181: Chapter 181 The strong set the rules, the weak obey them!

"Our fabrics are mainly colored using dyes."

"Our dyes come from natural materials such as plants and minerals."

Zhang Han explained to Zhao Fusu in detail: "indigo can be extracted from plants like woad and knotweed, which can produce various shades of blue, such as dark blue and light blue."

"indigo dye is relatively easy to obtain and produce."

"I see!"

Zhao Fusu couldn't help but think of an idiom: 'indigo blue comes from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant itself.'

It likely refers to how the indigo extracted from plants like woad and knotweed is even bluer than the plants themselves.

"The red dye madder can produce different shades of red, from light red to deep red."

"Red is highly regarded in our Qin Dynasty; our nobles and officials wear red clothing on certain specific occasions."

"The red produced by madder is bright and long-lasting, making it an important source of red dye."

"Mhm."

Zhao Fusu nodded slightly; Zhang Han knew more about dyes than he did.

He had to understand in detail what dyes the Qin Dynasty had, so it would be easier for him to use them to mix the specific dyes he needed.

He wanted to dye the wool sweaters in various dazzling and fashionable colors to attract the attention of Qin Dynasty consumers.

"For yellow, we use the fruit of the gardenia."

"However..."

Zhang Han paused, then looked at Zhao Fusu and asked, "His Majesty the Head of State, yellow is controlled and can only be used by the imperial family!"

"Then lift the restrictions."

Zhao Fusu said dismissively.

He wanted to reduce the influence of the imperial family to achieve his ultimate goal of a public-spirited world.

"This..."

Zhang Han said, "This doesn't conform to the rules, does it?"

"My words are the rules."

As a man who held the truth, Zhao Fusu didn't care about any rules at all.

Rules are set by the strong and followed by the weak.

Now that he held the truth, did he still have to follow rules set by others?

Wasn't that a joke!

It was just like when King Wu of Zhou launched a sneak attack on the Yin Shang Dynasty and drove King Zhou of Shang to his death.

As a vassal state of the Yin Shang Dynasty, King Wu of Zhou should have dutifully paid tribute to Yin Shang.

Instead, he took advantage of Yin Shang's fierce battle with foreign enemies and launched a sneak attack, showing no martial ethics.

Did he follow the rules!

When the Zhou Dynasty was powerful, its rulers called themselves the Son of Heaven.

Everyone else had to obey him.

Once the Zhou Dynasty weakened, Duke Zhuang of Zheng didn't care about any rules; he drew his bow and shot an arrow at the Son of Heaven of Zhou.

Did Duke Zhuang of Zheng follow the rules!

The strong only set regulations that favor themselves.

To ensure good sales of wool sweaters and earn more money, Zhao Fusu naturally had to establish rules that favored him.

He had to overthrow rules that didn't favor him so that he could take the initiative and gain more benefits!

"Understood!"

Zhang Han replied.

He had been waiting for these words from His Majesty the Head of State.

The will of His Majesty the Head of State was his will.

Zhang Han was the most loyal and reliable henchman of His Majesty the Head of State!

"gromwell can produce purple, which is a relatively noble color. However, obtaining gromwell dye is relatively difficult, and the dyeing process is also quite complex."

Zhang Han's words made Zhao Fusu frown.

If the price of purple dye was too high, it would inevitably increase the cost of producing purple wool sweaters and prevent mass production.

This was not conducive to selling the wool sweaters.

Zhao Fusu narrowed his eyes.

He thought that modern purple dyes seemed quite cheap.

It seemed that to lower the cost of purple dye, he would need chemical methods to synthesize it.

Zhao Fusu flipped through the book "industrial encyclopedia".

It recorded that in ancient times, producing purple dye was extremely difficult not only in the East but also in the West.

In ancient Europe, purple clothing was a symbol of the nobility and the Pope because purple dye was extremely expensive.

This purple was known as Tyrian purple.

Producing one gram of Tyrian purple dye required thousands of sea snails.

Dye workers had to extract the pigment-containing parts from the snails' viscera, mix them with seawater or even urine, and boil them at high temperatures for about ten days to create the purple dye.

The workshops for producing Tyrian purple had harsh environments and a foul stench.

The Jewish text 'Talmud' recorded that the workers' hands were often injured and bleeding, and they emitted a nauseating, rotten fishy smell.

Although Tyrian purple dyed the magnificent clothes of nobles and Popes in oil paintings, the working people suffered exploitation and torment in the process of making this dye.

It wasn't until the 18th century, when low-cost chemically synthesized purple dyes were developed, that purple truly entered the homes of ordinary people.

Zhao Fusu focused his attention on how to obtain purple dye through chemical synthesis.

He discovered that the first chemically synthesized dye in human history was a purple dye, Mauveine.

This invention was an accidental discovery; the chemistry graduate student didn't intend to make dye but was trying to synthesize an anti-malarial drug.

At that time, this drug had to be extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree in the lands of South American Indians, making it very expensive in Europe.

Since the theoretical and experimental foundations of medicinal chemistry were not yet fully developed, the exact molecular structure of quinine was unknown, and the chemistry student had to explore through numerous experiments.

He added the strong oxidant potassium dichromate to aniline sulfate, resulting in a pitch-like black residue in the flask.

The chemistry student knew he had failed again!

He had to clean the flask to continue his experiments.

Considering that this charred substance was definitely an organic matter and likely insoluble in water, he used alcohol to clean the flask.

When the alcohol was added to the flask, the chemistry student's tired eyes suddenly widened; the black substance had dissolved into a beautiful, dazzling purple!

As an experienced chemistry student, he immediately realized that this unexpected phenomenon would lead to an important invention.

Considering that people's clothes at the time were dyed with natural plant dyes that were hard to preserve and had poor colorfastness, neither the brightness nor the spectrum of colors was satisfactory.

He thought about trying to dye fabric with this purple substance, but unfortunately, his experiment failed; the color on the cotton fabric almost completely washed away with water!

He didn't lose heart and tried wool and silk; he found that while it wouldn't dye cotton, it dyed silk and wool very easily, and the color was brighter than any plant dye of the time, not even fading when scrubbed in soapy water!

After seeing what he wanted to see, Zhao Fusu smiled.

By adding the strong oxidant potassium dichromate to aniline sulfate and then adding alcohol, one could chemically synthesize purple dye.

As he laughed, he also began to cry.