The smoke is coming from a circular earthen pillar, about one meter and three meters high, with an inner diameter of one meter and two meters and an outer diameter of one meter and sixty meters.
This hollow earth pillar is covered with two large ceramic plates, each of which covers half of the earth pillar.
Broken pottery pieces are placed under the pottery plate, leaving a gap of about two centimeters between the pottery plate and the earth pillar.
The green smoke and some flames came out from the edge of the pottery plate and the gap between the two pottery plates.
This is of course not a beacon burning smoke to warn people, but a kiln built by Hei Wa, a pottery master of the Qingque tribe, after many failures under the guidance of Han Cheng.
The earthen kiln was not originally built here, but about a hundred meters away from here, closer to the river, where water and mud are easily available.
However, after a heavy rain last year and the river water rose, half of the earthen kiln collapsed and can no longer be used.
Having learned the lesson from that time, Hei Wa spent nearly ten days rebuilding this earthen kiln, which was larger than the previous one, about a hundred meters away from the river bank.
This place is relatively far from the creek, and the terrain is high. Last year, there were several heavy rains, and the creek did not flood here. It is indeed a good choice to build an earthen kiln here.
After several experiments and the guidance of Shen Zi, Hei Wa also figured out some tips for building earthen kilns.
The first step is to select the place where the earthen kiln will be built and dig a pit about 90 centimeters deep, one meter long and 90 centimeters wide.
Then, in the middle of the pit, a wall about half a meter high was built using the previously made adobe mixed with the reconciled mud. Then, on this wall, three slender and long poles were erected every ten centimeters.
The other end of the hard wooden stick was placed on the edge of the pit.
The previous kiln was small, so there was no need to add this wall. Just put the wooden sticks on both sides of the pit. Now the kiln is bigger. If we don't add this wall in the middle, the wooden sticks will not be able to bear it in time.
weight.
Don't worry about these sticks being burned by the flames, because the outside of these sticks will be covered with a thick layer of clay.
Every three sticks are in a group, and they are put together before being wrapped in mud. There is a reason why three sticks are used. Firstly, it can increase the bearing capacity. Secondly, it can wrap more mud outside. If there is only one
It's really not easy to put mud on a stick.
After completing these, we will proceed to build the wall.
After the wall in the pit is level with the ground, continue to place the sticks covered with a thick layer of clay on top according to the front row. The sticks are placed more densely than the one below because this is the reason.
When the time comes, the clay embryos that need to be fired must be placed on top of the layer. It will not work until it is built solidly.
Once these are done, the bottom of the entire kiln is built, and all that is left is to mix the clay with it and start building the walls of the kiln.
Just like the rammed walls in the tribe, crushed hay and some salt were also added to it. Based on the experience that the walls of the earthen kilns built before were easy to crack, in addition to these, Heiwa also added some salt to the mud.
Some sand brought in cans from downstream.
The banks of this small river are mostly muddy, and only the shallow water side of the bend has sand accumulation.
One thing that needs to be mentioned deliberately is the matter of building a wall and adding salt to it.
This move was too costly. After some thinking, Han Cheng changed his approach.
It’s not that we don’t put salt in the mud anymore, it’s that we don’t put in purified salt anymore.
The salt mines transported back from the salt mountain are directly crushed and added to the mud, which saves a lot of effort.
The reconciled mud was piled up in circles. In order to ensure that the resulting kiln was round, Heiwa specially used two wooden sticks for comparison. One wooden stick was 1.2 meters long, and the other wooden stick was 1.6 meters long.
.
This method was taught by Shenzi before. At the beginning, the pottery made by hand was always not round enough. After Shenzi taught this method, this problem that had troubled Heiwa for a long time was immediately solved.
Later he used it in the construction of kiln walls.
For Heiwa, building a kiln wall is actually very similar to building a clay pot, which is hard for Heiwa, who likes to work with mud.
Because the kiln wall is purely made of mud, and the newly reconciled mud is relatively soft, so every time you build a height of 30 centimeters on top, you need to light a fire below to bake the kiln wall stronger.
, and then continue to increase upwards.
There is green smoke coming out of the earthen kiln, and before you even get close to it, you can feel a wave of heat hitting your face.
About ten meters away from the earthen kiln, there are several large rocks with relatively flat surfaces, and Hei Wa, who has muddy hands, is busy here.
He pinched some finely divided dry soil from the clay pot below and sprinkled it evenly on the stone in front of him, and then placed a wooden frame about half a centimeter thick on top.
The wooden frame is made of tree sticks that are broken in the middle and have a certain degree of flexibility, and the joints are tied with rope grass.
The flat side of the broken stick faces in, and the curved side faces out. This is to ensure that the edge of the pottery is flat.
The wooden frame is not a standard rectangle, but an isosceles trapezoid with a larger end and a smaller end. The gap between the upper and lower bases is one and a half centimeters. The tiles produced in this way can be seamlessly connected.
It was not like this at the beginning, but a standard rectangle.
After overcoming the curvature problem of the tiles with the help of Shenzi, Heiwa finally fired the first batch of tiles.
Heiwa was very happy to see the first batch of things called tiles by the Son of God, because the Son of God said that with these things, houses better than deer pens can be built, and people in the Time Tribe can move out and live in them.
In the house.
Although he didn't know why Shenzi wanted to move out of the cave, but looking at Shenzi's longing expression when he said this, Hei Wa knew that living in this house must be more comfortable than the cave they had lived in for generations.
In addition to the reason for the house, there was another reason why he was happy, that is, he had completed what the Son of God had told him to do, and the Son of God looked at the tiles he had fired, and his face was filled with joy.
This is undoubtedly the best compliment for his craftsmanship, and Hei Wa is certainly happy.
However, his happiness did not last long, because after Shenzi held the two pieces of tiles and put them together for a while, he suddenly put the tiles down and patted his forehead with his hand with a wry smile.
This made him worry that he might have caused the Son of God's displeasure because of his poor firing skills.
Of course, Heiwa's craftsmanship is incredible. Although it was his first time to fire tiles, he had the experience of firing a large number of pottery before. The tiles were fired very successfully, which was different from the small tiles that Han Cheng had seen in his later generations.
It's almost less than that.
Of course, this must ignore the shortcoming that the sizes of both ends of the fired tiles are the same.
Both ends of the tiles are the same size, which means that when the two tiles are stacked together, there will be gaps. When such tiles are used to pave the roof, it is easy for rain leakage to occur.
After a period of rectification, the mold used to make tiles became what it is now.
