A powerful weapon for exports
Joseph frowned immediately. Although he hadn't seen clearly what happened, Alexandra was walking perfectly fine and hadn't turned towards the "extras," so why did she step on that person's foot?
It seems that only the latter could have stuck his foot out.
He frowned and shook his head, ignoring the troublemaking Nobility.
"Your Highness..."
Seeing that the Crown Prince had no intention of reprimanding the Russia girl, and knowing they couldn't argue with a seven or eight-year-old child—which would likely be self-destructive—the Nobility ladies immediately stood up angrily, helped Triss out of the theater, and muttered to themselves:
"I could never share the stage with such a rude woman!"
"Let's help Triss back to her room to rest."
"I want to tell everyone about her rude behavior..."
Alexandra watched as the group made a move to leave, knowing they wanted to isolate her.
She blinked and caught up with him in a few steps:
"Ladies, are you throwing a tantrum because you failed to attract His Crown Prince's attention?"
If an adult said this, it would sound sarcastic, but when a child said it, it revealed innocence and sincerity.
"You! You're talking nonsense!" a Nobility immediately retorted excitedly.
"Oh? So you don't want the Crown Prince to notice you?"
"No, no..." Several Nobility turned purple with embarrassment and hurriedly turned and fled the theater.
Joseph, watching this scene, almost burst out laughing. He thought to himself, "This little girl is quite interesting; she's relentless when she's right. Are all Russia women this sharp?"
Yes, it seems that's really the case. Russia was quite powerful when Elizabeth and Catherine were Tsar, but Peter III and Paul I Russia a mess of things when they were in power.
As the women left, Alexandra sighed, turned back, bowed to Joseph, and said apologetically:
"Your Highness, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have argued with them and made it impossible for your rehearsal to continue."
"It's not your fault," Joseph waved his hand. "You acted very well, and you were very brave. I'll find a way to fill the gaps in the acting."
In fact, he didn't need to do anything at all. The line of people who wanted to perform on stage with the Crown Prince was incredibly long, and rehearsals resumed half an hour later.
Northern Suburb of Paris.
Antoine Industrial Development Zone.
Yes, thanks to the booming Papermaking industry, Antoine's Workshop and Craftsman were growing in number. So Joseph decided to designate the area as a new development zone.
In a factory covering more than 10,000 square meters southwest of Antoine, Lavoisier gazed at the Mechanical Roasting Oven belching white smoke, put his arm around his wife standing beside him, and exclaimed from the bottom of his heart:
"Honey, how did you manage to create this in just one month? You're truly... a darling of the chemistry experiment gods!"
Marianne smiled and said:
"Actually, I just set the specifications, had someone draw up the blueprints, and then handed them over to the Ironworks in Saint-Etienne. They finished manufacturing it in just over 20 days, with a lot of time spent on testing and transportation. Their equipment and management are so much better than before."
"I originally thought I'd have to come and help to get this done," Lavoisier said, looking at his wife with affection. "But you've managed to handle everything yourself."
As he spoke, he looked again at the enormous equipment in the workshop— Rotary Furnace, Centrifuge, Evaporating Dish, Reactor, and the most complex Gas Scrubber.
These were basically all built and tested under the supervision of his wife. And before she married him, she didn't even know what chemistry was.
She is absolutely a genius in the field of chemistry experimentation. Of course, her excellent teaching also plays a significant role.
After receiving the Royal Alkali Process invented by His Crown Prince, Lavoisier completed the laboratory preparation in less than a week—as long as the principle was correct, this was no difficult task for him, given his experience.
The difficulty lies in mass production.
In the Chemical industry, the preparation process changes completely when the amount of reactants increases. For example, in a test tube, you only need to shake it to mix the reactants evenly, but when the amount becomes 1 ton, the mixing alone can be maddening.
Ensuring the full reaction of so many materials, purifying them, and preserving them are all major challenges. If any one of these steps fails, mass production will be impossible.
This is especially true for alkali production. You see, according to His Crown Prince's request, the daily production of Soda is 1.66 tons, so the raw materials used for mixing must be several times that weight.
The core of this reaction is the recycling of Ammonia Gas, so there are extremely stringent requirements for the sealing of the equipment and the collection of the gas.
The cleaning of Ammonia Gas was particularly challenging. Ammonia Gas is not only toxic but also corrosive and flammable, making large-scale cleaning extremely difficult and nearly driving the Lavoisier to madness.
Ultimately, it was His Crown Prince who proposed a rough plan— Joseph only remembered seeing Gas Scrubber mentioned in a documentary and their basic principles, but couldn't recall the specific details at all—and then Marianne worked day and night for three and a half months, actually managing to design the device!
It can be said that as long as the Gas Scrubber is kept secret, even if other Soda preparation technology manuals are given to other countries, they will not be able to replicate them.
Lavoisier looked at the entire alkali production equipment in front of him, turned to his wife and asked, "Darling, how's the trial production going?"
"The raw material utilization rate is still a bit low. His Crown Prince said it could reach around 70%, but I can only manage 50% so far," Marianne said, her face lighting up with excitement. "However, the trial production the day before yesterday only took 6 hours to produce 700 kilograms of Soda. And the purity is extremely high."
Although Lavoisier was somewhat prepared, he was still secretly astonished when he heard the number—the current market price of Soda was about 33 Livre per 100 kilograms.
In other words, he earned more than 230 Livre just by casually starting up the equipment the day before yesterday.
Moreover, Soda is always in short supply; you can easily buy a few dozen kilograms, but if you want more than 100 kilograms, you'll have to wait a long time.
Before he could say anything, Marianne smiled and said, "Darling, we won't have to be so careful with soap anymore."
Among the raw materials for soap production, the most expensive are Oils and Soda Ash. With the ability to produce Soda Ash on a large scale, France could even monopolize the global soap industry.
This thing may seem insignificant, but if you add up the entire global market, it would exceed ten million Livre!
Lavoisier nodded vigorously. "And Glass, Paper, and dyes will all become much cheaper in the future."
For France, this means that the costs of these industries will be significantly reduced, thus becoming a powerful export tool.