Charles Godfrey pulled open all the linen curtains, allowing the winter sun to shine directly into the house and onto himself. He needed a little warmth, both mentally and physically.
He sat heavily in the rocking chair by the window. Thankfully, the chair was sturdy and didn't fall apart like one of those Holywood movie props.' He rocked gently a few times, and the slight dizziness made Charles feel a bit more comfortable.
He leaned over and poured himself a glass of whiskey from the tea table. Although the liquor was cloudy, he believed that a few sips after being drunk could actually sober him up. Besides, he really needed some alcohol to warm himself up and, incidentally, numb his senses.
He wasn't as bad as past Charles! Promise!
It was a good thing Jonathan had already left. Otherwise, if he saw Charles Godfrey drinking at this hour, he would surely put on that long face and roll his eyes.
After a rather lengthy conversation, Charles had a better understanding of his current situation. In summary, due to the current climate, things were both good and bad, and the key was whether he could seize the opportunity.
Jonathan's so-called debt of over fifty thousand pounds was, in reality, largely unpayable due to the current situation. The owners of the earliest loans and the governor, having approved independence by the Pennsylvania Assembly, had long since fled to Boston, and it was uncertain if they would ever return.
Even if they could return, they had left in such a hurry that most of the account books and IOUs had been burned by the Independence Party. Furthermore, the Pennsylvania Assembly later invalidated the tax documents previously issued by the governor, so collecting the debts would likely be difficult.
Thank you Pennsylvania Assembly!
Charles smiled, raised his glass, and took a sip of whiskey.
Even better, the tax officer, greedy for money, had stayed behind, only to be hanged by American militiamen. His debts definitely didn't need to be repaid.
Thank you American revolutionaries!
Charles raised his glass again and took another sip of whiskey.
As a nobleman, past Charles, even if his creditors had no ledgers or IOUs, would have had to repay the money to them or their descendants based on his noble reputation.
However, if he had amnesia and didn't remember such debts, it would naturally be impossible for him to pay money based solely on the other party's word, and not repaying the debt would not affect his reputation.
In fact, past Charles had considered this before but abandoned the idea due to too many scruples. Now, as soon as he mentioned amnesia, Jonathan assumed he had decided to use this method to default on his debts, regardless of his reputation.
Although he had no intention of defaulting, he wasn't going to correct Jonathan's misunderstanding. In the future, if he claimed not to remember those things, Jonathan would proactively find reasons to cover for him.
Thank you past Charles! Thank you Jonathan!
Charles drained the rest of his drink in one gulp.
The only debt that absolutely had to be repaid was to the Bank of England, totaling about ten thousand pounds. However, the United States had already been established, and Britain and America were currently at War.
For the Bank of England, an enemy bank, to demand repayment of the loan, it would have to wait until the two countries ceased hostilities in 1783, which was still a long way off.
However, a slight inconvenience was that he probably couldn't go to Britain, or even Europe, for a while, because if he did, he would likely be pursued for debt. It seemed he would have to stay and develop in America.
Money! Cash! Dinero!
What's a quick way to make some dough?
Well, as a modern person arriving in this era, there are actually many ways to make money. If he wanted to get rich steadily, it would naturally be to diligently farm the land. However, the land issues hadn't been resolved yet, so it was hard to say.
If he wanted to be a bit more progressive and have grander ambitions, he could leverage Pittsburgh's geographical and mineral advantages to set up ironworks, manufacture firearms, or even accelerate the development of various other heavy industries according to historical timelines.
Of course, taking a shortcut was also an option. The fastest way to go from broke to loaded wasn't just pulling small cons, it was going big. Back in the 21st century, a lot of that stuff would land you in prison, but here and now? The rules were way different. Unethical? Sure. But nobody was around to bust him for it.
When Charles was a local guide for safari tour groups in the Congo, he occasionally engaged in a few unsavory activities. However, this was very common in the tourism industry, known as 'selling artificial diamonds.'
This 'artificial diamond' was just a nice-sounding name announced to the public. It was also synthetically produced, but completely different from real high-temperature, high-pressure synthetic diamonds, and its value was, of course, entirely different.
It was actually a fake diamond, essentially a relatively beautiful stone, scientifically known as cubic zirconia.
"Gems" made of cubic zirconia are also known as "cubic zircon," "Soviet diamond," or "Soviet stone," and are a type of zirconium dioxide crystal. Zirconium dioxide naturally exists mostly as monoclinic crystals, primarily as the mineral "baddeleyite."
Through artificial synthesis, it can exist in a cubic single crystal form of zirconium dioxide. After further processing, it can be used to deceive people as artificial diamonds. Some more aggressive tour guides would even present it directly as a diamond to tourists.
The cost of such synthetic cubic zirconia is extremely low; even if it's only sold as an artificial diamond, it's definitely a truly lucrative business. Moreover, with underdeveloped science and technology at present, others simply cannot imagine that it's a cheap, artificially synthesized product. Even if people knew it wasn't a diamond, they would probably still covet it for its appearance.
To be sold as a diamond, it must have similarities to a diamond. Indeed, its various indices are very close to those of a diamond, and in some aspects, it is even more beautiful than a real diamond.
Firstly, its refractive index is as high as 2.17 and its dispersion is 0.06, which are very close to diamond's 2.42 and 0.044. Especially its high dispersion makes the colorful flashes of the finished cut gemstone even more brilliant.
Synthetic cubic zirconia has a Mohs hardness of 8.5, which is less than diamond's 10, but only slightly lower than ruby and sapphire. This allows for perfectly sharp facets to be cut, and the smooth, sparkling surface is not easily scratched or dulled.
Furthermore, synthetic cubic zirconia can be produced with excellent transparency and completely colorless, reaching the highest grade of diamond, D color. Natural diamonds are rarely completely internally and externally flawless.
Thus, when cut into a brilliant round faceted stone, its appearance is identical to a diamond, making it almost indistinguishable. In addition to colorless transparent cubic zirconia, adding small amounts of coloring elements to the composition can yield vibrant red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and purplish-red products.
As a tour group guide who understood the inside story, Charles knew how to artificially synthesize cubic zirconia. Its production process was very simple. The simplest method was to heat and melt monoclinic zirconium dioxide in a crucible, then mix it with solid monoclinic zirconium dioxide to induce artificial crystallization, changing the monoclinic crystals into cubic crystals.
Unfortunately, the crystals obtained by this method were very small, and the processed fake diamonds were, of course, even smaller. The scammers didn't care for such small profits, and neither did Charles.
Generally, scammers used the 'skull crucible' method invented by the Soviets. It first involved coiling copper tubes into a cup shape, with cooling water injected into the copper tubes. A small amount of zirconium metal flakes was added to the cup, with zirconium dioxide and stabilizer powder added in the middle and compacted.
The entire setup was surrounded by a radio frequency induction coil. When the induction coil was energized, the zirconium metal generated an induced current, heating to a high temperature and melting, transferring heat to the internal zirconium dioxide and melting it.
Cooling water kept the 1-2 mm of zirconium dioxide near the surface of the cup in a solid state. After several hours of heating, the heat was gradually reduced, and flawless columnar crystals began to form.
Then, a long period of annealing at 1400°C was used to eliminate stress in the crystals. After annealing, the crystals were typically 5 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, ready to be cut into gemstones and sold as diamonds.
In summary, as long as the level of social productivity allowed for direct steelmaking, large cubic zirconia could be produced using the Soviet method. And the current level of social productivity was precisely when large-scale steelmaking was possible.
As for electricity? That was even simpler. Inventing the light bulb was difficult, but making a coil for a generator to provide an unstable current was something even middle school students could do.At least those that didn't skip class.
However, Pittsburgh, which was still a remote area at the time, had low productivity, which might pose some obstacles. Moreover, he remembered that monoclinic zirconium dioxide ore, which exists in nature, was present in Pittsburgh, but past Charles didn't yet have it, so he would have to search carefully, which depended on luck.
And in the larger context of America being at war, prospecting would be somewhat difficult. However, war has its advantages, which is making a fortune from firearms and medicine.
Heh, these folkes didn't even know what rubbing alcohol was yet.
He wasn't very familiar with firearms as he didn't often deal with them, but as for medicine, every modern person had taken plenty of it, so how could he not know much?
The current level of Western medicine was primitive by modern standards. Anti-inflammatory drugs were practically nonexistent. On the battlefield at this time, due to the use of firearms and ammunition, the bullets often carried rust and debris when they entered the human body, leading to widespread wound inflammation and tetanus. Infection was a death sentence, more soldiers died from infected wounds than from the actual battle wounds themselves.
At this time, the only treatment method in Western medicine was to amputate a leg if a bullet hit the leg, and amputate an arm if it hit the arm. After a war, the largest waste in hospitals was limbs.
If one was unfortunately hit in other parts of the body, there was no need for amputation; just bandage it up and lie down to await death. If the vital organs were not hit, and with a stroke of luck, there was still a fifty percent chance of avoiding inflammation and tetanus.
But in reality, even soldiers hit in the legs and hands generally refused amputation, because medical standards were so poor at the time. Amputations often led to secondary infections, and the massive blood loss during surgery would further weaken the wounded, lowering their resistance and making them even less able to avoid post-operative inflammation.
So many soldiers jokingly said that if they were accidentally hit by the enemy, they still had a fifty percent chance of survival, but if they were accidentally cut by a doctor, they only had a thirty percent chance of survival.
Such crude battlefield medical practices remained unchanged until the American Civil War. On the battlefield, large numbers of wounded soldiers often evaded doctors' searches, preferring to be captured by the enemy rather than return to their own hospitals for an amputation.
If Charles could invent anti-inflammatory drugs, the enormous income would be foreseeable. As long as the price of the medicine was not higher than the cost of training a seasoned soldier, those stingy politicians would be very willing to pay for anti-inflammatory drugs.
The thought of anti-inflammatory drugs reminded Charles of common ones like amoxicillin, and cefalexin which he took as a child. However, he realized these drugs probably couldn't be produced. He often saw their pharmacological principles when reading instructions, but the manufacturers never wrote down the production methods.
Even if they did, Charles doubted he would understand them, and it would be impossible to set up a factory based on pharmacology alone.
Everything still had to be explored as he went along.
However, Charles believed that as a modern person transported to an old era he had once known, he would definitely not starve to death.