Chapter 33 Porcelain Burning
At the beginning, in order to write a historical overhead farming text, Donner prepared countless materials before and after, and saved them offline in his mobile phone for easy access at any time.
I didn't expect to write an article that was useless, but it was really used after crossing into the other world, and I have to say that it was really a creation and a trick.
There are many materials such as local steelmaking, local sugar making, soap and perfume, etc.
Although these materials are not accurate to the extent of materials, processes, and time, the general process and materials are recorded very clearly, and they also contain some structural pictures such as blast furnaces, cannons, sea ships, etc.
With the help of these materials, not to mention that products can be manufactured immediately, at least there are many, many detours.
These materials are all classified, Donner took a serious look, with the current conditions on Crescent Island, most of the things cannot be made, and there is barely one left - porcelain.
Porcelain can be said to be one of the heaviest inventions in China, and porcelain and silk have long played an irreplaceable role in the trade between ancient times and the West.
According to what Donner learned from the conversation with Yuri and others in the book, in fact, the Holy Light Continent is currently similar to the European Middle Ages.
Whether it is civilization, religion, class, military, politics or life culture, they are all similar in large areas.
The most important thing is that the Holy Light Continent, like medieval Europe, does not point out the technology tree of porcelain.
The household utensils used by the people on the Holy Light Continent are mainly dinner plates, knives and forks, and the materials of the utensils used by people of different classes are also very different, after all, different wealth determines different quality of life.
For example, the ancient nobles and royal families probably used gold to make utensils, the noble lords used silver utensils, the merchants were poor, and the wealthy may be able to use silver or even gold utensils, but brass or tin utensils are generally used.
As for serfs and slaves, are they considered human beings?
Porcelain has always been famous for its beauty, and has been favored by Western aristocrats and merchants since the beginning of trade between the West and the East.
Donner thought that if he could fire porcelain, he would definitely be welcomed by the merchants and nobles of the Holy Light Continent.
If you want to burn porcelain, you must have porcelain clay, and fortunately, there seems to be porcelain clay on the northeast slope of the Crescent Island.
Donner wasn't sure for sure, but he seemed to have seen it when he walked around the island in the past, and the outcropping soil on the hillside was similar to porcelain clay.
At that moment, Donner put down his mobile phone and walked to the northeast corner of Crescent Island alone, and in about half an hour, Donner arrived here.
The dirt and stones on this steep slope were grayish-white, and Donner grabbed a handful and rubbed it carefully in his hand, and immediately determined that it was porcelain clay.
Porcelain clay can actually be called Guanyin soil, when the famine is recorded in history, there are many hungry people who use Guanyin soil to satisfy hunger.
This kind of porcelain clay is made of mica and feldspar metamorphosis, in which the loss of iron, calcium and sodium, plus water changes, eating a little less may be able to suppress hunger, but not fatal, but eating too much is not easy to digest.
Among the three major famines recorded in the history books, there are not a few people who eat Guanyin soil and suffocate to death.
After finding the porcelain clay, Donner was very determined, and immediately asked Jasmine Hans and others to discuss firing porcelain, and it was impossible to do these things on Crescent Island without their support.
"Porcelain? Jasmine and Hans looked at each other, something they had never heard of before.
Donner thought for a moment, explained briefly, and then said, "I won't be able to tell you for a while, but if we can successfully fire it, you will understand." ”
Jasmine and the others didn't ask much, after all, this was a matter that was beneficial to Crescent Island, and then several people began to gather people on the island.
It was not yet time to sow the wheat fields, and the island's inhabitants and pirate gates were idle at home, so the men were quickly gathered.
The first step in firing porcelain was to build a kiln, so Donner and Hans selected people on the island who had experience working as tile masons and stonemasons.
There are no bricks on Crescent Island, but there are rocks on the outside of the peaks, so the rocks must first be mined and made into regular stones that can be used to build porcelain kilns.
Normally, rock is mined with a hammer and a hammer, but Donner knew that brute force alone would be too slow, so in a state of doubt, he first asked someone to light a wood fire, bake the rock at a high temperature, and then pour cold water on it.
The pirates were puzzled, but soon they discovered that the hard rock had cracked with a struck blow with a sledgehammer.
Donner enjoyed the amazement of everyone, it was nothing more than a simple principle of thermal expansion and cold contraction.
Donner divided the men into three groups, one group mined the rocks, one group of stonemasons worked on the stones, and the other side of the tile masons built the kilns according to Donner's instructions.
There are many styles of ancient porcelain kilns, the earliest is the dragon kiln of the Warring States Period, but the most advanced structure is the Jingdezhen kiln.
This kind of kiln is shaped like an egg, the front is high and the back is low, the front is wide and the back is narrow, the smoke bin is in the back, the town kiln is not only large, but also has good sealing, and can maintain a high kiln temperature.
The structure diagram is in Donner's mobile phone, and he found parchment from the alchemist to draw on it, and instructed the tile masonry step by step.
Five days later, a porcelain kiln was built next to the foot of the mountain not far from the porcelain clay, and according to the size of the internal space, it should not be a problem to fire hundreds or thousands of ordinary dinner plates at a time.
As for the porcelain clay, in order to save time, Donner has already asked someone to mine it on the side,
After the quarried porcelain clay, the women on the island are first arranged to grind it with a stone mill, crush it finely, filter it through a fine sieve, then filter it with water, and finally precipitate the soil at the bottom of the pond until it is cool and semi-dry.
The second step is to knead the mud, so that the air in the mud is discharged and becomes more compact, without this process, the mud embryo is easy to crack or deform when firing.
After kneading the clay, the embryo can be pulled into shape, and for the first time to make porcelain, Donner has no experience to speak of.
So to prepare the style of firing porcelain, only the simplest plates and cups were chosen.
The clay embryo body is placed on a large turntable to pull the embryo into shape, and the large wooden turntable is linked to the other turntable with animal tendons, and Donner asks the pirate to turn the turntable at one end, which drives the large turntable used to pull the embryo.
The mud body was deformed in Donner's hands, he controlled the strength, carefully pulled the mud body slowly, under the action of centrifugal force, the embryo body gradually became rounded, and the shape slowly moved closer to the dinner plate.
Because this batch of porcelain was mainly used for experiments, not much was done, and each one chose a style, a plate or cup, or a vase, and the materials were also different, some with shell powder, some with metal powder, and so on.
Donner marked the molded embryos and placed them in the house to dry in the shade.
Two days later, after the embryo body was dried, Donner trimmed the embryo with a knife, and by the way, he randomly painted several patterns of different colors on the embryo body, and then dipped it in a glaze made of quartz grinding.
Finally, it is put into the porcelain kiln, lit on fire, fired according to the steps, and waited for the kiln to open in Donner's nervous mood.