"Engong, what are you painting?"

Yu Wuya, a dignified disciple, was shouted by Chen Xu like a commanding worker, pulling the measuring rope over and over again, measuring several times inside and outside the room, and then Chen Xu sat under the pergola and took out a ruler and a colorful pheasant tail hair dipped in ink and began to draw various drawings on the paper, because they were all three-dimensional perspectives, so Yu Wuya was confused.

"This is called a fire kang, which is actually an enlarged version of the earthen stove, but it is smoothed out with soil and used as a bed, and the fire is burned in it in the cold winter, and it is very warm to sleep on it at night...... "Chen Xu explained while drawing.

"Engong's idea is really magical, with this fire kang, even in the cold winter, the room will be as warm as spring, and I will no longer be afraid of being woken up by the cold when I sleep at night!" Yu Wuya's eyes lit up with admiration.

"But it takes a lot of work to make it, first of all, you have to make a lot of adobe bricks, and then you have to make a lot of large bluestone slabs, and you have to make chimneys, and you need some fire-resistant terracotta bricks, which is quite troublesome......

After Chen Xu finished painting, he compared back and forth in the room, and found that it was really easier to think about than difficult to do, in this era of extremely poor building materials, it was difficult to do anything, and they had to solve it the same way, first of all, it was said that the adobe bricks, although it was easy to do, but it had to be dried with mud molds, and now the weather is fine, but it will take at least half a month or so to dry thoroughly, and it is necessary to make a lot of flat and solid thin stone slabs to cover it, otherwise if the flame leaks up from under the kang and ignites the quilt, It is estimated that the next day people will be cooked, in addition, the chimney is also a difficult place to deal with, you must use small pieces of regular masonry, otherwise you can't smoke out, this earthen kang will not be lit.

"Wuya, I'll draw a few pictures, you can help me go to Qinghe Town, and let the potter Gao He and the stonemason Liu Da'an help me make some things, by the way, there are also molds and trowels for the adobe bricks, so that Liu Erwa must make it today, it's very simple, you can bring it back with you after he is done......"

Chen Xu said while drawing on paper, and soon drew the specifications of the thin stone slabs, the specifications of the clay bricks and the specifications of the brick molds, and marked the data very clearly, and the craftsmen in the town knew these drawings at a glance.

"Engong, don't worry, Wuya will be back soon!" Yu Wuya put away a few drawings and prepared to leave.

"Terracotta bricks and slate don't need to be too fine, the size and thickness are about the same, let them get it out as soon as possible, well, you can find more people, I'm afraid that there will be a lot of use at that time, and more stock!"

"Good!" Yu Wuya turned over and whipped away, and Chen Xu turned around and began to refine the construction measures according to the drawings just designed.

In fact, when it comes to bricks, Chen Xu naturally thinks of tiles at the same time, but the tile looks simple, in fact, the structure is a large end and a small arc, to cut the mud into long strips and wrap them outside a thick and thin barrel mold, and then how to get it down The problem, but you can't wait for it to dry and then take it off, otherwise the mold needed that time is too much, the gains outweigh the losses, if you can make the barrel mold into a barrel mold that can be folded inward, but he thought about it for a long time and found that it was very difficult, and the accuracy of the carpentry was too high. Just wait until later, it's too late now.

If you want to make a kang, the walls of this new house should be replaced with adobe bricks, which is both windproof and safe, and the position of the fire inlet and chimney is still the size, because Chen Xu is not just making a kang, but is going to make the three houses with two bedrooms and the living room into a large kang connected together, separated by adobe bricks in the middle, but some flues should be left in the middle to let the heat pass through, so that when the water comes softly, you can sleep in your own room, and you and Yu Wuya will sleep in the living room, so as not to be embarrassed and troublesome.

Alas, if there is cement or red bricks, it would be good to build a two-story small western-style building, and even make a flush toilet and shower room, and the brick and terracotta room can also make a fire, so you don't have to worry about causing a fire, but it's a pity that the Qin Dynasty is really too poor, it's just nothing!

Chen Xu was depressed, feeling that the details had been thought about almost, so he went out with a hoe, he was going to find a convenient and muddy place to prepare the mud bricks.

The so-called mud brick is to use soil and water and semi-dry mud, and then mix some dry grass with good toughness and repeatedly trample on it, so that the soft grass and mud are evenly mixed together, and then in a flat place with a mold to expand into a square mud block, after a long time of drying, the soil dries up and becomes a piece of regular size of the adobe brick, which is very convenient to build a wall, except for spending manpower and time, basically there is no cost.

But even if it is such a simple and easy-to-use thing, Chen Xu has traveled over for a few months, and he has not found it, it can be seen that the Qin Dynasty has not yet invented this kind of thing mud brick, but there are rammed earth walls, but it is rare to see it used to build private houses, mainly because the cost is too high, ordinary people can't afford to use it at all, because it is too poor, even in the slack season, almost everyone is busy looking for and collecting wild food all over the mountains, otherwise the grain harvested from the fields alone is not enough to eat for a year, in the case of hunger, This function has been widely ignored and weakened, as long as it can shelter from the wind and rain and have a place to sleep.

Now this is the same situation in Xiaohe Village, now the autumn harvest is basically over, but all the villagers are not idle, men are plowing the fields or digging yams all over the mountains to pick wild fruits and various medicinal materials, women are taking their minor children to cut thatch, collect reeds, collect marijuana, anyway, there is no idler, of course, except for Chen Xu, a guy who is not doing business, I don't know what I am doing every day.

And today's bee catching has been spread by Simao Wagyu Dashi, so everywhere Chen Xu goes, there are always enthusiastic villagers who smile and ask how many bees have been caught?

So Chen Xu could only laugh a few times, and his face twitched and never stopped.

A group of primitive people, how to understand the thousands of ravines and hidden heavenly machines in Lao Tzu's chest, hum!

Time in a flash to noon ten o'clock, under the bright sunshine, the autumn air is crisp and cloudless, the temperature is more than 20 degrees, Chen Xu successfully found a place with relatively delicate soil at the foot of the hill near the village, and the terrain is open and flat, it is best to use it to expand mud bricks, so after a simple treatment, he carried the hoe home, and then went to the jujube forest below the river beach to see if his seduction method was successful.

"Hey, Brother Xu, you're here too! Come and see, your seduction is almost successful! Niu Dashi didn't know when he came, he was squatting under the tree eating the wild dates he picked up from the ground, and his face was full of excitement when he saw Chen Xu.

Chen Xu looked up at the jujube tree in front of him, and found that there were already dense bees constantly flying between the tree hole and the beehives, thousands of them, all of them around the wild jujube tree for tens of meters, which looked very spectacular and very numb, and he deliberately brushed the position of the branch of the honey, which had already densely fallen a thick layer of bees, and the eyes were full of yellow-black patterns, and those with dense phobia were estimated to vomit.

Chen Xu put on the hat on the ground, put on the cloak, dressed like a faceless gray-robed wizard and climbed up the bamboo ladder, and took a look inside the beehive among the bees flying in the sky, and found that there were more bees inside, and a thick layer was piled up on the wall of the box.

"Brother Xu, how is it, how many have you caught in it?" Niu Dashi seemed to have forgotten about his bet on eating stone mills, and hurriedly asked after seeing Chen Xu come down.

"It's estimated that there are tens of thousands, but it's not enough based on the size of this hive, wait another hour to see!" Chen Xu said as he took off his hat and cloak and threw them on the ground, then picked up a fallen wild jujube from the ground, wiped it a few times and stuffed it into his mouth, then spit it out with a snort, and said with a black face: "Why is it rotten." ”

"Hehe, Brother Xu'er doesn't understand, you have to pick up those that look shriveled and blackened, and those that look fresh have fallen after being eaten by insects." Niu Dashi said proudly.

So Chen Xu picked up a few shriveled and blackened ones, ate them and found that they were not rotten, but the core was large and thin, there was almost no pulp, the taste was very sour and the teeth were stuffed, and the improved red dates in later generations were completely different, not delicious at all, so he also understood why no one came to pick up the dates that fell all over the ground from such a big jujube tree, originally thought it was because he was afraid of being stung by bees, but now it seems that it is not because of this reason, but because it is too unpalatable.

However, according to the taste, it seems that this wild jujube is a sour jujube, and Chen Xu remembers that the sour jujube kernel is still a traditional Chinese medicine, and after mashing, soaking in water and drinking it can treat symptoms such as night sweats and insomnia, but it doesn't seem to be very useful.

Although the sour jujube is not delicious, there is a kind of sour jujube cake in later generations that is a good candy, and the hawthorn cake fruit dan peel is as popular with many people.

So Chen Xu didn't go back, and Niu Dashi risked being stung by bees under the jujube tree, picked up the weeds and thorns and picked up a handful of sour jujubes for an hour, and made a lot of them, weighing more than 20 catties, but because the core is large, the skin is thick, and the flesh is less, it is estimated that there is not much to make.

Chen Xu looked up at the tree, there were still a lot of wild dates hanging densely, and it seemed that he could still pick them up for a long time.

After carrying the pile of jujube home with a cloak, the time passed almost an hour, and when I returned to the grove, I found that there were more bees flying near the jujube tree, and the beehives placed on the branches were covered with a thick layer even outside.

Chen Xu put on a hat to cover his face again, put on gloves and a cloak and climbed to the tree against the dense bees, and looked inside the beehive, sure enough, the bees inside had been piled up like half a box of black and yellow water, and the buzzing sound made the scalp tingle, and the number was more than double that of before.