As expected, after drying, the fern roots weighed only a little over eight kilograms. This was the result of more than half a month of hard work by the Chen family and all their relatives, who washed and pounded the roots whenever they had free time. The yield was only a little over eight kilograms of powder. The production was too low.
However, Old Man Chen and his family didn't mind at all. They treated the bracken roots like treasures, as they could be eaten as a staple food, which was different from other foods.
If you take good care of your vegetables, you'll have a harvest in one or two months, regardless of the yield.
But grain is different; you have to rely on the weather for your harvest. If a natural disaster occurs, there will be no harvest at all.
Chen Kai understood this principle, and he didn't dislike the bracken root powder; he just felt that the yield was too low.
The most time-consuming steps in making bracken root powder are washing and grinding. They are extremely time-consuming, and we need to find ways to improve them and increase efficiency.
Although the yield of bracken root powder was low, Old Man Zhou Chen still attached great importance to it. However, the land reclamation could not be stopped, so Old Man Chen handed over the task of collecting and cleaning bracken roots to the children, while the others continued to reclaim the land as usual.
The Chen family started buying things again, and unexpectedly, they were buying bracken roots from the mountains. Forty catties of bracken roots could be exchanged for a piece of tofu.
At first, everyone was happy to hear this, but when they heard that they had to wash it clean, they immediately frowned. Bracken roots are very difficult to wash. However, a block of tofu is very valuable now, so it is worth it to exchange bracken roots for tofu. Therefore, even though everyone was not very willing, they would still wash bracken roots when they had time.
Such a stingy method was of course the idea of Old Man Chen and Mrs. Zhou.
The ordinary bracken root attracted the attention of the entire village, who speculated about what the Chen family intended to do with it.
Some people believe that the Chen family collects bracken roots to eat, but others immediately question this, arguing that even if the whole village ate grass roots, the Chen family would not.
Bracken roots are completely inedible, otherwise they would have been destroyed long ago.
Some people believe that bracken roots are used to feed livestock, and this is a more widely accepted view.
Driven by curiosity, whenever villagers saw the Chen family, they would ask them what they used the bracken roots for.
Whenever someone asks, the Chen family answers that it's all nonsense, and none of their answers are the same.
Finally, the village chief went to the Chen family to find out what was going on. The village chief asked, "Chen Dong, has your family come up with a new dish, and it's related to bracken?"
The village chief thought that must be the case, otherwise, given the nature of the Chen family, they wouldn't do something meaningless.
Old Man Chen changed the subject, saying, "If you're done talking, go find the carpenter. My second son is going to study waterwheels."
Bracken roots are no longer important; in the village chief's eyes, the waterwheel is the real priority, so he immediately went out to find a carpenter.
Old Chen had been lost in thought, and by the time he realized what was happening, the village chief had already left.
Before he could finish speaking, his youngest son said that the waterwheel he was researching was not quite the same as the one he had imagined, but since they were all waterwheels, they should be pretty much the same.
That evening, the village chief came over again. Chen Kai saw that Old Man Chen and the village chief were sighing, and the atmosphere was very somber.
Chen Kai asked Da Ya, "Da Ya, what happened?"
Daya sighed and said, "Uncle, those carpenters are too big for their game, and the village chief can't get anyone back."
Chen Kai continued, "How much compensation did the village chief offer?"
Da Ya said, "Originally, it was agreed that we would receive 100 catties of black flour, and after the job was done, we would receive another 50 catties of black flour, plus some other food."
"But the carpenters were not satisfied with the payment and said that they had to use 100 catties of black flour every day until the work was finished, and that they had to ask for 100 catties of black flour in advance."
Chen Kai was startled when he heard this; it was obvious that she didn't want to do it.
There was a reason why the carpenters refused. Food was scarce, and people needed to make a living before they could work. Anping Village was notoriously poor, and it was better to work anywhere else than in Anping Village.
Does the lack of technical personnel mean there's no way to research watermills? No, they'll continue their research anyway. However, Chen Kai has passed this problem on to the villagers, asking everyone to work together to find a solution.
A watermill is a machine that uses the power of water flow to automatically pound rice. River water flows through a waterwheel, which rotates the axle and then moves the pounding rod up and down to pound the rice.
A watermill is a machine that uses water power, levers, and cams to process grain. This machine uses water power to remove the husks from the grain.
Watermills can be used to process grain day and night. Watermills can be set up along the banks of streams and rivers. Multiple watermills can be set up depending on the size of the water flow. Setting up two or more watermills is called a chain watermill. The most common setup is four watermills.
Watermills were typically built along riverbanks. To protect the materials being milled from sun and rain and for ease of use, each watermill had a shed, the construction of which was mostly funded by villagers. To avoid overcrowding, villagers took turns using the watermills in a set order, and in some places, a rental fee was charged for maintenance. Watermills were quite noisy, but because they were mostly located outside the village, they did not disturb the villagers' rest.
The watermill's structure roughly consists of a waterwheel with four short horizontal beams (perpendicular to the axle) running through its horizontal shaft. Next to it, four pestles for pounding grain are mounted on a frame. As the short horizontal beams rotate, they strike the ends of the pestles, causing one end to lift up. The short horizontal beam then rotates, and the lifted end falls back down. The four short horizontal beams continuously strike the corresponding pestles, pounding the rice with each rise and fall.
In fact, Chen Kai was capable of solving the problems that would arise during the production of the watermill, but he wanted to first inspire everyone's potential and let them find ways to solve the problem.
The Chen family also made a condition: if everyone could figure out how to build a water mill, the Chen family would tell everyone what bracken roots were used for, and the Chen family would also specifically remind everyone that bracken roots were related to food.
As a result, people who were originally uninterested in this matter became enthusiastic.
After lunch, Chen Kai gathered everyone in the village square. He had drawn up a watermill and its simple components in advance, and he wanted everyone to take a look at it first. After everyone had looked at the drawings, Chen Kai said, "This is the watermill we are going to build."
As soon as Chen Kai finished speaking, everyone started discussing it. One person said, "Those troughs look like rice pounding tools."
However, Chen Kai did not stop them, letting everyone use their imaginations. When everyone had finished discussing, Chen Kai asked his mother to raise her hand to quiet everyone down.
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