Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 566 Wood Stove

However, Hua Lei and Rong Jin went to the brick kiln on another day off.

The brick kiln was in a big mountain northeast of the town. The carriage took about half an hour to get there. After walking along a mountain road for about another quarter of an hour, we finally arrived at the brick kiln that Pei Jingyang mentioned.

The brick kiln is located in a basin and built against the mountain. When Hua Lei went in, she saw many fired blue bricks stacked aside, but the number was not large.

I heard that it took a long time to build the brick kiln, and there was not enough manpower in the early stage, so the progress was not fast. It was only after a group of people from the Houfu Pottery Workshop arrived that the brick kiln moved a little faster.

The soil used for burning bricks is mainly clay. Clay is a type of soil with a low sand content, good toughness and plasticity, and is suitable for making various types of bricks and tiles.

Moreover, the fired bricks are very hard and strong, and are suitable for building various houses.

However, on the other side of the open space, there are a lot of adobes piled up. Adobe is much simpler than fired bricks and does not require high temperature firing.

Therefore, its strength and durability are relatively poor, and it is easy to be affected by moisture and deform. It is generally used to build auxiliary buildings, such as huts, livestock houses, etc.

However, although adobe is not as widely used as fired bricks, it is simple to make. In the future, many people from Mobei will definitely come to settle here.

If you can't afford blue bricks, adobe is also a very good material for building houses, and it might sell better than blue bricks, so Pei Jingyang also assigned some people to make adobe.

Moreover, Rong Jin said that Pei Jingyang had also had a few drinks with Lord Li. According to Lord Li, who had drunk quite a bit of wine, the blue bricks used to build this provincial capital had very high requirements.

Generally speaking, unless there are special circumstances, it is impossible to purchase from ordinary people's brick kilns, for fear that the quality of the kilns may not be up to standard.

However, the adobe bricks for the toilet and livestock house need to be purchased from outside because the Ministry of Works is short of staff. After a while, we will have to ask the people to buy the adobe bricks.

Therefore, Pei Jingyang, who originally wanted to build a brick kiln, has adjusted his direction and now started to produce adobe bricks in large quantities.

Hua Lei praised Pei Jingyang's flexibility in her heart, so she also saw the whole process of making adobe bricks.

The newly brought back soil needs to be mixed with some grass stems and wheat straw to increase its strength. Even if it is used to build a hut or livestock house, it will not work if the adobe is not strong enough.

The key step in making adobe bricks is "beating", and the tools used are molds, shovels, and small stone rammers. The mold is very simple, a square wooden frame, the two sides of which can be opened for easy unloading of the bricks.

First use a shovel to mix the soil, wheat straw and grass stems evenly, and then add water to mix them so that the two can be combined together. The ratio must also be controlled well to make it firm.

Find a flat stone slab that is slightly larger than the adobe mold, set up the mold, and sprinkle earth and ash inside the mold to prevent sticking due to soft soil or high water content.

Fill the mold with soil, level it with your feet, and then use a small stone rammer to compact it repeatedly, starting from the sides and then the middle.

After it has been compacted, you can finally remove the mold. After opening the two sides of the mold, you can unload the bricks and let the bricks dry.

Hua Lei saw that on the site, several people usually worked together to make the adobe bricks. One person was responsible for supporting the mold, one was responsible for shoveling the soil, one was responsible for tamping it down with his feet, and one was responsible for tamping it down with a small stone.

They took turns working in an orderly manner. Under normal circumstances, four people could make 500 to 600 adobe bricks a day, which was quite a large output.

Looking at the mud on the field, Hualei's mind moved slightly. She called a person at the field and asked him to help her. As she said, she started playing with the mud.

He was asked to use mud to make a two-layer circular cylinder, separated by a wooden stick of similar thickness, then he also covered the wooden stick with a layer of mud and drilled seven or eight small holes as thick as fingers on it.

A vent was chiseled on the bottom of the mud jar, and after it dried, a simple wood stove was ready. The clay pot was placed on top, and the upper layer was a place to put the chopped wood, which was very good.

If you have higher requirements, you can use charcoal, which is also very convenient.

In the past, for convenience, the court supplied steamed buns to the people. Generally, they would distribute the buns at 9:00 a.m., giving them two meals, or four steamed buns.

By the time we ate the buns in the afternoon, they were already cold. It was not a big deal in the summer, and eating cold buns was fine. But the weather was getting colder and colder, and if it continued like this, I would easily get an upset stomach.

The porridge cooked by the county government was completely cold when it was sent to the fields.

If I make some more wood stoves and put them beside the fields to boil some hot water for them or heat up the porridge, that should be okay, right?

The living conditions of the people who were reclaiming the wasteland were still too difficult. In summer, many of them drank river water directly, but in winter, that was definitely not an option.

But should he sell the wood stove to the people? Or should he give it to them for free? Hualei pondered over this question.

If it is to be sold, it is probably impossible. With so many people, not everyone may be willing to pay for this communal wood-burning stove.

If the people chipped in to buy the porridge, Lord Zhang would not agree. If a few of them stopped to boil water and drink the porridge, wouldn't that arouse others' jealousy and laziness? That was definitely not allowed.

However, if I give it to them for free, it seems that I am not that rich! Although I have made a lot of money in recent years, Hualei still has this self-awareness in front of the general public. Moreover, it is not appropriate.

Rong Jin, who was standing by, saw Hua Lei muttering something to herself around a clay pot with a sad face. He smiled and asked Hua Lei, "Sister Hua, why are you muttering something to yourself around an empty incense burner? Even if you are praying to the gods, you still have to put some incense in it, right?"

Hua Lei glared at Rong Jin unhappily and expressed her concerns. Rong Jin raised the corners of his mouth slightly and laughed at Hua Lei.

"Sister Hua, are you blind to the truth? Haven't you been doing the replacement business? Are you still using this method?

Why don't you calculate the cost of the wood stove and then ask them to exchange it for loaches? For example, if your wood stove is worth one kilogram of loaches, then you can ask the team to give you one kilogram of loaches, right?

Moreover, I think that three wood stoves are enough for a team, and it will be convenient to let their team leader take care of it. It will not waste the time of the people turning the land, and Lord Zhang will agree. "

"Wow, husband, you are really smart. Your idea is good. I will apply to Master Zhang first. If he agrees, I will do it."