A Blessed Daughter - Chapter 478

A Blessed Daughter
Chapter 478 – Progress of the distillery (2)

Translator : Virichime
Editor : Chu
This translation made by Virichime.
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“I heard that this Xu Heyou has been going around lately persuading people to replant their rice seedlings?” Fan Chengxu asked.

“Yes,” Shopkeeper Shen replied. “He’s been visiting farmlands everywhere. Whenever he sees a problem, he advises the owners to replant their seedlings. However, not many people listened to him at the time. Recently, though, large numbers of seedlings have fallen ill and died, proving Young Master Xu’s earlier judgment. Many who ignored his advice now deeply regret it, while those who listened to him are extremely grateful and regard him as a great benefactor.”

“Interesting,” Fan Chengxu commented, then asked, “What about my own estates? Are there any bad seedlings there as well?”

Fan Chengxu had been established in Taizhou Prefecture for several years and naturally owned a number of properties.

“There have been some issues on your estates in Taizhou Prefecture,” Shopkeeper Shen replied, “but please rest assured, Young Master—the proportion of affected seedlings is not large and will not have much impact on this year’s grain yield.”

“The next time Xu Heyou’s people come to deliver goods, have them pass along a message. Tell him I have some matters I’d like to discuss with him,” Fan Chengxu said.

“Yes,” Manager Shen responded, immediately making a note of it.

###

Meanwhile, Wei Ruo’s distillery was finally completed.

The raw materials for brewing wine consisted of grains and tubers. The grains mainly included sorghum, rice, glutinous rice, corn, and wheat. Aside from corn—which did not yet exist—these were all fairly common crops, and Wei Ruo’s own estates already produced rice, glutinous rice, and wheat.

As for tubers, the primary ones were sweet potatoes and cassava, and Wei Ruo was especially well supplied with sweet potatoes.

*Tubers are a type of underground plant storage organ. They store nutrients (mostly starch) that help the plant survive and grow again.

She was also well stocked with the auxiliary materials needed for fermentation, such as rice husks, bran, and sorghum husks.

As for the crucial fermentation starters—the yeast and fermentation starter—Wei Ruo had already arranged for people to search for them back when she first began preparing for the distillery.

The production of baijiu* mainly consists of seven steps: crushing the raw materials, proportioning the ingredients, steaming and gelatinizing, cooling, mixing the fermented mash, sealing it in pits for fermentation, and finally distillation.

-Baijiu is Chinese grain liquor.

Among all of Wei Ruo’s workshops, this was by far the most complex one she had built so far. A workshop like this would require far more manpower than her previous operations if it were to achieve high output.

However, at this stage, Wei Ruo had no intention of pursuing large-scale production. She planned to focus only on small-batch, high-quality brews.

Initially, she had no plans to brew alcohol on a large scale because, in an era where food was far from abundant, increasing grain yields and feeding more people had to take priority. Brewing alcohol with grain was, after all, a form of consumption loss. A kilogram of grain could feed someone, but once turned into liquor, it could no longer do so.

That said, baijiu could be sold at a high price and exchanged for more resources. It could serve the same function as the Sibaozhai, which made it worthwhile for Wei Ruo at this stage, as it would help accelerate her expansion.

Because the brewing process was relatively delicate and involved techniques that needed to remain confidential, Wei Ruo was extremely careful when selecting workers for the distillery. Beyond being hardworking, their character also had to be beyond reproach.

She entrusted the initial screening to Steward Yu. Wei Ruo trusted him, and he was also more familiar with the people on the estate, giving him deeper insight into their backgrounds.

Steward Yu took the task very seriously. After several days of careful selection, he submitted a list of ten candidates.

Today, Wei Ruo came to the distillery to meet the ten men. She asked them a few simple questions and put them through a series of tests. In the end, she selected six of them.

Afterward, Wei Ruo handed Steward Yu a training manual she had prepared in advance.

“Please train them according to what’s written here,” Wei Ruo said.

“Understood. Please rest assured, Miss,” Steward Yu replied solemnly. “I will train them strictly in accordance with your instructions and have them ready as soon as possible.”

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