Chapter 198 Salted Fish Assembly Line
The rain turned into beads and slowly slid down the bare ginkgo branches, making ripples in the puddles under the trees.
The fine rain and fog sometimes gather and sometimes disperse in the wind, and the muddy road is full of large and small deep and shallow puddles.
The cold rain in early winter is biting, and the refugees flowing along the river are shivering in the cold wind, rain and fog.
The rain fell on their hoods or thatched cloaks, making a pitter-pattering sound, and their straw sandals with exposed thumbs often splashed up a circle of mud when they stepped into the puddles.
Their direction was towards the long bridge not far away. At the end of the long bridge, the Salvation Army and local lycanthropes were building a pontoon bridge with rafts.
Standing on the big rocks on the shore of Nanze Lake, with the rain hitting Horn's face, he could only squint and look towards Qiumu Island.
In the sound of rain falling on Qiumu Island, you can also hear the sound of gunshots mixed in with it, which sounds every once in a while.
Those are the holy gunmen who are still cleaning up the hairy zombies on Qiumu Island.
Putting his hand in front of his brow to block the rain, Horn could still see the sheen of thunder and lightning in the sky above Qiumu Island.
Jeanne is almost invincible when fighting in this kind of rainy day.
Every time they heard these gunshots and lightning, the barbarian lycanthropes who volunteered to help Horn set up the camp could not help but shrink their necks.
This morning, when the corpses of the hairy zombies were transported back to the shore, a large number of Blood God priests immediately went into shock after the explosion.
Those barbarians completely lost the confidence to fight. After getting Horn's promise that "as long as they don't make trouble, the Salvation Army will not turn its guns on them," these barbarians from the northern and southern lycanthropic kingdoms The Great Schism finally ushered in unification in the hands of Horn.
After the death of the Blood God, the lycanthrope barbarian kingdoms fell into confusion of faith, but this problem was quickly fixed by the revived Blood God priests.
When the Moon God died, wouldn't he be replaced by the Blood God? Well, now that the Blood God is dead, it will be over if we follow Huo God.
The Blood God is dead, and the Huo God is here to stay!
So the Blood God priests were transferred to the Huo God priest position in just one day.
It's just that Horn hasn't noticed this yet. He currently has to focus his main energy on the military - organizing and training the new army.
“After this rain, it is estimated that the weather will enter winter.” Looking at the lycanthropes fishing in the cold rain on the lake, Horn said to Busak beside him with a little emotion. .
Busak looked up at the dark clouds in the sky: "The rain has been coming and going, and it is estimated that it will last for seven or eight days. But if it really snows, it is estimated that we will have time in the second half of December."
Although Daze Township is a swamp, it still snows every year. When it snows, perch and herring will gather from the relatively shallow Beizawa to the relatively deep Nanze.
Because when the weather gets cold, the water surface will get colder, and the deeper the water, the warmer it will be. The fish in the lake will dive deeper to avoid the cold.
Although it snows in Daze Township, it rarely freezes in Nanze. As a result, there are obviously fish at the bottom of the lake, but fishing boats cannot catch them.
Due to technical limitations, there is no fishing net that can fish that deep. If it were made on site, firstly, there would be too little time, and secondly, there would be no materials.
That's why Horn was scrambling to find people to fish and build saltworks.
However, after clearing Qiumu Island and the lycanthrope barbarians, Horn was able to carry out activities in the original war zone. He specially set up wooden fishing nets at several river mouths.
The weather is getting colder and local fish are moving to Nanze.
According to Donpia, at the mouth of the river "you can literally cross the river on the backs of fish."
After sneezing, Horn rubbed his nose and asked: "How is the flu in the camp these days?"
"The number of people has increased again, and we can't control it. Some of the refugees don't listen to us at all, or they yell or run around..." Busak complained, "I told them whether it's the flu or not. It’s not a big deal for the Holy Family.”
Hearing this news, Horn could probably understand the thoughts of the refugees.
In this era, for low-level farmers, a flu is indeed a fatal thing. The long-term inertia makes them unable to restrain their behavior at all.
In addition, Holy Family and influenza broke out together during this period. Their symptoms were very similar and they didn’t know how to treat them.
Forget it, let’s take a look at the salt field.
After getting on their horses, Horn, Busak and the others walked on the muddy ground and moved forward along the swamps and rivers.
Not long after walking, I saw hundreds of lycanthropes and Salvation Army soldiers carrying shovels and digging swamp soil on the shore.
A group of workers braved the rain, raised their pickaxes high in the air, and dug out the sticky and compact swamp soil one after another.
Another group of workers inserted the shovels in their hands into the loose swamp soil, stepped on it deeply with their feet, shoveled it out hard, and poured it into the wheelbarrow behind them.
When the wheelbarrow was full, a dozen strong men pushing empty wheelbarrows came from the end of the dirt road. They put the empty wheelbarrows away and pushed the carts filled with swamp soil towards the Walking towards the simple peat refining workshop at the foot of the mountain. "The speed is quite fast, and there is no delay." Bonade looked at the workers blankly on the side, "Your supervisor whip skills are good."
"We have no supervisors." Horn pointed to Armand and several boy soldiers standing aside. "Their main job is to motivate labor and control the process. The lazy ones are all in the Holy Trinity Education Team."
"Then how are they so diligent?"
"First, I told them that every shovelful of soil will turn into peat, and peat will turn into salt, salt The peat is used to heat themselves and their families in the winter, and the salt is also used for their own consumption.
As for the salted fish, the Salvation Army soldiers who eat the salted fish will be stronger. They will avenge you on the battlefield and protect them.
Second, I gave them a salary that is 20% higher than the average labor market price, and the group that did the best job also received bonuses.
Since bonuses are distributed by groups, they will supervise each other within each group. "
Horn spread his hands: "It's that simple. ”
After saying that, Horn shook the reins and ran towards the peat alchemy workshop further away, while Bonade watched for a few more seconds before catching up with Horn’s pace.< br>
Going forward along the dirt road, there is a flat open space with seven or eight thatched houses next to the open space.
Dozens of Saints uniformly wore black hoods and held sticks in their hands, jumping around in circles along the deep pit in the open space.
In the deep pit, dark peat gradually seeped out. In the circle they formed, there were two shovelers shoveling out the new peat, and then turning over the old soil to reveal the New soil.
Parked on the dirt roadside are four or five carts. Each cart is loaded with four or five baskets of peat and covered with canvas and thatch.
A few strong lycanthropes tied hemp ropes to their chests and pulled the cart forward in the rain.
After riding a horse and passing the group of lycanthropes pulling carts, and walking along the sparse bushes and thorns on both sides, Horn and others finally saw the salt field at the foot of the mountain.
The salt farm is not far from the edge of the swamp. It takes Horn and others seven or eight minutes to get there on horseback, or at most ten minutes on foot.
It is located in a mountain col, surrounded by sparse trees. Those obvious tree stumps can be seen that they were most likely chopped down by lycanthropes.
Horn dismounted and walked to the salt well. When he looked around, he saw that the mouth of the well was no bigger than a human head, with a hemp rope hanging on the pulley and a small bucket at the lower end.
“Why don’t you make this salt well bigger so that you can use a big barrel?” Horn asked the hand of the King of Carthage standing aside.
Stepping forward to meet him, the King's Hand replied respectfully: "It can't be hit too hard. If it is hit too big, it will collapse easily."
Horn stretched out his hand and touched the wall of the well, nodded thoughtfully, and stepped towards the Walking outside the mountain col, when he just passed by, he saw the salt boiling farm here.
At the outer exit of the col, there are seven or eight salt stoves erected.
Each salt stove is about knee-high, with a small opening at the bottom divided into upper and lower layers. Peat and kindling materials are placed on the upper layer, and rotating wood chips are used on the lower layer to fan the salt stove to make the salt stove burn more vigorously.
A flat-bottomed pottery basin with a diameter of two to three meters was placed on the salt stove, with a depth of less than half a meter. The light yellow brine boiled under the blazing flames of peat, making big bubbles.
Under the guidance of the king's hand, Horn walked to a pottery pot that was almost boiled dry.
Going around the pottery, a lycanthrope took wood chips and scraped off the light yellow well salt bit by bit.
This kind of salt actually contains a lot of impurities and needs to be decolorized, but the lycanthropes don't care, they just do it.
Next to the salt farm is a temporary salted fish production shed. Several royal chefs from the kingdom stayed in the shed, skillfully cutting open the fish's internal organs, removing the internal organs, and putting them aside.
The two pieces of fish are placed in a wooden box for pickling, and placed in the wooden box according to the ratio of ten pounds of fish to one pound of salt.
Walking to the side of the work shed, there is a smokehouse. Due to the humid climate in Daze Township, it is impossible to air-dry, so the smoke can only be used.
"Can the production of salted fish keep up?" After scanning the entire salted fish assembly line, Horn turned to the King's Hand and asked.
“If we make a batch every ten days, time is a bit tight.” The old beast-turned-man’s face wrinkled, “We may need to add more salt stoves and peat...”
“It’s okay, I can do it. Send more people and we can work in three shifts.”
“Your Majesty, we only have two salt wells. The salt stoves can’t keep up with the brine, but we don’t have enough time to dig new wells.”
This was indeed a problem. Horn looked at the col for a while, took out a notebook from his pocket, wrote down a few words on it, and then patted the old beastman on the shoulder.
"It's okay, you expand the salt stove first, and I will find a way to solve the brine problem."
(End of this chapter)