The heating furnace in front of me is far smaller than the Uzbek copper smelting furnace.
There was a blazing hot fire inside, but there was only a small clay pot, and the same hot red copper liquid was boiling. It didn't seem to be any different.
A large group of people gathered around the heating furnace to watch. Several apprentice workers were fanning themselves and adding firewood. After accumulating for six days, the temperature of the furnace fire finally reached enough to melt the copper ingots, plus lead and tin.
Due to the constant accumulation of energy in the juice of the two metals, not long after the copper inside began to melt, the copper ingots in the crucible were like ice bricks in a hot pot, starting to melt at a speed visible to the naked eye.
With the continuous blowing and adding of firewood, and the continuous input of heat, in less than half an hour, all the copper ingots in the crucible melted and disappeared, and the inside turned into a pot of red and whitish metal soup. Observation through the furnace
The hole looks like a sun, emitting dazzling light.
"Quan Hua Ga!"
The kiln worker responsible for the observation shouted in surprise.
"let me see!"
Xu Chen came up to take a look, and asked someone to pry open the furnace door that was closed with clay bricks. He put a long-handled clay shovel in and gently stirred the crucible a few times. He found that it had indeed melted, so he gave a few instructions.
A smelting worker quickly brought over all the large and small clay molds he had made. After fitting the molds, they buried them with sand around them and clamped them tightly with ceramic bricks to prevent them from loosening.
After a row of more than ten clay molds were placed, Xu Chen picked up a long-handled pottery spoon that had been prepared long ago, put on a thick animal skin apron, put on animal skin gloves, and scooped out the pottery from the crucible.
Take out a large spoonful of red metal juice and slowly pour it into the mold.
As the hot copper juice was poured into the clay mold, a thick smoke and scalding heat wave filled the air. It seemed that although it was still early spring and the temperature was still a bit cold, under the baking temperature of nearly a thousand degrees, everyone
Their faces changed color and they all backed away.
Long and his two companions watched Xu Chen's movements without blinking.
The Uzbek people currently have four smelting furnaces, and copper is produced several times every month. They are used to such high-temperature scenes. However, the Uzbek people smelt raw copper, and there is no need to use such specially made fine molds. They only need to cast it in
Just make a simple sand mold, and the copper ingots cast are palm-sized copper blocks.
Therefore, the three of them were very puzzled by Xu Chen's process of pouring copper water into these clay molds.
If we had known this, why not just use this mold to cast it when the Uzbek tribe produced copper? Why bother?
Although Long was somewhat suspicious of Xu Chen's actions, he did not dare to doubt his IQ.
In the end, I could only vaguely suspect that Xu Chen was hiding some ulterior secrets and motives.
Just like Xu Chen didn’t want to teach the Uzbek people to spin and weave.
However, this idea was just a glimpse and disappeared without a trace. Long did not dare to continue to speculate and doubt.
Xu Chen's current status determines his powerful authority. He has long surpassed ordinary humans and even great witches, and has become the supreme leader of all alliance tribes.
Therefore, any unfounded doubts will make people feel nervous and uneasy unconsciously.
Xu Chen didn't know that his actions had allowed Long to see through his hidden motive of making money alone.
Right now, he was continuously scooping out the red and hot copper liquid from the crucible and pouring it into a row of clay molds.
As the copper juice was poured in, the sand around the mud model was evaporated, exuding thick smoke and an extremely strong smell of high temperature and scorching heat. The entire pavilion was billowing with heat, and everyone began to sweat.
Spoon after spoon, finally the copper juice in the crucible was slowly scooped out, leaving only the last bit. The clay spoon could do nothing. Xu Chen asked someone to bring a long-handled gold spoon to scoop out the last copper juice.
Pour it into the last smallest mold.
"Okay, don't put out the fire!"
Although all the pouring is completed, it is not easy to heat up the furnace. You can continue to add copper-lead-tin alloy to it for smelting. Therefore, Xu Chen asked people not to anneal for now. After verifying the quality of this batch of bronzes, he would fine-tune the formula of the three elements and start again.
Second smelting.
A group of people were watching around a row of clay fans.
Xu Chen was also very excited, and his eyes were slightly moist.
The temperature of the fire was too high for the dogs, and their eyebrows were scorched.
After traveling for more than three years, I finally collected eight dragon balls... Well, three elements made a bronze.
Although he could not completely determine the properties of this bronze, he believed that the quality would not be too bad.
After taking off his animal skin blouse, Xu Chen washed his face with cold water and came over. He used a wooden stick to dig away the sand around the first cast clay model. As a hot smell of fireworks filled the air, he was blown away by the high temperature.
Among the dried and whitened sand, the same dried and white mud was revealed.
"Puff puff..."
Under Xu Chen's gentle tapping, the dry clay mold slowly broke and fell off, revealing a golden color inside.
"Wow, it turns into gold!"
Some kiln workers couldn't help but exclaimed.
The remaining craftsmen also looked confused.
Copper is purple-red, lead is black, and tin is silver-white.
After the three metals were mixed and smelted, it turned into a golden color, which is almost the same color as the gold accessories that everyone in the Ba people has now.
In other words, Xu Chen refined three different metals into useless gold?
Long and the other three were even more confused.
Xu Chen left them with excitement and mystery to witness this great miraculous moment, but they didn't expect that they were just refining copper into gold.
Although gold is very gorgeous and rare, the witch's scepter and golden horn are both wrapped and decorated with gold, giving them a very sacred aura.
But it’s not necessary. If you want gold, you can pick up a lot of gold every year near Yinlong Gorge of the Cang Clan. If Xu Chen wanted it, why would he have to labor the entire Uzbek tribe and spend so much effort refining copper? It would be better to go directly to dig gold near Yinlong Gorge.
.
Suddenly, Long felt like his interest was gone.
There are so many Uzbek people who don't care about hunting and gathering, and sometimes even go hungry and work hard to mine and smelt. It turns out that Xu Chen just wanted to turn the copper into gold.
An inexplicable loss arose spontaneously, and even his awe and admiration for Xu Chen showed signs of collapse in an instant.
Xu Chen has always made innovative inventions that are very useful in production and life, but this time, what Xu Chen did made him very disappointed. He felt that the hard work of so many Uzbek people was completely worthless.
"Puff puff..."
Xu Chen didn't know the messy thoughts of a group of people, but continued to tap the clay fan gently, and slowly a handleless yellow bronze ax was revealed.
This is a traditional ax shape, with a curved mouth, square back, and an ax handle hole in the middle. The structure is very simple.
However, even though it has been dug out, the temperature is actually still very high, with billowing heat waves emitting from the whole body.
In addition, when making the clay model, in order to ensure that the copper juice could be filled, there were some small exhaust holes around it. The ax head also had some metal burr-like things growing around it, which looked extremely weird in shape.
Xu Chen used a wooden stick to pass through the hole in the ax handle, picked up the hot ax and placed it on a stone slab next to him. He asked someone to bring a stone ax and quickly knocked off the metal burrs on it while it was still hot. Then he picked up the ax and placed it on the stone slab next to it.
into a basin of cold water nearby.
"Pfft~"
As a hot mist rose into the sky, the water in the pottery basin rolled and gurgled for a while and then quickly calmed down. Xu Chen gently probed the water with his hand and found that it was a little hot, but it was still bearable, so he directly used it.
He took out the golden bronze ax inside.
"Your Majesty the Witch King, what's the use of this?"
Long finally couldn't help the depression in his heart and asked.
"This is called an axe. It can be used to chop down trees. It's much easier to use than a stone axe!" Xu Chen explained with a smile.
The dragon's face twitched slightly and said: "Gold is too soft, so don't use it to chop down trees!"
"Haha, you are wrong. This is copper, not gold. It's just that the color does look a bit like gold. If it were just gold, why would I let so many people spend so much effort mining and smelting it? Big dog, go get the ax I made.
Get the handle!"
"Okay!"
A young and burly smelter immediately went to get something, and returned a moment later, holding a pile of long and short wooden sticks on the ground.
Xu Chen picked a long, slightly curved handle from it, checked the ax hole back and forth, then picked up the stone ax and started scraping it on a nearby wooden stake.
The ax handle was slowly made out of some dry wood in my spare time a few days ago. There are more than a dozen large and small ones, not only the ax handle, but also the handle of the knife.
However, these wooden handles have only been processed to a rough shape and have not been completely finished. Now after the axes are cast, they need to be processed again according to the actual objects.
Xu Chen was gnawing, chopping, and scraping, while Long and a group of people gathered around to watch.
The sound of casting in the kiln was still quite loud, and the chatter never stopped. At this time, many Ba people came running from nearby to watch the fun. Just when Xu Chen was putting the ax handle on the axe, the little witch and Ye
A group of children also ran over.
Seeing the arrival of the big witch, the crowd of onlookers quickly spread out and respectfully welcomed the little witch to stand in the back. A group of children also squeezed between the adults' legs and looked in curiously.
Soon, Xu Chen pressed the ax handle up. After a few hits on a stone, the ax handle was firmly inserted into the ax hole. In order to stabilize it, Xu Chen used the stone ax to chop a small wooden wedge, and lightly
Lightly drive the nail between the ax handle and the ax hole.
After everything was done, Xu Chen raised the golden ax that was covered with small metal tumors, with a satisfied smile on his face.
The metal knob was left after the burrs were removed. Although it affected the appearance, it did not affect the practicality. Therefore, Xu Chen didn't care. He stood up and walked to a broken tile basin filled with water outside the pergola. He put a piece of it into preparation for sharpening the knife.
I poured some water on the stone, and then rubbed the ax on it.