Chapter 753: Gray-tuft

Changle still had many doubts, but he did not ask right now; for instance, he wanted to know why two such large lumps would grow on his back—could it be that his bones were bent?

Everyone had long since become accustomed to Baifeng's state of knowing everything and having seen everything; Baifeng was a god, after all, so it would only be strange if he did not recognize something.

However, the harmala was of no use; apart from its tenacious vitality, it had no other peculiarities. Although it could indeed be used as medicine, compared to other medicinal herbs, its toxicity was somewhat high while its medicinal efficacy was inferior, making it a medicinal herb that was not really necessary to use. Thus, Baifeng very simply skipped over it, though a new type of plant had been recorded in Changle's notebook.

Baifeng rummaged through that box of dense grass, and right in the middle of a few harmala plants, there was mixed in a plant that made Baifeng's mood instantly excited.

Baifeng pushed aside those useless harmala plants and picked out the gray-tuft, which was not large but looked extremely similar to the harmala. Baifeng pinched off a section with his fingernail, and after looking at it carefully, he excitedly said to Changle, "Gray-tuft! Good stuff, good stuff!"

Changle also immediately leaned his head over to look: "Hey, I haven't seen this one either!"

The Soldiers were even more delighted; having found two new species in a row, their trip could be said to have been full of harvest.

Baifeng held that piece of gray-tuft and said to Changle, "This, good stuff. The ash burned from it, when added to flour, can be made into a very delicious pulled noodle. It's more chewy and more delicious than the noodles we eat now."

"Ah?" The group was all very surprised. This tuft grass could actually have this effect?

A Soldier immediately said, "King, should we go dig a large amount to bring back next time?"

Baifeng waved his hand: "That won't be necessary. This thing doesn't need much, and it probably shouldn't be eaten too much. When the time comes, I still have to try it myself first to see if it can be made. If it can be made, our soup noodles can be turned into pulled noodles, which will be even more delicious."

This change seemed very small, but its significance in this era was different. Food was very abundant; the middle and upper classes could eat white flour at least once a day, and for the relatively poor, having enough to eat was absolutely no problem. White flour was no longer something out of reach for them.

If they could eat their fill, then they would want to pursue eating well and eating fragrantly. Seasonings were relatively scarce, cooking methods were relatively lacking, and the types of food that could be made were relatively few. If there could be a new food that could be spread on a large scale, it would be a great joyous event for everyone.

Therefore, even if it was just something that could not improve the national strength of Huaxia, they would still feel happy.

Afterward, all the other plants were looked over, and only one new plant of the Gentianaceae family was found. No more new species were discovered, but for the current Changle, it was also an unexpected surprise; his trip back was very worthwhile.

The Soldiers happily left with the boxes filled with soil, found an open space to dump the soil, and then quickly ran back to the military camp with the empty boxes. After finishing a mission like this, each of them could get about five days of vacation. Within these five days, as long as there were no emergency missions, they could do nothing and properly accompany their families.

The Company Commander brought the ore to the Blacksmith Battalion. The Blacksmiths expressed great confusion regarding this stone they had never seen before, but the Company Commander had already indicated that this was sent by Baifeng, and even said that it was possible to extract copper from it.

Hearing that copper could be smelted, the Blacksmiths were all exceptionally excited. All of Huaxia's current copper came from trading with other tribes or was spoils of war; they had not found any copper mines, nor did they know how to smelt copper, and naturally, they did not know what copper ore looked like.

But seeing such a small amount of ore, they felt somewhat troubled: "Do you know how much ore is needed to extract iron? With this little bit, I'm afraid that after it's extracted, I won't even be able to find where it is."

Although the Company Commander did not understand these things, professionals do professional work. Since they all said it was too little, then it must be true, but he himself had no way out: "This time, we only found this little bit; there really isn't any more. You just take these and smelt them to see. As long as it can be extracted, it means there is no problem. We won't worry about the quantity for now; I will bring more next time."

The Blacksmiths could only reluctantly accept it. They didn't even have such a small furnace now; they had to wrap a small furnace first before they could smelt such a pitiful amount of ore. With the current Iron Smelting Blast Furnace, if this bit of ore were poured in, not even a shadow would be found. This scene right now was even more miserable than when they started smelting iron from scratch.

And Baifeng let Changle go do his own work, and he also had to go to work. As a result, having only walked two steps, he immediately thought that he hadn't told them how copper should be smelted, so he had to anxiously walk toward the Blacksmith Battalion; letting the people from the Phylum of the Secretariat pass the message, he estimated they would have a hard time describing it accurately.

Baifeng strode to the Blacksmith Battalion, and everyone immediately stepped forward to greet him. Zhu stepped forward to salute Baifeng and then said, "King, are you here to see the copper? We haven't started smelting yet; we just finished getting the fire up, and the furnace temperature is not high enough."

Baifeng waved his hand: "How did you handle the ore? Let me see first. I forgot to tell you how to extract it in the fastest and best way."

Zhu hurriedly had someone bring out that bag of ore. Now the ore was still sitting there in its original state, and they had not yet begun to smelt it.

Baifeng let out a sigh of relief: "That's fine. You first grind all of this into powder, and then put it into the furnace layer by layer with carbon powder; only in this way can efficiency be maximized."

"Oh, okay, okay." Upon hearing this, the Artisans immediately began to use the tools around them to smash these not-very-hard ores, and then used iron plates to press down hard until it turned into fine powder.

At this time, the wrapped furnace had also dried out. Because the requirements were not that high, the wrapped furnace could skip the air-drying part. As for the fine cracks already baked into it by the fire, that was also of no great consequence.

The ore powder and carbon powder were poured into the furnace in alternating layers, and then the Artisans pulled the bellows to raise the furnace fire to the highest temperature. They burned it for a long time, until no solid matter could be seen in the furnace, before putting down the bellows and waiting for the furnace to cool down naturally.

The current Blacksmith Battalion was large in scale, not much different from the Carpenter Battalion, but the two were also different in that there were not many people who needed to have strong professional skills; the main people were all manual laborers.

They needed to maintain the firepower of the Iron Smelting Blast Furnace, the transport and feeding of fuel, the bellows, and so on.

After the iron was smelted, they were also responsible for collecting the smelted iron. As the liquid iron flowed out from the channel, they had to use molds to catch the liquid iron and then let the liquid iron gradually solidify.