Chapter 28: Creeping Progress (Part 3)
On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the total number of people cursing outside increased slightly. Seeing Huo Chong's unyielding attitude, several locals chose to withdraw. However, a few people from other villages joined the cursing team.
Huo Chong was no longer surprised. At this moment, he inserted a short red-hot iron rod into the hole he had finally punched in the pliers part on a very uneven anvil, and began to hit it with a hammer.
The two sections of the red-hot iron column gradually deformed and flattened. The two thin sheets gradually formed became the fixed ends, so that the two teeth of the pliers would not fall off.
When the iron pillar was no longer red, Huo Chong dipped the large pliers into the water, which made a squeaking sound. After a while, Huo Chong took out the pliers. The pliers were no longer hot, and Huo Chong did not feel any heat when he used the pliers to pick up a red-hot coal from the furnace. The larger part of the tool set was finally completed.
Huo Chong was just feeling happy when he heard someone outside scolding him, "Huo Chong, you have money to give to your people, but you don't have money to pay us back?"
Hearing the sour tone in those people's voices, Huo Chong couldn't help but laugh out loud. It seemed that the news that Huo Chong's fellow apprentices took the money home had spread.
Finance is an industry that relies on confidence. In the early years, financial platforms relied on various publicity and profit-making methods to build investors' confidence in the platform. Giving out high bonuses was a common practice. In the past two years, this method has not only failed to achieve the normal effect, but has also made people suspicious.
However, in 1717, this method really worked. Huo Chong did not do this to let others know, but to reassure his fellow apprentices. However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, letting everyone know that Huo Chong still had money.
It seems that similar methods will need to be used more in the future. Even those methods that are abandoned as the times change are the result of a large amount of experience.
With the large iron tongs, Huo Chong could finally make a mattock out of iron. This is a one-handed digging tool, which cannot be compared with the two-handed steel pickaxe, but is much more useful than wooden tools.
Huo Chong worked until the afternoon, and finally he made two iron parts of the mattock that looked correct. After a quick meal, Huo Chong took the third child and went straight to Li Tongshan's house.
In the 21st century, if Huo Chong went to meet someone at mealtime, most of the people who were harassed would know that Huo Chong must have something to do. In this era of no shortage of food, people care about their mood rather than the meal. But in 1717, as long as you went around mealtime, you would be considered a freeloader even if you didn't want to eat for free.
Huo Chong hurried and finally arrived before the meal. Li Tongshan looked unhappy when he saw Huo Chong coming. But he did not reject Huo Chong and invited him to the workshop.
"Brother Li, I want you to help me burn something. The drawings are all ready." After saying that, Huo Chong took out a piece of paper with a picture of a glazed windshield.
Li Tongshan was quite knowledgeable. After watching for a while, he asked, "Brother Huo, what did you use to draw this?"
Huo Chong did not tell Li Tongshan that this was a charcoal sketch, and replied: "Just draw a few strokes, as long as it is clear."
Li Tongshan did not ask further, "Brother Huo, I can't help you make things."
"Brother Li always comes over here. I know his difficulties. This time I came to ask. Since Brother Li can't help, I can only ask Brother Li, can you give me some of the bad ingredients?"
"What are you going to do?" Li Tongshan became a little alert.
"Let's go back and polish it. Since Brother Li won't help me burn it, I can only use the clumsy method myself."
Li Tongshan's expression was uncertain , but in the end he still gave Huo Chong some cooked colored glaze.
When the colored glaze is made into a product, it is called "material". After bringing back a few pieces of material, Huo Chong knocked on the iron pot for melting the material and prepared the furnace for burning the material.
The bottom of this furnace is no different from a furnace, but there is a kiln on the top, so that the pot can be kept as warm as possible.
The next morning, Huo Chong lit the last bit of coal . After working until noon, he finally made a very irregular glass tube.
On the morning of May 7, before daybreak, Huo Chong took the miner's lamp, candle, and mattock, and headed straight for the coal mine with Lao Si and Qian Qing.
After entering the mine, Huo Chong lit a candle and put it into the mining lamp. The dark mine became bright. The mine was not high, and the deeper you went, the more you had to bend down. Huo Chong finally saw a coal seam.
Coal is not a complete huge block. According to 21st century theory, coal seams are formed by plant sedimentation, so you can think of coal seams as a layer cake. Each time the mineral composition is different, one of the layers is coal. The so-called high-quality coal seam is a layer cake composed of coal that is extremely thick and continuous.
This layer of coal was only about 20 centimeters thick, and was considered very garbage. But garbage was better than nothing, so the three brothers and sisters sat on the small stools they brought with them and began to dig the coal with mattocks.
No matter how Huo Chong and the others moved, the candle flame was not particularly affected. It continued to emit a steady light.
After digging up several large piles of coal and coal gangue mixed with coal, Huo Chong raised his wrist and saw on his watch that it started at eight o'clock, but it was only twelve o'clock now.
The coal was transported to the wheelbarrow in two batches. At four o'clock in the afternoon, Huo Chong led the two of them straight home. The sun was setting, and Huo Chong was inevitably a little anxious. If he continued to work this way, what could he accomplish in the next two months?
Thinking of this, Huo Chong felt some resentment towards Li Tongshan. After all, this guy... Never mind, the cooperation between Li Tongshan and himself was just the result of his own trickery, so he couldn't blame him.
However, Huo Chong made up his mind. Since Li Tongshan was not good enough, he had no reason to be so polite to him. Li Tongshan was not the only one who could make colored glaze. It was just that the raw materials were limited. Huo Chong's colored glaze might not be worse than Li Tongshan's. With coal, he could give it a try.
In the next few days, Huo Chong found that he had overestimated himself. The basic materials of colored glaze are indeed not difficult to understand, but quartz sand, borax, boric acid, barite, barium carbonate, limestone, feldspar, and soda ash. The composition of glass is Na2SiO3, CaSiO3, SiO2 or Na2O·CaO·6SiO2.
But what a junior high school student knows, Huo Chong may not be able to do. The laboratory can directly use raw materials obtained from outside, but Huo Chong has to face a very realistic problem. Mineral prospecting has never been Huo Chong's specialty, and Huo Chong does not know how to prospect.
Even if he could recite the first 100 elements of the periodic table, Huo Chong still didn't know where to find these materials. It seemed that he had no choice but to continue to cooperate with the professional Li Tongshan.
But this kind of cooperation is obviously not going to work. If those stumbling blocks cannot be resolved, Li Tongshan will never sacrifice himself for Huo Chong.
After thinking it over all night, Huo Chong had no choice but to continue going up the mountain to try his luck.
