain it to your captain... Don't fight ghosts either. Idea, if you find another boat, you might be thrown into the sea halfway." Tang Mo rolled up the white paper carefully, as if he was holding a gold bar.
"Ming, I understand..." The sailor naturally knew that what Tang Mo said was actually true. He swallowed, put away his greedy thoughts, and nodded.
"The sea is a good place..." Tang Mo waved his hand, and Garza immediately took the old sailor out of Tang Mo's room.
Tang Mo continued to roll cigarettes one by one until all the tobacco leaves were used up, and then he stopped. He collected the welding fumes rolled by himself and put them aside as if they were treasures.
Then, he suddenly remembered something, took out a piece of white paper from beside him, and drew something quickly on it.
He drew very carefully and seriously, and even drew a black and white sketch next to it with great interest.
Although his painting skills are not very good, the effect is quite good - he was an old smoker back then, and he often copied his cigarette boxes on some pieces of paper in his spare time.
So he remembered this thing very clearly, even the details of what was in it.
This metal cigarette box is in the form of a clamshell, and a row of cigarettes can be placed inside. Tang Mo also used to put a small blade inside for self-defense or to deal with emergencies such as accidents.
After drawing the small cigarette case, Tang Mo continued to work at his desk and began to draw a lighter. There must be no lighters in the world, but the principle of lighters is actually very simple.
As a raw material for lighters, Tang Mo already had kerosene. And flint is not a rare thing, so Tang Mo's factory can definitely make a simple lighter device easily.
As for how to solve the airtightness of the lighter, actually...it doesn’t need to be solved at all. The most famous ZIPPO lighter in the United States is actually a good example of oil leakage.
Placing the cigarettes he rolled in the corner of the drawer, Tang Mo walked to the noisy workshop with two drawings.
He handed the drawings he drew to Matthews, who was discussing how to improve the Maxim machine gun with Parker, and shouted loudly to his technical backbone, the old dwarf: "Matthews! Look at these two things. Let’s see if it can be done?”
"There's no problem with that." The old dwarf looked at the cigarette box Tang Mo drew, handed the drawing to Parker with disdain, and then looked at another structural diagram of a lighter.
After looking at the spark dial and the simple air-tight structure, the old dwarf looked at Tang Mo and said with admiration: "This thing is very exquisite! Master! If it had been released a few years earlier, it could have become the standard equipment of artillery." !”
"It seems you can make it?" Tang Mo didn't care about how useful this thing was for artillery. He only cared about when he could have his own ZIPPO lighter.
The old dwarf put the drawings on the table beside him and said disdainfully: "Leave it to me! Master, I probably know the functions of these two things. That one is a simple small box that can hold things. This one is An ignition device. I will make it for you, don’t worry.”
“I’m very anxious.” Tang Mo added again.
“I’ll send it over in two hours at most.” Matthews promised confidently.
Soon, Tang Mo saw the two things sent by Matthews in his office. To be honest, when he saw these two things for the first time, he was immediately stunned by the exquisite workmanship.
This is the first time he has seen such a beautiful cigarette box - it has a metal relief on it, which looks very exquisite.
Because it uses two layers of metal, this thing feels heavy in the hand. The inner box fits perfectly, and the outer layer of metal is beaten with rough techniques to create a beautiful shape, giving people a strong sense of strength and beauty. .
Tang Mo rubbed his hands on the relief of tangled vines on the box. He stared at the half wolf head exposed in the center of the box, with a look of satisfaction on his face.
As a traditional blacksmith, Matthews’s craftsmanship in this kind of modeling design can really be said to be extremely proficient.
And when Tang Mo saw the ZIPPO lighter, he was even more shocked by Matthews's aesthetics.
It is also a relief sculpture, this time Matthews created a symbol of the Tang Dynasty Group, Tang Mo's family emblem-the dragon totem.
To be honest, Tang Mo never expected that Matthews could make smoking become such a ritual. He liked these two objects so much that he even had an unreal magical feeling.
He took out the cigarettes from his drawer and put them one by one in the cigarette case. Matthews watched quietly from the side, waiting for Tang Mo to once again use his invention to change the world.
When Tang Mo finished everything, he put the remaining cigarette between his fingers and used the fingers of his other hand to rub the lighter that had just been filled with kerosene.
“Ding!” With a crisp sound, the flip cover of the lighter was lifted open, and the flint was rubbed to make a pleasant clicking sound.
(End of this chapter)