The Lei Tribe is a catfish placed by Xu Chen in the Gonghuo Basin. Not only is it here to take root and monitor the Gonghuo Tribe, but it is also responsible for liaising with other tribes and helping Xu Chen complete the task of commercial development.
Xu Chen will temporarily hand over the pottery, grain and future salt to the Lei Clan to help trade. The Ba Clan will regularly arrange for people to come and handle the animal skins, ores and other goods that should be transported back.
, the secondary transaction of this secondary transaction.
In short, Xu Chen hopes to use commercial interests to tightly tie Lei, a rare commander-in-chief, to himself.
There is no court system and no aristocracy at present. He cannot be given high-ranking officials and generous salaries. The only way to make Lei fall in love with him is to give him some short-term benefits.
As for Long, in Xu Chen's opinion, he is still too young. He is brave enough but his character is a little impetuous and needs some polishing. In the future, he and Lei will form the two major military commanders of the Dachen Empire, responsible for foreign campaigns.
Open up territory and expand territory.
Since Xu Chen discovered salt near the Mongolian people on the other side of the river, he arranged for Feng to return to the Ba people early and asked him to regularly transport pottery to the Lei and Mongolian people. At the same time, he would transport the salt mined by the Mongolian people back, and part of it would be given to the Lei people for storage.
It is sold to foreign countries and part of it is sent back to the Ba people for their own use.
The current salt is mainly composed of rock salt crystals. I don’t know if the indigenous savages have successfully dried the salt after more than a month.
In winter, the temperature is low and evaporation is small, so it is not suitable for drying salt, but there are still a lot of rock salt crystals in it. Although it is not pure, it is nothing to primitive people. They drink blood like hair, and lick the salt-alkali soil when they are short of salt.
What's more, this kind of salt crystal, which is already very pure, can be regarded as a divine thing given by the gods.
At present, the total population is not large, and all the tribes combined have only 4,000 people. According to the consumption of 10 grams of salt per person per day, the daily consumption is only about 40 kilograms, which is a little more than one ton a month. Is this a large amount?
Although it is small, it cannot be completely satisfied, because the salt brine area is not too large, so for a long time, salt will always be a scarce item, and each tribe can only barely supply part of it.
However, the supplement of these rock salts will greatly alleviate the symptoms of salt deficiency in these tribes, improve their health and life span, and of course, also greatly promote the interest of various tribes in farming and gradually reduce their appetite for meat.
need.
Currently, the Lei Tribe has a batch of salt crystals transported back from the Mongolian tribe by the Fengdai people. It weighs about hundreds of kilograms and is quite messy in color. There are also a lot of rock salt polymers formed by the accumulation of sand and soil.
According to the person in charge of guarding the salt crystals and trading in the Lei Clan, several tribes had exchanged animal skins and some feather gems for some salt crystals. However, after the Thunder Clan moved out all the exchanged items, Xu Chen just
After a brief look, I asked people to pick out some beautiful feathers, animal skins and gems, and planned to take them back as meeting gifts to the men, women and children of the tribe. The rest stayed with the Thunder Clan, part of which was considered as reward for their hard work, and the rest
Save it for future trading.
Compared with other tribes, the Ba tribe lacks nothing at the moment, so it doesn't make much sense to bring all these traditional things back.
As the cargo transfer station arranged by Xu Chen, the Lei Tribe is not only responsible for the external sale and trading of grain and salt, but also keeps things given to the Ba Tribe from other tribes.
Therefore, Xu Chen also saw a batch of smelted metal lead sent by the Five Ghost Clan in the Thunder Clan.
After Xu Chen left, the people of the Five Ghost Clan have been stepping up their efforts to mine and smelt lead. In one month, they have produced hundreds of kilograms of lead. Although the lead is small in size, it is very heavy. A piece the size of a fist can weigh several kilograms. Whether it is rattan or vine.
The baskets and baskets on the back could not hold even a few pieces, and it took seven or eight days to transport them back and forth, which was very hard and tiring.
These lead are still very important to Xu Chen, because the Wu people are also mining and smelting copper ore on a large scale. Thousands of kilograms of copper have been sent to the Ba people, and it is expected that there will be more this winter.
Although there is currently a shortage of tin, as long as you find a way to melt it into a copper-lead alloy, you can still cast a sharper metal knife. Although it is easier to break, it is still much stronger than a stone knife and axe. If it is not possible, you can make do with it for the time being.
Although the Five Ghosts were willing to help Xu Chen make lead for free, Xu Chen still asked Feng to leave a trading plan for the Thunder Tribe, which could be exchanged for any items they urgently needed according to a certain ratio. Therefore, the Five Ghosts sent these lead blocks and also welcomed them.
I happily carried back a lot of pottery, animal skins and some salt.
The demand for lead is not large at the moment, and it can be poisonous if exposed to it for a long time. Therefore, Xu Chen reminded the Thunder Clan that if the Five Ghost Clan comes again next time, they can remind them to get less lead. The lead sent must be mixed with animal skins, grains, and stones.
Salt and other items should be stored separately and should not be put into the mouth. They must wash their hands after touching lead. In order to be safer, he also specially instructed them to use fish skin or thin animal skin to make gloves to isolate and reduce the contact with lead as much as possible.
s contact.
However, reminders are reminders, and guidance is guidance. Xu Chen has no control over whether these people listen or not. After all, they are a group of savages who can’t even count. They eat, drink, and poop almost with their hands. They wash their hands before eating and after using the toilet.
This kind of hygienic habit is something that only the Ba people can barely do at present, and there are many people from other tribes who are doing extra work.
Xu Chen asked Mo and others to pack these lead ores in animal skins and prepare to take them back to the Ba people.
In the future, he will move metal smelting and processing to the Gonghuo Tribe, but the opportunity is not ripe yet. At least he will have to wait until the bronze is completely smelted and his palace is built, which will be at least two years later.
Except for the lead, the rest are some random things sent by various tribes, gold from the Cang tribe, turquoise from the Ji tribe, amber from the Qia tribe, crystals from the Kun tribe, crystals from the Qu tribe, etc.
The agate sent by them, the two dragon teeth sent by the Yehuo Clan, several strange animal teeth and horns sent by the Yu Gong Clan, etc.
There are many large baskets of these things, and they are so colorful that it dazzles people.
Xu Chen rummaged around inside with his hands, paying special attention to some of the so-called gems.
Many of the gems seen by primitive savages are not gems at all, but various mineral crystals with beautiful colors.
These crystals are just higher in purity and rarer, so they become treasures.
Many things actually have almost no value in Xu Chen's eyes.
Just like crystals, some may look crystal clear, but they are just crystals of relatively high purity quartz or even fluorite zeolite.
But just as Xu Chen was about to stand up after a rough scratch, his eyes suddenly moved, and he took out a slightly brownish-yellow stone from a pile of colorful stones.
This stone looks very ordinary in appearance, but there is a place that was damaged after a collision. The fracture is crystal clear, and the cross section has a diamond-like refractive luster, and it also has an oily feel.
He looked over and over a few times, then rubbed it back and forth on his dirty leather armor, leaving a few faint white marks.
Damn it, this...isn't this cassiterite?
Xu Chen suddenly felt as happy as a beggar who picked up a spicy chicken leg.
It took no effort to find it after wearing iron shoes. I traveled thousands of miles back and forth, looking for the whereabouts of the tin mine. Unexpectedly, I finally came back empty-handed, but at the most disappointing time, it turned out to be like this silently.
appear in front of yourself.
Although he did not have any equipment to analyze and process it, he was 90% certain that this was the tin ore he had been dreaming of, and it was also the purest ore concentrate.
Tin is a common metallic mineral in the earth's crust and is widely distributed. It is also one of the earliest metals discovered and applied by humans. Like natural gold, it has a very long history.
The reason is that the melting point of tin is extremely low. It will start to melt at more than 100 degrees and completely liquefy at more than 200 degrees. Therefore, there is no need for a professional processing and smelting furnace. It can be burned quickly in a fire.
When Xu Chen was a child, he watched his grandfather melting tin in a small iron pot on the coal stove, rolling newspapers into paper tubes as thick as chopsticks, inserting weed stalks as thick as toothpicks in the middle, and casting them into round and hollow tin pillars.
, the cast tin pillars are cut into lengths with a knife, which are the best sinkers for making fishing nets.
It seems that he felt the magical effect of metals since he was a child. He became interested in various metals, and finally applied for the geology and mining major, and then became a wild geologist who carried pickaxes and instruments in the deep mountains and forests all day long to dig stones.
Team members.
The application of tin at home and abroad has been very early. Its silvery appearance and low melting point are easy to process, and it has always been one of the most popular metals.
However, this kind of metal looks good, is soft and easy to process, but it has a huge disadvantage, that is, it is sensitive to cold.
Once it reaches more than ten degrees below zero, it will brittle into powder, and this change is also contagious. Once the good tinware is contaminated by these powders, it will also quickly turn into powder like the plague. Therefore, if a house of tinware has
If one is broken, all the tinware will be broken as if poisoned.
In the professional field, Xu Chen can almost recite the metallic properties of tin.
But the appearance of this piece of cassiterite made him feel the urge to burst into tears with joy.
Baby, baby!
Xu Chen held Xishi in his arms, his eyes filled with happy tears.
A group of Lei tribesmen and a group of hunters like Mo were standing nearby and didn't know what to say. None of them knew what to say. They could only look at each other with big eyes and small eyes. Then, when Xu Chen took a deep breath to regain his composure, he lifted the tin stone.
He got up and asked, "Where did this stone come from? Do you still remember it?"
Several Lei tribe members looked left and right at the tin stone, then shook their heads.
These baskets of things were sent by various tribes, and they were just one stone, so no one could remember them.
"Think carefully, it's very important to me!" Xu Chen reminded seriously again.
The man standing next to him raised his fist angrily, as if he was about to blast someone with a hammer.
Xu Chen arranged for his tribe to help collect these things, which was a sign of extreme trust, but now he can't figure out where these things came from.
Having been with Xu Chen for more than a month, he knew very well that Xu Chen's character was usually calm and confident. Such a serious tone and expression must be very important.
"Think fast or you'll get beaten!" Lei threatened loudly.
Several people from the Lei tribe looked at each other with their necks hunched, and then began to pull the stones in several rattan frames to compare and recall, sometimes exchanging a few words. Finally, someone finally remembered and cautiously replied: "The Cang tribe sent it!
"
"Cang Clan? Are you sure?" Xu Chen asked in surprise.
"It's really, really, there are three baskets here, and the Cang and Ji tribes are all together..."
Xu Chen didn't wait for this guy to finish speaking, turned around and said to Lei: "Hurry up and arrange for someone to take this stone to the Cang tribe on horseback, and ask about the origin of this stone and where it was found?"
"Follow the order!"
Lei quickly handed over his hands and turned around to leave, but was quickly stopped by a Lei tribe member and said: "Don't worry, the Cang tribe will come tomorrow!"
Xu Chen was stunned for a moment and asked curiously: "How do you know that the Cang people will come tomorrow!"
"They come every time before and after dark of the moon!" the Lei people quickly replied.