According to historical records, there are tens of thousands of beauties in the harem of Qin Shihuang, and the rouge and water consumed every day can dye the Wei River. Although Chen Xu has been to the harem several times, he can only see one corner. Not only does he not know how many women Qin Shihuang has, but he can't say that the entire Qin Dynasty is unclear. The concubines, maids and princesses of the monarchs of the six kings were all hugged by Qin Dada home to help take care of them. The number is completely mysterious.

In fact, the consumption of Qin Shihuang's entire harem was no less than raising hundreds of thousands of troops. Just building hundreds of bedrooms, I don't know how much money and ointment was consumed. Apart from the palace, the biggest consumption in the harem was daily consumption such as food, clothing, housing and use. Not to mention these concubines and palace maids, they were all rich and fur, but at least they were very luxurious in life. The chicken, duck, fish and meat that ordinary people could not afford were not lacking every day. Silk, silk, silk, and fur clothes that keep warm still need to be replaced every year. For these two things alone, the annual expenses of the entire Shaofu are estimated to be no less than ten million yuan. In addition to the cost of entering and leaving cars, horses, rouge and powder and other expenses, the entire harem is no different from raising a large army.

If perfume is a luxury, in order to please Qin Shihuang, all concubines and maids with a little status will try their best to get a bottle of perfume to add temptation and charm to themselves, and then they will ask the officials of the Shaofu for money and even do some messy things to achieve their goals. This matter will inevitably become a headache for Qin Shihuang.

Not only the emperor had a headache, but Chen Xu actually had a headache too.

Perfume is not like glass porcelain tea wine. Although these things are expensive, they come from a wide range of sources. Chen Xu can send them to the palace in big chariots to meet the emperor's needs. Moreover, these things are not only available by Chen Xu. If the emperor needs them, there are still a large number of merchants to provide them, but perfumes are different. Even if Chen Xu announces the production method, not to mention the difficulty in picking petals, just distilling high-purity alcohol and refining essential oils, laboratory processes such as distillation of high-purity alcohol and refining essential oils is a huge problem. Scarce resources and complex craftsmanship are destined to not be too high in the production of perfume, and the prices on the market will remain high.

In other words, perfume is destined to be an extremely scarce luxury product. Like high-end perfumes in later generations, it is destined to be ridiculously expensive.

Even if Chen Xu wanted to be cheap, he would not be cheap in the end. The labor cost of picking and collecting flowers was a considerable expense. With the perfume in front of him, hundreds of people in the Marquis' Mansion went out to work for most of the day, and even used many households in the fiefdom. Although most of them were women and children, the labor force was still consumed.

If a person is busy with a day's labor cost is ten yuan, then the labor cost alone is more than four thousand yuan. In addition, it took two days to distillate the laboratory, as well as alcohol, distilled water, and mixing, and finally, a bottle of perfume is needed.

Such high-end luxury goods must not be made of ordinary porcelain bottles and glass bottles, but crystal bottles must be used. In order to prevent the perfume from deteriorating, they must also be made of colored crystals, which is another considerable expense.

Also, in order to facilitate the use of perfume, a press-type spray bottle needs to be developed. There is no experience to learn from at present, so Chen Xu needs to explore it.

Therefore, overall, perfume will be a rare and extremely luxurious item, surpassing porcelain and glass to become the most expensive commodity in Chen Xu's hands.

But no matter what, once the perfume is taken out, it will no longer be kept confidential. With a group of alchemists in the laboratory and a group of uneasy women in their mansion, the perfume will soon cause a sensation among the noble ladies and even civilian women in Xianyang again.

As for the emperor, Chen Xu felt that he had to think of a way to deal with it properly. After all, this kind of thing could not be hidden from the emperor. Moreover, it would be impossible not to use such a good thing for his concubines in the harem. The price was secondly expensive. The emperor was rich in the entire Qin Dynasty. Even if he sold it in a pure business model, he would definitely be able to afford it, but output was the greater obstacle.

However, Qin Shihuang had a bigger advantage, that is, he would not force businessmen to offer things to him.

According to the customs that continued in the Zhou Dynasty, as long as they are not slaves, kings and princes have no right to deprive the people of their property. Of course, this is also superficially, and in fact, taxes can be continuously increased through laws. In fact, this tradition has been inherited and carried forward in later generations. The so-called annual tax and tax flowers are similar every year, and tax people are different every year. Once ordinary people are born, they just want to pay taxes to the country. From birth to death, only illness and tax payment are two things that everyone cannot escape.

(Note: The word national means the people in the country, and the country, in ancient times, referred to cities, that is, in ancient times, the people referred to people in the city. Compared with people in the city, the rest were all rural locals. Therefore, common people basically refer to rural people, and together with the people and the head of Qian, refer to ordinary civilians, while the people refer to nobles with fiefs. As for the word people, refer to all humans. Later, after being redefined by the horse-bearded man, it became a pure political noun representing the proletariat. However, through the Shang and Zhou dynasties, various titles began to be unified, and the people, common people, civilians, Qian, and even the people began to refer to civilians.)

Fan Caiwei and Chen Xu have similar understanding of luxury goods such as perfume, and believe that even a good thing that makes money is also a bit hot.

Chen Xu now has two options.

First, he made his own perfume and went on sale, and then regularly gave the emperor some concubines distributed to the harem. In this way, Chen Xu would be under great pressure, and in the end he might be thankless and would not be able to make ends meet.

The second is to give the perfume production method and formula to the emperor, and ask the emperor to set up a royal perfume workshop, and he is responsible for arranging people to guide the production until he is proficient. As for how much he can make and whether he can satisfy all his wife depends on his ability and ability. After all, perfume production has begun to enter the field of precision chemical technology, and ordinary craftsmen can no longer complete it, and they must have a considerable level of chemical experiments.

Although the second method is good, it may have a bad ending, that is, the emperor will eventually throw all the matters of the royal perfume workshop to Chen Xu, which is actually not much different from the first method.

After hugging Fan Caiwei for a long time, I felt interested and went to the room to have a romance. When Chen Xu returned to Qinghe Villa in a happy mood, it was almost time to finish his meal.

"The Marquis is back!"

At the gate of the villa, watching Chen Xu's carriage return home, the two little maids ran back to the backyard excitedly to report. When Chen Xu's carriage drove into the yard, Shui Qingrou, Ying Shiman, Meng Wan even raised her big belly and almost couldn't walk.

"Hey, why are you so neat today?" Looking at the group of big-bellied wives who were supported by the maids with their waists on their backs, Chen Xu quickly got out of the car and comforted him.

I didn't go home last night, and today I ran to my sister-in-law's house with perfume again to show my care. I also had a good time with a double-drawing experience for most of the day. Now I'm back home and looking at Yingying Yanyan and a large group of wives and concubines, Chen Xu's heart was as calm as a water-like feeling and was as peaceful as a monk.

"Husband, have your fragrance of flowers been extracted?" Meng Wan was most anxious. She hugged Chen Xu's arm, Qiong Yao's little nose slightly closed and her face suddenly turned surprised: "Husband, you smell so much, you must have succeeded, right?"

Chen Xu:...

It is said that a woman's nose is a dog, but it is indeed good. The fragrance on her body was brought from Fan Caiwei, and she had taken a bath before she came back. But obviously, whether it was this primitive era or a modern city with perfume mixed more than two thousand years later, as long as a woman approached, she could smell the different smells of her own men. Fortunately, Chen Xu can now have a group of wives and concubines, otherwise in the future, Meng Wan might have taken out a durian.

"I'll smell it!" Ying Shiman also came up and sniffed Chen Xu's clothes, then looked at Chen Xu's eyes with beautiful eyes, "It's really delicious, husband, have you gone to where are sister Caiwei?"

Chen Xu felt a crow flying over his head, hugging Meng Wan and Ying Shiman on the left and right, laughing and saying, "Are you two's noses soaring dogs? You can even smell wherever I go, let's go, go into the mansion, I'll show you something good!"

"Yeah, my husband has indeed refined the fragrance of flowers. We will no longer have to pick the petals every day to take a bath!" Meng Wan danced happily, scaring a group of maids quickly surrounded her and then helped her to the backyard.

"Look, this is the credit for the husband's sleepless two days!" Walking into the hall of the backyard, Chen Xu took out several bottles of prepared perfume and placed it on the table. A group of women gathered up to carefully look at these glass bottles of different shades and colors.

"Come on, will it smell the fragrance?" Chen Xu opened a bottle cap and suddenly a refreshing fragrance of osmanthus was emitted.

"Oh, it's really fragrant, exactly the same as the fresh osmanthus fragrance!" Meng Wan exclaimed.

"Not only that, the smell seems to be fresher and more elegant, and it smells much better than the sweet fragrance of osmanthus!" Shui Qingrou nodded in surprise.

Chen Xu gently dipped his fingers in some perfume and applied it to the soft hand. He smiled and said, "This is a perfume made from the flower essential oil extracted from the osmanthus. In fact, it is similar to the tea tree oil and sesame oil we eat. However, because the petals contain very little sesame oil essence, the essential oil yield is very low. There are more than ten baskets of flowers in total. In the end, I only made these few bottles of perfume, including osmanthus, chrysanthemum, and vanilla mixed flavors. You can choose which one you like. Tomorrow I will ask you to go to the glass factory to customize some crystal bottles specially used for perfume and pack them. In the future, you can drip some in water every time you take a shower, and you can apply it on your skin or even spray it on your clothes..."
Chapter completed!