Chapter 105

It was better to wait until the house was built after a while, build a high wall outside the courtyard, surround the house tightly, and then put these solar charging panels in the courtyard to bask in the sun for a few days, and they would be fully charged.

"... And I have already thought about the materials for building the courtyard wall." As she spoke, Jiang Wei pushed a piece of paper filled with writing to Jiang Xiaoxiao.

Jiang Xiaoxiao scanned it at a glance. On this paper, the manufacturing method of cement was written neatly in brush calligraphy.

She couldn't help but be stunned: "Mother, so you asked people to build a kiln for..."

So it wasn't for firing glass, but for making cement...

Jiang Xiaoxiao saw on the formula her mother wrote that making cement required clay, bricks, mining slag... all kinds of ratios were recorded in detail, and one of the most important materials was quicklime.

These three words were heavily circled by her mother with a brush.

As a cement accelerator, quicklime was indispensable.

Quicklime was not easy to get in this era. The rest of the clay, bricks, and mining slag could be bought at the blacksmith shop or brick kiln shop in town, but this quicklime, she estimated that she couldn't buy it even if she ran through the whole town, so she could only burn it herself.

And quicklime had to be made by calcining limestone with fierce fire. No wonder her mother used refractory bricks to build a kiln. The temperature required to burn lime was not low...

"Find a time to go up the mountain tomorrow..." Jiang Wei tapped her fingers on the paper on the table and began to arrange tomorrow's tasks.

The stones needed to burn lime had to be found on the mountain. This formula was figured out based on her memory, but it hadn't been practiced yet. Whether cement could be made according to this ratio remained to be tested.

"Okay! I'll go up the mountain with Mother tomorrow!" Jiang Xiaoxiao nodded and said happily.

If cement could be successfully made before building the house, that would be great!

As a modern person, no one knew the benefits of cement better than her.

Cement was a very good building material. It could make the floor tiles and wall tiles used for building houses stick together, strengthen the adsorption capacity of building materials and the base layer, make it more stable, and protect the internal structure. It was much better than the binder made by mixing water with clay and straw commonly used by people in this era.

She was originally worried about what to do if the snow disaster in the original work happened.

It was said that a long drought would inevitably lead to a great disaster. Moreover, the original work of this book was a disaster novel. After the great drought this summer, there would be a rare snow disaster in decades in winter.

The original book described that heavy snow fell from the sky, crushing many houses because most of the villagers lived in earth adobe houses and thatched huts, and their stability was not good. Once heavy snow fell, or strong winds, heavy rain, etc., the houses simply couldn't hold up.

However, this was not the most serious.

The large area where they were located was almost covered by heavy snow. Whether it was the county town or the mountain roads in the village, they were buried by heavy snow, the bridges were crushed by heavy snow, and they couldn't pass.

Many people who went out were trapped in the mountains or other places and couldn't return home, freezing to death alive.

Even worse, some families didn't have enough food. Even if they had silver in their hands, they couldn't go out to buy food. The roads were blocked by heavy snow, and people couldn't pass through, so they could only freeze and starve at home.

It wasn't autumn yet, so these were not discussed for the time being. Jiang Xiaoxiao was originally thinking about what method to use to remind her mother to reinforce the house, but she didn't expect her mother to take the initiative to propose the method of building a house with cement.

This made the big stone that had always been hanging in her heart finally fall.

She didn't have to worry about the food for the winter. The food in her mother's space wouldn't be finished for a few lifetimes. Now the house problem she was most worried about was also solved, and she could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Early the next morning, the mother and daughter went to Qiulian Niang's house early to settle the wages for the past few days and let her notify everyone that they didn't need to come to work at their house in the future.

"Okay." Qiulian Niang nodded and agreed.

It just so happened that autumn harvest was coming in a few days, and the women who had farmland at home couldn't spare their hands to do this work.

The mother and daughter returned home, worried that the goods for the restaurants in town hadn't been delivered, when they happened to see the Chunmiao sisters coming.

Jiang Xiaoxiao slapped her forehead. Damn, she forgot to notify them that they didn't need to come to work.

Chunmiao was just about to go to the kitchen to get glutinous rice flour as usual, but was stopped by Jiang Wei: "Chunmiao, from today on, you don't need to come to my house to boil ice cream and snow cakes anymore."

Hearing this, Chunmiao couldn't help but lower her head in disappointment.

Because of this job, although the three of them moved out to live in that tattered thatched hut, they could still survive on these wages.

But if they lost this job, they had no land in this village, I'm afraid...

She was still worrying when Jiang Wei turned and said: "Chunmiao, I have another job for you to do—"

As she spoke, Old Man Zhao also rushed over. Jiang Wei showed a smile, pointed to the horse carriage at home, and said: "You go to town with Uncle Zhao to help me deliver goods. There are seven or eight families in total. You have to go to each one to ensure the goods are delivered to the manager's hands. I'll give you fifteen wen a day. Can you do it?"

She had considered the matter of arranging people to deliver goods for a long time. This job had no technical content, and she had long wanted to arrange this job for others to do, so she could free up time to do other things.

"I can!" Chunmiao nodded repeatedly, her face full of determination, "Auntie Jiang, don't worry, I will definitely deliver the goods!"

Jiang Wei nodded satisfactorily. Chunmiao was not too young, and she was relieved to let her take on this job.

After moving a few ice cabinets into the horse carriage, Jiang Wei also gave Chunmiao some instructions on how to deal with the managers in town. Besides delivering the goods to the managers, this job also required collecting nearly ten taels of silver every day to bring home, which was not a small amount of money.

She originally wanted to let Qiulian Niang take on this job, but thinking that autumn harvest was coming, her family had a lot of farmland, I'm afraid she couldn't spare the time, so she let Chunmiao do this job.

Old Man Zhao drove the horse carriage, carrying Chunmiao and a carriage full of ice cabinets, and left.

Chunya looked at her sister who was going away, and envy appeared in her eyes.

Her sister could earn money to support the family, but she...

Chunya couldn't help but feel a bit sad. Suddenly, Jiang Xiaoxiao beside her pulled her sleeve and said softly: "Sister Chunya, Mother also wants to ask you for help."

Eight-year-old Chunya's eyes lit up.

Jiang Wei pointed to the chicken coop, sheep pen, and rabbit nest in the courtyard at the right time and said: "You come over every day to help my family take care of these poultry, clean up the feces, sweep the floor, and feed and water the chickens, sheep, and rabbits. I'll give you three wen a day, how about that?"

Chunmiao nodded vigorously, then shook her head again, and said weakly: "Auntie Jiang, I don't want wages. Can you change the wages into rabbits and give me a rabbit..."

(End of chapter)