Chapter 25: Stabilizing the Basics (V)
It was getting dark, and Huo Chong knocked on the door. There was the sound of footsteps, and Tie Niu ran to open the door. When he saw Huo Chong, he immediately shouted happily: "Big Brother, you are back. You said you were going back to find something..."
At this point, Tie Niu looked at the girl standing behind Huo Chong. Huo Chong smiled and said, "I found something, but I didn't expect to meet my cousin who came to seek refuge with me. Tie Niu, this is my cousin Qian Qing."
After that, he said to Qian Qing: "Cousin, this is my third junior brother."
Tie Niu was stunned and didn't know what to say. Qian Qing stepped forward and greeted Tie Niu: "Third Senior Brother."
"What are you standing there for? Come inside." Huo Chong said to the confused Tie Niu.
The brothers were very curious about the new person in the house. However, the knowledge of these guys was not much different from that of ordinary villagers. Although they were curious, they all thought of asking Qian Qing how he could meet Huo Chong by chance.
Huo Chong didn't want these guys to ask too many questions, so after introducing each other, he walked to the duty board. Today was April 24th, and the junior brothers had already hung the small wooden signs with their names on them in the back according to the date.
"From now on, Qian Qing is the seventh junior sister, and she will follow the shifts with everyone else." After saying that, Huo Chong took out a pen and ink, wrote Qian Qing's name and hung it on the sign.
After arranging a room for Qian Qing, Huo Chong took a short iron skewer and a piece of cloth to Qian Qing's room while his fellow apprentices were still busy preparing dinner. When Qian Qing saw Huo Chong coming in, he took a few steps back and almost stood against the wall. Huo Chong handed the short iron skewer and the cloth to Qian Qing, "You can't use that kind of knife now. Wrap one end of the knife with cloth to make a handle and make it into a self-defense weapon . When we can fight with weapons in the future, we will make a special weapon for you."
Qian Qing didn't take it, feeling a little bit unbelieving. Huo Chong spread out his palm, holding the iron stick and the cloth strip. Qian Qing looked at Huo Chong twice more, then quickly took the object from Huo Chong's palm. Seeing Qian Qing was somewhat relieved, Huo Chong turned around and left. When he reached the door, he heard Qian Qing ask, "Aren't you afraid of the government?"
"The government doesn't know where you have escaped to. As long as you don't talk nonsense on your own, you will be safe here." After saying that, Huo Chong walked out without looking back.
The next morning, Huo Chong woke everyone up on time. Regardless of Qian Qing's panic, Huo Chong first taught his fellow apprentices to line up, and then began to learn to count.
Counting was relatively easy, and after practicing ten times, everyone could count correctly based on their memory. Huo Chong asked everyone to sit down and began to teach them to recite the multiplication table.
The difficulty of multiplying numbers is relatively low, and Qian Qing learned it the fastest. Huo Chong took the lead and recited it ten times, his mouth was dry. He called Qian Qing over and said, "You lead everyone to recite it."
Qian Qing was stunned, and so were his fellow apprentices. Huo Chong's face darkened, "I want you to memorize the multiplication table, do you want to learn it? If you don't want to learn it, tell me!"
None of the fellow apprentices dared to say anything. Huo Chong turned to Qian Qing again and said, "I want you to lead your fellow apprentices in reciting the multiplication table. Don't you want to recite it?"
Qian Qing lowered his head, then raised it again after a moment, "Big Brother, I think..."
"When your fellow brothers have learned it, I won't let you lead them in reciting the multiplication table!" After saying that, Huo Chong loudly asked his fellow brothers, "Anyone who doesn't want to listen to me? Stand up!"
There was a silence at the scene. Seeing that these guys had calmed down, Huo Chong said to Qian Qing again: "Start from one plus one, and count to nine plus nine! Start counting!"
Qian Qing didn't dare to hesitate any longer and could only recite: "One plus one equals one."
The voice was not loud, and the fellow apprentices stared at each other, no one followed. Huo Chong shouted: "Seventh apprentice sister, read louder! Louder , so that everyone can hear."
"One equals one." Although Qian Qing looked very uncomfortable, he still read out loud according to Huo Chong's order.
Only the sixth junior brother started to recite, while the others did not move. Huo Chong glared at the third and fourth junior brothers, "Are you guys disobeying me?"
Tieniu and Xiushan did not dare to disobey and could only mutter along in a low voice.
Seeing that these guys were barely on track in their studies, Huo Chong began to prepare for the next work.
After breakfast, Huo Chong and everyone else tried to make potatoes sprout. They cut the potatoes into pieces according to the buds and half buried them in the ground. They emphasized several times that these sprouted potatoes must not be eaten. Huo Chong asked those who stayed to work according to the duty roster. He took Tie Niu to Zhu Erniu's winemaking workshop.
Zhu Erniu had never used potatoes to make wine before. When he entered the yard, he saw a pile of potatoes piled up in the yard. Zhu Erniu was thinking about something. Huo Chong smiled and said, "Second brother, don't think about it. Just do it."
"Will it work?" Zhu Erniu was very unsure.
"If it doesn't work once, try another method." Huo Chong said straightforwardly. Without waiting for Zhu Erniu to hesitate, Huo Chong said to Tieniu: "Tieniu, fetch some water, wash these ground beans, and peel them."
With Huo Chong taking the lead, Zhu Erniu did not stand idly by. Several people started working together. While peeling potatoes, Huo Chong asked, "Second brother, your family also burns coal. Where did you dig the coal from?"
"There are coal mines in the mountains. I'm going to dig at the coal mines."
Huo Chong was very happy to find that he didn't have to pay for digging coal. He said quickly, "Take me with you to dig some too."
After peeling the potatoes, Zhu Erniu finally looked at the pile of potato peels and sighed, "These can't be used, right?"
Huo Chong quickly warned: "This can't be used."
"We can use grains directly to make wine, but we can only use the cores of these beans, which is too troublesome." Zhu Erniu still felt it was a bit of a waste.
Huo Chong's mind moved, and he thought of something else. But Huo Chong didn't say much, just cut the potatoes into small pieces. This potato was not the kind that was optimized and steamed to be soft and sweet. The hard potatoes were a bit brittle and a bit difficult to cut.
Seeing the potatoes piled up like a mountain, Zhu Erniu felt a little uneasy, "Brother Huo, what if the wine goes bad..."
"Let's brew 100 kilograms this time. If it goes bad, we'll try another method." Huo Chong tried his best to comfort Zhu Erniu.
Put potatoes in the wine trough and add wine yeast. All these tasks were left to Zhu Erniu. Huo Chong only agreed to go to dig coal the next day.
On the way back, Huo Chong walked very fast. Tie Niu shouted from behind Huo Chong: "Big Brother, walk slower."
Huo Chong slowed down his pace. Tie Niu, who had caught up with him, complained, "Big Brother, you always walk as fast as flying. Why are you so impatient?"
"I'm anxious to find coal. If we find coal, we can do more..." Huo Chong explained. However, the third apprentice brother Tie Niu walked away with a pout, not caring about what Huo Chong cared about.
Huo Chong was very unhappy and stopped talking. After walking for a while, Huo Chong suddenly understood why Li Tieniu was so unhappy, so he said, "Third brother, start practicing martial arts with me tomorrow. When you are good at it, you will be able to walk faster than me."
Tie Niu immediately became excited, and said with anticipation and anxiety: "Big Brother, can I learn it?"
"Why can't I learn? Haha." Huo Chong laughed.
Tie Niu straightened his back and his unhappiness disappeared. Huo Chong deliberately slowed down his pace, and the two brothers happily walked home side by side.
Huo Chong's thoughts jumped back to the previous thoughts. After just over a month back in this era, Huo Chong felt that he really understood a lot of theories, one of which was that the foundation of modern industry was nothing more than fuel and materials. Without the explosive growth of coal and iron production capacity and production technology, the Industrial Revolution would not have been possible.
Most of the tools at home were made of wood, which was not as good as the solitary characters in the doomsday survival game. Those characters could at least build a furnace and make a crude pickaxe. If he could dig up coal, Huo Chong decided to imitate the game and make a furnace with clay and gravel, and beat the iron he got into coal mining tools.
The next day, Huo Chong finished teaching and told Qian Qing, "Take care of the fourth and sixth brothers to memorize the lessons, and I'll take the third brother to dig coal."
"Let's go too." The fourth and sixth brothers started arguing.
"You are so tired, what are you going to do?"
The fourth and sixth brothers, who had no idea what coal mining was all about, shouted, "Big Brother, we'll help you carry your stuff."
Seeing how excited these two brats were, Huo Chong thought he could take them with him. He said to Tie Niu, "Old Three, you stay at home. Dig some clay."
"Big Brother, aren't you going to teach me martial arts?" Tie Niu did not forget Huo Chong's promise.
"I'll start once we dig up the coal." Huo Chong could only comfort Tie Niu.
With two fellow apprentices, he joined Zhu Erniu and set off into the mountains. After walking a long way, they came to the bottom of a slope. Zhu Erniu stopped in front of a cave entrance and lit a torch. Everyone followed Zhu Erniu in with torches in hand.
Without even thinking about it, the mining lamp in the survival game came to Huo Chong's mind in the dark mine. Without thinking too much, Huo Chong already understood why many things that he had only heard of before were made in that way. He even understood the very professional term "destructive surface mining".
The mine was dark, and it was impossible to see clearly with just the dim light of the torch. And torches themselves could not last for long.
Under the light of the fire, the walls on both sides of the dug-out mine reflected different shapes because of the materials. Not long after walking a short distance, Zhu Erniu, who had been here many times, exclaimed "Huh".
Huo Chong had a bad feeling in his heart. Sure enough, the mine was not deep. Zhu Erniu had already walked to the bottom and used a torch to light it for a while. Zhu Erniu cursed: "Fuck him. Someone has come to dig!"
Huo Chong leaned over to take a look, but because he had no experience, he couldn't see anything. Before Huo Chong could ask, Zhu Erniu continued to curse: "Someone has dug up all the coal."
Under the light of the fire, Huo Chong could indeed vaguely see some black objects reflecting light. Coal would indeed look like this on the cross section before it was crushed. However, the reflective surface was very small, so it must have been dug away by someone.
"Second brother, what should we do?" Huo Chong asked.
Zhu Erniu then said angrily to the unknown person who got there first, "Change the coal hole. But we have to take a long detour."
