Opening the Bronze Age

Rome wasn't built in a day, and while the scale of Luo Chong's planned construction couldn't compare to even the Colosseum, he knew he had to take it one step at a time.

He slept soundly all night, and the next morning, as soon as the sky began to brighten, Luo Chong resumed his daily morning exercises. With the acquisition of sufficient salt and food, his physical training became even more rigorous.

After the incident with the Cannibal Tribe, Luo Chong had a full understanding of this world. Not only were there threats from wild beasts, but the threat from humans was also not to be overlooked.

Although there wasn't large-scale warfare here, small, localized conflicts were unavoidable. This wasn't about ambition; it was simply about survival and self-preservation.

Given the current state of the Han Tribe, Luo Chong couldn't put any of his ideas into practice, even if he had them.

After morning exercises, the tribesmen all came out. There was a lot to do today, requiring many things, and the manpower was a bit short. So, Luo Chong completely stopped the food gathering work.

After the tribesmen had breakfast, they all gathered at the cave entrance, waiting for Luo Chong to assign tasks.

Lame was assigned to fire pottery today. The children continued to cut grass, and they were instructed to bundle it according to Luo Chong's demonstration, making it easier to store and transport.

Big Mouth, Monkey, Big Fur, and Second Fur, the four of them, went to the back mountain to cut down all the Man-eating Tree saplings suitable for making spears.

The women were divided into two teams. The larger team went to the valley Luo Chong had visited before to collect Sisal, the giant aloe-like plants. They were to cut at least 100 leaves from each plant. Luo Chong wasn't worried at all; the plants would grow new leaves next year.

However, the expected amount of Sisal to be collected was large, so Luo Chong also had Wooden Porpoise lead six Blue Antelopes, carrying several large baskets, to be responsible for transportation.

Another smaller gathering team also went into the jungle, but their task was to strip bark – the bark of the White Ash Tree.

The White Ash Tree is named because it attracts White Wax Insects. The White Wax Insects feed on the sap of the White Ash Tree and then excrete a white secretion that remains on the bark, which is white insect wax. This was the main ingredient ancient people used to make candles, which is why the Chinese characters for 'candle' both contain the radical for 'insect'.

Modern candles use paraffin wax, refined from petroleum. In ancient times, there was no such thing; besides beeswax, there was only insect wax.

Luo Chong didn't have them collect insect wax to make candles, but to use it to make molds for casting bronze.

The remaining men were all assigned the heavy labor of cutting down trees by Luo Chong. They didn't have Baldy Qiang's chainsaw, so cutting trees with Stone Axes was indeed hard labor.

First, they cut down trees about the thickness of a leg. The trunks were saved for building livestock pens, and all the branches were split into firewood. Luo Chong needed a large amount of charcoal for smelting copper. Therefore, a large reserve of firewood was necessary. Once the copper smelting was on track, they would only lack charcoal and definitely wouldn't have too much firewood.

The felled trees were pulled back by the Blue Antelopes. If they couldn't pull them, they would ask the Dinophant babies for help. They couldn't just eat for free.

The tribesmen didn't understand this. They thought they should be storing food in the fall. But Luo Chong told them that the amount of food stored now would be more than enough to last until spring of next year, especially the fish. Although 100 people wouldn't make a river's fish go extinct, even if it wasn't that severe, it would still take one or two months for the fish population to recover to its current size.

It was important to know that many of the fish caught during this time had roe in their bellies. These fish eggs were caught before they turned into small fish, and the future number of fish in this small river would be affected to some extent. So, it was better to let those fish rest and recuperate first.

After all the tribesmen went out to work, Luo Chong was also busy working himself. He was busier than anyone else.

First, he made charcoal. He built several large piles of firewood, covered them with mud on the outside, leaving a few air holes at the top and bottom. He lit the firewood through the holes at the top. When the fire burned down to the bottom holes, he sealed all the holes, allowing the firewood to smolder inside in a lack of oxygen. After it naturally extinguished and cooled, it would turn into charcoal.

Then, he ground the Kaolin Clay and Ant Nest Clay he brought back, mixed them evenly, and formed a clay paste. He molded several Crucibles and spoons to purify and make alloys.

Next, he used the mixed refractory clay to make molds. The mold looked like a flat plate with rows of small indentations on it. Each indentation was the same size, so he could cast copper and tin plates that looked like chocolate bars.

When needed, he could adjust the copper-tin ratio as desired to make tools for different purposes, breaking off as much as needed like breaking off chocolate.

Bronze alloy was widely used even before recorded history. Its low melting point and ease of casting made it the earliest metal mastered by humans, dating back to the Xia-Shang Period. It was widely used for weapons, agricultural tools, tools, cooking utensils, musical instruments, and ritual vessels. Its peak development was in the Late Qin-Early Han Period and it was only largely phased out after the Han Dynasty developed mature Hundred Refined Steel technology.

Bronze is a copper-tin alloy. Sometimes lead is added, but Luo Chong didn't add that stuff. Firstly, he didn't have it, and secondly, lead is also toxic. It would be fine for tools, but not for cooking utensils.

Bronze made with different copper-tin ratios has vastly different effects. However, Luo Chong didn't need to experiment with this. Ancient people had already perfected bronze thousands of years ago, with some techniques that even modern technology cannot surpass.

Different uses required different ratios: for casting bells and tripods, the copper-tin ratio was 6:1; for casting axes or hammers, the ratio was 5:1; for casting ge (a type of dagger-axe) and halberds, the copper-tin ratio was 4:1; for bronze swords, the ratio was 3:1; for arrowheads, the ratio was 5:2; and for bronze mirrors, the ratio was 1:1.

In summary, the higher the copper content, the softer the bronze, the more resistant to impact, and the yellower its color. This is why ancient poetry mentions "golden ge and iron horses," because bronze was golden, and ancient people also called it "gold."

Sometimes, in ancient times, when emperors rewarded officials, they would casually bestow ten thousand taels of "gold," which was actually bronze.

The higher the tin content, the harder the bronze and the lighter its color, even appearing white. However, this type of bronze was also more brittle. If subjected to a heavy blow or if two bronze swords clashed, they would shatter directly.

Therefore, bronze was never used to make knives. It was only used for stabbing weapons like spears, lances, swords, halberds, and ge. They could only be used for thrusting, not chopping, as they would break if chopped. So, scenes in movies where people are fighting with bronze swords are pure nonsense.

It was precisely this fatal flaw that led to bronze weapons being completely replaced by steel weapons.

With charcoal and molds ready, Luo Chong began to build a smelting furnace. He mixed ordinary clay with some pottery shards or brick dust, and also some chopped grass, forming a clay mixture. He built a cylindrical earth furnace with a diameter of over 40 centimeters. Although it wasn't great, he could make do for now. After all, it wasn't large-scale smelting, so there was no need to build a blast furnace.

Luo Chong built four such furnaces so they could all be fired at the same time, saving a lot of time.

Since there were no metal tools at the moment, he couldn't make wooden push-pull bellows. He could only use python skins to make a few simple press-type leather bellows. He would make do with what he had for now and upgrade the equipment later when he had tools.

Luo Chong tried out the bellows under the Pottery Kiln, and the effect was quite good.

Lame didn't know what Luo Chong was doing, but just looking at the molds and bellows, he felt that this was something more advanced than firing pottery. He was also quite looking forward to what new things the Chieftain would come up with this time.

With Luo Chong's preparation work completed, the world's first set of most primitive smelting equipment was also finished. All that was left was to wait for the charcoal to be ready tomorrow and the furnaces to dry before starting work.

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