Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1852: Bad Break

The valley was quiet and sunny. The huge tombs made of huge stones in this valley covered with light grass, combined with the stories told by Zhou Zhi about them, gave everyone a feeling of nostalgia for the past.

Only the horse on one side neighed, expressing its dissatisfaction with being ignored.

Old Chi Ri laughed and said, "I was so absorbed in listening to Elbow's storytelling that I forgot to feed the horses with beans. They are angry now."

"Is it time to feed the horse?" Li Lu was actually a little scared of the horse's big head, but she couldn't help but be curious. She was timid but talkative.

Lao Chi Ri took a cloth bag from the horse's butt, which was filled with a mixture of soybean meal, beans, and feed. He put the bag into the horse's mouth and hung it on the bridle, and the horse began to eat obediently.

"Grandpa Chi Ri, you hold it, let me try it too." The girl who lived in the city was full of the urge to try all of these. At least this looked much simpler than milking cows and sheep.

Old Chi Ri smiled kindly, untied the bean feed bag from the second horse, led the horse by the head, and handed the bag to her: "Good girl, come and try it!"

"Horses, it turns out, also need training and conditioning." Zhou Zhi said, "I used to wonder why the horses raised in the Central Plains could not beat the nomadic people. Later I learned that horses can't run right after birth. Nomadic people have their own way of training horses, starting with foals. After several years of training, they can be divided into pack horses, carriage horses, war horses, and sentinel horses."

"With this method, the war horses in the Central Plains are like ordinary people, while the horses of nomadic peoples are warriors and athletes. Think about the difference in physical fitness between us and athletes. This thing really can't compete."

"We didn't walk too far today," said Lao Chi Ri, "so we don't need to add too much concentrated fodder. If we were like the horse caravans back then, we would have to prepare at least one and a half kilograms of concentrated fodder for each horse a day, otherwise the horse would be useless after one trip."

"What Elbow said about horse training does exist. Our caravan is mainly pack horses, so we also need to organize the ponies into the team. They don't carry things, but just follow the old horses on the mountain trails. This thing also needs to be learned." After saying this, he rubbed the forehead of the first horse lovingly: "Horses are just like people. Some are smart and some are not!"

In addition to the horses needing food, people also needed food. Zhou Zhi found a place sheltered from the wind, built a fire pit with stones, and took out a bamboo tube, a D-shaped iron tool, and a red stone from the bag that Lao Chi Ri brought.

"What is this?" The ironware was made of iron bars and was bent into some beautiful arcs, but Liang Guangping didn't understand what it was.

"Flint." Zhou Zhi said, "I have been learning how to make fire with flint for a long time, but I am still not very good at it. Today I will try it with a tinderbox."

"You can do this? How do you play it?" Liu Hongtao ran over and said, "Isn't it to make fire by rubbing two sticks together?"

"There are many ways to make fire. Drilling wood to make fire is just one of them. It is actually very inefficient. It is not as fast as making fire by friction, and it is even worse than this."

Pulling off the lid of the fire lighter revealed a piece of moxa inside. The moxa had been used and the head was now covered with black carbonized fibers.

When Zhou Zhi was learning how to make fire with Tu Ziri, Tu Ziri was used to using dry moss, dry lichen, clumps of reed flowers, even bird nests, and dry polypore fungi... In short, he would use whatever was at hand and he would basically be able to make a fire successfully.

Zhou Zhi doesn't use those things very well, and the success rate is extremely low.

However, if you use dry carbon wool, the success rate will be much higher. Carbon wool is plant fibers such as paper, cloth, moss, hemp balls, etc., which are placed in a sealed iron can and roasted in a fire. The fibers in the iron can burn and consume the oxygen in the can. The remaining part will no longer burn due to lack of oxygen, but will carbonize.

This carbonized fiber is the most convenient fire starter and can often be ignited with just a spark.

The carbonized moxa on the head of the fire starter has the same properties as this type of fire starter, so Zhou Zhi feels that he has a good chance of lighting it.

After putting the concentrate bags on the horses, Lao Chi Ri watched the three boys sticking their butts up and trying to light a cigarette by the fire pit. He didn't find it funny, so he took out an orchid pipe from his saddle bag, then took out the Zippo lighter that Zhou Zhi had given him, lit it with a snap, then took a puff of the cigarette and watched them light it with a smile, not bothering to get involved.

"Click!" "Click!" The hammer struck the red flint, and small sparks continued to come out.

These small sparks are actually caused by the friction between the hammer and the flint. Because the flint is extremely hard, the instantaneous high friction temperature when the hammer collides with it will cause some tiny iron filings on the hammer to melt into small bright red iron droplets.

The loss of temperature of this small iron droplet is a matter of seconds, so whether it can ignite a fire actually depends on whether it can ignite the fiber instantly.

Zhou Zhi taught Liang Guangping and Liu Hongtao the theoretical knowledge of making fire with flint while trying hard. In fact, there are some skills to produce more sparks. The surface of the iron tool that contacts the flint should be as sharp as possible, and the force should be as short as possible. Of course, the most important thing is to be able to predict the path of the flying sparks, so that they will land right on the moxa head of the fire striker.

Finally, two sparks landed accurately on the tinder. Unlike the previous small sparks that went out as soon as they landed, this time the small light continued to shine.

"It worked!" Liang Guangping shouted excitedly, but the air he blew out was too strong and directly blew out one of the small sparks.

Zhou Zhi quickly protected the remaining spark with his hands to avoid repeating the same mistake, and then gently shook the fire starter to provide oxygen to the spark without taking away too much temperature.

The spark slowly turned into a small red spot, and then spread rapidly, covering the entire surface of the fire starter.

It was safe now. Zhou Zhi puffed twice at the tinder, and a small, faint blue flame popped out of the tinder.

Take some small sticks to start the fire, and put it into the firewood pile that had been piled into a small hill in the fire pit. After a while, a bonfire started.

"Great, great!" Li Lu had just come over, not daring to breathe, but now she finally clapped her hands happily: "You really set Elbow on fire!"

"Hehehe..." Zhou Zhi was also a little proud of himself. Today was the most successful day for him to make a fire with flint, although Tu Ziri despised him for thinking that making a fire like this was equivalent to cheating.

If the Yi people take a tinder with them when they go out, they must carry a burning fire. No one would be stupid enough to carry an extinguished tinder with them. When they arrive at the campsite, they first use the flint to light the tinder, and then use the tinder to light the fire.

  Isn't this a bad deal?!

Cha de po means fool in Yi language, and this fool is a man. If it is a woman, she should be called Cha de ma.

When the fire was lit, Liang Guangping and Liu Hongtao cheered for a while, then they saw the beautiful lighter in Lao Chiri's hand. They looked at each other in bewilderment, feeling that they were "bad".