Seeing that the three of them understood a little, they patted the rat's shoulder with their hands, and said to him with a smile:

"Rat, do you remember that new sunken cave kiln we built?"

The rat nodded and said:

"I remember that it took a lot of effort to dig up the earth to form a mountain of dirt, and there was water bubbling out of the soil, and finally a lot of lime and stones were used to get the bottom right. Well? Water? ”

The rat who was talking suddenly remembered that there was water digging out at that time. If Ding Qi had chosen a site for the sunken cave kiln next to a creek at that time, it would have come out of the water a long time ago. Fortunately, he chose a dry place where the ground was high and not easy to accumulate water, but he could dig eight meters below and start to produce water, and when he dug to a depth of ten meters, the water that came out reached his knees.

In the end, there was really no way, Ding Qi arranged for all the staff to go on the field, and took turns to scoop water with clay pots to empty all the water at the bottom. Then sprinkle a large amount of quicklime to neutralize and absorb the water at the bottom, and then fill the soil and stones, and finally build the sunken cave kiln, but a lot of work was wasted.

To be honest, the climatic conditions in the primitive period are too good, the soil and water are well maintained, except for some extreme areas, there is basically no need to worry about the situation of no water.

However, the situation here in the copper mine is a little different, and the surrounding area is full of rocks and grass, and the soil is dry compared to other places. It turns out that the Qing tribe rarely comes here, and there are few animals, if it weren't for the fact that this is a copper mine, Ding Qi would not be interested here.

However, the place chosen by Ding Qi is surrounded by more shrubs, the soil is a little wet, and the terrain is slightly subsided. According to the methods of finding water that I have learned before, there is a high probability that there is water here.

One of the survival freaks about finding groundwater is the principle of finding water: look for signs that appear unexpectedly, such as a small green leafy plant at the foot of a mountain, or a bend in a dry riverbed overgrown near a bend in a dry riverbed, or a sudden clump of greenery in an arid environment, all of which indicate that there may be groundwater in the vicinity.

"Yes, water! Looks like you're remembering. If the cave kiln dug at that time continues to dig, a large amount of water will be dug up, and if stones are sprinkled on the four walls and crushed stones are sprinkled at the bottom of the pit, it will become a well, and it will be much easier for everyone to get water. But there was a creek where we lived, so I didn't have to worry about water shortages, so I didn't dig a well. ”

Ding Qi took the shovel from the fox's hand, dug down two more shovels deep, pointed to the earth below and said to them:

"You see, the place I just dug up has more moisture than the place we stepped on. Looking at the current position, when digging to a depth of fifteen meters, there will be more water. Fox, you go and call seven or eight people to come and take turns digging the well until the water is dug out. ”

The fox responded, and Dingqi asked White Fang to arrange for someone to find some football-sized stones and gravel to prepare for the wall of the well. However, these stones must be polished and leveled before they can be used, otherwise the wall of the well will fall before they are covered. In fact, the final wall material is green brick, which can resist blisters and corrosion, and can be used for many years.

Ding Qi plans to explore a way to burn green bricks, and burn more green bricks to use when the time comes.

After arranging the digging of the well, Ding Qi took the three of them to the mine again. The mine is actually some distance from the residential area, but it is much closer to the charcoal burning area, and the time spent back and forth every day is much less, and more time and energy can be spent on smelting copper ore.

Outside the mine, Ding Qi looked at the pit in front of him, and his heart was surging. That's the power of humanity! Although the power of one person is small, the power of everyone can be brought together, and mountains can be moved and the sea can be reclaimed!

There is a pit about 100 meters in diameter and more than 2 meters deep, and a path paved with gravel and earth leads to the outside of the pit, and two deep scratches extend directly from the pit

Reach out to the ore storage yard where the furnace is. There were a dozen young slaves smashing the copper ore with bronze axes in their hands, piling it aside, waiting for the other young slaves to come and pull the broken stone away and pour it into the furnace for smelting. They were covered in mineral dust, and after a long time, they looked like gray-white clay statues.

Retracting his gaze, Ding Qi walked into the pit and came to the center, where a large ore with a height of nearly two meters and a diameter of five or six meters with a green circumference stood there, one in the soil and the other on the ground.

That's a whole piece of malachite! If you put it in the 21st century, it is priceless!

"Chief, look at this ore, it will definitely produce more copper, and the quality will definitely be better. But we couldn't break it, so we had to sit here until now and watch it stare dryly. There are other places where this ore exists, such as the depression on the left, which has a whole large ore underneath, and the depression on the right, where there is a larger ore. ”

White Fang pointed to the big malachite in front of him, as well as the ore under the two hollows in the distance, very helpless.

"We're going to start digging along the perimeter of these two large pieces of ore to clear the area and see how big these two pieces of ore are."

Ding Qi's eyes lit up a little when he saw the big stone. If it was in modern society, he would have found an excavator to dig it up and sell it for money. It's a pity that the primitive society's transportation capacity is too poor, so I can only stare at the big stone as White Fang said.

However, since Ding Qi said that water should be used to open mines, then he must achieve this goal and use water to open mines.

Pointing to the stone, Tinch said to the three of them:

"It's not a big problem, I'll say a way, you guys go back and try it and see if it works. This method is called: fire incineration water shock method or burning explosion method, which means that the ore is broken up by fire and water shock to achieve the purpose of mining. ”

Ding Qi stopped at this point, looked at the performance of the three people, and the rat seemed to have understood, a look of thinking. But the white fang and the fox didn't understand, scratching their ears and cheeks, and they couldn't understand it!

Ding Qi smiled and continued:

"The principle is actually quite simple, the specific method is to first heat the whole ore with fire, and then pour cold water on it when it is heated to a certain extent. Under the action of hot and cold excitation, the ore will crack from the middle to achieve the purpose of mining ore. This is the use of the principle of the change of ore heat* expansion and contraction volume, what is the heat* expansion and contraction? Specifically......"

At this time, Ding Qi seemed to be a physics teacher who was lecturing and was lecturing to ancient students. Eloquently, meticulously and patiently, these three primitive people, who didn't know what physics was, gradually understood the truth of heat * expansion and cold contraction, and understood the role of fire and water stimulation. Although this method is a bit of a waste of firewood and water, it is much better than the previous method at all.

And the fire and water agitation method can also be used in the mountain excavation, the famous "Hanzhong plank road" in later generations is the world's earliest through the mountain road with artificial excavation, 16.3 meters long, 4.2 meters wide, 4 meters high, started in Yongping two years to Yongping six years to complete, the way adopted is "fire and water agitation", this is a great innovation of human beings to conquer nature.

In later generations, the fire and water agitation method was often used by the ancients to open mines, until the great ancestors invented gunpowder, which changed the way human beings opened mines. However, some methods of digging holes along the veins can only be mined with tools such as pickaxes, crowbars, hammers, axes and chisels.

From a very early age, Ding Qi had been preparing to make the collection of miscanthus salt, which was a key ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder. Of course, it has to be accompanied by sulfur and charcoal. The sulfur still has to be touched, and I don't know when I will find it.

When the reason is clear, they know how to proceed.

Immediately, the White Fang and the Rat commanded them to go down,

Send more people to cut down wood and bring it over.

At present, the main way to transport ore in the mine is to use rattan baskets and snow plows to drag and transfer, so the support under the rattan basket and snow plough is particularly expensive. Fortunately, one of the hunting team somehow secretly learned the carpenter work that Ding Qi taught Jing, and used a chisel made of bronze scraps to make a snow plow, which solved the problem. However, most of the people in the mine use rattan baskets to transport ore, and rattan baskets are much more damaged in comparison.

This is also an oversight on the part of Ding Qi, if it weren't for the fact that everyone had learned basket weaving skills and was smart and capable, the work of this mine would have been suspended a long time ago.

When Ding Qi and the others returned to the residential area, the temporary living area for the people of the Blue Bird Tribe had been built. Clay pots have been set up on the campfire, broth is boiling, and the aroma has long since filled the camp.

Ding Qi was resting, and Cang, who had gone out hunting before, carried the horses on his shoulders with two teams of team members, and brought back a lot of meat. Kura also shouted loudly that he had shot two stag on his horse, and tried to show off his bow and arrow skills. But when he saw Ding Qi, his joy immediately went down, and he came to Ding Qi with a smile to say hello.

Ding Qi didn't make fun of him as before, and stretched out his thumb to praise him:

"Yes, Cang, your level has improved! Keep up the good work and let the big guys quickly learn the skills of archery right away, so that your combat level will have a qualitative leap! Be sure to stay safe, though. ”

Seeing that the leader not only criticized him for showing off just now, but also praised him vigorously, Cang was very excited, and nodded busily.

At the same time, Ding Qi expressed his appreciation for his previous behavior of saving the Qiu tribe, especially the fact that none of his team members were slightly injured, which fully reflected the usual training of the hunting team members to achieve their goals. Moreover, they also caught so many slaves, which made Ding Qi very happy.

Before eating, Cang also made a detailed report on the previous rescue operation, and among the members of the Blackwater tribe who were caught, all the lightly injured were healed after treatment, and 5 of the seriously injured survived, and 41 slaves were obtained at once. And this also fully shows that Ding Qi's treatment method of using dandelion, calamus and salt water is still relatively effective, which is also inseparable from the physique of the slaves, and the survival rate of a good physique is also high.

And, judging from the treatment on the second day after the war, three of the five seriously injured people in the Qiu tribe had a fever, and they used the physical cooling method introduced by Ding Qi, and one person managed to survive it, and the chance of survival should be very high. Eight of the ten seriously injured in Blackwater had a fever, and three survived the test of high fever.

Ding Qixin said that the bacteria or viruses in the primitive period were weak, and if they developed resistance, similar injuries would be difficult to treat in the future. And these survivors are lucky, and when the bacterial resistance is strengthened in the future, if better disinfection and anti-inflammatory drugs cannot be found, the mortality rate of primitive humans with trauma will increase greatly.

After dinner, Ding Qi held a small meeting and appointed Rat as the head of the next mine, and he led his nine team members to be stationed in the mine to protect the mine and all the slaves.

At the same time, Ding Qi selected twenty people from the newly captured slaves of the Black Water Tribe (later known as black slaves) to stay as a supplement to the manpower of mining and smelting. And the ten horses of the team are also left here, and they can be used as horses when they are not in use, and they can also be used to the fullest extent of the ore or something.

After the matter was arranged, there was a cheer from the digging well, as if more water had been dug up, and several successive words "out of the water" floated in the wind.

Everyone was visibly shaken, stood up, picked up the burning wood from the campfire, and ran to the well. As for Cang, he was confused, not knowing what was going on, but he followed Ding Qi, and he would surely see that magical scene soon!