Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1691 Flint

Zhou Zhi had a lot of things to do, so he went back to the study and took care of his business through the satellite network. It was almost noon when he and Gillette Abi finished cooking for the children. Then they carried a basket of steamed buns and went to the planned orchard.

Old Chi Ri was also preparing to make soup, holding a flint and a steel stone, and hammering them together.

"Wait a minute!" Zhou Zhi quickly stopped Lao Chi Ri, put down the basket and ran to his side to pick up the camera: "I said I wanted to shoot this scene a long time ago, isn't this an opportunity?"

"We're going to film this too?" Everyone was taking a break at the side. Seeing Zhou Zhi was interested in this, Tuziri said, "Big Bimo, let me do it. I'm famous for my ability to light a fire!"

"That's what you learned when you used to steal corn from the cooperative and took it halfway up the mountain to secretly roast and eat it." Old Chi Ri's words made everyone laugh, and they recalled the time when they lived by exchanging work points.

For most places outside the mountain, that period of time was not worth remembering, but in Lianhe Township, that period of time was actually a rare good time for everyone. When Zhou Zhi came to the township, he often heard people talking about it. Finally, after much thought, he finally thought he had found the answer.

Production relations must be compatible with productivity. If production relations lag behind productivity, they will hinder production activities. However, if production relations are slightly ahead of productivity, they will have a certain promoting effect on the improvement of productivity.

The same production relations may be the former outside the mountain, but the latter in Lianhe Township. The fundamental reason may be the difference in productivity between the two places.

The days now when we all work together to build an orchard are really similar to those days.

After handing the flint and steel to Tu Ziri, Lao Chiri took the camera from Zhou Zhi. He was very familiar with this thing now, and said to Tu Ziri, "Ziri, you have to succeed in one try. Don't record it a second time!"

Tuziri immediately became excited: "Just watch it, Big Bimo. By the way, can we watch it on TV tonight?"

"As long as you do your job well." Zhou Zhi said with a smile, "Brother Ziri, keep up the good work."

Tuziri rubbed the flint with his hands and threw it away: "The red one is not good, I will change it to a good black one."

"Wuji" is also called "Wu Shi", which means "flint" in Yi language. There are many such stones on the hillside. The most important task in leveling the orchard is to pick out these stones from the ground and pile them on the outskirts of the orchard and then trim them into layers of slightly flatter mountains for planting fruit trees.

The stones on this mountain are basically of various sizes. The big ones are as big as a kimchi jar, and the small ones are about the size of quail eggs.

The red black stone was just thrown casually by Tu Rizi, and a red light flashed in the air, which immediately caught Zhou Zhi's eyes.

"Huh?" Zhou Zhi felt that color was too familiar, so he ran over and picked up the stone.

"What are we doing?" There were plenty of flints on the mountain, and Tuziri had already found a suitable one. He asked, "We are about to get started."

"Let's start. Let me show you your performance first." Zhou Zhi said.

The performance process is very simple. In addition to the flint and steel, a fire stick is also needed.

The fire stick is a bit similar to the coarse wormwood incense used to smoke mosquitoes in rural areas. It is placed in a bamboo or copper tube to preserve the fire.

It is usually in a half-burned state. When the lid is opened and the incense stick reignites, it can be used to start a fire.

Flint is actually quite rare in most areas of China. For example, in Jiachuan, before the invention of matches in the early years, if you needed to move the fire, you had to be very careful about guarding the tinderbox. You had to make sure that the tinderbox didn't go out, otherwise you wouldn't know how to start a new fire, which would be quite troublesome. This is not the case with the Yi people. In order to save tinderboxes, they always extinguish them after use. When they need to start a fire, they just pick up a piece of flint that is everywhere in the mountains and use it with a flint sickle to start a fire.

The top of the fire starter is carbonized moxa after it burns and is extinguished. With it, it is very easy to make a fire.

I saw Tu Ziri using the fire tongs to hit the flint a few times, causing a lot of sparks to fly. These sparks were actually small iron chips that melted under the high temperature caused by the high-speed friction when the iron tool collided with the flint, which was harder than the flint.

The melting point of iron is 1,500 degrees. When these sparks fall on the carbonized moxa, they will ignite the moxa.

However, it was not an open flame at the beginning, but sporadic small bright spots on the moxa. If it were not for a fire-starting tool like carbonized moxa, these sparks would quickly lose temperature and go out.

However, the ignition point of carbonized moxa is very low, and there is sufficient oxygen in the gap to assist combustion, so the spark will not only not go out, but will become bigger and bigger.

Generally, the Yi people would use their mouths to blow air towards the moxa to help the sparks ignite, but Tuzi Ri seemed to be a real master. He did not use his mouth, but gently waved the fire starter. After a few strokes, the front part of the moxa turned completely red, and a small flame appeared, which was barely noticeable in the sun.

Use the flame to ignite a handful of hay, stuff it under the makeshift fire pit, and the firewood will burn.

Zhou Zhi immediately applauded: "So neat, Brother Zi Ri, please teach me this move!"

"If the elbow was from our Yi people, I would have accepted him as my apprentice." Old Chi Ri turned off the video recorder and started making soup: "He really likes our little tricks."

The Yi folks all nodded in approval, saying that Elbowawazi himself had quite a lot of skills, he could drive a car, drive a tractor, tinker with electrical appliances, operate a TV and install speakers. If he could really learn all the skills of Bimo, wouldn't he be able to reach great heights?

After learning fire-making techniques from Tuziri for a while, Zhou Zhi acquired a new skill - making fire with flint and steel.

However, this technique is actually not very useful. Tinder is easily affected by moisture and is only useful in areas with a dry climate. In Jiachuan's climate, the air humidity is 80 to 90 percent all year round. I'm afraid that the tinder is usually damp, and it would be a bit difficult to use sparks to ignite it temporarily.

But it's always good to have many skills, and Tuzi was very enthusiastic on the day. He probably wanted to dilute the adverse effects of the urination incident and get close to Zhou Zhi, so he explained with extra enthusiasm.

While Zhouzhi was practicing fire-making, Tuori found several kinds of stones and began to compare and identify them with Zhouzhi.

Zhou Zhi then realized that he had previously understood these stones as flints, but was actually misled by the Yi language name "flint".

The original meaning of "遂" is "to start fire", so the word "flint" is actually a more elegant form of "flint".

However, flint in geology refers to dense, hard, mostly gray and black flint, which is a colloidal product of low-temperature hydrothermal fluids and is mainly produced in the pores of extrusive rocks.

The most important characteristic of flint is that it has a shell-like fracture after being broken.

However, after comparing the several stones sent by Tuziri and the one that Zhouzhi had picked up before and was thrown away by Tuziri, Zhouzhi thought that these stones might not be flint, but another kind of igneous rock.

An igneous rock he was very familiar with - agate.

(End of this chapter)