Early the next morning, I took my cousin Hetian Qiuqiu and Zhuang Zhuang to dig coal at the head of the river.

I was anxious to go, but I didn't. She had learned to use Acre, and I was left at home to look after the house. Su Wu will also use the Colt pistol, and she is also arranged to be responsible for guarding the home at home.

In fact, you don't need any manpower.

Dig up coal, dig it out, and load it up to send it to the river's bamboo raft, this kind of manual work is basically my man's business.

The reason why Tian Qiuqiu wanted to go was to pick some herbs along the road to treat her sister's foot injury.

Because the distance is not far, two hours back and forth is enough, plus two hours of digging coal, I can rush back for lunch at noon, so I didn't load the meal.

At nine o'clock in the morning, I went to the coal mountain.

We went straight to the mine we found the day before, shoveled a layer of soil on it, widened the mine to find the best coal seam, and then used a sapper shovel to dig out the coal.

My cousin was in charge of sorting the coal I dug up and loading it into baskets.

Tian Qiuqiu took Zhuang Zhuang to the nearby mountains to collect medicine.

I told her not to go far, not to leave the range of our voices, otherwise there would be an accident that would not echo.

My cousin picked up the coals, picked out the gangue and threw them away, and her hands were black and mushy. Talk to me: "This is bituminous coal, and it is of very good quality, and the degree of coalification is extremely high. When it is burned, the heat is high, and it burns for a long time, and it is better to break it for daily use as fuel, than to burn firewood. ”

I stopped what I was doing, wiped the sweat from my head, and said, "Of course." There are waterways, transportation is so convenient, and it is several times more resistant to burning than firewood, and the stove at home is changed to burn coal, and they will come here to mine coal in the future. Oh, by the way, you say, this coal, can we make briquettes and burn it?"

My cousin said, "Why do you want to make briquettes?"

I said, "When we used to burn coal in the countryside, didn't we all burn briquettes at home, otherwise how could we burn it?

My cousin said, "Crack it into pulverized coal and burn it, this kind of bituminous coal is not very hard, and it can be broken with a piece of hard wood." In fact, you don't need to grind it into pulverized coal, just knock it into thumb-like pieces, sprinkle it in the stove, and it will be just as good to burn. ”

I didn't give up: "You can't make briquettes?"

My cousin shook her head and said, "It's not very easy to do, it seems to add a lot of things, what sawdust, straw, loess, lime, some accelerants such as potassium permanganate, and there must be a coal press, without which you can't press briquettes." Do we have these conditions now?"

As soon as I heard that it was so troublesome, I didn't want to talk about it.

It took more than two hours to dig a boatload of coal, put it on a bamboo raft, find Tian Qiuqiu, who was collecting medicine, and rushed home downstream.

When I got home, I was just in time for the lunch that Su Wu cooked.

……

We dug coal for two days, two boats a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, a total of four boats, each with more than 1,000 catties, adding up to more than two tons.

These two tons of coal, excluding the ceramics, are enough for us to cook and burn for two months.

It is not easy to store after digging too much, so I stopped, carefully covered the mouth of the mine with thatch, and waited for the burning of the mine back home to be mined.

On the third day, I used yellow mud and stones to re-build a coal stove that burned coal grains next to the wood stove.

Then he cut down a piece of hardwood, beat the coals for half a day, and hammered them into small grains to use as fuel for cooking.

I tried it when I was cooking that night, and it felt pretty good, more convenient than burning firewood.

This little day seems to be getting more and more rushed.

After recuperating for a few days, Tian Xiaxia's foot injury was almost better.

So he came out as the commander-in-chief and led us to fire pottery.

This pottery looks like it's nothing more than a lump of mud, but it takes a lot of skill to make it.

Without Tian Xiaxia's guidance, we wouldn't have been able to do it at all! Before we did it, we thought it would have been simple.

The boat of Guanyin soil raw materials brought back only used two-thirds.

First of all, the first process is mud training. The Guanyin soil is crushed, and the broken soil is scooped into powder with the stone mortar of the rice, and then the impurities are washed off, and then precipitated, made into bricks, and then kneaded with water, and stepped on with the feet to make the most primitive blank.

Then it's time to do the molding.

We are in poor conditions, and we can't make the blank as beautiful as a serious pottery workshop.

Our requirements, as long as they are strong and durable, do not matter if they are ugly.

We don't have a roller car for pulling blanks, and we don't have a good mold, so we can only pinch it directly by hand, knead it into several styles of pottery bowls and pots, and pinch out the approximate shape, which is in line with the use, and it looks pleasing to the eye.

In this billet making session, the six of us gathered around to discuss and brainstorm ideas, and finally decided what kind of pottery to make.

As long as it is used in daily life, we can imagine something, and we can pinch some out.

This kind of work is very troublesome, we have to take advantage of this kiln to burn everything that can be burned, and we don't have the time to burn the second kiln later.

So in the end, we made a total of 50 pottery bowls, 30 pottery cups, 20 pottery saucers, 10 large bowls for soup, 5 large pottery pots for washing face and hands, 5 pottery pots for cooking and boiling, 3 pottery pots for cooking and filling tea, 4 large pottery urns for pickling things and storing water, 10 small pottery jars for winemaking, and 3 large pottery jars!

Why do you have to make so much of everything?

Because this muddy stuff is very brittle, and it crumbles when it falls to the ground. We don't have more to prepare, so if it breaks, we won't be able to find a replacement. Especially dishes and other things.

Then, according to Tian Qiuqiu's request, he also specially made two medicine pots for cooking medicinal soup at ordinary times.

Kexin made her own assertions, and also pinched an ingenious rice bowl for her four little wolf dogs. It was divided into five compartments, four of which were used for rice, and the fifth, large and long, was used for water. It is also said that they are not allowed to compete for food and distribute it fairly.

It is kneaded into a green body, and the next process is to dry.

Clear a vacant lot in the yard, put fur on it, and place the blanks on it, let it be roasted in the sun, and dry the water.

After drying, it is followed by glazing.

Use the ore brought back from the previous voyage, add clay, make a glaze, and apply it to the rough blank with a brush to make it smooth and shiny.

In the end, it's roasting.

This is the final step.

The pottery was placed in the kiln, stacked neatly, covered with soil, and then lit on the fire.

It was burned for a total of twenty hours before the kiln was opened.

A batch of sturdy and durable clay bowls and clay pots are finally available!

The whole production process took us, a full thirteen days!

(End of chapter)