Chu Qing couldn't answer when he looked at the pythons.

Gan Lai naturally looked at Chu Qing: "How can it be that fast! Iron smelting is not fried eggs!"

Everyone is happy tonight. Although the meal is very late, everyone is not in vain. Snake meat is delicious!

Chu Qing made another mud cup bigger than a man's hand and threw it on Chu Yuan and his team to bake it.

Li Hu didn't say Chu Qing was cheating.

Before going to bed, Chu Qing blocked the air outlet of the kiln with mud, and then asked Li Hu: "One day I have no money, can I cut off firewood and burn charcoal to sell, can you do it?"

Li Hu: "I will buy herbs and sell snakes, and I will earn more than you!"

Chu Qing: "..."

The next day, Chu Qing smashed open the Nibayao furnace, and the branches inside had turned into black charcoal, and the quality was very good.

Now, even Shui Maomao began to praise: "What else do you know?"

Chu Qing: "I can't fly!"

Chu Qing called Shui Maomao and the others' light skills "Fly".

With charcoal, Chu Qing threw the iron ore into the "water tank" of the mud "toilet".

The iron smelting furnace and the blower are connected together, and it really looks like a toilet. Chu Qing even felt the smell.

Chu Yuan and Gan Lai took turns to help Chu Qing blow the wind, while Chu Qing kept filling the fire with charcoal.

One and a half hours later, Chu Qing used a branch to pick up a few iron lumps from it. The amount of these iron lumps was half less than that of yesterday's iron ore. It seems that the iron content in the iron ore reached at least half.

"It's better than the iron ore in Jizhou!" Chu Qing was very happy.

These iron lumps were put into the mud cups burned last night. At this time, the mud cup had turned into a pottery cup, and Shui Maomao praised: "Your cup is more thorough than the pottery in the homes of those mountain people!"

This cup is used as a crucible, and the iron lumps are put in, and then they are put into the furnace together, and then a new round of blowing and adding charcoal.

In order to save some effort and hands for blowing, Chu Qing still rubbed some ropes, stuck them on the upper end of the rotary handle, and then installed a stone at the lower end of the rotary handle to make a lump.

Tie both ends of the rope to another nudge stick as a pressing rod, so that you can turn it with your hands and turn it into pressing the crossbar.

This is the easiest way to make a digging.

Otherwise, no matter how thick the palm calluses are, they will have to be worn out and the flesh will be rotten.

This change made Chu Yuanda feel relieved: "I can hold on again!"

Chu Qing was not idle either. While continuing to burn charcoal, he went to dig out river mud and took out the mud with Chu Xinghai to make a solid mud.

Chu Xinghai usually plays by himself, and his parents don’t care about him. As long as he doesn’t run out of his sight, it’s his aunt who is leading him to play, making the child happy.

Chu Qing taught him to use stone pieces to draw out what he wanted on the mud, Chu Xinghai drew a dagger and a starfish, and Chu Qing drew a hatchet.

Chu Qing processed the patterns on the three clay pieces and turned into shaped shallow pits, which is considered a mold.

When it is necessary to increase the temperature of the furnace, they are always willing to help blow the air. The power of Hercules shortens the process of melting the iron lump into iron.

After three hours, all the iron lumps melted into iron. Chu Qing found a stick and split the front end, making it a big clip, and clamped the crucible out.

Pour the orange-red molten iron into the mud mold, a dagger, a starfish, and a hatchet were cast out.

As the temperature drops, the orange-red iron solidifies and turns red. Chu Qing scoops the river water to cool it.

Until it cools down completely, three handfuls of black and rough semi-finished products are ready.

Chu Xinghai was very disappointed: "It's so ugly!"

Chu Qing was so tired that Chu Yuan and Gan Lai were so tired that they couldn't lift their arms. Chu Qing handed over the three and half-finished products to Li Hu: "Take them to grind!"

There were stones by the river, Li Hu, Shui Maomao and Shui Damao helped grind them.

After polishing, the metallic luster of the iron looks much better when exposed.

Shui Damao patiently grind the iron starfish into brightness, and Li Hu and Shui Maomao also sharpened the sharp edges of the dagger and hatchet.

Although adding carbon and iron is very boring and time-consuming, it is this kind of repetitive mechanical work that makes Chu Qing think about things the most easily.

But now I am idle and don’t move, but my ears are filled with the sound of sharpening my knife, which has interrupted Chu Qing’s thinking.

But there is also a general idea.

"I said brothers," Chu Qing said, "Our people are going to be scattered. A few people are left on the sweet potato field, and some people are going up the mountain. These two people are responsible for farming, and the rest are all workers!"

Li Hu asked: "Worker? What kind of work do?"

Chu Qing: "Is your senior brother still willing to continue building ships?"

Li Hu: "He likes to build ships, but he doesn't want to be watched by others like before, and build ships like a prisoner. If he makes the same thing, he won't want to."

Chu Qing nodded: "This is easy to deal with; some of the workers I mentioned are miners, some of them are boatmen; and some of them are going to help me build cannons and guns."

Li Hu frowned and said that food was a big deal. According to Chu Qing, people were divided into five parts at once, and only two parts of people were farming.

And it sounds like there are not many people in these two parts, which is inappropriate.

Li Hu said: "Food is the greatest guarantee. If you share this, isn't there too few people farming?"

Shui Maomao also said: "There are not enough people who grow grain."

Chu Qing calculated by his fingers: "It is inevitable that the mountain people will cooperate with us in terraced fields. Although most of them are hesitating, as long as there is a village that agrees, they will agree soon;

Their women are all very capable and can stand up to a male laborer in farming, so mountain people can reach 15,000 laborers to farm;

We also have ten thousand people, and these are enough."

Chu Qing walked around the island and actually counted nearly 20,000 people, not 10,000 people reported by the boys at the beginning.

This error may be caused by language barriers with the mountain people, or it may be caused by the boys who did not visit as carefully as Chu Qing at that time.

Men and women of mountain people are equal in their labor status. Young girls do not have to stay in the house like Daxuan’s unmarried women, do laundry, cook, feed pigs and chickens, and can still show up in public.

Especially in terms of pottery making, women are the only workers who master pottery making skills, and they contract almost all of them from production to sales.

Moreover, due to insufficient productivity, mountain people fish and hunt more than farming, and the harvest is actually very small. If they turn to farming, it will help them survive. Compared with fishing and hunting, farming seems safer.

Therefore, men and women over fifteen years old, regardless of men or women, are considered labor. In this way, Chu Qing said that he could have 15,000 labor.

But in this way, it becomes extremely urgent to replenish farm tools.
Chapter completed!