Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 33 A fire in winter
A sudden fire turned the entire forest world into a catastrophe. The raging flames were like the devil's tongue, greedily devouring every inch of land in the forest.

The flames leaped, accompanied by the crackling sound of branches breaking, dyeing the sky a terrifying orange-red.

The thick smoke billowed like an angry beast, spreading and roaring wantonly, covering the originally clear winter sky into a gray haze.

The tall and straight spruce trees twisted under the high temperature of the flames, as if struggling silently, but unable to escape the web woven by the flames.

The leaves turned into flying ashes, drifting in the wind, as if telling of their helplessness and despair.

The animals in the forest panicked and fled in all directions. Their wails and roars echoed in the forest, forming a tragic symphony.

The snow covering the forest also melted quickly, turning into streams of mist in the flames, mixed with smoke, and rising up.

What is even more speechless is that the fire also affected several Indian tribal camps, not only burning their simple thatched and mud houses into a wasteland, but also more than 20 people who could not escape were killed in the fire, and the rest became "victims" with nothing.

The people in Shixing Fort looked at the raging fire outside through the fence in silence.

It seems... screwed.

Damn, arson really is a technical job!

The plan was originally well-planned. They only planned to set fire to about 500 acres of forest land, and they also set up several fire-prevention isolation zones in several directions in advance in order to control the fire to a limited area.

Who would have thought that once the fire started, it would be completely out of control and, with the help of the wind, it quickly began to spread around.

Winter is a season of dry weather with withered vegetation, making it a high-risk period for forest fires.

In order to improve the efficiency of burning the wasteland, Shixing Fort was smart enough to set fire to several places at the same time. As the fire expanded, it could not be contained immediately. Several isolation belts failed to effectively stop it, and the fire swept into the depths of the forest at an extremely fast speed, almost dyeing half of the sky red.

This man-made forest fire has been burning for five days, and the burned area exceeds 3,000 acres, but judging by its momentum, there is still no sign of it being extinguished. With the help of the northwest, it has been extending towards the southeast coast.

Perhaps, when it reaches the seaside and there is nothing left to burn, this forest fire will finally stop.

Fortunately, the fire isolation zone set up around Shixing Fort was wide enough, and there was also a defensive trench, which was not affected by the fire. However, standing in the camp and looking outside, all you could see was scorched earth. In addition to the pungent smell of fireworks, there was also a faint and tempting smell of barbecue.

No one knows how many birds and animals were devoured in this fire. It is likely that they will not be able to recover to their original state within several years.

However, this is very necessary for Shixing Fort, which urgently needs to change its current predicament and focus on developing local agricultural production.

All the sacrifices are naturally worth it.

Through this fire, large areas of open space can be cleared very effectively, and the trees, weeds, and even various pests and diseases attached to them can be removed, reducing future side effects on crops and improving crop yields and quality.

More importantly, burning can promote soil fertility and nutrient circulation.

The burned residues will release a large amount of nutrients and organic matter, enriching the soil fertility and providing sufficient nutrients for the crops to be planted.

During this period, there was no such thing as organic fertilizer. If one wanted to use human and animal excrement to make compost, the amount "supplied" by only a few people and livestock in Shixing Fort would not be enough to meet large-scale agricultural planting.

At best, it can only water a few vegetables. In addition, the soil in the forest is generally compacted and closed. After burning, it can help improve the physical properties of the soil, increasing its air permeability and water retention capacity.

Of course, the air pollution caused by the burning, the death and separation of animals, and the burning of several Indian tribal camps are all "small problems."

On the premise of development, everything is sacrificable.

In view of the fact that there were still sporadic fires in the forest area and the high temperature of the burned soil, Shixing Fort did not arrange personnel to immediately start leveling and clearing the planned fields. Instead, it concentrated most of the manpower to expand the previous small brick kiln.

At the beginning, everything was kept simple. This small earthen kiln was just an emergency product, only firing more than a thousand bricks each time, and the output was shockingly low.

Considering that Shixing Fort will usher in a wave of large-scale infrastructure activities in the future, in order to ensure that there are sufficient building materials, the expansion of the small earthen kiln is imperative.

Admittedly, with current production conditions and available technology, it is impossible to build a large automated kiln capable of producing hundreds of thousands or even millions of bricks.

However, being able to build a small rotary kiln that can fire 8,000 to 10,000 bricks at a time does require a certain amount of "technical reserves".

It is nothing more than splitting up the firing processes of the small earthen kiln, building several kilns, some for roasting, some for preheating, some for cooling, and finally some for slowly producing bricks, forming an assembly line model.

As long as there is sufficient manpower, continuous production can be achieved, and the output of bricks will increase by more than ten times.

As for whether or not to build another cement kiln in the future, the time travelers are still considering it - in fact, to be more precise, it should be that everyone is not sure about the manufacturing process of cement. Although everyone knows that the raw materials of cement are nothing more than limestone and clay, which are crushed, mixed, and ground into raw materials, and then fed into the cement kiln to be calcined into clinker, and then the clinker is ground with an appropriate amount of gypsum, but how to mix the raw materials, how to calcine, and how to crush and grind them has stumped everyone.

On weekdays, who has the time to record cement production process and raw material ratio data?
Moreover, with the existing conditions and tools in Shixing Fort, even if the accurate process flow was obtained, normal production would not be possible.

It is impossible to rely solely on manpower to crush and process pieces of limestone, grind them into materials, and finally calcine them.

Forget it, we don’t have that much extra manpower!

With bricks, houses can also be built using straw, mud and mortar.

In later generations, in the 1970s and 1980s, when building houses in rural areas, people would mix straw and mud, then build walls and houses. These could still last for decades and were relatively sturdy and durable.

In addition to building a brick kiln, Shixing Fort also plans to build a papermaking workshop to meet the paper needs of the entire base.

Not to mention the need for white paper to record written words, you also need some toilet paper to wipe your butt.

Half a year had passed, and the toilet paper on the "Breaking Waves" had long been used up, forcing everyone to prepare a few branches or clods of earth for "aftermath" before going to the toilet, and they had fallen into the same situation as those indigenous savages.

Of course, there were still dozens of books and record books on the "Breaker" and the captured Spanish galleon "San Louis", but these things were extremely important "documents" and must not be used as toilet paper to wipe one's butt.

Moreover, in order to ensure that the level of scientific and technological development in the future can be far ahead of this era, Captain Luo Zhenhui and Political Commissar Li Xianqing also ordered all officers and soldiers to write down all the knowledge and information that everyone remembered in their minds in their spare time according to the listed categories, so as to prevent everyone from forgetting them completely as time goes by.

The construction efforts of the base must be strengthened, but the reserves (preparations) of knowledge and technology must not be neglected.

A towering building rises from the ground, and a heavy rope breaks at the thinnest part. The development of a brand new world is an arduous and extremely difficult journey.

(End of this chapter)