Chapter 1281: Pyrite

Just when Baifeng thought that this year would end smoothly like this and no major events would happen, the mining workers of the Ministry of Works brought Baifeng a completely different kind of surprise.

A large bag of extremely square-shaped golden metal blocks was delivered to Baifeng's desk. When such regularly shaped metal cubes appeared before the eyes of the miners, they thought something was wrong with their eyes, because these things were just a bit too surprising.

Everyone looked at that glittering appearance and all thought it was gold, feeling that they had found something particularly precious.

But in this current era, it is impossible for any commoner to possess any metal, and even nobles cannot; they all belong to Baifeng, and only after being crafted into tools or other aesthetic items can they reach the hands of ordinary people.

The main reason is that apart from the smelting and blacksmithing workshops controlled by Baifeng, ordinary people do not have the ability to process metal; even if you were given a complete, well-smelted Iron Ingot, it would be of no use.

Within Huaxia, metal cannot yet be used as currency or as a general equivalent, so unprocessed metal is actually considered to have no value.

Of course, once you leave Huaxia, it becomes valuable and can be traded and exchanged with any tribe.

But currently, trade matters are also held by Baifeng; ordinary people are not qualified to go out and trade with other tribes, and they do not know who to look for or where it is better to trade.

In Huaxia, everything they want can be obtained; things that Huaxia has, other tribes do not, and if they happen to pick up any metal themselves, they can send it to the State-run Store for recycling and be rewarded according to its proper value.

This can also be considered a disguised form of trade, but it is limited to what is picked up while out in the wild; such chances are too small, and only by the side of certain rivers, if one is lucky, can one pick up gold nuggets.

The policy exists, but currently almost no one has gone to exchange anything, mainly because they do not have that kind of luck.

However, as long as you are a mining Worker, the metal you pick up must be carefully checked for its source; all metal dug out of the mine belongs to Baifeng, and if you take it, it is stealing. You are mining there, but Huaxia is paying you a wage!

This time, encountering such strange gold, even though they knew the value was high, no one hid it privately, and no one snatched it; instead, they hurriedly found their superior to take a look.

The person in charge of mining was also excited in their heart after seeing such a strange thing—what if this was a merit? So they hurriedly had someone carefully chip a little bit off, but did not expect that there was more inside, and in no small quantity.

The leader noted down the miner who first discovered this thing, and then took this peculiar ore to find Baifeng.

Baifeng did not know what good things could come out of an Iron Ore mine, at most it would just be ore with higher purity; but even if it were given to him, he would not be able to distinguish it, as he was not that professional.

But who would have thought, once that bag of things was opened, he immediately recognized what it was, because that thing was basically common knowledge, something found in Middle School textbooks: pyrite!

Glittering cubes! Some were stuck together, but they were particularly square and naturally formed, similar to natural gold and natural silver, which also appeared in textbooks at the time.

Baifeng was actually a bit excited all of a sudden, because the iron content of this thing is higher than that of pure ore, but the excitement only lasted for a short while; Baifeng estimated that the quantity of this ore should not be too large, and most of it would still be the same as the original ore.

But it was also very good. Huaxia's iron smelting capacity is not high, and the demand is not that great. One furnace of steel from those large steel plants of later generations is something that Huaxia could not smelt in a hundred years even now. If more pyrite could be found, perhaps next year's smelting output could double, just in time to solve the current urgent need.

Pyrite is still very common, and many people have even seen it in places with Iron Ore and played with it; it is very easy to pick off from the stones, square and upright, and is also called fool's gold, after all, it is golden and bright.

But most golden things in Nature are related to sulfur, red stones are related to Iron, and blue ones are related to copper.

One year, a mountain collapsed in one place, and as a result, when the outer mountain collapsed, the inside was all blue; it was a copper mine, and one can even find the original video of this.

The way Baifeng happily played with the pyrite fell into the eyes of the person in charge, representing rewards and representing merit.

Sure enough, Baifeng spoke: "This thing is called pyrite, it is also Iron, but it is very good, it is a good thing. How much of this can you find?"

The person in charge hurriedly replied: "King, we only just discovered it now and did not continue to dig deeper because we were not sure what this thing was. Shall we go and continue digging?"

"Dig, continue to dig, focus on digging this first. This yields much more iron when smelted than Iron Ore does. Dig as much as you can, and then send it to the Liantiechang."

After Baifeng finished speaking, something seemed to flash through his mind again; he hurriedly raised his hand, signaling to wait a moment, letting him think about what exactly he had remembered.

Baifeng tried hard to find that feeling: the smooth paper, the colorful patterns, and that smelly ink scent. What else was written on that book? What else was there?

Baifeng gradually covered his head, because the fleeting bit of memory from just now seemed to contain very important information. No, he must remember it!

Baifeng searched his mind for the scene of his classes; he tried hard to reconstruct it: the noisy classroom, the blackboard, the chalk dust, the troublemaking seatmate.

And the piece of chalk that suddenly flew toward him.

He remembered!

Baifeng suddenly started taking a pen and drawing on paper; he remembered what a real blast furnace for iron smelting looked like!

It was not at all like the furnace he had now, which was only a few times larger! He even remembered what exactly needed to be added, and why it had to be added!

He wrote frantically, his mind clutching tightly to that image, but he always felt it was about to completely leave his mind. He never knew back then why a Middle School textbook would have a schematic diagram of blast furnace iron smelting.

But he did not care; now he just needed to draw the diagram and write down the words!

Coke, Lime, Iron Ore, carbon dioxide, oxygen...

When Fe2 appeared in his memory, Baifeng's memory suddenly went blank.