From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 32 Shipment

On November 11, according to the newly formulated plan, Chen Zhou began to carry firewood to the mountain and store cool water.

As it is close to the forest, there is naturally no shortage of firewood. All you have to do is walk down the gentle slope and cut down the low trees to get a lot of fuel.

However, living trees have a high water content and are difficult to ignite because they produce thick smoke when burned without being dried in the sun.

Most of the time Chen Zhou chooses drier branches or dead trees.

As for fetching water, the distance to get water from the river at the foot of the mountain was too far, so he spent most of the day exploring in the woods and found the source of the cliff stream.

It is a stream flowing out from the cracks in the rocks. The water volume is not large, but it is less affected by the dry season and has a continuous flow.

Just have some patience and wait for the bucket to be filled up, enough for daily use.

In addition, he took great pains to move the large iron can from the kitchen to the mountain.

Compared with the commonly used iron kettle, this thing has a much larger capacity and can hold one and a half buckets of water. It can boil enough drinking water for a week at a time, allowing him to focus more on his work.

11 month 26 day.

Just as the sun set and the earth was about to darken, Chen Zhou struck the flint and ignited the pyramid-shaped pile of firewood in the cave.

The dry wood on the bottom layer can easily expand the fire, while the wet wood on the top layer can continue the fire. When the wood is piled up layer by layer, only one spark is needed.

The flames spread quickly from thin twigs and dead leaves to thick wood piles.

thick smoke.

Heat wave.

The bright red light illuminated half of the mountain wall, and black smoke like a giant python licked the top of the cave, rising up in this windless night.

Like a beacon tower on an ancient frontier, against the backdrop of fire and light, Chen Zhou's figure was almost hidden in the darkness.

As the temperature continued to rise, he was forced to retreat more than ten meters away, sit on the slope and wash his face with the mountain spring water in the bucket next to him.

Lai Fu stood farther away, raised his head among the felled tree stumps, and looked quietly at the scenery halfway up the mountain.

There was a flash of fire in its eyes, and it instinctively feared this ruthless creature.

Although he had lived with humans for many years and was familiar with guns, explosions, and human buildings and food, all those things seemed too small in the face of the raging flames.

The feeling of oppression from its blood prevented it from walking towards its master calmly as usual, and it could only watch from afar.

Firewood burns very quickly, and in perhaps less than an hour and a half it has released all the energy contained in it.

The "pyramid" collapsed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The temperature dropped and the unburned charcoal fell from the top and sank into the soft ash.

Chen Zhou was almost made to fall asleep by the warmth of the flames. He washed his face and pulled himself together. He picked up the wooden bucket and poured water directly onto the wall of the cave before the gravel layer cooled down.

baah~
Water vapor with a smell of earth seemed to fill the cave with a cloud, rising up instantly and blocking Chen Zhou's vision.

He put the empty bucket aside, took small steps and ran quickly, and the second bucket of water soon poured onto another part of the cave wall.

The water vapor is becoming more and more dense, but it dissipates as quickly as it is produced.

Under the influence of thermal expansion and contraction, cracks appeared inside the sand, gravel and soil that were originally tightly combined. These cracks peeled them apart and made them fragile.

Warm water dripped from the wet cave wall, and the smoke-blackened surface made it impossible to see its original color. On the ground there was a pool of charcoal that had been extinguished by water and wood ash that had turned into mud.

Strike while the iron is hot, Chen Zhou picked up a crowbar and used both poking and prying to break up the sand and gravel that had been burned by the fire.

The stubborn and hard gravel fell down like rain, making him worry about causing a landslide, so he cautiously left the cave.

One piece after another, one piece after another.

The crowbar became the key that triggered a chain reaction, starting this special rainstorm.

The fire went out and the light was dim.

Fortunately, the terrain is high and with the faint light of the stars and the moon, we can still see things.

Chen Zhou watched as the sand and gravel gathered into a thick layer of soil, which was far more than the total amount he excavated in a day's work.

However, the flames did not burn evenly. The top was most affected, with the most sand and gravel falling off. Some sand and gravel also fell off on both sides. The part that actually extended deep into the cave only accounted for about one-third of the total.

After the sand and gravel stopped falling, Chen Zhou continued to pry the inner wall of the cave by stepping on the accumulated soil on the ground.

After digging about half a meter deep, the effects of thermal expansion and contraction are not so obvious, and the sand and gravel layer becomes hard and difficult to deal with.

Dang~
Chen Zhou stuck the crowbar on the ground and shook his head.

Burning fire and watering are indeed effective, but preparing firewood and fetching water takes too much time, and on average it can only be burned once every two days.

Moreover, as more and more trees are cut down on the slope, the time required to store firewood will become longer and longer, and work efficiency will inevitably decrease.

From this perspective, the fire method does not have much advantage except saving the time of making tools.

"It will be December in four days. I haven't started working on my flintlock rifle yet, and I don't know when the cannibal natives will land on the island in December."

Looking at the rock face with a straight line of smoke in the darkness, Chen Zhou found another reason to give up the burning method.

If the cannibal natives really landed on the island around December and happened to see the extremely conspicuous thick smoke on the mountainside and came to investigate, he would find it difficult to deal with them with his current weapons and equipment.

This is undoubtedly an act of inviting a wolf into the house and seeking one's own destruction.

"Then, the only option is to explode."

…………

November 11th is the fourth mysterious reward day. Before this day, Chen Zhou was nervously testing the explosive effect of black powder.

Blasting engineering is a broad and profound subject, which involves many fields, from geological exploration to mechanical structure, from gas destructive effect to stress wave destructive effect, from theoretical knowledge to practical experience...

Even with complete information and a full set of equipment for testing, it is difficult for a person to become a qualified blasting engineer and complete mining or building demolition in a short period of time.

Not to mention the highly difficult smooth surface blasting of tunnels, even directional blasting is not that simple.

For someone like Chen Zhou who has neither theoretical knowledge nor practical experience, blasting operations are a completely unfamiliar job.

Black powder is powerful and far less stable than modern industrial explosives detonated by detonators.

Therefore, he must be bold and cautious, seeking safety and stability in radical choices.

A dozen mounds were made with burnt sand and gravel. Black powder was wrapped in small pieces of canvas, and a fuse soaked in oil was inserted. The mounds were buried at different locations and depths in the mounds and detonated one by one.

By observing the shape of the earth pile being blown apart, Chen Zhou roughly understood the scope of gas damage produced by the gunpowder explosion.

It was a hemispherical shape that expanded upward and to the left and right, causing almost no damage downward.

The result of this experiment taught him that "explosives are best buried at the bottom of the cave, in the middle, deep in the sand and gravel layer, so that they can exert the best explosive power."

In addition to the explosion gas, the stress wave generated by the explosion will also cause damage to the soil pile.

However, the amount of gunpowder used in the experiment was too small and the gravel pile was too loose, so the specific power of the stress wave could not be accurately observed. It was only known that it could cause the gravel pile to collapse.

The black powder destructive experiment was coming to an end, and Chen Zhou wanted to know more about the mountain structure.

For the entire mountain, a depth of three to five meters would not even cause superficial injuries.

But the structure of the lower layer of sand and gravel and the upper layer of rock on this rock wall really makes people feel uneasy.

Compared with the sunny slope that is ravaged by the sun and sea breeze, the cracks inside the rock strata on the shady slope are more hidden, which means they are more dangerous and more difficult to prevent.

However, as things have progressed to this point, we have done all the experiments within our capabilities.

The amount of black powder was limited, so he had to use the best steel on the blade and not continue to squander it. After finishing the blasting experiment that lasted a whole day, he returned to the cave, sat by the bed, and lit the oil lamp luxuriously. In the dim light, he looked through the explosion effect diagram and stress wave analysis data he drew.

From time to time, he wrote a line of numbers with a feather pen, and slowly turned to the last picture of the pink and purple earth explosion.

In fact, Chen Zhou has always dreamed of becoming a painter. He has loved painting since he was a child and once won the first prize in a municipal painting competition.

The award certificate that his father placed in a glass frame is still hanging on the wall of his living room.

My mother cleaned the house countless times, always complaining that flies were hard to wipe off when they pooped on the glass, but she never put away the award certificates and put them in a corner where flies couldn't find them.

Many years ago, my mother often praised him to relatives, saying that he was not only a good student but also had great artistic talent.

It’s a pity that their family conditions are too ordinary. Even though the parents know that their children have a talent for painting, they dare not suggest that their children take special classes and become art students, for fear that it will affect their studies.

Chen Zhou grew up sensible at an early age and always maintained this tacit understanding with his parents. He never expressed his dream out loud, and so many years passed before he knew it.

After entering university, the requirements for mechanical drawings were precision and concise, which further restricted his artistic talent. His hobby was gradually eroded by time and slowly disappeared.

Today, when he dipped the pen in ink and used it to draw the scene after the earth pile was exploded by gunpowder, he suddenly remembered that he was once a person with hobbies and dreams.

Every line drawn by the stiff tip of the feather pen is so hard and every turn is so rigid, like a structural diagram measured with a ruler and compass. Even if there are curves, they are round and flawless, and very rigid.

With a self-deprecating smile, Chen Zhou reviewed his homework from the day before and thought about the things he needed to pay attention to during tomorrow's blasting, then he blew out the light.

……

Chen Zhou has lost interest in the mysterious reward on the 28th.

If the reward last time was not an electronic wooden fish but a box of lighters, he would definitely get up early this time and head to the beach under the starlight and morning dew.

But unfortunately, there are no ifs.

For a defective modern industrial product worth less than ten yuan, they had to trek more than ten kilometers through the mountains, wasting more than three hours and consuming a lot of physical energy.

In modern society, such a "losing business" will only be criticized, and no one will do it except a fool.

Unfortunately, Chen Zhou now has to act like a fool with great reluctance.

There was no other way. Even if the probability was only one in ten thousand, he had to go because that was the only channel to obtain modern products.

However, this time he did not get up early. Instead, he washed and had breakfast in an orderly manner, visited the mother goat and his child, and waited until the sun rose slightly before putting on his wide-brimmed hat and setting off.

More expectation, more disappointment.

After working hard to get up early in the morning, you only get a toy like picking up scraps, which will ruin your good mood for the whole day.

Having experienced two lessons, Chen Zhou chose not to have any hope this time.

Taking Lai Fu along the road that was so familiar, he noticed that the water level in the river had dropped by about five centimeters, and the raft that had been docked at the edge of the river bank had long been stranded.

Under the baptism of sunlight and sea breeze, tiny cracks have appeared on the surface wooden boards of the raft.

"We should dismantle the raft and bring it to the camp when we have time. It's better to burn such good wood as firewood than to leave it here to feed the woodworms."

Walking all the way to the beach, my eyes subconsciously looked down at the ground.

Chen Zhou suddenly found a giant cardboard box that was about one meter thirty or four meters long.

"?"

"What do you mean?"

His heart, as calm as still water, suddenly became agitated. He never dreamed that such a big deal would come out this time.

"Fuck, it's so big. Even if it's a plastic toy, it's not an ordinary toy. It must cost at least one or two hundred yuan!"

He ran as fast as he could, ignoring the sea breeze that might blow his wide-brimmed hat off, and arrived at the cardboard box at almost the speed of a 100-meter sprint.

The appearance of the carton is as plain as ever, made of pure yellow corrugated paper. It is relatively long and narrow, about 40 to 50 centimeters long and about 20 centimeters high, and is wrapped with yellow translucent tape.

I knocked on the box with my knuckles, and the sound was hollow, confirming that the object inside did not completely fill the box.

“It’s probably not a household appliance, as household appliances rarely come in this shape.

And appliances are the worst reward because I don’t have electricity.”

He dug his fingers into the top of the carton and lifted it up.

It is very heavy, about 17 or 18 pounds, and the weight is uneven, concentrated at one end.

"this……

It feels like metal.”

It was almost certain that the reward this time was not some ordinary powder. Chen Zhou's mood instantly soared from the lowest point to the highest point, and he enjoyed the pleasure of guessing what was in the box.

“Could it be that they knew I was going to fight the natives, so they rewarded me with an automatic rifle?
Or a sniper rifle? I hope you can send me a few more bullets..."

Unable to believe his own imagination, Chen Zhou could not wait to open the box and take a look at the reward.

The items in the box were wrapped in a thick layer of anti-collision foam, and the inside of the foam was covered with a thin plastic bag. Through the transparent plastic bag, he saw a long-handled axe with a leather sheath and another short-handled axe of similar shape.

In addition to the two axes, the box also contained a dagger about 20 centimeters long, a bag of wedges used to reinforce the axe heads, a bottle of wood care oil, and a small claw hammer as a gift, which was probably used to hammer the wedges.

"Damn it, am I still asleep?
Why does it feel so unreal?

The guaranteed prize comes out after four draws?"

Finally, a practical tool was produced. Chen Zhou was so happy that he felt like he was going to faint.

"Two months! Two whole months!"

Tearing open the clear plastic bag, he grabbed the axe and pulled out the longest one with a long handle.

The entire long axe with the handle is about one meter and one meter long and weighs about five or six pounds. The wood of the axe handle is black, carbonized, and polished to just the right degree, so that it can be held tightly without being prickly. There are no knots in the wood of the entire axe handle that would affect its strength, which is enough to show the careful selection of the materials.

The part connecting the axe is thickened to increase the structural strength and make it less likely to break.

The axe blade is relatively wide, about 12 cm, and the axe back is made into a flat hammer-shaped structure.

Chop from the front and smash from the back, two uses of one axe.

The axe blade shines coldly, and the metal surface transitioning to the end of the axe retains traces of forging, looking both rough and artistic.

There was a line of stamps on the hammer department, which suggested that it was a famous axe factory. Unfortunately, Chen Zhou didn't know much about it.

He grabbed the small axe and gently knocked it against the back of the big axe with the back of its axe. Listening to the crisp sound like ceramic, he became more certain that this reward was worth a lot of money.

The hardness of ceramics can reach 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, while the hardness of ordinary steel is between 5.5 and 6.

The fact that they can make such a collision sound shows that the heat treatment of the two axes is very good and the steel is also top-notch.

If this axe is used against the carpenter's best axe in a chopping experiment, the carpenter's axe will definitely be cut directly, while this axe will remain intact.

In the 17th century, these two axes were undoubtedly rare weapons in the world.

Those hard iron trees were no match for its sharp axe blade.

Human bones too!

　Thanks to: Captain Guoyi for the 27 monthly tickets, thank you big brother!

　　Thanks to the monthly tickets for Qimouyixiaojiumengruyan, A-bian, you are really wrong, the broken voice in the dream, Yunxifanchen, Xinxiangguangming, Star Killer, Yi Daiqing, Book Friend 20240213025328318, and Wash Hair Without Shampoo. Thank you all for your support!

　　Thanks to Tuolingyouyangraoxiliang, myself, and Fenglingshiwu for their tips. Thank you all!
　　I'll code more tomorrow.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)