Chapter 26: Ironware

Baifeng eagerly asked where those few pieces of Iron Ore had been picked up; the tribespeople did not know the importance of that stuff, thinking only that the Tribal Chief was planning to waste manpower and resources again.

After explaining to the tribespeople for a long time, they finally understood that the stone could be used to make more useful tools and weapons. Someone tried to make an Iron Axe out of the Iron Ore, but Baifeng kicked them away, guarding the stone well and firmly refusing to let anyone touch it.

Although no one remembered who had picked up this stone, they all swore that there was a place where there was plenty of this kind of stone.

Baifeng immediately had a portion of the people stop their gathering work to go all out in picking up this kind of Iron Ore.

Baifeng wanted to use his meager chemical knowledge to refine Iron. In his understanding, as long as the temperature was high enough, it would always melt, and as long as it was tempered a thousand times, good Iron would always be produced.

The blast furnace for the primitive method of smelting Iron was soon built, but this still completely failed to meet the requirements for smelting Iron; an air inlet and a blower were both needed. Without a blower, they used animal skin bags; opening the bag mouth let air in, and tying it tight and squeezing it forced the air out.

The Iron Ore was transported back bit by bit, and the heart Baifeng had been holding in his throat settled down for the most part. After that, it was nothing more than trial and error and slow exploration; as long as there were materials, Iron could definitely be smelted.

He burned the Iron Ore in the fire until it was brittle, then used a wooden hammer to smash it bit by bit, the finer the better.

He put the ore powder into the smelting furnace that had already been burned to a high temperature, one layer of ore powder to one layer of Charcoal, and then it was non-stop burning to raise the temperature higher and higher.

Not until the furnace walls of the smelting furnace were glowing red did Baifeng smash open the furnace, revealing a lump of Iron that had been burned into a mass and was entangled with the shattered furnace walls. Baifeng splashed water directly on it to cool it down; he wasn't afraid of the Iron denaturing or becoming brittle, as the raw material had been produced and it still needed to be forged.

The lump of Iron, once the temperature had dropped to the bottom, was rough and black, but it was large enough, a piece the size of a basketball. It was a bit strenuous for Baifeng to hold it alone.

After a little polishing, a silvery luster appeared. The Iron that Baifeng had been longing for was finally smelted. Perhaps the other tribespeople didn't know what this meant, but Baifeng knew that this tribe would leap into becoming an Advanced tribe, rather than a pitiful tribe of fleeing savages.

Now the temperature was gradually dropping, and the daytime was also getting shorter. A large amount of wild fruit was ripening, though the taste was not very good.

The Grass Seed of various plants had also matured, and nuts were about to fall. Herbivores, as well as animals that would hibernate, were all scrambling to replenish their fat to cope with Winter.

Carnivorous beasts also began to appear in the daytime to hunt. Several tribespeople had discovered traces of wolves, but fortunately, they had all luckily avoided them.

Now, going out to find food, the danger factor had doubled; it might just be trading human lives for food.

Baifeng had to forge Iron Weaponry within these few days to enhance the tribespeople's lethality and self-preservation ability.

Not daring to delay for even a moment, he mixed Iron Ore powder with pottery clay to fire a large crucible for melting molten Iron, and used mud to make molds for casting Iron bars.

That chestnut forest would be completely ripe and falling in half a month. All the gatherers stopped going out and instead went all out to prepare tools, using bamboo to weave Baskets, preparing to rush to harvest the chestnuts.

As for the other part, under Baifeng's command, they were smelting Iron on a large scale. One after another, smelting furnaces over a person's height were quickly built around the camp, and then the firelight was constant.

Through constant heating with the blower, Baifeng finally melted those Iron lumps into molten Iron, and then cast them one by one into Iron bars.

The Iron bars at this time were hard, but also very brittle, and had many impurities. Baifeng was unwilling to let others do it, so he made a stone hammer himself, and after reheating the Iron bars, he began to strike and hammer them continuously.

The Iron bar slowly became thinner, and at the same time, the Iron became purer. After constant heating and hammering, heating and hammering again, a very ugly knife blank was finally hammered out. He heated it one last time and then quenched it; perhaps it was the beginner's protection period, but this knife blank was quenched straight and hard.

A knife of about thirty centimeters was the first Ironware of the entire tribe, and it was also Baifeng's treasure. He carefully polished the knife shape and sharpened the blade on a stone. After wrapping it with animal skin to make a handle, a knife that was relatively exquisite in Baifeng's eyes was completely finished.

When the tribespeople saw that Baifeng could easily shave wood and cut through thin bamboo with the knife, they were all extremely envious and all hoped to be able to use it.

Baifeng naturally wouldn't give it to them; with so much Iron Ore, they could smelt it themselves. Anyway, as long as all the processes were the same as his, there would definitely be no problem.

However, Baifeng still forged many Iron Axes and Spear tips for the tribe. Adding a wooden handle made them usable, doubling the lethality, and the production was not that troublesome.

Afterward, the construction speed in the tribe obviously accelerated, and the building materials transported in increased rapidly. Just like children who have new toys and want to show them off, the tribespeople started frantically chopping trees as soon as they got the axes, to feel the pleasure of Ironware conquering Nature.

A Changdao is a good thing, and Baifeng had also tried to make one. Unfortunately, not only was the shape ugly after forging, but it also bent to the middle of nowhere once quenched. Baifeng had to temporarily give up this idea and wait until his skills were practiced before continuing to try.

The weather turned cold; although it was still high temperature at noon, it was still very cold in the morning and evening, especially for these people who were bare.

There were many animal skins in the tribe, all saved from previous hunting. Although there was an average of one prey per day, adding the ones from this period, there were more than four hundred animal skins.

Unfortunately, they didn't know how to tan them, so they just punched a hole in the skin and threaded a rope through it. Baifeng naturally wouldn't do that.

That wolf skin was still being kept well. He scraped off the grease, added the Saltpeter that was everywhere on this saline plain, as well as wood ash, and rubbed and soaked it.

Then he washed and dried it, and then beat it until it was soft. This was the qualified leather in Baifeng's eyes. Finally, Baifeng had a pair of wolf-skin boxer shorts, it was just that the thread was too thick and a bit prickly. Baifeng comforted himself, saying that after breaking them in, he would get used to it.

He dried the hemp he had chopped back, threw it into the water to ret the hemp, and finally tore the fibers and twisted the rope. Under Baifeng's explanation, a series of work was carried out very smoothly; it was just that Baifeng wanted to make a fishing net, but unfortunately, there was far from enough rope.

No one was willing to learn from Baifeng and wear animal skins made into the shape of boxer shorts. The animal skins distributed to their hands were still in the style of grass skirts, and together with their old animal skin clothes from before, they finally didn't have to spend the Winter naked.

Baifeng really wanted to have cloth; Silk was a delusion. Although Silk appeared very early, no one in the entire tribe had heard of the Xiling Tribe or Leizu.

Information was blocked, and whether the Xiling Tribe existed now was unknown. However, the tribespeople had one more temporary, chaotic order from Baifeng, which was to go and catch all kinds of cocoons. If there were wild silkworms here, then at this time, the silkmoth was probably in the cocoon. If he could collect them, Baifeng felt that Leizu might have to be changed to Ancestor Bai.

Lady Leizu, my sin, my sin _(′□`」∠)_