Chapter 76: Redal’s Intelligence

Chapter 76: Redal's Intelligence

Since sending Rogna and Kurami away that day, Ronin has not paid attention to Wiggins' affairs. Of course, even if he wants to, he has no way to get information because Shanlin Town does not have a carrier bird to communicate with the outside world.

From that day on, Shanlin Town began the intensive autumn harvest. The main grain harvested this time was barley, a total of more than 9,300 acres.

With such a large area, even if Wilson called on all the people over the age of fifteen in Shanlin Town, each person would be responsible for an average of six acres of land, which would be a huge workload.

Fortunately, there is enough time, and with the coordination of a group of village heads and team leaders, the overall progress is well controlled, and the wheat should not be left in the fields and wasted.

The training of the guards is still going on. Especially after eighty militiamen were assigned to the training ground, the training ground west of the castle became bustling every day, with the sound of slogans being heard one after another.

During this period, teams of more than a hundred slaves were also put into production.

Not only were two simple wooden houses built on the mountain land next to the farm in the east, but several slaves had already moved in.

There are also iron and wood workshops, blacksmith shops, etc., which are slowly getting back on track. Even after a few days of work by the dung collection team, the amount of dung in the town has decreased a lot.

During this process, Wilson and several village chiefs reported the slaves' laziness. Roning showed no mercy to those who ate themselves but still wanted to be lazy and not work. After a good lesson and a meal or two of starvation, those people became much more obedient.

They also understood that the Lord's kindness was conditional, and if they did not work hard, they did not deserve this kindness.

During this time, Ronin was busy learning magic, making scrolls, and sparring with McKen to improve his combat experience. In addition, he also spent more time improving his iron smelting technology.

If you want to mass-produce farm tools, you need to raise the temperature to produce liquid iron.

Generally speaking, the melting point of iron is as high as over 1,500 degrees, and it is a bit difficult to melt it under the existing conditions.

But there are ways to obtain liquid iron.

In a high-temperature furnace, iron absorbs carbon when it is reduced, and the melting point of the carbon-iron alloy formed will decrease accordingly. The more carbon absorbed, the lower the melting point.

When the absorbed carbon reaches about 4%, the melting temperature of iron only needs 1200 degrees. With the assistance of bellows, high-grade charcoal, and blast furnaces, this temperature can be reached.

So, during this period of time, Luo Ning mainly did three things - designing piston bellows, traditional cooking methods, and making iron-making blast furnaces.

The piston-type bellows is easier to operate than the small leather bellows used by Carles, and it also saves effort. The amount of air delivered is also relatively increased, which greatly increases the temperature inside the furnace.

Traditional coking is actually using tree materials to make high-quality coke, concentrating the energy of wood.

As for the iron-smelting blast furnace, it is actually a simple furnace made of loess. It is not very tall and is only used for preliminary verification.

All along, Ronin had always left the impression of being a clean person to the servants in the castle. They had never expected that the master would not only be close to the manure collection team recently but also start playing with coke and mud himself!

Ronin didn't care about that. He made the coke, connected the bellows to the furnace, and then began to experiment.

After several experiments, the temperature in the furnace was indeed raised through the action of the bellows. After repeatedly adding charcoal to maintain the high temperature, it seemed that the iron could be melted.

But a problem arose. Luo Ning had no container to hold the molten iron. He wanted to use a ceramic cup to hold the iron block directly and burn it, but he found that the ceramic cup could not withstand the temperature in the furnace and cracked directly.

The problem of iron smelting then turned into the problem of making refractory ceramic cups.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of clay in Shanlin Town. Luo Ning used several different clays and finally fired a ceramic cup that could withstand high temperatures, which is a crucible in the modern sense.

When the blacksmiths Kallus and Bal watched Ronin pour the molten iron in the ceramic cup into the pre-made mold, which quickly formed a small dagger, their eyes were wide open.

Kallus didn't expect that the Lord's words that day, "It can let ordinary people master the temperature of molten iron," were not a joke but a real thing!

However, Ronin knew that this kind of cast dagger could not be used for fighting; it was too brittle. The method of casting with molten iron can, at most, make farm tools by utilizing the hardness and wear resistance of pig iron, and it is best to undergo high-temperature decarburization.

Of course, this crucible-containing method also has great disadvantages. It would be great if the blast furnace iron-smelting machine could be moved here.

But this would require him to spend more time researching.

Although this method was too crude at the moment, it was also a core secret. Ronin asked Kallus and Balmore to observe and keep this secret for him.

In this era, when iron was still being smelted using traditional methods, bellows and later blast furnace ironmaking were both core technologies.

So Ronin made Kallus and Bal sign a confidentiality agreement. If the secret was leaked, they would pay with their lives.

In a blink of an eye, it was September 15th, and after disappearing for nearly ten days, Riedal finally returned to Shanlin Town.

When he left, the other party was still a handsome young man, but when he came back, Redal had turned into a disheveled middle-aged man.

Roning asked him to go back to his room and take a shower before calling McKen and others to the fortress's hall for a meeting.

"The woodlands to the north and east of the town are huge. At first, I just searched aimlessly. It wasn't until I walked about ten miles north of the town that I found traces of human activity."

In the fortress of Hillfort, Rydar slowly recounted what he had seen and heard.

After finding traces of human activity, he searched for another day or two and finally found a village in a bamboo forest in the north direction.

The dense bamboo forest obscured Ridal's figure, and the rustling of bamboo leaves concealed his footsteps.

After a detailed observation, Ruidaer found that the village had only a hundred houses and was not very large. There were cultivated fields in the north of the village, but he didn't know whether the crops grown there could be self-sufficient.

After marking the village, Riedal walked along the path northeast of the village and happened to meet three hunters while crossing the mountain.

There was nothing to say. Redal attacked almost as soon as he saw the other party, killing two of them immediately and leaving one alive. He also successfully learned the news of all the wild tribes in the forest from the hunter.

According to the hunters, there were as many as eight tribes in this forest at one time. However, after years of natural extinction and mergers, there are only four tribes left: the Black Collar Tribe, the Gray Soil Tribe, the Green Bamboo Tribe, and the Purple Fruit Tribe.

Among them, the Black Collar Tribe has developed very rapidly in recent years. It has launched many attacks on the other three tribes and absorbed a lot of personnel.

In order to prevent being annexed by the Black Collar Tribe, the remaining three savage tribes formed a tripartite alliance to confront each other.

When Luo Ning heard this, he was stunned.

No wonder the savage tribe didn't invade Shanlin Town. It turns out they were also engaged in a civil war among themselves.

"These three hunters are from the Purple Fruit Tribe. According to them, their tribe has the smallest population, with less than 300 people left."

"The Grey Earth Tribe is the strongest in their tripartite alliance, but its population is only about 400 people. As for the extraordinary people, there are very few of them, and the strongest is just a high-level knight."

After Reidar finished speaking, he picked up the cup beside him and took a sip of water. "After I disposed of their bodies, I spent two days searching according to the route they described. Now I have determined the locations of these three tribes."

"The Black Collar Tribe they mentioned is located on a relatively flat plain. The houses and fields there are the most numerous and the most widely distributed among the tribes. The autumn harvest is currently underway."

After hearing Redar tell them the information he had obtained, everyone sitting at the long table in the fortress showed admiration.

Roning was no exception. He admired Redal's courage, decisiveness, patience, and resilience.

Roning couldn't help but praise loudly, "Rydar, you are the bravest person I have ever met! Your intelligence will be of great help to our next action. You deserve my applause!"

Following his lead, other people in the hall also applauded, expressing their admiration for Ridal's spirit and achievements.

Riedal smiled and nodded to everyone. After the applause stopped, he looked at Ronin and said, "Sir, the strength of the Savage Tribe is not strong. I think it's time for us to consider taking action against them!"

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