The bricks are almost done, but the cement is a problem! We need to make the cement properly; the strength of lime mortar alone is still too low.
Ed didn't plan to let Roderick study it slowly anymore. He wrote down the formula himself: iron ore powder, clay, limestone, and gypsum, which could be fired together. As for the proportions, he could work on that later; it just needed to be roughly like cement.
The main problem now is that the cement calcination temperature cannot meet the requirements, and cement can only be calcined after the blast furnace is built.
There's another problem: we don't have plaster, so we need to find a plaster mine. Ed plans to send Andrew to look for the mine.
"Adelaide, has Andrew gone hunting?"
"No, Master, Lord Andrew has not been hunting these days."
"Okay, then call him over."
"Yes, Master, I'll go right away."
Adelaide ran out again; she was looking for someone now. Before long, the two of them arrived in the hall.
"Andrew, I need a white mineral that can be scratched by hand or burned into powder," Ed said, directly describing some characteristics of plaster.
"My lord, where are there more of these stones?" Andrew had never seen white stones before, so he could only ask Ed this question.
Andrew's question left Ed speechless. "I know where to find more, do you really need to go looking for me?"
"Andrew, I don't know either, but you can try looking in that direction by the lake and see if you can find it." Ed could only point in a direction randomly.
"Yes, my lord, I will go find this white stone immediately."
"Yes, this is important, but there's no need to rush. It would be great if we could find it, but it's okay if we can't. Don't risk looking for it." Ed felt that people were more important.
"Yes, my lord." With that, Andrew left the hall.
Ed still hoped to find the territory, but if he couldn't, it would be troublesome, since gypsum was useful for producing cement and much better than lime for painting walls.
A dozen days later, on an open space near Chitie Village in the territory, many rectangular bricks that had already been made were piled up densely. At this time, the bricks had not yet been fired, but were just drying and shaping.
With that brick-making mold, all the bricks are exactly the same size, which provides the conditions for future large-scale production. However, Ed has no intention of building a kiln to fire bricks now, so Ed plans to fire bricks in the open air here.
Now the brick blanks are almost dry, and Ed is directing people to stack the bricks, piling them into the shape of a kiln, and then adding wood inside.
The number of bricks to be fired this time wasn't very large, just a little more than when the blast furnace was built. Before long, several brick kilns were erected on the open space using brick blanks.
With Ed's command to ignite the fire, the brick kiln immediately glowed red, and the wood crackled and popped as it burned.
Roderick, standing beside Ed, looked at the burning flames and said, "My lord, we've been building houses, burning charcoal, and now we're burning bricks in the past year. We also need them for heating. All the trees around Red Iron Village have been cut down."
Ed had seen it too; when he first came to hunt, this area was full of trees. Now, in just one year, it's all bare.
Although he originally planned to cut down some trees in this area, the area where trees have been cut down has already exceeded his original plan, and he is still cutting down trees into Chitie Village because there are no trees left outside.
Ed also felt that they couldn't cut down the mountains so extensively anymore; if they continued like this, the entire mountain would become barren. Although the western mountain was very large, Ed didn't plan to cut it down in large quantities anymore, because this western mountain was a natural barrier for the territory.
"Yes, Roderick, I saw what you said. From now on, the village will no longer use wood to build houses, but will use these bricks, stacking them layer by layer, just like stacking stones, and only using some wood for the roof."
"My lord, this is great! It's also fireproof, but I don't know if it's easy to build with this?"
Roderick had some concerns. Although he had built houses with stone before, the stones were much larger than this one, and the houses built with stones were not very big. This brick house, on the other hand, would be very tall.
"Well, take it slow. Aren't we going to repair some toilets? This time, you can use this brick to repair the toilets. Get used to using this brick to repair them and accumulate some experience."
"Yes, my lord."
Roderick sighed inwardly, wondering why he hadn't thought of that.