Large Excavator

This time, the revenge and annexation went smoothly, but besides people, Luo Chong didn't gain anything else.

Before Luo Chong became the leader, the Han Tribe was very poor, so poor it was practically bleeding. Baldy's tribe naturally wasn't much better. Besides people, all they had left were some dried meat and fruit. They didn't have any hides in storage, not even a bag of salt, and their Pottery was exchanged from the Han Tribe. They were incredibly poor.

After returning to the Han Tribe, the integration of the new people also went smoothly. Having the population that the Han Tribe had previously traded from Baldy as a foundation helped, as they were all relatives.

Although the situation in the Han Tribe wasn't as Luo Chong described, with everyone having a Pottery Pot, there were still plenty of Pottery Bowls. After all, they didn't need that many pots; a few people could share one. The food reserves were indeed abundant, and with the spoils from this time, there was no problem feeding 200 people for an entire winter.

It was just that the cave's capacity had reached its limit; it was quite crowded. However, being squeezed together made it warmer, and with winter approaching, no one said anything.

What surprised these people even more was that the Han Tribe actually raised wild beasts, especially giant creatures like Rou Rou and Hui Shan. This gave them a new understanding of the Han Tribe's strength. But now they were also very proud; they had become members of the Han Tribe.

The women had been making ropes these past few days, and one team was sent out to continue gathering nuts and fruits. It was estimated that these things would be consumed in large quantities in the future. After all, eating meat every day could get tiresome. Of course, only Luo Chong thought this way; the other tribesmen couldn't wait to eat meat every day.

The men continued felling trees. The trunks were saved for building materials, and the branches were used for firewood. Charcoal was no longer being burned; the current charcoal reserves were enough to smelt all the ore Luo Chong brought back. Now, the firewood was being saved for firing kilns.

Less than 1000 jin of ore was brought back in total. It would be good if they could smelt five or six hundred jin of copper and tin combined. With four small earth furnaces firing simultaneously, they could only produce about thirty to forty jin a day. At this rate, it would take another half a month to use up all the ore. The smelted copper and tin were all cast into gold and silver plates for storage.

Luo Chong hadn't been idle these past few days either. He made the necessary woodworking tools one by one, and then cast 50 shovels – no, Bronze Shovels – although the shape was based on modern shovels. Forty of them had round heads, convenient for digging, and the other ten had flat heads, which were very convenient for mixing mud. Each shovel head used less than two jin of material, and two days' worth of Bronze production was enough.

With digging tools available, Luo Chong's first phase of the artificial river project had to begin. The work of transforming the paddy fields was urgent; after all, time waits for no one, and delaying next year's spring planting would be bad.

Since it was an engineering project, the site needed to be surveyed first.

Using an extra-long hemp rope woven by the women as a ruler, Luo Chong first measured out the location for the city north of the cave. Then, he buried a log at each of the four corners of the city site as markers to find the best river channel location.

The river channel location was also marked by inserting wooden stakes. Then came building the brick kilns. As soon as the river digging project started, a large amount of soil would be produced, so Luo Chong planned to dig the river and make brick blanks simultaneously. The brick kiln site was chosen by the small river.

Building the brick kiln by the river had a specific purpose: it was a kiln built for firing Blue Bricks.

In modern society, buildings are mostly constructed with cement bricks and hollow bricks. Blue Bricks have been listed as a prohibited item for firing. Later, even ordinary Red Bricks were banned. This is because firing Blue and Red Bricks requires clay, especially the soil in paddy fields that has been covered by water for a long time, which is the best. This also led to some private small kilns destroying farmland on a large scale to get soil for firing bricks, which is why the ban on clay eventually came about.

Although Blue Bricks and Red Bricks are made from the same material, their effects are worlds apart. Modern Red Bricks have very poor aging resistance. The bricks of old houses that are decades old are brittle; you can pick off a piece with your finger.

This is because Red Bricks are light, have low density, and have very low resistance to oxidation and atmospheric corrosion. Therefore, to protect houses and extend their lifespan, people with means would apply a layer of cement as a protective layer on the brick walls, or even stick on a layer of tiles, to prevent Red Bricks from being directly exposed to the air and subjected to wind and rain.

Blue Bricks are different. Most ancient buildings that have been preserved to the present day were built with Blue Bricks. Even without a protective layer, Blue Bricks directly exposed to the air can remain intact for thousands of years. The aging resistance of Blue Bricks is evident.

The biggest difference between Blue Bricks and Red Bricks is not the material, but the difference in process.

Clay contains a high amount of iron. When made into brick blanks and fired at high temperatures, after natural cooling, the iron in the brick blanks turns into iron oxide, and thus the bricks become red, becoming Red Bricks.

Using the same clay to make brick blanks, after firing at high temperatures, do not wait for it to cool naturally. Instead, when the temperature in the kiln is highest, pour water into the kiln. The red-hot brick blanks in the kiln, combining with water and fire, produce a large amount of steam, which squeezes out all the air.

At this point, seal the kiln, keeping standing water and a sealed, oxygen-deficient environment with steam inside. The iron in the brick blanks will turn into ferrous oxide as it cools, and thus the brick blanks become Blue Bricks.

Generally speaking, the process for Blue and Red Bricks is that one is air-cooled and the other is water-cooled. Only the final cooling step is different; everything else is the same.

However, the density of Blue Bricks is much higher than that of Red Bricks. For the same volume, Blue Bricks are much heavier than Red Bricks and are correspondingly more solid. Although they are not as solid as Granite, they are not much weaker than Flint. This is why Luo Chong chose to make Blue Bricks, and it's also why he had to build the brick kiln by the river, because it's easy to pour water.

Lame had fired a lot of Red Bricks a while ago, and these bricks were perfect for building the kiln. The brick kiln was by the small river, cylindrical, gradually tapering, with an arched top and a smoke outlet left at the top, which wasn't very big, making it easy to seal.

The brick kiln was a semi-subterranean structure, with most of it underground and only a small part above ground. The entire brick kiln used all the labor of the tribe and took five days to complete, with more than half the time spent just digging the pit.

It took some more time to saw the logs into boards and make some brick molds, only then was the preparation work complete.

The Giant Plow that Luo Chong had spent several days building finally made its appearance. A wooden frame two meters wide, with four Bronze Giant Plows installed underneath. As long as this thing was pulled, it could turn over land two meters wide at a time, with a turning depth of up to 40 centimeters.

This kind of thing was certainly not used for plowing fields, but specifically for digging rivers. As for the power to start this thing, of course, it was Rou Rou and Hui Shan. These two guys had been eating for so long for free; they had to be given some work to do.

Two Giant Plows were side by side, with Rou Rou and Hui Shan in front, pulling the Giant Plows forward together. They directly turned over the entire four-meter-wide river channel behind them. In less than an hour, the two guys had loosened the entire 700-meter-long river channel to a depth of 40 centimeters.

Luo Chong was ecstatic. At this speed, perhaps his city building plan wouldn't take three years. If these two guys plowed the ground once a day for 10 days, it would be 4 meters deep. This was simply an Excavator, and it only ate grass and didn't need to burn oil.

On New Year's Eve, at this time of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, Qing Shu is very fortunate to spend it with all of you readers, and also very grateful to those readers who have always supported this book. Thank you for your support, and I wish everyone a new year where you can become stronger and stronger like the Han Tribe, live better and better lives, and be invincible in all industries like Luo Chong.

It's New Year's. Qing Shu has no gifts to give everyone, only a ten-thousand-word update to offer. By the way, I'd like to ask for some good luck from all of you readers. Today, Qing Shu is not asking for rewards, only for red envelopes. If you want to support this book, please send the Starting Point coins for the reward directly as recommendation ticket red envelopes to help the book's performance grow. Thank you everyone.