The whole family travels through time: escape from famine! No cheat codes yet!

By the time the rubber balls were all dried, it was already late at night.

Shen Youyou pinched the Eucommia gum balls and said, "Dad, you guys are free anyway, so grind these roasted Eucommia gum balls into powder for me. I need to prepare the things for the next step."

"Okay, you do your thing, we'll take care of this."

But as soon as Shen Zhiqiu finished speaking, the women, even the old ladies, stood up and walked over.

Shen Zhiqiu asked in confusion: "What happened? Did you wake me up?"

"I wasn't woken up by you. I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about how to make shoes. I didn't sleep well, so I woke up when I heard you talking." Old Mrs. Hua explained.

"Yes, I can't sleep well unless I see it done with my own eyes." Other women also had this reason.

Well, since we can't sleep, let's grind them all together. They really use all kinds of methods. There is the small stone mill that Doctor Guo uses to grind medicinal materials, and several others have small graphite mills. This is how they grind the last corn kernels into powder and eat them.

There were also stone jars, similar to the ones used to crush garlic today. We used all the ones that could be used.

Although the white balls produced are not many, they must be ground very finely to dissolve better.

After everything was ground, Shen Youyou's preparations were completed.

She added the powder into alkaline water and heated it slowly. If you do the experiment in a beaker, you can observe that it will gradually separate into layers. The top layer is the decomposed Eucommia rubber, while the bottom layer contains many substances and cannot be used for the time being.

At this time, there was a large basin with ice water next to her to collect the purified Eucommia rubber.

Since she couldn't see, she could only go by feel.

Feeling that it was almost done, he said, "Dad, help me pour the white Eucommia rubber into the ice water. Be careful not to pour the impurities below into it."

Shen Zhiqiu came over quickly, took a piece of cloth and lifted the porcelain jar, because it was still very hot.

He said it very carefully: It's too difficult for my daughter to make this thing, so she must not fail at the first attempt.

When Eucommia gum is poured into ice water, it turns into something similar to plastic film. Shen Youyou quickly stirs the ice water with a stick.

Everyone held their breath and watched very seriously.

Shen Mazi's wife was surprised and said, "Why do I feel like something is stuck to the stick when I stir it, forming a lump."

"Yeah, it's getting bigger. It must be the white liquid that the third brother poured in that has stuck together."

It can be said that they hit the jackpot by accident, that's what happened. This is the purified Eucommia rubber, but now the Eucommia rubber is not the elastic rubber, it looks like plastic.

"Hey, why is your glue hard?" Shen Zhiqiu looked at these football-sized things with a puzzled look on his face.

Shen Youyou stretched her numb arms. She was exhausted from the night. "Because Eucommia ulmoides gum is an excellent polymer material with the dual properties of rubber and plastic. In plain words, it can be made into both plastic and rubber. What we have now is the plastic kind. If we want to make rubber shoes, we need to further change its molecular structure."

Except for Shen Zhiqiu and Li Jingshu, everyone else looked confused: What are they talking about?

But there is no way to explain it to them.

In ancient times, there was no modern refining equipment, but the gum could be preliminarily processed by heating and stirring to remove impurities and moisture.

Shen Youyou once again put the purified Eucommia gum into the porcelain jar and heated it. When exposed to high temperature, the Eucommia gum slowly melted.

What she had to do was to stir it constantly, which was a very slow process.

If Shen Youyou can't stand it anymore, she will take over another person to stir it, and they cannot stop until the impurities and moisture are further removed through continuous stirring.

During this period, the eucommia gum also underwent molecular changes, gradually transforming into rubber, but it was not fluid, but became more like some wet cotton in small clumps.

Shen Zhiqiu took a little and squeezed it: "You know what, it feels a bit like that, but why is it black?"

Shen Youyou thought that it would be white when it dried, but because of the environment, the air and rubber would have an oxidation reaction, and there was no bleach at the moment.

So the final product might be black or brown, no one could tell for sure. She had never made rubber in ancient times, so she didn't say anything.

Shen Zhiqiu obviously thought that what he said was redundant: "My daughter told me before that there might be an oxidation reaction, and it might be black rubber, which means that my daughter is not sure either."

Thinking of this, he quickly changed the subject: "What are we going to do next?"

In fact, at this time, we should use a machine to continuously press and stretch it back and forth to make its vulcanization better, but we don’t have a machine:

"Put it in the stone mortar for making rice cakes and pound it repeatedly. Didn't I see you guys using that to grind the flour before? But you have to clean it first and wipe it dry with a dry cloth."

When everyone heard this, they immediately took action. It was the first time they had seen such a complicated process to make shoes. If Yoyo hadn't said it was waterproof, they would have made it themselves out of cloth.

In fact, this process is very similar to making glutinous rice cakes. As the rubber is beaten slowly, it becomes more and more elastic and shiny.

Old Lady Hua was almost losing her patience waiting: "Oh oh, it's so hard for you to make a pair of shoes. How long will it take for us to wear them?"

Shen Youyou was helpless. With the current technology, what else could she do? "Grandma, I can make many pairs instead of just one pair. Have you finished sewing all the socks I asked you to sew?"

"How can it be that fast? There are almost 300 of us, and we have only sewn about 40 pairs."

"Forty pairs will do," Shen Youyou turned around and called Wang Fuxi, "Uncle, have you made the mold for the soles I want?"

Shen Youyou asked the grandmothers to standardize the sizes, from children to adults, and asked her uncle to make the molds.

The time was too short, and my uncle couldn't finish it alone, so other men helped. Due to the lack of tools, they could only do rough processing first.

Wang Fuxi will do the detailed processing alone, which is why Wang Shitou was on duty yesterday. Because Wang Fuxi was exhausted yesterday.

Shen Youyou first heats the beaten rubber balls to make them into a paste, then pours them into molds to make the soles.

After the soles have cooled and solidified, sew shoes and socks of the same size together, fill them with sand to prop them up, and tighten the laces on the socks.

It is like wearing socks on people's legs, and then immersing the socks filled with sand and soles into the rubber paste one by one.

Here you should pay attention not to put the socks completely in, and leave two or three centimeters of rubber at the top of the sock opening.

When I lifted them up again, a layer of rubber had already covered the socks and soles. Then I hung them up to let them cool.

However, you need to put wooden barrels and basins where you hang shoes to avoid wasting excess rubber. It is not easy to make rubber.

By the time all the shoes are hung, the first pair will have cooled down, but because of this method, the rubber will be very thin when hung for the first time.

Then use bamboo sticks to spread a layer of the rubber paste in the pot on these shoes. This way the shoes will be thicker and stronger.

Although everyone has been helping, I still haven't figured out how this is done:

When Yoyo was hesitant, she was really hesitant. She washed and ground it again and again, which took a lot of effort. But when she was fast, she was really fast. She made forty pairs of long boots in one go.