Chapter 112: Canned Goods and the Crossbow

While they were cleaning up the aftermath, more tribespeople arrived carrying baskets. Seeing the situation by the carts and the empty bamboo crates, they assumed the Soldiers were stealing food to eat. Furious, they threw down their baskets on the spot, sat on the ground, and began to wail and throw a tantrum.

In the end, they wouldn't have believed it if not for Baifeng's explanation, but after seeing the massive footprints to the side, they had no choice but to accept it just like Baifeng. Since many people had seen elephants, and Baifeng's body had likely seen them before—only his memory was lost now—they had to concede.

They all knew how troublesome elephants were, so they had no choice but to continue picking and transporting to make up for what the elephants had eaten. Having their workload inexplicably increased like this, no one was happy.

Fortunately, there were many people, and so many carts of peaches were hauled home by the afternoon. However, the scattered elephant footprints on the road made Baifeng a bit worried; he hoped they were just passing through and wouldn't stay for long.

Gao's Pottery Jar was still being fired, so it was too late to make canned goods today; they wouldn't come out of the kiln until tomorrow. For today, they would just place the picked peaches in their crates in the cool warehouse; keeping them for a day was no problem.

Early the next morning, they set out again to pick peaches. The peaches this day were already worse than yesterday's; the ripe, good ones had either been eaten or had fallen to the ground waiting to rot.

What they picked today was merely the best of the worst. They wouldn't come to pick peaches tomorrow; they would switch to picking apricots, as the state of the apricots was still quite good.

Gao's Pottery Jar finally came out of the kiln. After cooling and removing the ones ruined in the firing, there were a little over a hundred. It wasn't that Baifeng had asked for exactly one hundred and he produced neither more nor less; better to have more than less, that was always right.

The lids could all cover the jars, though the airtightness wasn't that great. Baifeng didn't know if the beeswax of the tribe would be enough; if not, they would have to use mud to seal them.

There were five large stoves, and each stove could hold eight Pottery Jars at once, which made the speed much faster.

Everyone peeled the peaches together. Because they had picked the kind of peaches that were ripe but still relatively firm, peeling them wasn't too difficult.

Over thirty people peeled them. After they were peeled, the next group cut them into pieces, removed the pits, and then put them into clean water with a little salt to soak for about twenty minutes. Of course, the length of time was all estimated. After soaking, they were packed into the jars, and honey and clean water were added.

The lids were also placed on the jars, though not sealed tight, and then they were all put into a steamer to be steamed. This could preserve them better and was also a process of sterilization.

The time could only be roughly grasped; how long a piece of wood could burn was generally about the same, so they could only use the burning speed of the firewood to make a rough prediction. Once steamed, they opened the pot lid, immediately put the jar lids on at the same time, and after taking them out, they applied the already melted beeswax to the rim of the lids until they were sure they were sealed and airtight.

Doing this work overnight was also to ensure the freshness of the peaches. Of course, they worked in shifts. Now that there was no grain to harvest, many tribespeople were idle, so the two-shift rotation had no impact on them. Besides, this was to let them eat fruit in Winter, not because a capitalist was exploiting them.

When Gao's Pottery Jar was firing the first batch, the second batch of greenware was already drying in the shade, so the kiln was almost never idle. As soon as this kiln came out, the next batch went in immediately.

It was just that making canned goods consumed quite a lot of honey, which made Baifeng's heart ache. It seemed he would have to go cut some more again soon. He had never even considered beekeeping; there was a massive source of honey in the territory, so why bother working hard to mix in that pitifully small amount of self-produced honey?

While the others were making canned goods, a portion of the people still went up the mountain to pick apricots the next day, neither side delaying the other. Baifeng didn't go this time because his Crossbow was almost finished; he didn't need to engage in that kind of manual labor.

The first batch of iron-cast Banjiji came out, only ten of them, cast together. The Carpenter Ben was still doing the final finishing on the crossbow stock; he was strictly following the predetermined dimensions of the Banjiji, carving out the first crossbow stock bit by bit.

The wood was excellent Green Steel Wood, very heavy and solid in the hand. The bow limbs were made of Chinese tallow wood, all reinforced with Ox Horn, and the draw weight was very high. The string was ox tendon; in any case, the whole Crossbow used the absolute best they could manage.

Carefully installing the Banjiji, the entire Crossbow was assembled. The Arrow was also specially made, just to manifest the strongest side of this Crossbow.

Baifeng was the first to test it. Stringing it was quite easy; even though the stiffness of this Crossbow might have been around fifty or sixty catties, Baifeng didn't find it strenuous at all. He felt that even if a woman used it, it would be no problem at all.

After hooking the string and nocking the Arrow, Baifeng discovered a problem: the Arrow wouldn't stay in place. As soon as it tilted downward, the Arrow would fall out by itself. Level shooting and high-angle shooting were fine, but downward shooting would definitely be a problem.

However, Ben said this was a small matter and very simple. He would just stick some oxhide or ox tendon on the arrow track in a moment; it would hold the Arrow without affecting the power. Ox tendon was better, as it was more wear-resistant.

Baifeng gave a hum of support, then raised the Crossbow, aimed with the sight, and pulled the Banjiji. The Arrow flew out in response and stuck into the target.

They went over to look and all expressed approval of the Crossbow's power. Regarding the operation, Baifeng felt it was okay, except that the force required to trigger the Banjiji was a bit high, but Ben felt it was better to be a bit strenuous to avoid accidental discharge.

Then there was the issue of the sight; the accuracy was still a bit lacking. It wasn't a problem with Baifeng's own skill, but after careful comparison, he discovered that the arrow track, the sight, and his eye were not in a straight line.

Ben and the Blacksmith felt it out themselves before they understood what Baifeng meant by "three points in one line," and then they each guaranteed that the next one would definitely be made straight.

Baifeng didn't force it; after all, it was handmade, and under the current conditions, it was very difficult to make things very precise. It was only after Baifeng used iron to carve an iron ruler that they had relatively accurate data.

How was the first iron ruler made? Of course, Baifeng used a strand of Sui's hair, picked the longest one as the ruler, then folded it in half, then in half again, and kept folding it, bit by bit carving out a primitive ruler.

Then he used this ruler to replicate a few more, setting the units of chi, Village, fen, and li. Any smaller, Baifeng couldn't do, and there was no need to; they didn't need such precision. Anything longer than a chi was a zhang, but they didn't need that either; everything was measured by paces.

Baifeng's original intention in making the ruler was just to facilitate the work of the craftsmen and the statistics of the Shaman. As for trade and such, Baifeng hadn't considered it yet, because even if they did it, other tribes wouldn't recognize it. It wasn't until the First Emperor that it was considered unified. Baifeng felt he didn't have the ability to make all the tribal groups recognize his system of weights and measures.

As for the accuracy of the Crossbow, he could only say to do their best. Even if it couldn't be completely accurate, then let the person using the Crossbow become thoroughly familiar with the specific one they used; if the aiming point was off, their brain could just correct it.