Worker Muke was very efficient in her work. Perhaps the names and addresses of all the craftsmen in Fu County were recorded on file, so she found them all in less than half a day.
"Brother Sang, take a look, are these people I've found for you suitable?" Muke brought them to her.
Zheng Quchi took a quick look and saw that they were all simple, dark and thin men.
Wearing some gray or brown shorts, with a sweat towel wrapped around his head, he was shivering in the cold in the winter, and he looked at her curiously and silently.
"no problem."
Because Zheng Quchi did not have any special requirements for masons, as long as they were experienced masons.
She first handed them the required dimensions, materials, and production methods of the bricks.
After hearing this, the masons all reacted for a while.
The process is similar to their daily adobe brick making, that is, the sticky soil is beaten into fine-textured mature soil, then placed in a wooden mold to plasticize, then demoulded, and the adobe is dried, but hers requires more One more item is to be fired in the kiln.
But what's unusual is that the materials she requested contain a lot of things that they can't understand, and the other thing is the size...
A young mason must have been struggling for a while before he boldly asked: "This, this kind of large size is difficult to shape after deembryation, and it will also dry out and crack during the production process..."
When Mu Ke's eyes fell on him, he was so shocked that he shut up and did not dare to continue talking.
"I know all this."
Zheng Quchi understands that the traditional soil embryos in Fu County often suffer from problems such as drying out and sandstorms in the later stage because the clay materials are relatively simple and rough. Especially when the shapes are too large, the soil cohesion decreases and cracks are more likely to occur.
But she can't do this, because she also added soot, grass stalks, chaff and other substances to increase the stickiness. Besides, she doesn't need the bricks to be completely dried naturally.
After hearing this, the masons felt that the black boy brought by the work officer probably had no common sense in making adobe bricks, and was just giving them instructions based on random imagination.
Once such adobe bricks are made, they probably won't be used.
"You know... and you still let us do it like this?" the mason muttered.
Zheng Quchi patiently explained to them: "Because I don't let this clay brick slowly dry naturally, but wait for it to dry and take a slight shape before sending it to the kiln to dry before firing."
"This can't be burned!" The mason's eyes widened: "This is not pottery, so we can't burn it."
This is probably someone who has tried to bake bricks before but failed.
Zheng Quchi knew that most of the masons and kiln workers in Fu County had never fired bricks.
Firstly, due to class reasons, fired red bricks are not allowed to be used by ordinary people. Secondly, even private kiln workers have no access to this upper-level craftsmanship. They have no experience and no inheritance. In addition, they live in poverty. How can they Spend that time researching slowly.
"Don't worry about whether it's burning or not, just do as Sang Gong said."
Muke is different from Zheng Quchi. In modern times, she is accustomed to discussing with workers and pays attention to the principle that everyone is equal regardless of whether they are high or low in a job.
But in this era of royal power, high officials can overwhelm others. As a work officer, Muke's words are orders.
Now that the ministry officer has spoken, even if they have doubts in their hearts and do not agree with Sang Xuanqing, they can only follow Zheng Quchi's words.
After hiring a mason here to start making her specially customized brick embryos, Zheng Quchi went to the kiln workers and asked them to prepare the dry soil embryo bricks in advance and fire them directly in the kiln.
These brick embryos should also be usable. She wanted to open a kiln and fire a batch first to see the effect, and then customize the brick embryos to have a more intuitive comparison.
Some methods of firing bricks were all from books that she had read before, but she had never personally experimented with them.
But she believes that as long as she is willing to work hard and try, she can always achieve the results she expected.
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. This was a strict quality assurance system for the city wall.
Mu Ke expressed his approval of her approach.
So when it came to the firing of brick embryos, which tested the most technical skills, she specially found the largest kiln for kiln firing.
The baked bricks were more durable than the earth-dried bricks, but it was not necessary to use baked bricks to solve the problem, but she wanted to do it.
She had gone through all kinds of hardships to get on Yu Wensheng's lap this time. Of course, she had to make the best use of his power and resources to do something she had wanted to do for a long time.
What she couldn't do by herself can now be achieved by a combination of circumstances.
The feeling that all the craftsmen and workshops in Fu County are at her disposal is not very satisfying.
She told the kiln workers to pay attention when placing bricks, and the distance between bricks should be appropriate, otherwise the ventilation will be poor and the quality of the bricks will be affected. In addition, the firing time also requires experienced kiln workers like them. Precise control.
Whether the fire is small, the time is long, it is best to record these together.
The kiln worker obeyed her and put the dry soil embryo into the kiln. Zheng Quchi also moved it together, because arranging bricks into the kiln was also a laborious task, and of course the more people, the better.
After they laid the bricks as she requested, it was time to bake the bricks.
In fact, it is not difficult to bake bricks. It is just a matter of burning fire and burning until the brick embryo is completely hardened and petrified, and then it becomes a brick.
To seek insurance, she prepared two options.
Go up to the fire kiln, follow down the fire kiln.
Let's try it out to see which bricks are of better quality in the end.
When Zheng Quchi taught the kiln workers how to bake bricks and what to pay attention to, even to the point of not retaining some small details, they were all surprised.
Craftsmen of this era basically attach great importance to the skills they invented or created, and pay more attention to their privacy, because no one wants others to steal the results of their hard work without any effort.
But Zheng Quchi had a different idea.
First of all, this knowledge is the fruit of labor accumulated through thousands of years of cultural accumulation. It is 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 there were some things that if everyone chose to do it themselves, then this society would not be able to promote development, especially since the country of Ye was already backward enough. Stalin once said that if you fall behind, you will be beaten.
If you don't want to be beaten, you have to find ways to make personal progress, national progress, and civilization progress, and finally these will be fed back to everyone living in this country.
If you want this brick to be fired well, you have to wait for several days. Even after it is fired, it has to be left to dry for a period of time until the temperature is low enough before it can be taken out of the oven. Otherwise, whoever touches the brick will be burned into "big feet" hoof".
Zheng Quchi didn't want to wait any longer, so she thought of another method of firing green bricks and carried out a certain degree of manual intervention.
When the bricks are almost "cooked", the kiln workers are asked to slowly pour water into the kiln from the top of the kiln. The water slowly seeps downwards, and when it encounters high temperatures, it quickly turns into water vapor, and fresh air cannot enter.
Then when the water injection is almost complete, the kiln is resealed, and finally the entire firing process ends perfectly.
This method will shorten the cooling time, greatly improve the production efficiency, and even have certain benefits for the brick body.
While waiting for the kiln to open, Zheng Quchi took the time to go to the drying field.
She saw that the masons were struggling to trample on the mud and beat it. This task was really too labor-intensive and too slow.
So she called the masons and gave them a solution.
That is to dig a large circular pit in the ground, cover it with flat stones, pour the mixed mud into it, and then bring in a few cows.
The cows were tied up, blindfolded, and their traction ropes were controlled within the mud pit. Finally, they stepped on the mud and stirred it instead of human power.
This method has been well received by everyone, and it has even opened up new ideas for them, and they plan to continue using it.
After all the preparations for customizing the clay are done, the next step is to plasticize and degerminate it.
Because Zheng Quchi customized a large size, which was different from the traditional adobe brick frame, she needed to customize a batch of new mold frames. This was not difficult. Basically, while the masons were working on the clay, she would find a carpenter to make them in advance. alright.
There are hundreds of them.
It takes hundreds of thousands of bricks to produce at once, so the workload is not the least bit heavy.
This degermination work was cumbersome and hard, and it was unlikely that a dozen masons could handle it, so Muke directly found hundreds of idle people in the county, and relied on their numerical advantage to finally complete the degermination work. Just divide five by two and you're done.
Another ten days passed like this.
Finally, the first kiln bricks that Zheng Quchi was looking forward to and excited about were about to be released.
Since the kiln workers had experience in firing porcelain tiles, the kiln went relatively smoothly.
But it wasn't very successful.
When Zheng Quchi got the finished product, he carefully compared it with modern red bricks and felt a little disappointed.
It was formed, but part of it was broken because the brick body was not hard enough.
...Sure enough, the clay bricks made from this kind of clay bricks still fail to meet the standards.
She was confused about this result and could only turn to the kiln workers to ask about the problems.
The kiln workers took a look at the batch of bricks and then used a hammer to break one of them.
After a final discussion, he said to her excitedly: "This baked brick is indeed better than the soil embryo. It must have been over-burned this time. In addition, the soil is too sticky. Maybe adding some sand will make it hard and solid."
As expected of a professional, most of the reasons were found in just a short time.
Zheng Quchi never looked down on anyone, so she was often willing to discuss some professional issues with the craftsmen, because for some practical problems, sometimes she could not rely on past experience.
If she has the opportunity, she should read more books related to the construction industry in this world to learn more, increase her knowledge, and supplement her blank knowledge and common sense.
"I have customized another batch of brick embryos. Please continue to open another kiln for firing when the time comes."
The kiln workers were in full swing now and nodded excitedly towards her.
"Wherever, next time, we will definitely sum up the experience this time, and we will be more careful when firing."
This was their first time to bake bricks. Although the bricks they produced were not enough to amaze them, the sense of success of successfully creating a novelty made them excited.
(End of chapter)
