The ceremony of paying homage to the deceased is more like the foundation laying ceremony of the Kewen people's settlement.
The Iron Squirrel tribe had officially settled down, and large-scale settlement construction began immediately.
A road leading from the town to the mine began to open, and a large number of people holding axes walked into the forest. They headed towards the mine, just to cut a passage in the dense forest of the cold zone!
A large number of felled pine trees were pulled to the construction site. Each tree with a relatively slender trunk was cut out to build a tapered end, and then buried directly in a well-excavated pit, and then buried in soil and pebbles from the river to secure it.
.
The Covin people are building a new circular wall, which is the barrier of the new mountain fort. What is completely different from the past is that the Ross soldiers are participating in the construction of the mountain fort.
In just five days, the settlement named Elon Orava Fort had already taken shape. It was a large number of frame structures, and a large number of towering tree stumps surrounded the settlement, forming a semi-structure.
A large circle with a diameter of nearly 400 meters.
In fact, this area is only equivalent to the area of a small residential area more than a thousand years later, but for this era, it is already considered a quite large "city" in Europe. Oh, if the locals are really willing
Call it a city.
In Rurik's view, the permanent settlement he requested to build is still a village. Even if it has walls, it is still a small village.
For a long time, Kewen people have used building materials according to local conditions when building their own mountain forts.
They knew how to make pottery but were not so luxurious as to fire clay bricks to build houses. They built with large trees that were readily available, pieced them together into walls, piled them with soil and pounded them until they were strong.
In a brand new world, they still use their inherent routines to build it.
Rurik had his own ideas about this.
"Building with wood is fast, but the biggest problem is that it doesn't last long enough."
Rurik thought for a while, and he gave Mechasta a new task: "Your people should not just be busy cutting down trees and driving stakes, and don't think that just making wooden fences will fulfill my request. I want the wall to be more beautiful."
Strong! You have to reinforce it with stone.”
Mechasta was shocked by this: "Ah? We use our hands? Do we really want to do this? As for that?"
"Are you questioning me? This is my order, do as I say."
Rurik didn't want to give any explanation. Seeing their master's firm attitude, Mechasta and his men had nothing to say.
It was the turn to build houses with stones, and the Russians had some skills in this regard.
Building walls with stones is more time-consuming than simply using wood. Nowadays, it is quite easy to obtain stones. You only need to obtain large stones. The only source of excellent stone is the mine not far away.
The heavy physical labor of building pure wood carvings and building walls made of mixed wood and stone was done by the Rus warriors and the Kovin tribesmen. Like the group of children under Rurik, they were also assigned tasks within their capabilities, such as
Act as a "donkey" for transporting ore.
Instead of supervising their construction, after settling down, Rurik's energy was almost entirely transferred to the smelting of ore.
After all, Taluririk insisted on heading north to exploit this big mine in the future.
Everything was a strong coincidence. It was Kawei who discovered that the ore in the mine had a unique color, which aroused Rurik's mental sensitivity.
If it were just iron smelting, using the ore from the hills near Fort Ross would be enough to meet your needs.
Rurik had taken a good look at the local ore. It was completely black. When he took a closer look, he saw that there were densely packed shiny things on the surface of the ore, and this was the ore itself.
His soul was telling his mind that there must be something else in this ore.
In fact, until now, Rurik is still not sure what the extra metal in the ore is. It may be manganese, or chromium, or even zirconium. He actually hopes that the extra material is manganese, so that theoretically he can make more
The elastic steel can be used to create a more powerful steel-arm crossbow, making oneself more martially powerful.
However, the relatively primitive smelting method of the Ross tribe made him worried about the future of smelting.
However, the experienced and confident blacksmith completely ignored Rick's concerns.
Kawei wanted to build his brand new blacksmith shop by the river, and in the small furnace he had built, he would smelt the ore into iron, and then repeat the forging routine of steelmaking.
Compared to Rurik, Kawei just believes that there are other mysterious substances in the ore. But so what? As long as you burn the ore into sponge iron, you can create iron ingots with good plasticity by forging them yourself, and there are more miscellaneous things.
It doesn't matter what the substance is, because he has seen his father Clavarson's strange smelting, which is to burn copper ore, iron ore, and tin ingots together to see what results can be obtained.
As a result, the iron ore was actually melted in the clay crucible, but the quality of the final tool was not outstanding. A small amount of iron ore was added to make the new tin bronze harder, but it was still not as good as wrought iron. Carat
Wasson did not continue his research. It would be useless if he added more iron ore. Only a small amount of iron would melt into the molten tin bronze metal at the smelting temperature that the existing Russians could achieve.
liquid.
In the final analysis, the biggest obstacle restricting metal smelting in any era is that the temperature does not meet the standard.
If the temperature had not been insufficient, the ancients would not have used the method of burning and forging sponge iron to make iron tools.
Although the blast furnace technology was invented in the East, its extreme high temperature can only reach 1400°C and cannot be sustained for a long time. It can generally be stabilized close to 1300°C, thereby producing large amounts of molten iron, but it cannot melt wrought iron ingots.
It is also for this reason that before the birth of gas furnace technology, blast furnaces could not directly smelt molten ferrochromium alloy water, and it was even less possible to smelt ferromanganese alloy liquid.
However, if these special metals exist in iron ore on a small scale, their presence does not affect the blacksmith's burning of sponge iron and subsequent forging.
Fortunately, the chromium content in the iron mine occupied by the Russians was not extremely abundant.
Rurik dispatched thirty boys and ordered them to carry their own small sacks and carry the ore mined from the top of the mountain, which Kawei recognized as concentrate. Plus Kawei's ten blacksmith apprentices,
As well as experienced young blacksmiths like Kamnier, they all became porters.
A child can carry one or two kilograms and walk five or six kilometers continuously at noon. It is really a feat for a child.
Behind their feats are their excellent physical fitness brought about by long-term physical training, their strong stamina provided by a large amount of high-quality food, and their fiery hearts that show loyalty to their masters, "big brother".
Other children also have their own jobs, just like the ten named little maids from Rurik's White Tree Manor in Novgorod. Their current job is really to play in the mud.
It's all about playing in the mud, which is really not fun.
They looked for clay in the forest, and they had to dig through thick pine needles and dig deep into the earth instead of using the meaningless sand-rich soil on the riverbanks.
Clay is of course widely distributed, and finding excellent products requires a bit of luck.
They didn't find very high quality soil, they could only find some deep black soil, but it was still sticky and plastic.
The girls' job is to build a smelting furnace that Kawei needs.
They used their hands that had turned black and used the water from the river to knead the mud balls in their hands and pile them up like building blocks, so that they piled up higher and higher into the shape of a stove. Of course, this alone was not enough, Kawei asked for a clay stove.
The top of the furnace will be thicker, and the height of the furnace will also need to be increased.
A brand new clay oven was made taller and taller, and in the end, these shorter girls had to raise their arms to stack the mud balls upwards.
On the sixth day after arriving at the mine for the second time, the girls' "great work" finally had a satisfactory result to Kawei.
They still don't know what this stove can bring. After all, they are just girls, and they have completed the important tasks assigned by the master. Everyone is very happy.
It was a quiet evening, with smoke rising from the large settlement.
Some parts of the large-scale wooden fence have begun to be piled with cobblestones from the river, and they are simply reinforced by using shovels to raise soil. They have been busy all day, and only at this time will the men stop. Meimei
They ate steaming wheat porridge and plenty of fresh grilled fish.
The material supply situation in the settlement has undergone tremendous improvements. The fishing boats that returned to Fort Ross quickly brought supplies and technical support from their hometown.
A group of outstanding carpenters, with the mentality of striving for more wealth, and even political wealth for themselves and their descendants in Rurik, went to a desolate, miserable and even colder place.
A large amount of oats and an even larger amount of fish were transported on a large scale to Fort Ailon-Olawa. Not only did the working people have no worries, some Kevin people were also actively using the animal resources in the area to obtain more through hunting.
of meat.
In just a few days, while they were cutting down trees, they did not forget to use the bows and better arrows at hand to shoot all the squirrels they found.
They have killed more than a hundred squirrels. The hunters ate the barbecue, and the leather was naturally handed over to Rurik. The so-called tribute given by the servant to the master meant that the Covin people exchanged squirrel skins for Rurik's oats.
The young men were talking about the busy and fulfilling days these days, and they were talking highly of the women of the Iron Squirrel tribe.
Rurik, he didn’t want to get involved in the vulgar chatter and laughter of a large group of rough men, such as talking to them about which tribal woman carrying firewood was more beautiful.
He, Kawei, and a group of loyal companions guarded the still-moist mud stove that had just been built. The high-quality charcoal blocks brought from his hometown were piled next to the stove, and the children carried it with great effort.
Selected ores from.
A group of children, both men and women, gathered around four bonfires, eating salty wheat porridge with wooden bowls in their hands, and then nibbling on the grilled fish they cooked themselves. Compared with those vulgar strong men, the children
The topics of communication were much simpler. As for the ten maids, they talked about things in Slavic that others could not understand.
No matter what these children were talking about, Rurik heard it clearly. In the final analysis, everyone still wanted to see what they would achieve after working hard for many days, making their hands dirty and even wearing calluses.
result.
Kawei casually sat on a tree trunk lying flat, using it as a stool.
Seeing that Rurik had finished his wheat porridge, he said what he was holding in his stomach: "As of now, I think I'm ready."
"Is it finally starting?"
Rurik's calm attitude surprised Kawei, "Why, you are not looking forward to it? Yes, I can start now."
"Then let's get started! Hopefully... we can succeed using traditional methods."
This statement made Kawei a little confused. Traditional method? Why, is there anything different than the "traditional method"?
In fact, Rurik's silence this time was just because he was thinking about some problems in his mind. He had been supervising his maids to build the clay, and he even gave some instructions himself, such as teaching them how to stack without collapsing.
This clay stove is unusual. According to a rough measurement with a rope ruler, its height has exceeded that of a stika. In fact, its height has reached 130cm. Compared with the stoves of Klavasen and other blacksmiths, this stove is undoubtedly the tallest.
.
After that, the inner chamber of the furnace was finished. Iron ore was used as refractory bricks and a layer of heat-resistant inner chamber was laid. Kawei’s calculation was very clear. When smelting started, the slag would be converted from the designed one.
After the holes are removed, the iron ore in the inner chamber will also stick to each other. Due to the ash and slag, the sponge iron is basically unable to stick to the furnace, thus achieving a heat-resistant, stable and strong crucible environment.
The dirt road looked a bit like a blast furnace, and Rurik guessed that Kawei had figured out the correct way to increase the temperature of the furnace.
Want to build a real blast furnace?
Rurik thought about the knowledge in his mind. Although he knew the principles of blast furnace smelting, it was really difficult to reproduce it completely relying on his own theoretical basis in this era. Of course, there must be a blast furnace, and he did not expect to be able to do so.
Replicate the "ancient blast furnace" technology in a short period of time and let your tribe's blacksmiths master it.
Because based on the current situation, the Russian people's demand for iron is not large enough to require the development of blast furnace technology to mass-produce cast iron.
Rurik decided to try smelting on the river beach early tomorrow morning instead of going straight to the mine.
Before that, Kawei stood up. He had to complete a very necessary task.
"Rurik, I am full of energy now. I don't have to wait until tomorrow. As long as this furnace completely meets my requirements, I can smelt immediately. The raw materials and tools I need are all available. The only thing I lack is a dryer.
stove."
Rurik understood immediately upon hearing this, "You want to burn the furnace and let it solidify?"
"Yes!" Kawei said confidently, "That will take some time. In order to make my brand new stove last longer, I have to do it now."
Ever since, Kawei began to take action.
He wants to burn the entire furnace until it becomes clay and the ores in the furnace can bond with each other.
As long as his efforts are successful, he can proudly tell his father Klavasen: "I have a better stove than you. Grandpa and other ancestors will all be proud of us."