The official in charge of the project, Mu Ke, was extremely efficient. Perhaps he had the names and addresses of all the craftsmen in Fu County on file, which is why he was able to find all the people for her in less than half a day.
"Brother Sang, take a look, are these people I found suitable for you?" Mu Ke brought the people in front of her.
Zheng Quchi glanced around and saw that they were all simple, dark-skinned, and thin men.
He was wearing a gray and brown short-sleeved shirt, with a towel wrapped around his head, and he was shivering from the cold in the dead of winter. He looked at her with curiosity and silence.
"No problem."
Zheng Quchi didn't have any special requirements for the masons; any mason with rich experience would do.
She first gave them the required brick dimensions, materials, and production methods.
The bricklayers took a long time to process what they heard.
The process is similar to their usual method of making adobe bricks. The sticky clay is pounded into fine-textured tamped clay, then molded in a wooden mold, demolded, and the adobe bricks are dried. However, her method has an extra step: firing in a kiln.
What was unusual was that she requested materials that included many things they couldn't understand, and also the size...
A young plasterer hesitated for a while before finally daring to ask, "This... this kind of large-sized clay model is difficult to shape, and it will also crack during the production process..."
When Mu Ke's gaze fell on him, he was so startled that he shut his mouth and didn't dare to continue speaking.
“I know all of that.”
Zheng Quchi understands that the traditional clay bricks of Fuxian County often suffer from problems such as cracking and wind damage due to the relatively simple and coarse materials used in mixing the mud. In particular, the larger the bricks, the lower the cohesive force of the soil, making them more prone to cracking.
But hers won't, because she added coal ash, straw, rice husks and other things to increase stickiness, and besides, she doesn't need the brick blanks to be completely air-dried.
After listening, the bricklayers felt even more strongly that the dark-skinned boy brought by the foreman probably had no common sense about making mud bricks and was just giving them instructions based on wild imagination.
These adobe bricks are probably unusable once they're made.
"You know... and you still made us do it like this?" the plasterer muttered.
Zheng Quchi patiently explained to them: "Because I don't let this adobe brick air dry slowly, but wait until it is slightly dry and formed before sending it into the kiln to dry and then firing it."
"You can't burn this!" The bricklayer's eyes widened. "This isn't ceramic tile; you can't burn it."
This person is probably someone who tried making bricks but failed.
Zheng Quchi knew that most of the mud workers and kiln workers in Fuxian County had never fired bricks before.
Firstly, due to social class restrictions, the fired red bricks were not allowed to be used by ordinary people. Secondly, even the folk kiln workers had no access to the advanced techniques and craftsmanship. Lacking experience and knowledge, and coupled with their impoverished lives, they would not bother to spend the time and effort to study them.
"Whether it burns or not is none of your concern. Just do as Sang Gong says."
Unlike Zheng Quchi, Mu Ke was accustomed to discussing things with the workers in modern times, emphasizing that no job should be considered superior or inferior, and that everyone should be treated equally.
But in this era of monarchy, the highest official rank could crush the weak, and as the official in charge of public works, Muke's words were orders.
Since the official in charge of this matter has spoken, even if they have doubts and do not agree with Sang Xuanqing, they can only do as Zheng Quchi says.
After finding a mason to start making the brick blanks she specially customized, Zheng Quchi went to the kiln workers and asked them to directly open the kiln and fire the pre-dried clay bricks.
These brick blanks should be usable. She wants to fire a batch first to see the effect, and then customize the brick blanks later so that there will be a more direct comparison.
The methods for firing bricks were all from books she had read before; to be honest, she had never actually experimented with them herself.
But she believes that as long as she is willing to work hard and try, she will eventually achieve the results she expects.
At the same time, she also adopted some of the joint responsibility methods of her time, such as casting the name of the kiln and the name of the kiln worker on the city bricks, which was a strict quality assurance system for the city walls.
Muko expressed his approval of her approach.
Then came the most challenging part: firing the brick blanks. She specifically found the largest kiln to use for firing.
Bricks fired in kilns are generally more durable than those dried using traditional methods, but kiln firing isn't always the only solution. However, she still wanted to make them.
Having gone through countless hardships to finally climb onto Yuwen Sheng's coattails, she naturally wanted to make the most of his power and resources to do things she had long wanted to do.
What she couldn't do alone, she can now achieve by sheer chance.
The feeling of being able to command and operate all the artisans and workshops in Fuxian County was simply too wonderful.
She instructed the kiln workers to pay attention to the spacing between bricks when placing them, otherwise ventilation would be poor and the quality of the bricks would be affected. In addition, the firing time also needed to be precisely controlled by these experienced kiln workers.
It's best to record everything carefully, including the size of the fire and the duration of the fire.
The kiln workers followed her instructions and placed the dried clay bricks into the kiln. Zheng Quchi also helped carry them in, because arranging bricks into the kiln was a labor-intensive task, and the more people there were, the better.
After they laid the bricks according to her instructions, the next step was to fire them.
Actually, firing bricks isn't difficult; it's just about burning fire until the brick blank is completely hardened and petrified, and then it becomes a brick.
To be on the safe side, she prepared two plans.
The upper kiln, then the lower kiln.
Let's test it out and see which side's bricks will have a better quality after firing.
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