After the lead block cooled, Xu Chen had someone dig it out of the sand.
Although these lead pieces are connected together as one piece, Xu Chen had already left a fracture position when making the sand mold, so he only needed to use a stone ax to cut it off with a few strokes, and what he got was a piece with a side length of ten centimeters.
lead blocks, each about three centimeters thick.
Because lead is denser than copper and silver, the weight of such a palm-sized piece is very scary, weighing at least three or four kilograms.
The cool lead blocks were passed between these savages, and the voices of exclamation kept coming and going.
Especially the great shaman of the Five Ghost Clan, holding such a piece of metal whose weight was completely beyond the cognitive range in his hands, his body was shaking violently and could not stop.
These black stones have been cursed by gods and polluted by demons, but they can turn into water when burned with fire, and turn into something so heavy and cold after cooling.
To her, the process from stone to metal was tantamount to the power of gods exerted by Xu Chen.
This metal called lead is heavy and soft, with mysterious properties that people cannot understand.
For a moment, the great witch thought of the wonderful uses of this metal. It seemed that it could be made into something like pottery. It only needed to be knocked with stones to make pottery pots and bowls. Even if it could not be burned in the fire, it could be used to eat and hold water.
good.
“￥#@……”
The great witch excitedly walked up to Xu Chen and gestured with the lead block.
The Jia tribe guide hurriedly followed the gestures and translated: "Your Majesty the Witch King, the great witch asked if the lead block can be beaten to make something like pottery?"
Xu Chen quickly shook his head and warned: "Tell them, this kind of lead is still very toxic, and must not be used to make eating utensils. The smelted lead should be placed in a remote place, and you must wash your hands after handling it. In addition, you must
Tell them not to drink the water flowing out of this valley, and try not to eat the fish in the lake..."
Seeing Xu Chen's serious attitude and the content of the translation, the big witch and a group of Five Ghost tribesmen all became nervous. The people who were passing the lead blocks around also put the lead blocks back on the ground in horror.
The entire tribe has been tortured by curses and demons for a long time, and it is extremely miserable. Now that it has just started to improve, no one wants to be exposed to such cursed things.
Seeing everyone's frightened look, Xu Chen had to explain a few words of relief, saying that as long as he didn't eat it or get it on his skin or body for a long time, he wouldn't be poisoned. Whether he was mining or smelting, he had to remember to wash his body frequently every day.
Try to wash away as much poison as possible.
With this explanation, the panic among the people of the Five Ghost Clan slowly calmed down.
Smelting any metal is toxic, and most of the toxic gases are emitted by burning. The same is true for lead smelting, which is mainly composed of sulfur dioxide. At high temperatures, it is inevitable that some metal ions and dust will be mixed in the smoke.
, long-term inhalation of large amounts, poisoning is inevitable.
But in such a sparsely populated and open place, and it is only a small earthen blast furnace with a capacity of a few hundred kilograms, the natural circulation of air can greatly dilute the toxic smoke, and the harm to the body can be minimized.
What's more, the Five Ghosts have been poisoned for hundreds of years, and few of the five tribes are completely healthy. Compared with the inhalation poisoning damage caused during smelting, they actually absorb more toxins in their daily life.
Think about it, from the time a child is born, his body is smeared with lead powder all year round. It is a miracle that he survives to adulthood.
Xu Chen believed that if he hadn't come here because he needed to find lead mines, in a few decades, the entire Five Ghost Clan would have been completely extinct.
Look at their current children, almost none of them are healthy. They really look like a group of horrifically deformed children born under a devil's curse, which makes people's scalp explode.
The five ghost tribe's closed existence is actually forced into helplessness.
Although primitive people don't seem to care much about appearance, they actually have their own aesthetics and values. The simplest standards are to have good facial features and a strong body. At least everyone must look similar. People from the Five Ghost Tribe
If you go out, you will definitely be considered a heretic like a monster, and it is reasonable to be expelled or even killed.
Although the Jia Clan and the Five Ghost Clan are very close to each other and have some contact, their daily communication is limited to some normal-looking hunters. They are not particularly clear about the real situation of the Five Ghost Clan. It was not until this time that they followed Xu Chen and finally came for the first time.
After a comprehensive understanding of the situation of the Five Ghosts, I understood why the Five Ghosts were difficult to deal with. The main reason was that they were afraid that the curse on the tribe would be spread, and they had to suffer in isolation in this lake and valley.
die.
It is also very difficult to treat lead poisoning in the era of advanced medicine in later generations, let alone in this primitive and barbaric era.
The only treatment Xu Chen knew was to take phosphoric acid drugs, which would form lead phosphate and deposit it in the bones. Without entering the blood circulation, the poisoning would gradually lessen.
But for these large-scale groups that have been poisoned to the point that they have begun to destroy body tissues and genetic genes, even gods can't save them. The only way is to relocate as a whole and restore them through natural adjustment of the environment, hoping that future generations can return to normal.
These Five Ghosts people who have been poisoned and have no hope of recovery can only reduce their continued intake of lead and slow down the possibility of continued poisoning by changing their eating habits and lifestyle.
The most important thing is that he needs the Five Ghosts to help him smelt lead. Anyway, it has been poisoned, so he will use it as waste, using their last light and heat to contribute to the breakthrough and development of human civilization, in exchange for Xu Chen
Taking care of the normal group of their tribe and giving them a chance to repopulate and survive.
The horrific appearance of their tribe makes it almost impossible to tolerate them anywhere.
If Xu Chen hadn't come forward to help, it would have been a wishful thinking for them to go to Gonghuo Basin to get a new habitat. Once their ugly and terrifying appearance appeared in Gonghuo Basin, they would have been killed by the Gonghuo Tribe and other affiliated tribes.
.
The great shaman of the Five Ghost Clan knew that this opportunity was hard to come by, so he cherished it extremely.
Even if lead is a poison cursed by gods and contaminated by demons, they will still try their best to help Xu Chen mine and smelt it.
It is the best ending to sacrifice some of the cursed tribesmen in exchange for the rebirth of the tribe.
Therefore, the entire Five Ghost Tribe, more than 300 people, not only showed no resistance at all, but were all grateful to Xu Chen, saying that from generation to generation the Five Ghost Tribe would obey His Majesty the Witch King's arrangements and be willing to submit to the spirit of the Great Witch of the Ba Tribe.
Guide, become a normal ethnic group again, and integrate under the leadership of the Ba Alliance.
After successfully smelting the first furnace of lead, the Five Ghost Clan's exploration journey has almost completed its mission.
The rest is all the follow-up arrangements.
The first is to let the Five Ghost Clan continue to arrange people to smelt lead. The quantity does not need to be too large. As long as it does not affect the survival of the tribe, it is enough to arrange people to mine and smelt it in autumn and winter. The smelted lead blocks will be temporarily sent to the Thunder Clan for storage.
, Xu Chen will arrange for people to transport them back to the Ba people through the waterways of Jicang River and Wulong River.
The second is to collect sulfur from lead ores while smelting lead.
The third is to let the Five Ghost Clan select those tribesmen with basically normal physical appearance and bring them to the Gonghuo Basin to live and develop.
Because with the emergence of house-building technology, it is no longer necessary to find a place with a cave to survive. Instead, you only need to build a house in a safe place with a water source. Therefore, the location should not be too far away from the Gonghuo Tribe and the Thunder Tribe.
In order to form a population agglomeration effect and lay a foundation for future urban development.
The only problem at the moment is that the Gonghuo Basin is still considered the territory of the Gonghuo Tribe Alliance, and the Gonghuo Tribe needs to be informed about this matter to avoid causing panic and misunderstanding.
Therefore, after Xu Chen convened a group of people for discussion, he arranged for the Jia Clan guide to take several Gonghuo Clan hunters back to the Gonghuo Clan to report the matter, and asked the Gonghuo Clan Great Shaman to help arrange the residence of the Five Ghost Clan. In order to prevent the Gonghuo Clan people from
As for fear and fear, he was hostile or even attacked the people of the Five Ghost Clan, so he specifically asked a group of people to bring their own dragon-tooth scimitars to show his attitude.
"Your Majesty the Witch King, with so many people going to Gonghuo, I'm afraid there will be a shortage of food!"
After the arrangements were made, while the five tribes of the Five Ghost Alliance were bustling like a festival and starting to select tribesmen who were going to immigrate, Lei privately went to Xu Chen to remind him of a very important issue.
"Is the Thunder Clan short of food now?" Xu Chen couldn't help but ask.
Lei Luo nodded awkwardly and briefly explained the current situation of the Thunder Tribe and the Gonghuo Tribe.
The Lei Clan just moved to the Gonghuo Basin in spring. There are more than fifty people in the entire tribe, and there are only a dozen adult hunters. Most of them are women, children, old and weak. Food is always in short supply. Daily hunting also requires a group of returning captives from the Gonghuo Clan.
Only with the help of hunters can the tribe's food needs be basically met.
Not long ago, Xu Chen gave him more than thirty people from the La tribe, all of whom were women, children, old and weak, and not even an adult man. This made the Lei tribe's food crisis even more serious.
Although they collected a lot of wheat, beans and other plant seeds in autumn and winter, most of them had to be kept for spring sowing and could not be used. Therefore, they relied on hunting and fishing on weekdays. It was difficult to obtain meat in winter, so now the tribe was stretched thin and almost every day.
Dundu had to work very hard to include various plant roots and some edible weeds, snakes, rats, insects, etc. that were not collected on weekdays, but they were still unable to meet the supply, and the entire tribe was in a state of semi-starvation.
With the arrival of cold winter, there is also a big gap in animal skins to keep warm.
This kind of hunger and cold has not happened to the Uzbek tribe for a long time.
The situation of the Gonghuo Tribe is actually similar to that of the Thunder Tribe, because they have been short of manpower, resulting in food shortages, and the gap in animal skins is even greater, because most of their animal skins have been used to pay war indemnities and redeem hostages.
Lack of food and clothing in winter and spring is the most realistic problem for all tribes at the moment.
The Gonghuo Tribe and the Lei Tribe perform more prominently because their population is expanding too fast, and the other is lacking strong labor force.
In order to build more houses and burn wasteland before spring, both tribes have a greater demand for labor, so they save on food and clothing and invest more manpower to speed up construction.
Although Xu Chen recently conquered the Yugong and Maoton tribes and imported a group of laborers for several tribes participating in the war, what followed was an even greater shortage of food.
If coupled with the migration of a large group of Five Ghost people, especially women and children, the survival of these people will be a huge problem if they cannot provide enough food.