Ma'am help, the general is in trouble again

Chapter 76 Kiln Fired Bricks
Worker Mu Ke was extremely efficient in handling things, and maybe the names and addresses of the craftsmen in Fuxian County were all on file, so she found them all in less than half a day.

"Brother Sang, look, are the people I found suitable for you?" Mu Ke brought them in front of her.

Zheng Quchi glanced over, and they were all simple, black and thin men.

Wearing gray and brown jackets, with a sweat towel wrapped around her head, shivering a little in the winter, she looked at her curiously and silently.

"no problem."

Because Zheng Quchi has no special requirements for the mason, as long as he is a mason with rich experience.

She first handed over the required brick embryo size, materials and production method to them.

After listening to the mason, everyone reacted for a long time.

The process is similar to their daily adobe bricks, that is, the viscous soil material is beaten into a fine-textured mellow soil, and then put into a wooden mold for plasticity, and then demoulded, and the adobe is dried. One more thing is firing in a kiln.

But the unusual thing is that the materials she asked for added a lot of things they couldn't understand, and the other thing was the size...

A young mason must have struggled for a while before he dared to question: "This, such a large size is difficult to shape, and it will also dry and crack during the production process..."

When Mu Ke's eyes fell on him, he was so startled that he shut up and didn't dare to continue talking.

"I know all this."

Zheng Quchi understands that the traditional soil embryos in Fuxian County are relatively simple and rough, so they often have problems such as dryness and sandstorms in the later stage, especially if the shape is too large, the cohesive force of the soil is reduced, and cracks are more likely to occur.

But she can't do this, because she also added coal ash, grass stalks, chaff, etc. to increase the viscosity, and besides, she didn't need the bricks to be completely air-dried.

After the masons heard this, they felt that the black boy brought by the engineer probably didn't have much common sense in making adobe bricks, and he was directing them based on random imagination.

If such clay bricks are made, it is estimated that they will not be used.

"You know...and let us make it like this?" the mason muttered.

Zheng Quchi patiently explained to them: "Because I don't want to let the earthen bricks dry slowly and naturally, but wait for them to dry and form a little shape, then send them to the kiln for drying, and then fire them."

"This can't be burned!" The mason's eyes widened: "This is not a terracotta tile, so I can't burn it."

This is probably the person who tried to burn bricks and ended in failure.

Zheng Quchi knew that most of the masons and potters in Fu County had never fired bricks.

Firstly, because of the grade, the fired red bricks are not allowed to be used by ordinary people, and secondly, even folk kiln workers cannot touch the upper-level craft technology, have no experience and no inheritance, and life is poor, how could they Take that effort to study slowly.

"You don't have to worry about whether it's burnt or not, just follow Sang Gong's instructions."

Mu Ke is different from Zheng Quchi. In modern times, she is used to discussing things with workers, and she pays attention to the principle that everyone is equal in a job, regardless of high or low.

But in this era of kingship, the high official position crushes people to death. As a worker, Mu Ke's words are orders.

Now that the ministry officials have spoken, even if they have doubts in their hearts and disagree with Sang Xuanqing, they can only follow Zheng Quchi's words.

After a mason was found here to start making her custom-made brick embryos, Zheng Quchi went to the kiln workers at the other end and asked them to directly start the kiln with the dry earth embryo bricks that had been spared in the early stage.

These brick embryos should also be usable. She wants to start the kiln and fire a batch to see the effect, and then customize the brick embryos to have a more intuitive comparison.

Some methods of firing bricks are all books she has read before, and she has never tried it herself.

But she believes that as long as she is willing to work hard and try, she can always achieve the desired effect.

At the same time, she also adopted some joint responsibility methods of her time, such as casting the name of the kiln and the name of the kiln worker on the city bricks, which is a strict quality assurance system for the city wall.

Mu Ke expressed his approval of her approach.

So when it came to the firing process of brick embryos, which tested the most techniques, she specially found the largest kiln for kiln firing.

It should be said that the bricks produced by burning are more durable than the soil drying method, but it is not necessary to use burning bricks to solve the problem, but she wants to do it.

This time, she has gone through untold hardships to climb onto Yu Wencheng's thigh. Of course, she has to make the best use of his influence and resources to do something she has long wanted to do.

What she couldn't do alone, but now she can achieve it by accident.

It doesn't feel too good for the craftsmen and workshop directors in Fuxian County to let her dispatch them to operate them.

She told the kiln workers to pay attention when placing the bricks, and the distance between the bricks should be appropriate, otherwise the ventilation will not be smooth and the quality of the bricks will be affected. In addition, the firing time also needs to be determined by experienced kiln workers like them. Precise control.

The fire is big and the fire is small, and the time is long. It is best to record these all together.

The kiln workers obeyed her words and put the dry soil embryos into the kiln. Zheng Quchi also moved them together, because arranging bricks into the kiln is also a laborious job, of course, the more people the better.

After they laid the bricks according to her instructions, it was time to fire the bricks.

In fact, it is not very difficult to fire bricks, just burn the fire and keep burning until the brick embryos are completely hardened and become bricks.

For insurance, she prepared two options.

Up to the furnace, followed by the furnace.

And try it out to see which side of the brick is finally fired with better quality.

When Zheng Quchi taught the kiln workers how to burn bricks, how to pay attention to matters, and even the accuracy of some small details, they were all surprised.

Craftsmen in this era basically value the skills they invent or create, and pay more attention to their privacy, because no one wants others to steal the results of their hard research without any effort.

But Zheng Quchi had a different idea.

Firstly, this knowledge is the fruit of labor accumulated over thousands of years of culture, not her personal creation, as the saying goes, it is taken from the people and used for the people, there is nothing wrong with it.

Secondly, she also felt that if everyone chooses to clean up their own doorsteps, then this society will not be able to promote development, especially Ye country is already far behind, as Stalin said, if you fall behind, you will be beaten.

If you don’t want to be beaten, you have to find a way to improve yourself, the country, and civilization, and finally these will be fed back to everyone living in this country.

If this brick wants to be fired, it has to wait for several days, and even after it is fired, it has to be aired for a period of time, and it can only be released after the temperature is low enough. Otherwise, whoever touches the brick will be burnt into a "big foot". hooves".

Zheng Quchi didn't want to wait any longer, so she thought of another method of firing green bricks, with a certain degree of manual intervention.

That is, when the bricks are about to be "cooked", let the kiln workers slowly pour water into the kiln from the top of the kiln. The water slowly seeps down, and when it encounters high temperature, it quickly turns into water vapor, and fresh air cannot enter.

Then, when the water is almost filled, the kiln is re-sealed, and finally the whole firing process is perfectly completed.

And this method will shorten the cooling time, greatly improve the production efficiency, and even have a certain degree of benefit to the brick body.

While waiting for the kiln to open, Zheng Quchi took another trip to the drying yard.

She saw the masons stepping on the mud and beating it hard, which was really labor-intensive and too slow.

So she summoned the masons and offered them a solution.

It is to dig a big round hole in the ground first, spread it with flat stones, then pour the mixed mud into it, and then bring in a few cows.

Tie up the cattle, then blindfold them, control their traction ropes within the range of the mud pit, and finally let them step on the mud and stir instead of manpower.

This method has been unanimously praised by everyone, and even opened up their new ideas, and intends to continue to use it.

After all the preparations for the custom mud are done, the next step is to carry out plasticity and degerming.

Because Zheng Quchi customized a large size, which is different from the traditional clay brick embryo frame, it is necessary to customize a batch of mold frames again. alright.

There are about a hundred of them.

To produce 10,000+ brick embryos at once, the workload is not as heavy as 01:30.

This work of degerming is cumbersome and hard work, and a dozen or so masons in the area may not be able to handle it, so Mu Ke directly found hundreds of idlers in the county, relying on the advantage of the number, and finally did the degerming work. Divide five by two and it will be done.

In this way, another ten days passed.

Finally, the first kiln brick that Zheng Quchi was looking forward to and excited about will come to the world.

Since the kiln workers had experience in firing porcelain tiles, the kiln went relatively smoothly.

But not very successful.

When Zheng Quchi got the finished product, he carefully compared the modern red bricks, feeling a little disappointed.

Forming is forming, because the brick body is not hard enough, and part of it is broken.

... Sure enough, the clay bricks made from this kind of clay bricks still can't meet the standard after all.

She was very ignorant of this result, so she could only turn to the kiln worker to ask about the problems.

The kiln workers took this batch of bricks to look at them, and broke one of them with a hammer.

After a final discussion, he said excitedly to her: "This fired brick is indeed better than the clay embryo. This time it must have been over-fired, and the soil is too sticky. Maybe adding some sand will make it firmer."

As expected of a professional, he found most of the reasons in just a short while.

Zheng Quchi never underestimates anyone, so she is often willing to discuss some professional issues with the craftsmen, because some practical issues sometimes cannot be relied on past experience.

If she has the opportunity, she should read more books related to the construction industry in this world, learn more, increase her knowledge, and supplement the blank knowledge and common sense.

"I ordered another batch of brick embryos, please continue to open another kiln for firing when the time comes."

The kiln workers were very busy at the moment, and nodded excitedly at her.

"Where is there, next time, we will definitely sum up the experience of this time, and we will be more careful in firing."

This was their first time firing bricks. Although the bricks they fired were not enough to amaze them, the sense of success of successfully creating a novel thing made them feel excited.

(End of this chapter)