Chapter 2 Laundry Detergent

For ordinary villagers these days, the village party secretary is the local emperor, but for a time traveler like Xu Qiang, he doesn't buy it at all.

With the rich knowledge and experience from his previous life, plus his strong body, it should not be difficult for him to make a living in this era.

Moreover, in this era, who would want to farm when they can be a worker? Even being a temporary worker in a factory is much better than farming in the village to barely make ends meet.

Moreover, he was going to work at the Shengli Machinery Factory, which was a third-line arsenal with very good welfare benefits, high wages, various gifts during festivals, and medical and labor insurance. If a young man could work in the factory, everyone in the village would look up to him, matchmakers would knock on the door of your house, and you could choose any beautiful girl from the surrounding villages. It was no wonder that the village party secretary Zhao Xigui would lick his face and let himself give up the recruitment quota.

After leaving the brigade village committee, Xu Qiang went straight home.

"You're back?" Xu Qiang's mother Zhang Fenglan was washing clothes at the door. Seeing her son coming back, she asked, "What did the village chief want to see you about?"

"He wanted to use 300 yuan to get me to give up my job quota, but I didn't agree."

"Uh..." Hearing this, Zhang Fenglan showed a sad look on her face. After a moment, she whispered, "Xiao Qiang, you can't beat him. Their family is wealthy. If it really doesn't work, just give him the spot..."

Xu Qiang's mother, Zhang Fenglan, is a housewife with a relatively gentle personality. When her husband worked in the factory in the early years, she handled the farm work at home alone. Only during the busy farming season would her husband take leave to go home, so over the years, he has basically been the only one supporting the family in the village.

As for the village party secretary Zhao Xigui, his family had four sons and was a wealthy family in the village. Later, he became the party secretary and village chief of Niuzhuang Village, and he has been in this position until now.

After Zhao Xigui came to power, his sons were not easy to deal with, so all the villagers were afraid of them. Although Xu Qiang's mother knew that this job could change her son's fate, their family still had to stay in the village, and they could not afford to offend the brigade secretary.

"Why should we give him the job quota?" Xu Qiang was obviously not afraid of this "local tyrant" in the village. In his opinion, he could not farm in the village all his life. Even if he left the village, he would have a better future with his skills and abilities. So he turned to his mother and said, "Mom, don't worry. When I get a job in the factory, we will move out of the village and not suffer this bullying!"

"Working in a factory is not that easy. Your father has worked there for so many years but never got a permanent job. Now he has even lost his life... If he doesn't get a permanent job, we will have to go back to the village to farm. We have to leave a way out for ourselves..."

"Mom, you don't have to worry about me." At this moment, Xu Qiang saw that his mother's palms were red, and asked quickly: "Mom, what's wrong with your hands?"

"It's okay, I'm doing the laundry."

"Washing clothes? Why not use laundry detergent? It will wash clothes clean and not hurt your hands?" Xu Qiang asked casually.

Ordinary laundry detergent contains a lot of alkaline ingredients, so if you wash your clothes by hand for a long time, it will irritate your skin and cause redness and swelling. Some people with allergies may even suffer skin breakage, which is also normal.

But if you use laundry detergent, it is less irritating and will basically not hurt your hands.

"What is laundry detergent?" Zhang Fenglan asked curiously.

"Laundry detergent is liquid laundry detergent..."

At this point, Xu Qiang suddenly realized that laundry detergent was still very rare in China at that time. In fact, if washing powder was the first generation of washing products, then laundry detergent belonged to the third generation of products. It was not until the 1s that laundry detergent began to be launched on the market in large quantities in China.

Almost out of professional instinct, Xu Qiang suddenly had an idea, that is, he could start a business by producing chemical products.

In fact, whether it is the production of washing powder or laundry liquid, the threshold requirements for funds and equipment are very low. As long as there are sufficient raw materials and a reasonable formula, the family can produce high-quality and low-cost washing products in a short period of time.

In his previous life, Xu Qiang specialized in the research of fine chemical products. He was familiar with the formulas and production processes of many civilian chemical products. Many of the formulas he mastered were chemical products that had never appeared in China or even abroad in that era. This undoubtedly gave him the most critical technical foundation for starting a business.

However, how to purchase raw materials and related equipment is the problem that Xu Qiang needs to solve. After all, in this era, even if you have money, it is very difficult for individuals to purchase chemical raw materials and equipment in bulk.

"Go back to your room and sit down. I'll finish washing these clothes and cook for you right away." Zhang Fenglan rubbed the clothes on the washboard twice and said to her son.

"Yeah." Xu Qiang responded and went back into the house.

Xu Qiang's house is quite good in the village, because his father was a bricklayer when he was young and worked in a factory for many years, so his family's main house is one of the few brick houses in the village. For this brick house, Xu Qiang's family almost exhausted half of their life savings, just so that his son can marry a good wife in the future.

As soon as he entered the main hall, Xu Qiang saw at a glance the portrait of his predecessor's father placed on the table. However, the black and white portrait was not taken very well. The man was obviously only in his 40s, but he looked like he was in his s or s. It was obvious that Xu Qiang's father suffered a lot when he was alive.

Although this person was only the father of his previous life, at this moment, Xu Qiang seemed to feel some empathy and sadness. He also thought of his father in his previous life, who worked hard all his life to support him to go to college and get a doctorate degree, but in the end he did not enjoy a few days of peace and quiet. He was taken away by a serious illness when he was only half a month away from retirement.

When people are unhappy in life, they always look forward to tomorrow, but some people always wait for the end to come early.

When he returned to his room, Xu Qiang immediately saw the books on the bedside table, including several story books and a pile of comic books. It was clear that his predecessor was also a person who liked reading. "Is my uncle here?"

At this time, a man's voice came from outside the window.

"Uncle?" Xu Qiang was stunned for a moment when he heard that, but then he immediately reacted and quickly walked out of the room.

At the door, a sturdy middle-aged man was standing outside the yard. When he saw Xu Qiang, he grinned.

The man in front of him is named Liu Jun. He has a miserable life. His original name was Xu Jun. Later, his father died of illness when he was very young. After his mother remarried, Xu Jun changed his name to Liu Jun.

Liu Jun is already in his early 30s this year, more than 10 years older than Xu Qiang, but because he is younger, he can only call Xu Qiang "uncle".

"What's going on?"

"Come to my house for a drink." Liu Jun shook the bottle of liquor he had just poured and said to Xu Qiang with a grin.

"Okay." Xu Qiang replied without thinking.

There weren't many entertainment activities in the village at night these days. Occasionally there would be a theatre troupe or an open-air movie, but most of the time, people were busy "cultivating the land" at home. Family planning had not yet begun in those days, so every household in the village had many children.

Xu Qiang is not married yet and Liu Jun is still a bachelor, so sitting together drinking and chatting in the evening is a rare pastime and entertainment.

"Drink less." Zhang Fenglan glanced at her son and said casually.

"Don't worry, if my uncle gets drunk, he will just sleep at my house." Liu Jun said, leading Xu Qiang out of the yard.

Liu Jun's home is on the edge of the village, a mud house. This kind of house has a lot of mosquitoes in the summer, and sometimes snakes crawl out. Outside the house is a small courtyard surrounded by branches. There is a horse-drawn carriage parked in the yard. He is the team's driver. During the busy farming season, he transports farm manure and grain. In winter, he also uses a horse-drawn carriage to deliver public grain. He also uses a horse-drawn carriage for weddings.

Moreover, because the team had only two horse-drawn carriages, Liu Jun was usually very busy. In addition to driving the carriages, he also had to unload the goods. He was often away from home. Although his work was the hardest, his work points were very low. After a busy year, he had nothing left except for barely enough to eat and wear.

As soon as you enter the house, you can describe it as bare. Apart from a few benches and a table, there is almost no decent furniture. But the house is very clean and the bed is neatly folded.

"Wait for me to cook." Liu Jun put the wine bottle on the table and started to make a fire to cook.

Although he was a guest, Xu Qiang couldn't sit idle, so he wanted to help.

At this time, Liu Jun lit the firewood and stuffed something like a brick into the stove.

"What is this?" Xu Qiang was stunned when he saw the mud brick in Liu Jun's hand.

"What are you talking about? This is peat. Isn't that what you use to make fire at home?" Liu Jun replied casually.

"Uh." Xu Qiang finally came back to his senses.

Looking at the mud brick in his hand, Xu Qiang's eyes suddenly lit up.

It turns out that this brick is not an ordinary brick, but a piece of dried peat.

The so-called peat is actually the product of the development process of the swamp. It is composed of the remains of swamp plants that cannot be completely decomposed and accumulated under water-rich climatic conditions. It contains a large amount of water and incompletely decomposed plant remains, humus and some minerals.

In other words, peat is the least coalified form of coal and is an organic substance.

This kind of carbon deposit can be used to extract humic acid, an organic fertilizer. The humic acid content in peat is very high, and some can even reach 70%.

Peat itself can also be used to improve the soil, but because it has not been activated, the effect is very slow. However, if it is extracted into humic acid, it can take effect quickly and is a good organic fertilizer.

In fact, in later generations, there were many manufacturers that used peat to produce humic acid fertilizers, but in this era, no one had the idea of ​​doing this kind of thing.

Thinking of this, Xu Qiang felt excited. After his rebirth, he was still worrying about how to make money to improve his life. Unexpectedly, there was an entrepreneurial opportunity with a very low threshold in front of him.

(End of this chapter)