Ancient natural disasters: The whole family traveled through time and was almost wiped out

Chapter 208

Chapter 208

As for the remaining five families, the Liang family and the Qi family volunteered together, saying that they were willing to take the lead and persuade them.

Jiang Yipei naturally had no reason to refuse, and he immediately handed over full authority to them. Of course, he couldn't give them the money now. He would have to wait until they reached an agreement and he saw the actual product.

With the supplies, Jiang Xiumian's carbon kiln also operated in an orderly manner.

Jiang Yipei wanted to put the brick kiln on the agenda. As a builder, he really couldn't bear to see the people in so many villages living in low mud brick houses or even thatched houses.

Especially for thatched houses, the risk factor is too high. The weather is so cold, and you are warming yourself by the fire, what if the house is also set on fire?

Coincidentally, Jiang Xiumian and his team discovered clay that could be used to make green bricks on Shangtang Mountain.

"When I was in the village, I always talked about making bricks, but I never found the time. Now I am making bricks in the mountains. It is freezing cold. Can you see if my ears have frostbite?"

Jiang Xiubai approached Jiang Xiumian and tried to show him his ears, but was pushed away by the latter: "I'm busy, don't mess with me."

"Hey, you look so sad, so I want to give you some advice. What's wrong? Have you encountered any difficulties in building the kiln? Tell me! Maybe I can help you!"

Jiang Xiubai immediately became alert. Apart from enduring the cold, his biggest role in the mountain was to keep Jiang Xiumian company and act as an errand boy. Jiang Xiumian was a socially anxious person, and he felt uncomfortable without anyone familiar around him.

But he was also very delicate, and would get very tired if he did any physical labor for more than half an hour. So he wandered around the mountain like a mountain king, very busy, but he didn't achieve anything. After two days, he didn't even patrol the mountain, and just hung around Jiang Xiumian.

He himself felt really bored, but everyone was so busy that he was embarrassed to sleep in the shelter. So, he hung around Jiang Xiumian every day, and his filter for Jiang Xiumian deepened layer by layer - Brother Mian was simply not a human being!

Jiang Xiubai knew that Jiang Xiumian was very powerful, but he didn't expect that he could be even more powerful. It seemed that nothing could stump him. He could make guns, build kilns, and many other things. He could learn them just by looking at them.

There is a big difference between a top student and a poor student, but there is an even bigger difference between a genius student and a top student.

Jiang Xiumian is one of those people who is even better than the academic god.

But the only downside is that the more capable Jiang Xiumian is, the more useless he seems. Look, Jiang Xiumian seems to have some problem that he can't solve. His dead heart suddenly comes alive!

It's time to prove your strength!

“Building a brick kiln is not a difficult problem.”

Jiang Xiumian tapped the tabletop with his fingertips. On the simple wooden table in front of him was the brick kiln design that he had drawn last night. "But the bricks need to be dried before they can be fired. Otherwise, they will crack and break, or even become waste bricks. And there are so many bricks that they need a large area to dry. In this way, it will be very difficult to dry them even with firewood!"

"Oh! I thought it was something else!" Jiang Xiubai heard it and immediately felt that it was nothing. He said, "Just hang it near the charcoal kiln. Even if the fire in the charcoal kiln is turned off, the temperature will remain high. Don't you see that everyone likes to work near the charcoal kiln?"

As the saying goes, three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang!

No matter how powerful Jiang Xiumian is, he is only one person. With Jiang Xiubai around, he can help find and fill in the gaps.

Now, the gap has been filled, right?

When Jiang Xiumian was reminded of this, he remembered that the area where charcoal was burned was indeed warm, and many people would go there when they rested. But as more and more people gathered there, Jiang Xiumian, who was a social phobia holder, suddenly ignored that place.

Jiang Xiubai was immersed in his own wisdom: "There is really no waste of energy at all. I am such a genius!"

"Indeed!" Jiang Xiumian gave him an appreciative look. This way, a lot of effort can be saved. If the heat is not enough, he can add a fire, which will achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Three days later, the first brick kiln was successfully completed. Jiang Xiubai walked around in the kiln curiously. Brother Mian said that the drawings of this kiln were modified based on the brick kiln design drawings from the 1990s.

Is this what brick kilns looked like in the 1990s?

He had never seen it. After all, he was not born until ten years later!

"Master Mian, the kiln you built is so big, how many green bricks can it produce?"

I just had some free time, so I came over to check on the progress.

They knew about the brick-making a few days ago and would come over to take a look whenever they had time.

"This is not a kiln for firing green bricks. I fire red bricks. One kiln can produce about 5,000 bricks." Jiang Xiumian was fiddling with the drawings he had drawn in the kiln. Hearing this, he responded without even raising his head.

"Five thousand?" Liu Hai was a little shocked, and a little confused: "Red bricks?"

"Hmm!" Jiang Xiumian didn't have time to answer him, so Jiang Xiubai answered for him: "Red bricks are similar to blue bricks, but the color is red, so they are called red bricks. And blue bricks are too slow to burn, it's better to burn red bricks!"

There is a big difference between blue bricks and red bricks.

Although the main raw materials of blue bricks and red bricks are clay, which is a substance formed by long-term weathering of certain aluminum silicate minerals, it has high viscosity.

However, the clay content of red bricks is less than that of green bricks. Most of the raw materials of green bricks are clay, but red bricks are made of clay, shale and coal gangue.

In the 1990s, the main raw materials for red bricks were clay and coal slag, but where did coal slag come from in ancient times? However, Jiang Xiumian has found a substitute and has made people make mud bricks.

The carbon kiln was on track, and the laborers were already very skilled, so not so many people were needed. One third of the people were taken by Jiang Xiumian to build brick kilns and make brick embryos.

There is a skill to making brick blanks. Raw materials such as clay are mixed with water, and then made into brick blanks through stirring and pressing.

The process includes steps such as crushing, mixing, extruding, cutting and drying to ensure the uniformity and strength of the bricks, but it is still difficult to work in such a cold environment. After all, the temperature is too low and water will freeze easily, so the speed must be fast.

But after a few days of work, a considerable quantity has been prepared and is just waiting to be fired in the kiln.

Clay contains iron, which is the main source of the color of green bricks and red bricks. Because they are cooled in different ways, the degree of iron oxidation is different and they show different colors.

Green bricks need to be cooled by pouring water in the kiln to prevent the iron in the clay from being completely oxidized, thus appearing green. Red bricks are cooled naturally, and the iron element is completely oxidized, thus appearing red.

Liu Hai didn't know much about blue bricks and red bricks. He had only seen blue bricks in his life. He had also seen brick kilns that burned blue bricks, but the largest brick kiln in the county could only produce two thousand bricks at a time.

How much firewood would be needed for this kiln of 5,000 bricks?

Moreover, there was one thing he didn't quite understand - now was the peak season for firewood shortage, and every household was short of firewood. Using firewood to make charcoal was understandable, after all, it could also keep warm, but making bricks... did it have to be done at this time? Making bricks also required a lot of firewood. With this time, this manpower, and this much firewood, why not do something else? !

But he just muttered to himself and didn't ask Jiang Xiumian.

"Where are the bricks? How dry are they?" Jiang Xiumian climbed out of the kiln and asked Yao Ju.

"My lord, it should be 70% done," Yao Ju replied.

The weather was too cold and the time was too short, so it was almost impossible to dry it completely. Jiang Xiumian said, "It's almost 70% dry, let's put it into the kiln."

"Yes!" Yao Ju took the order and ran to the place where the bricks were drying, and called the laborers: "Move the bricks into the kiln."

It would take a lot of time just to put five thousand bricks into the kiln, so Jiang Xiumian went back to wash his face and hands. He had a lot of minor problems, including social phobia and mysophobia. It was okay when he was working, but when the work was done, he couldn't accept any dirt at all.

The servant Jiang Cheng took care of Jiang Xiumian and Jiang Xiubaiqi.

When Jiang Xiumian came out of the shelter, the bricks had been half loaded. He looked around the brick kiln and felt that something was missing.

"Mr. Mian, this kiln is going to be sealed for firing, right? Without the craftsmen who fire the kiln, can you know what's going on inside the kiln?" Zhang Feng also came over at this time and raised the question. After all, there were very few craftsmen who could fire bricks in the whole Luoshui County, and few people knew how to do it, so the price of blue bricks was shockingly expensive.

If you burn it randomly, it would be a sin!

So he asked out of concern, because Jiang Xiumian looked professional and didn't seem like someone who was unsure.

"Yes!" Jiang Xiumian answered confidently. He finally remembered what was missing from this brick kiln. He went back to the shelter and called Jiang Xiubai, who was lying on the bed with his shoes exposed, "Xiaobai!"

"What's wrong?" Jiang Xiubai was just emptying his mind when he was suddenly slapped. He was startled and sat up with a jerk.

Jiang Xiumian: "Buy me an industrial infrared thermometer."

In ancient times, kiln firing relied on the experience of the kiln workers, and the success rate also depended on the kiln workers' experience and judgment of the conditions inside the kiln. For the same kiln, if someone else worked on it, the success rate might vary greatly.

This is because there is no instrument to help the kiln operator control the temperature.

Whether it is red bricks or green bricks, they must be calcined at high temperature.

Red bricks are usually fired at a temperature of around 900°C, while green bricks are required to be fired at a temperature above 1000°C.

The calcination process is an oxidation process. When the iron in the clay is completely oxidized into ferric oxide, it appears red. After the green bricks are fired and cooled with water, the iron in the clay is incompletely oxidized, so ferrous oxide is formed, which appears green.

This is also the reason why the hardness of blue bricks and red bricks is roughly the same, but the performance of blue bricks is better than that of red bricks in terms of oxidation resistance, water resistance, and atmospheric erosion resistance.

In modern times, the firing process of blue bricks is more complicated, with high energy consumption, small output, high cost, and difficulty in achieving automated and mechanized production. Therefore, the price is usually higher than that of red bricks. The price of blue bricks is usually 2 to 3 times higher than that of red bricks.

In ancient times, blue bricks were even more expensive. Jiang Xiumian has been thinking about whether it is possible to use manpower to simulate mechanized production these days.

I also wrote a plan and, if conditions permit, I will do some experiments to see if it works.

But for now, let’s fire the kiln first.

He looked at Jiang Xiubai, who started searching in the mall when he heard what he said, looking for a better deal, better reviews, and most importantly, a temperature range above 1100c.

After choosing for a long time, Jiang Xiubai was about to suffer from indecision difficulty, but Jiang Xiumian saw the mall and wanted to discuss it with him, but he couldn't do it, so he called out to the system: "Tong? Tongtong?"

The system ignored him at first, but got annoyed and gave him an electric shock, which stunned Jiang Xiu: "What are you doing?!"

"Why would I shock you! Look at what you bought, an industrial infrared thermometer, is this something that should appear in this era? I didn't say anything, I turned a blind eye, but you had to shout at me! Buy it quickly, and get out of here quickly after buying it, don't bother me, otherwise, I will shock you to death!!!"

The electronic sound of the word "you" stretched out again and again. Although Jiang Xiubai had never seen the system's face, he could imagine how hideous it looked now.

Ever since the bug in the "buy chicken" time card, the system has been like dead. It doesn't care what he buys and doesn't listen to anything he says. It is even more indifferent than reading but not replying to a message.

Maybe he had really touched the danger line this time, otherwise the system would continue to turn a blind eye. Jiang Xiubai did not dare to delay at all. Among the dazzling array of goods, he chose a store with high credibility and reasonable prices and placed an order for 100 pieces!

"Jiang Xiubai!!!" the system roared.

Jiang Xiubai was frightened. With his experience with the harvester, he didn't think twice and immediately transferred the thermometer that had just been delivered to the system space to the outside world, completely cutting off contact with the system.

"One hundred! You actually bought one hundred! Give them back! Give them back to me! <*{?]??\\￥\￥\￥\￥\!!"

A series of harsh silences, Jiang Xiubai couldn't imagine how dirty its curses were!

"I'm sorry, we really need so many here! Can you please be more considerate?" Jiang Xiubai coaxed her like a child.

"I don't understand your understanding! If I understand you, who will understand me? Jiang Xiubai, I will electrocute you to death!"

As soon as the system finished speaking, Jiang Xiubai only had time to look at Jiang Xiumian with horror, without even having time to say "save me". What a mistake. It had been too long since he had been electrocuted, and he even forgot to discuss with Brother Mian to see if there was any way to avoid being electrocuted.

But now——

Jiang Xiumian watched Jiang Xiubai suffer from epilepsy, with his mouth crooked, fingers stretched straight, and his whole body lying on the ground shaking.

This scene is so distant and yet familiar.

Jiang Xiumian didn't dare to touch him and could only close the door of their small room. If someone came in and saw Jiang Xiubai like this, he wouldn't know how to explain it.

Three minutes, a full three minutes, Jiang Xiubai collapsed to the ground powerlessly.

“You… a dead system! I… who are you, I… you are just a dog system, what do you mean I am! Wuuwuwu——it hurts so much!”