The day after the beginning of winter, more than 100 conscripts recruited from the wild villages gathered in the city. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

At this time, it was the time for the villages to seize the time to reclaim the land, and they needed to be paid food, so the number of people recruited this time was not large.

The men on duty stood there waiting to collect tools and distribute tasks, curiously watching as a group of people in the city carried some sacks to see if they would move inside.

"What's inside?"

"Pigeons, pigeons caught."

"This thing is very delicious, it's just too small, are you going to chop up so many dumplings or make soup?"

The person carrying the pigeon was startled, and hurriedly shook his head and said: "It's not for eating, Ji Xia said that you are not allowed to eat pigeons in the future, these are to be raised." ”

When the people heard that they couldn't eat it, their interest was greatly reduced, and they asked curiously, "How did you catch so many pigeons?" Is it that the city has come up with a new method? ”

"There was nothing new, Ji Xia got some cloth sieves, swept out a clearing in the rocky mountains to the east, and used wooden sticks to prop up the sieve, and the wheat grains were sprinkled under the sieve, and when the pigeons went to eat, they pulled the ropes, and the pigeons were detained. There are pigeons there in the rocky mountains, and we got a lot of ox cart pigeon droppings there last time, and you don't see how well that wheat grows. ”

During the conversation, Chen Jian ran over and asked these people to put the pigeons in a covered wooden house to feed, and gradually familiarize the pigeons with the existence of people.

Those people took the order to leave, Chen Jian counted the people who came here to serve as conscripts, and after determining the number, he first broke up the tribes and separated them, and selected one person to receive today's wheat, leaving a few women to be responsible for cooking.

These people are digging up the nitrate fields, which will not produce nitrate until next summer, but it is impossible to wait until the legs with stomach aches and tremble to find the toilet, and take care of it before the snow is held, so that when the sports meeting is held in May next year, it can give the people of those two cities a big surprise.

Because the wind blows southeast in summer, the nitrate field can only choose the northwest side of the castle, which smells too much.

The principle of nitrate is to use water purification bacteria to turn organic matter proteins and the like into ammonia, and then use nitrifying bacteria to oxidize ammonia into nitrate, and finally use plant ash to provide potassium ions to purify potassium nitrate.

It sounds lofty, but it's actually not magical. In the past, most of the empires in the gunpowder era were built on the toilets of the people, and there were only a few large saltpeter mines, and the main saltpeter-producing areas such as Chile and the banks of the Ganges River were basically colonies of one country, and the rest could only ponder scraping nitrate from the toilets.

Dung, including the pigeons that Chen Jian caught before, were strategic materials for the country in the gunpowder era when there were no saltpeter mines.

The pigeon's digestive tract is very short, many nutrients can not be completely absorbed, pigeon manure is a good fertilizer and an excellent raw material for nitrate, which can also be used to transmit information.

Some countries in the gunpowder era had officials who kept pigeons, and there were officials who collected toilets, which sounds odd, but it means a lot to the country.

Chen Jian understood the principle of the nitrate field, and he thought about how to operate it for a long time.

A few days ago, the weather turned cooler, and some white nitrate has appeared on the wall roots of the toilet dug last year, but the yield is too low to be eaten on a large scale.

Whether it is water purification bacteria or nitrifying bacteria, they are aerobic bacteria, so the environment in the toilet is not very suitable for them to grow, because the underside is too viscous and unlikely to be able to breathe.

Nitrifying bacteria are extremely afraid of light, can be easily killed by bright light, multiply slowly, and prefer oxygen and summer temperatures.

After understanding these two principles, there will be a comparison and method when it comes to specific operations.

With them, they dug a pit one step deep, twenty paces long, and three paces wide in the open space northwest of the city, and compacted it with clay underneath to ensure that it would not leak.

A large number of red bricks were brought from the city, laid underneath, and after all the mats were tamped, a layer of riverside sand was spread on top, which did not need to be too thick.

There is a gap between the sand to facilitate air circulation, and the paving is not very thick, and the feces are diluted with water and sprinkled on the sand, which solves the problem of aerobic.

After laying the red bricks, the sand can be easily swept together with tools to boil, which solves the problem of collection.

After digging the pit, stick a wooden stick around the pit and cover it with thatch, which can solve the problem of shading, and because the orientation is southeast and northwest, once the surrounding area is covered, there will be a strong wind through the hall.

Temperature control is too difficult, and there is no hurry, since nitrifying bacteria like summer temperatures, just wait until summer to let them work.

The basic principle is that the diluted manure water is thrown into the sand pile of the nitrate field, and the water purification bacteria decompose into ammonia under humid conditions, but under the conditions of shading and sufficient oxygen at the right temperature, the nitrifying bacteria oxidize the ammonia into nitrate and adhere to the sand.

Because there are flat red bricks under the sand, they can be quickly collected and reused, so as to achieve the effect of boiling nitrate once in about 20 days.

In order to achieve Chen Jian's goal, several qualified masons in the city were all called here, and in addition to laying red bricks underneath, they also needed to build several large houses here to serve as gunpowder workshops and boiling workshops in the future.

These people probably knew that this place would become a distribution center for dung water in the future, so they sniffled and said: "Ji Xia, it must be very smelly here in summer, and the flies are coaxing, so I think it is better to put the workshop in the city." ”

Chen Jian shook his head without thinking about it, the gunpowder workshop would definitely not work in the city, if something happened one day, the entire city would be broken.

"Well, then, leave a distance of fifty paces between the tanus and the workshop, plant some trees in between, and move the pigsty of the city to this vicinity in the future."

"Where's the sheepfold and the horses?"

"No, sheep dung is a small ball, horse dung and cow dung can be dried naturally, it is easy to collect, just get the pigsty around here, and then get some wood or build a fence between the nitrate field and the workshop, in the future, this place will be the same as the barracks of the new army, without the permission of me or more than half of the council, outsiders will not be allowed to enter."

As soon as the masons heard this, they knew how important this thing was, even if it was a workshop such as grinding tofu and making vinegar, the management was not so strict, except for the rules, Ji Xia in their eyes rarely had such a strict measure, it seemed that this thing could make the city change dramatically again.

Chen Jian took out the charcoal drawings of the bark that he had already prepared, and he tried his best to let these masons learn to read the drawings, even if it was a simple task like building a house, he would not miss the opportunity to quietly change the habits of his clansmen.

A few masons had long been accustomed to it, and squatted on the ground to unfold the birch bark, and Chen Jian pointed at it with a charcoal pen.

"Dig six of them for the time being, side by side as much as possible, and dig the fence or fence in a rectangle of 100 paces long and 30 paces wide, and I'll take a few children for you to draw out on the ground with white ash in a while. The creek next to it was blocked and cut off, and a small canal was dug to flow through the vicinity of the nitrate field, where water would be needed in the future. The pigsty is covered on top of the nitrate, and the bottom can also be ...... with bricks."

The mason muttered, "Our house is not a masonry floor, but the pigs have lived first." ”

Everyone laughed, and Jian Chen said helplessly: "People know how to go to the toilet, but pigs don't know." The red bricks are paved with a slope, and the swineherd washes it with water every day, so that the pig manure can be left directly into the nitrate field along the dug ditch, which saves a lot of work. It would be a person who could save one person. ”

He pointed to the map again: "In the middle, there are some gourds, creepers, and the like, and the workshop area is in the southeast of the nitrate field, which also needs a wall, and the house must be large, and the open space outside should also be large." Three mills or stone mills are needed in the clearing, and this is the business of the stonemasons, so you just leave a place for the donkeys to turn in circles. ”

"How many people do you need here? Need a place to eat and cook? ”

"No, no fire, cooking and eating are all back to the city, anyway, it's not far. I guess we need twenty people here, not slaves. ”

A few masons looked around the picture for a long time, pointed to the circle of small houses next to it, and said, "What is this for?" ”

"Keeping pigeons. The pigeons do not fly south in winter, and there is little food, which is the most suitable season for domestication. A few days ago, I caught a total of six or seven hundred, and I will keep them here in the future. ”

The pigeon's house is small, with a large number of small brick windows as their nests, which are covered with planks and hay, and the outside floor is also covered with red bricks to facilitate the collection of pigeon droppings.

The pigeon meat tastes good, but now is not the time to eat it. Pigeons are easy to domesticate and are easy to get close to their owners who feed them often, the disadvantage is that they are too small, the eggs are smaller, and the food value is not high.

Feather Chen Jian tried to make the tail feathers of the arrow shaft, the effect is okay, now there are many birds in the mountains, they are not needed for the time being, but in the future, when the scale of the war is expanded or prolonged, it can still be used, it is better than the light pole.

In addition to the pigeon house, Chen Jian also painted several fermentation tanks with manure piles nearby.

The manure poured directly into the field not only has no effect, but also causes the seedlings to burn, and it must be fermented before it can be used, and the fermentation tank is nothing more than tamping the ground and covering the grass shed.

According to the current population and number of soldiers in the city, the output of saltpeter may consume two or three thousand catties per year, that is, more than 30 tons of manure raw materials.

In addition to saltpeter consumption, there are still 600,000 catties left every year, mixed with some rotten grass, and the natural fertilizer that can be soaked every year can also be closed to a few catties per acre, but if all of them are piled up in the public field, plus struvite and plant ash to work carefully, the grain yield can be greatly improved.

The food problem in the next ten years will be very serious, relying on slaves to support it will lead to structural deformities, too many slaves and too concentrated, in case of a Victor Chen raising his arms, it is really terrible.

Therefore, if we want to break the situation, we can only avoid this situation by using the agricultural revolution of intensive cultivation and cattle and horse farming, and disintegrate into families as soon as possible, and separate the tribe and all non-public slaves for family use, and avoid the centralized use of slaves.

The compost is made from the same raw materials as the nitrate, and it can be done all at once, and this is the last group of people that can be recruited before the fall freezes.

After reading the drawing, a few masons made sure that there was nothing they didn't understand, and nodded: "We basically understand, Ji Xia, you go and get busy with yours, we can do things here." ”

"It will be completed in thirty days, and after I have passed the inspection, a few of you will go directly to the city to receive the three sheep, which are your own, and you will eat separately or change for others. Do well, the tanuki has been drafted by me to the new army, and the masons still need an official, so I will choose from among you. (To be continued.) )