Chapter 1282: Daydreaming

Baifeng's pen stopped in an instant, causing the person below to tremble all over, making him wonder if Baifeng was once again communicating with the Heaven gods and recording something.

Baifeng truly could not remember, because he was not good at chemistry back in the day and had long forgotten any chemical equations; the fact that he could suddenly recall a bit of an impression from a book might simply be because he was interested in the diagrams in the book, which left a deeper impression.

Under certain special circumstances, those memories buried deep in the mind would suddenly reappear for an instant, it just depended on whether he could grasp them.

Clearly, Baifeng grasped some, but what he grasped was not what he wanted to know; he remembered that pyrite seemed to contain sulfur, and it should be that during smelting, one had to find a way to deal with the sulfur.

If it were not dealt with, that large amount of sulfur would certainly be very harmful to the Workers' health; furthermore, could the sulfur be extracted as a byproduct and used as a new source of Sulfur?

However, the only method Baifeng could think of for extraction and collection was heating and condensation; it should not explode, at most it would just be unsuccessful.

So after thinking about it for a moment, he decided to design a new iron smelting furnace for these newly mined pyrite ores, and while smelting, also try to extract the Sulfur to see if it could be collected.

If the experiment proved it wouldn't work, then he would simply build a new smelting furnace in a place far away from Huaxia City and downwind, otherwise, he feared he would be poisoned by the sulfur in the air.

Seeing the person below still staring at him in confusion, Baifeng simply waved his hand to let him go: "Go on then, collect as much of this pyrite as you can, I will record your merit."

Also, report who discovered this first, and let the Ministry of Revenue reward them.

That Clerk immediately knelt and thanked Baifeng, then stood up and trotted away; it seemed his luck was truly good, to be able to encounter such a good thing for no reason.

Moreover, those pyrite ores happened to be in a small area he was responsible for, so in the future, these merits could all be counted as his own; mining pyrite was also easy, one only needed to pry those iron chunks off, it didn't take any effort.

Normally when mining ore, one had to use various tools to break it open, knock it into small pieces, and then transport it out.

This was only the first step, then it had to be transported to the workshop by the river, where water-powered crushers would grind the stones layer by layer, only then could it be sent to the smelting blast furnace.

At first, they all used their hands to knock, holding hammers, knocking the stones bit by bit to break the ore; just knocking stones for a day could make a person's hands go numb.

Later, after having waterwheels, they spent a great deal of Iron to cast things with large teeth specifically for crushing stones, which were installed on the waterwheels to crush the stones.

Unfortunately, there were only two, and the crushing was indeed a bit slow, and it had to be done from large to small, otherwise, if it were only crushed once, the stones would still be too big.

Only when crushed to a smaller degree, about the size of a finger joint, could it be sent for smelting; even then, it was still not quite enough, but this was already the limit for Huaxia.

The amount of stone the waterwheels could crush every day was very limited, but it was still much faster than people; to speed up the smelting, this year they arranged for many young people to come and bang away at the stones at the mine, and after a year, their arms were incredibly thick, but their shoulders were also about to have problems, and one by one they all cried out in pain.

With these blocky pyrite ores, everyone could save a lot of effort, because this was already almost finished Iron; they had tried it, this thing was very brittle, and if you hit it with a hammer, it would shatter, which was much easier than smashing stones.

Baifeng did not know what others were thinking, but he himself was once again captivated by the past; the momentary recollection from just now caused him to be unable to snap out of it, and he kept reminiscing about his former years, although time had become very blurry and he could barely remember the faces of those people, he still missed his previous life very much.

If Baifeng were to choose between staying in that era or staying here as its supreme King, Baifeng...

Well, this was obvious; if he had been asked to be a Tribal Chief at the beginning, he certainly would not have been willing, because life was precarious, there was nothing, and he couldn't even get enough to eat; now, as a King, he actually already possessed a great deal.

Any good thing was his; he possessed everything, and most importantly, power—power was the most fascinating thing; even a small primary school study group leader who could manage a few people could give a child the pleasure of gaining power, let alone him, a King who controlled the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Wealth and status were all a matter of a word from him; even women, whichever he wanted to choose, he could, but Baifeng was older now, and his desire in this regard was not very great—the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

Baifeng had been in a daze, and the Clerk from the Secretariat who came to deliver documents did not dare to disturb him, fearing that Baifeng was thinking about some major matter and if he interrupted him, it would be the end.

But Baifeng was merely lost in thought; just as he was sinking deeper and deeper, a cat's meow brought him back. Baifeng's gaze refocused and he discovered Xiaobao was squatting in a corner, perhaps having made a mistake just now and failing to catch the mouse he had been staring at for a long time, looking a bit discouraged.

"Hm? What is it?" Baifeng turned his head and discovered the young man from the Secretariat, who could also be called one of his secretaries, standing below him, respectful and reverent, not knowing how long he had been standing there.

The young man hurriedly took a step forward, holding up a document and saying: "King, this is the land acquisition and compensation plan for the Second and Third Ring of Huaxia City formulated by Minister Sanxin, I have brought it for you to see."

Only then did Baifeng remember that he seemed to have arranged such a task.

"Bring it here."

The young man handed it to Baifeng, and after waiting a few minutes, finding that Baifeng had no tasks for him, he turned and left.

Baifeng opened the document, but he couldn't take it in; his head was still not clear, so he closed the document again. Seeing that the young man had left, he stared directly at Xiaobao, wanting to see if Xiaobao could catch that mouse.

The rat infestation in Huaxia really needed attention; here, where there were people every day, there were rats, and they weren't even afraid of people; wouldn't it be even worse in other places? He didn't know what method they used, but they could actually open holes in the corners of his Cement floor; if this went on for a long time, wouldn't the space under him be hollowed out?