Chapter 108.2
"I ordered iron tools here last month, and today is supposedly the day of delivery."
The man, carrying a heavy basket of iron ore, shouted from the hall, "Old w.a.n.g! Someone has come to pick up the goods!"
"Coming! Coming!" A sweaty blacksmith hurried out with a towel around his neck. While wiping the sweat from his face, he looked at Gu Jiao and asked, "Who wants the goods? You?"
Last time, it was the coachman of Rejuvenation Hall who ordered the goods, so the old blacksmith didn"t recognize Gu Jiao.
Gu Jiao uttered a sound of response and handed him the matching plate.
There were still few scholars in ancient times, and not many blacksmiths could read, so they all used the matching plates. Each pair of matching plates had a corresponding number, and according to the number, they could know which batch of goods the customer was looking for.
"We haven"t finished this yet." The old blacksmith frowned and said.
Gu Jiao replied, "But last time we agreed that we would pick up the goods today."
The old blacksmith wiped his sweat with a towel and said, "But it"s really not done yet, and there"s nothing we can do about it."
"How long will it take to finish?" Gu Jiao asked.
"Well..." The old blacksmith thought for a while before answering, "A month or two."
Gu Jiao wondered, "So long? The farm tools I want aren’t that many, are they?"
The old blacksmith sighed, "It"s not about your order. It"s the job that came into the shop last month, before yours. We have to come up with 1,000 pieces of iron tools for mining iron ore, but how can a small iron shop like ours catch up? There is still more than half of it for us to make! There is not enough manpower, and there is not enough furnace either... "
"Old w.a.n.g! It’s time to strike the iron!" Inside, a blacksmith shouted.
"Aye! Coming!" The old blacksmith shouted into the shop, then turned to Gu Jiao and said, "Girl, you"d better come and check again next month."
Gu Jiao didn’t want to wait that long.
After the old blacksmith went in, she also went into the iron shop, and the other staff and blacksmiths were so busy that no one paid attention to her, a little girl.
To be fair, there were quite a few people in the iron shop. According to this number, it was enough to barely make a thousand pieces of iron tools in a month.
Then the problem should not be the shortage of manpower.
Gu Jiao looked at their blast furnace and found the problem at once.
Ironmaking required an extremely high temperature. In order to reach this temperature, a blast of air was generally pumped into the blast furnaces using bellows. Gu Jiao thought that the iron shop of this dynasty used a water powered blast furnace, but it turned out they were using the most primitive human powered blast furnace.
The biggest disadvantage of manual air blowing, commonly known as human platoon, was that there was only one bellow at one port, and the bellow would be closed once pumped manually.
And a blast furnace had about four to six ports, in other words, a blast furnace could be pumped up to six times at the same time.
This efficiency was much lower than that of a water powered blast furnace.
With a water powered blast furnace, the bellows was driven by water and could be closed several times every time the water wheel rotated, which not only greatly saved time, but also saved manpower.
Gu Jiao told the old blacksmith what she thought.
The old blacksmith was very surprised. How could a little girl in commoner attire know all this?
After being surprised, he said, "I"ve seen one of those. Only the iron workshop of the imperial court has it."
No commoner craftsman knew how to make a water wheel.
"I will do it." Gu Jiao said.
The old blacksmith was startled.
Ads by PubFuture Gu Jiao thought for a moment before saying, "However, what I"m going to do isn"t a water wheel."
Gu Jiao said a name.
"What box?" The old blacksmith expressed he had never heard of it!
"Do you have any paper here?" Gu Jiao asked.
"Ah?" The old blacksmith was simply stunned by Gu Jiao, and couldn’t react for a long time.
Gu Jiao simply found a random limestone slate on the ground, took out the charcoal pen in her pouch and drew attentively.
Other blacksmiths" attention were attracted to her, and the old blacksmith shouted at them, "What are you looking at? Go to work!"
Because of the old master’s majesty, the blacksmiths pressed their curiosity and went back to work, but they still looked at Gu Jiao’s direction from time to time.
What was this girl drawing on the floor of their iron shop?
Finally, the old blacksmith couldn"t resist asking, "Girl, what are you doing?"
"Drawing." Gu Jiao said simply.
"Why are you drawing on my floor? I have to find someone to wipe it later, what a ha.s.sle!"
Gu Jiao smilingly said, "I’m helping you to finish the remaining 1000 pieces of iron tools in ten days. Don"t you want it?"
"Ten, ten days?" The old blacksmith straightened up his hips and said, "Don"t be ridiculous!"
He was a blacksmith. Could he not know? Even if everyone in their whole iron shop sacrificed their sleep, it would still take at least more than a month!
Unless they were using the water powered blast furnace technology of the imperial court, which would take them twenty days.
"I"m not kidding."
The old blacksmith expressed disbelief.
"What if I’m able to do it?"
The old blacksmith crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her condescendingly, "If you can do it, I will make your iron tools free of charge. I won"t charge you even a cent! Not only that, I"ll also take care of all your iron tool orders from now on! And I’ll never ask you for a cent!"
Gu Jiao thought about it carefully and thought that the deal was feasible, she said, "Alright, I promise you."
The old blacksmith’s mouth was agape. So you really think you could do it? What a big talker!
Gu Jiao finished the drawing quickly, and she nodded with satisfaction, saying, "This should be it. You can get a carpenter later."
The old blacksmith opened his mouth, "What?"
Gu Jiao rolled up her sleeves and said, "Stop being in a daze. Be in a daze one more time, and you won"t finish your iron tools."
With that, Gu Jiao stood up, wrapped the charcoal in brown paper and put it back in his pouch, then she washed her hands with water and turned to leave.
The old blacksmith had a confused expression on his face. This, this, this, this couldn’t be it? Was that girl playing with him? How could she possibly understand this?
However, for some reason, the old blacksmith thought of the other party’s image as she crouched on one knee and drew calmly. He then went next door to call the carpenter.
The carpenter was a knowledgeable man. After reading the drawings on the limestone slate, the expression in his eyes immediately changed, "Who, who drew this?"
"What"s the matter?" The old blacksmith asked curiously.
The carpenter didn"t answer him. He knelt down and touched the blueprint on the ground with his hands piously, as though he had seen a great treasure. However, he was afraid to mess it up even a little and didn"t dare to really touch it.
This cautious look made the old blacksmith confused.
The carpenter"s eyes turned green. Without saying anything, he went back to his shop, grabbed a brush and paper, knelt on the ground and began to piously copy the drawing.
He vaguely had a premonition that this might be the greatest thing he would ever do in his life!
The old blacksmith was visibly confused, staring at the pattern on the limestone slate left and right, "What’s going on? Can you really make something from it? "