From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 33 Explosion
Both the long-handled and short-handled axes are well made.

In comparison, the dagger inside the package looked a bit crude.

The dagger has no sheath, a thick blade, and a handle made of ordinary wood with two mosaic rivets on it.

The tail can be removed and there is a small file inside, which can be used to sharpen the axe blade. It is a multi-functional design of the dagger.

The surface of the dagger blade has a fuzzy circular pattern like contour lines, which at first glance may make people mistake it for modern Damascus steel. In fact, it is an imitation pattern burned by laser.

On some online shopping platforms, this imitation Malaysian pattern is often the main feature of cheap and low-quality steel.

However, modern ordinary steel was still "steel on steel" in the 17th century when smelting technology was backward, at least much better than the dagger that Robinson carried with him.

Put the protective cover on the axe blade, and use force to turn the two axes to make sure they are tightly connected to the axe handles and there is no looseness or need to drive in wedges.

He nodded with satisfaction and stuffed the two axes, dagger, hammer and other rewards back into the paper box.

Woo!
With an unprecedented good mood, Chen Zhou let out a long roar towards the sky and returned to the cave.

He walked through the sparsely wooded coastal area and all the way to the woods at the foot of the mountain. Looking at the trees of varying thicknesses beside him, he tried to hold back his temper, but finally couldn't hold back his inner urge and took out the long-handled axe from the box.

The carbonized dark brown axe handle fit perfectly in Chen Zhou's big hand, with the center of gravity concentrated on the axe and a comfortable grip.

Call ~
Exhale.

He aimed at a tree as thick as a bowl and swung the long axe.

It seemed like it didn't take much effort, and the axe blade was deeply embedded in the roots of the tree, directly cutting off more than two-thirds of the tree.

The protruding wedge-shaped structure on the axe made it difficult to get stuck. Chen Zhou pulled the axe out by slightly shaking the axe handle, and then kicked the tree.

The already shaky tree roots groaned in pain and fell to the ground.

Look at the cut made by the axe, it is smooth and flat, just like a knife cut.

This shows that the axe blade is relatively thin and very sharp.

On the other hand, it shows that the structural design of the axe is suitable for chopping, especially for dealing with trees.

"What tree can stop me now?"

Holding the long-handled axe, Chen Zhou suddenly felt like chopping.

With the felled tree as the center of the circle, all the trees around it, regardless of their thickness or height, suffered. Except for some towering trees that were as thick as several people hugged and only received a few blows from the axes, the rest of the trees were chopped down equally.

Trees as thick as arms were chopped into several pieces, and trees as thick as thighs could not withstand it either...

Only after he had cleared all the nearby small trees and created a clearing in the woods did Chen Zhou put away his axe and calm down.

The axe blade was still intact, with no signs of bending or chipping.

The polished axe blade didn't even have a scratch, but was stained with a lot of green tree sap, like bloodstains after a massacre.

“That’s really good!

This time the reward is so good, next time I'll accept it even if you give me a phone case!"

After wiping the juice off the axe blade and putting it back into the box, Chen Zhou returned to the cave without feeling tired at all.

The mysterious reward undoubtedly got the day off to a good start, and he hoped that the following blasting would also go smoothly.

He lit the oil lamp with the fire left in advance, sorted out the small piece of canvas, the long tinder, the hourglass, and the chisel and hammer used to dig out the gunpowder channel, counted the number, and then Chen Zhou started the first move.

Afterwards, he moved two barrels of black powder to the construction site of the shelter, and then everything was ready.

The cave that had been burned the day before still exuded a faint smell of smoke. A row of soil piles on the platform that were used to test the explosion effect had burst into pieces, and rubble was flying everywhere, making the ground a mess.

The cave, which had been originally dug out in a relatively neat manner with a pickaxe and a shovel, was burned beyond recognition. The interior was uneven, and some sand and ash remained on the ground.

Staring at the shelter that seemed to have been bombed, Chen Zhou took out a charcoal stick and drew lines on the undulating cave wall. After finding a suitable position, he took out a chisel, hammer and crowbar and started drilling holes.

When attempting the blast for the first time, he planned to use a small amount to test the effect, so as to avoid the power exceeding expectations and causing unnecessary danger.

The entire explosives placement channel is about 30cm in diameter and 1.5 meters deep. It is straight and the same thickness from front to back.

The black powder wrapped in dry canvas with a fuse inserted will enter the hole and reach the bottom, waiting to be ignited.

Drilling a hole is much easier than digging out the entire cave wall, and with the help of a hard metal crowbar, Chen Zhou completed the project quickly.

Before putting in the explosives, he carefully checked the fuse to make sure the end was completely buried in the black powder, for fear that there would be a dud and he would have buried a "time bomb" that he could neither dismantle nor undress.

While stuffing the gunpowder bag in bit by bit, Chen Zhou was also observing the fuse inch by inch to see if there were any parts that were broken in the middle or where the oil was not fully soaked.

Any tiny detail may cause problems in the blasting process and should not be taken lightly.

The fuse, which was more than two meters long, lasted for half an hour.

After making sure everything was normal, Chen Zhou took the oil lamp that he had prepared long ago and carefully lit the fuse.

The tinder was tightly woven and burned slowly. After making sure it would not suddenly go out, Chen Zhou closed the windshield of the oil lamp.

He ran out of the cave in small steps, headed east, and retreated to a place where even a collapse of the rock wall would not affect him. He took out the hourglass.

I found a piece of flat land, turned the hourglass upside down, sat on the hillside, and waited quietly for the explosion.

As a follower, Lai Fu still followed him all the way here.

Seeing its owner suddenly stop, it stood there in confusion, blinking its eyes, as if asking Chen Zhou if he could not walk anymore.

However, it did not wait for its owner's reply because its owner's eyes were not on it at all.

The wind was strong at high altitude, blowing Chen Zhou's hair.

The hair on his forehead gently brushed against his skin, making it itchy, and he couldn't help but rub it with the back of his hand.

"It's time to get a haircut. I'm not used to having hair this long."

Grabbing his hair, Chen Zhou estimated that it was about five or six centimeters long, muttering to himself.

As far as he can remember, he has never had long hair.

Even when the Korean bowl-cut was popular in middle and high schools, he still had a buzz cut, the kind so short that you could see your scalp.

The main reason for keeping a buzz cut is to save money.

It costs 15 yuan to get a haircut, but only yuan for a buzz cut. Moreover, the intervals between buzz cuts are long, often more than two months, so it doesn't delay anything.

It is convenient to wash your hair with a buzz cut. When washing your face, you can just put some soap foam on your hands and wipe it upwards, and wash your hair at the same time.

The only drawback is that shaving too short in winter can make the top of your head a bit cold.

Humans are animals governed by habits.

Chen Zhou has had a buzz cut for more than ten years, and he kept this hairstyle until college.

Even though the school later allowed people to have long hair and he no longer had to save the extra ten dollars on a haircut, he still kept his hair short.

At this point, having slightly longer hair would have made it difficult for him to adapt.

"We have scissors and razors. Once the shelter is built, we can install the two large mirrors and cut our own hair."

The fine sand in the hourglass turned into silk threads and flowed down. Chen Zhou squinted his eyes because of the wind.

The waiting process is long and agonizing.

The fine sand gradually piled up into a small hill at the bottom of the hourglass, and the explosion sounded for a long time.

Lai Fu lay bored beside a rock sheltered from the wind.

It tried to sneak away to play several times, but was called back sternly by its owner, so it had to stay here obediently.

Standing up, Chen Zhou looked towards the shaded direction. According to his estimation, the fuse should have burned to the end by now, but why hasn't it exploded yet?

“The fire was blown out by the wind?
Or did it burn out halfway through? "

All kinds of speculations emerged in my mind.

Just when he thought the detonation had failed, the last strand of sand slid down from the top of the hourglass.

A dull roar was heard, and Chen Zhou felt the sand and gravel under his feet tremble.

Lai Fu, who was not afraid of the gunfire, showed obvious discomfort and curled up with his tail between his legs. A large number of birds were startled in the forest below the mountain, and even the rodents living in the burrows were frightened and fled everywhere.

"Success!"

With ecstasy in his heart, Chen Zhou picked up the hourglass and hurried westward.

From a distance, he stopped and carefully observed the rock wall above the sand and gravel layer.

The rock wall didn't seem to have changed at all, even the stones on it didn't move. If it weren't for the muffled sound just now, Chen Zhou might have thought he was hallucinating.

"It seems that this explosion had less impact on the rock wall above, and the probability of landslide has been reduced."

Feeling a little relieved, Chen Zhou continued to move forward.

Arriving at the side of the platform below the slope of the shelter, the cave that had just been blasted was filled with dust, and the inside was completely invisible.

The flying dust made Chen Zhou cover his mouth and nose, and he recalled the days when he worked in the cement factory.

Wait for the dust to settle, and the first thing that comes into view is the top of the shelter.

Just like the results obtained from Chen Zhou’s blasting experiment.

The gravel at the top was less damaged and gradually expanded in a hemispherical shape as it went downwards.

The power of the explosion inside spread to the surroundings, not only collapsing the outer layer of 1.5 meters, but also blew apart the sand and gravel about 1 meter deep inside.

Ready to turn around and sprint a hundred meters to leave the cave at any time, Chen Zhou picked up a wooden shovel and dug up the outermost pile of earth and rocks.

After crossing this "circular low wall", he approached the center of the explosion amid the thick smell of gunpowder.

The dust on the ground has not yet settled, and a conspicuous pit can be seen under the cover of fine yellow particles.

There is a circle of black marks radiating around the pit, and the temperature nearby is relatively high, indicating that there was once a pack of explosives there, which was the source of everything.

Further ahead is the collapsed cave wall.

The sand and gravel here no longer have a solid structure. As long as you shovel away the lower layer of soil and gravel, the soil and gravel above will naturally fall down and fill the gap. There is no need to use a pickaxe to dig, just swing the shovel and throw it out.

The blasting effect is better than expected.

The explosion blew away nearly 23 cubic meters of sand and gravel, and caused irreparable internal damage to the cave wall behind. Further digging will definitely save a lot of effort.

In just over half an hour, more than ten days' work was completed.

Now Chen Zhou finally understood why those illegal mine owners were willing to use explosives even at the risk of being shot.

This thing is really efficient!

In the past, we learned information from books, and only knew various equivalents and data. These things on paper are far less shocking than practicing them with our own hands.

You have to know that this is not modern industrial explosives, nor is it the king of powerful explosives such as TNT and HMX.

If black powder is replaced with industrial explosives of the same weight, the size of the cave could probably be multiplied several times.

From frugality to luxury is easy, from luxury to frugality.

After experiencing the joy of the explosion, Chen Zhou felt that he could never go back to the time when he had to dig slowly with one pickaxe at a time.

“Explosion is art!

Explosion, cool! "

On the deserted mountainside, Chen Zhou let himself go, shouting out clichés that had become popular on the internet, and wielding a wooden shovel to clean up his shelter amidst dust and the smell of gunpowder.

Bucket after bucket, it took an entire afternoon just to load the sand and soil that was scattered from the outer blast into wooden barrels and carry them to the platform to dump them.

Chen Zhou worked until it was dark and his arms began to ache. Finally, he cleared the outer pile of dirt, packed up his tools and returned to the cave.

Between November 11th and December 29rd, a roar could be heard every day halfway up the mountain.

The wild goats nearby might have been frightened and moved their base. Chen Zhou hasn't seen them on the platform in the past few days.

The birds in the forest have gradually adapted to this change, and recently fewer and fewer of them have flown up after the explosions.

The construction speed of the shelter soared like a rocket.

Half a month's hard work in digging is not as good as the sound of gunpowder.

The space inside the shelter has grown from the original 13 square meters to about 70 square meters, which is larger than the cave where Chen Zhou lives.

A barrel of black powder has been used up, and it is estimated that two more barrels of gunpowder will be needed to complete the development of most of the space on the ground floor.

But the stability of the mountain structure is still an issue that cannot be ignored.

A 70-square-meter building without load-bearing columns can still be guaranteed not to collapse, but a 300-square-meter building may not be certain.

If load-bearing columns are built, they will be affected by the explosion of gunpowder.

After weighing the pros and cons, Chen Zhou decided to first develop the prototype of the kitchen and storage room on the left and right sides of the main living room. The total area of these rooms is about 140 square meters.

After this, he will give up the use of black powder and return to manual digging for safety reasons.

There is no common area, and the 140 square meters of usable area is far larger than the old residential building where Chen Zhou's parents live in real life. For him personally, it is enough.

If it weren't necessary to open a warehouse to store supplies, work could actually be stopped now.

After making good plans, I worked for another 8 days.

On December 12, the day before the fifth mysterious reward arrived, Chen Zhou completed the basic construction of the shelter as scheduled.

He blasted a long strip of space under the rock wall that was 18 meters long, more than 7 meters deep, and totaled about 140 square meters. There were still about 90 cubic meters of sand and soil left to be cleaned up.

The use of black powder came to an end.

After finishing the finishing work of pouring out the sand and soil, he had to study many matters such as how to bear the weight, build walls, install windows and doors, and design interior decoration.

These days, in addition to carrying water, feeding sheep, detonating gunpowder, and pouring out sand and gravel as part of his work plan, Chen Zhou also found a new job for himself -

Every day I climb to the top of the sunny slope and use a telescope to observe the beach at the northeast corner of the mountain.

The cannibal natives are likely to land on the island in December.

Even if there is no need to kill now, he still needs to master intelligence, obtain information and create advantages for future conflicts that are likely to occur.

Knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle. This is the truth passed down by our ancestors.

At the same time, in order to ensure that he could deal with the attacks of the cannibalistic natives, Chen Zhou loaded all the muskets in the cave with lead bullets in advance, and placed the bottle of primer on the bedside table within reach.

Whenever he saw the natives behaving unusually or walking towards the mountain, he would quickly light the fuse, pour in the primer, and strike from high above and low, giving the natives a thundering blow.

If the number of natives was too large, he also prepared a retreat route into the dense forest.

It was an extremely narrow path with a three-meter square spike trap dug in the middle of the road.

If the natives saw through the trap and continued forward, there was a pack of explosives buried in the soil waiting for them.

If some of the natives were lucky enough not to be injured by the explosion, Chen Zhou would still have one last insurance - two sharp axes.

In the dense forest where bows and arrows are hardly effective, any melee weapons of the natives could not confront these two high-carbon steel weapons head-on.

Their proud iron tree spear was like a toothpick in front of the sharp axe blade.

This was something Chen Zhou had tested and found that the hard iron tree could not withstand the chopping of the two axes.

The natives' crude armor, which was almost non-existent, allowed the axes to exert their full power. Even if their fighting skills and ferocity were better than Chen Zhou's, they would still find it difficult to match him due to their inferior height and weapons.

Besides, Chen Zhou knew very well that the probability of such an encounter happening was extremely small.

Even if the cannibal natives really dared to attack him, they would most likely be so frightened by the first wave of gunfire that they would flee in panic.

After returning to the nearby island, they might spread the story of a thunder monster on the island among the tribe, scaring the natives of the entire tribe so that they would not dare to come again.

　感谢：好烦想睡觉、高祥呀、有的也、书友20190811114118623、嚣风啊、一个小夏夏、锋镝执戈、鹏鹏他爸、书友20210301109703188、壹号门、黑墙上的炫耀、书友20170209211628074、仰天长啸兮气白虹、墨Ellie、一只狸花压海棠喵、一天天的和谁呢、佪眸一笑旧梦如烟、轻微的抑郁症患者、林仲苗看闲书、熾誠、书友20210615202441226、2762的月票，谢谢各位！

　　Thanks to Uncle Wow for the tip! Thank you!
　　By the way, I typed over 600 words, does that count as extra code?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)