Roland stood in the backyard of the firing room waiting for the first batch of cement to come out of the oven.
This brick house was designed by him specifically for cement production. It is about 15 meters long and 4 meters wide. There is only one front door that is as wide as possible for people to carry materials.
For this reason, he also built a circle of walls halfway up the house to surround the back half of the firing room. Knights were arranged to guard the entrances and exits, including the transportation of cement. They were all Carter's subordinates, and their loyalty was beyond doubt.
The production process of cement is simple to say. The limestone is crushed into powder and mixed with clay and iron powder. It is calcined into clinker by dry or wet method, and then ground with gypsum for use. The raw materials are very common, and iron powder is difficult to produce in large quantities, so it is not necessary to put it in. The key lies in the calcination temperature of the clinker.
Roland did not remember the specific temperature required for firing cement. Even if he remembered, he would not be able to measure and control the temperature - whether it is an infrared thermometer or a thermocouple temperature gun, it is countless times more complicated than cement. He only knew that this temperature is almost close to the melting point of iron, and the calcination process is also a difficult hurdle in the production of cement.
In the era when smelting technology was not developed, maintaining high furnace temperature has always been a problem that troubled everyone. Ordinary open furnaces have great heat loss, and it is difficult to keep the furnace temperature above 1200 degrees. And the reverberatory furnace requires a high-temperature resistant liner, and he couldn't figure out how to make refractory bricks for a while. The traditional iron smelting blast furnace is even worse. The temperature may meet the standard, but relying solely on the narrow and long furnace chamber to calcine cement, I am afraid that it will not burn enough after the Demonic Month is over.
Therefore, the firing room designed by Roland has no heating measures at all, and he relies on Anna.
The small particles of artificially crushed limestone were mixed with clay and then mixed with water to form a slurry, which was evenly spread in the firing room. Then the knight locked the door and cleared the handymen away. Anna entered from the front door and let the flames bake the slurry on the ground until it melted together with the iron rods placed in the room.
Roland was a little restless. This was his first step in guarding the border town. If cement could not be made, the plan to build a wall in three months would be just empty talk. Without a wall to block it, I am afraid no one would be willing to stay in this ghost place. Whether it is real history or fictional literature, a stable base is essential if you want to farm well.
"Your Highness, can this thing you are talking about really stick all the stones together?" asked Katranis, who was guarding the fourth prince. Although the prince told him that this was the latest research result of the Graycastle Alchemy Workshop, he still doubted it. After all, that group of people had never made any truly reliable alchemical products.
"Who knows? Anyway, that's what they said," Roland spread his hands.
In this world, alchemy and astrology are collectively called the Sage's Art, and are very popular in mainland countries. The royal family usually trains its own alchemists and astrologers to refine secret medicines and predict fate. For ordinary people, these studies are too lofty, so they have a blind faith. Considering this, Roland naturally led the question of the source of the cement formula to the alchemy workshop. As for whether the chief knight believes it or not, it doesn't matter at all.
The flames coming out of the window gradually extinguished, and it seemed that the fire was ready.
Roland stood up in a hurry, and did not drive Carter out of the yard. They waited in front of the brick house together.
As the chief knight of the nobles, he is the most trusted person of the nobles. There is no one else. He is an existence that can be entrusted with life. Almost all nobles will not dismiss the guardian knight even when they are sleeping or having sex with their wives or lovers to prevent accidents. Besides, Carter had already seen Anna's body, and in Roland's memory, his predecessor would not be on guard against Carter when dealing with any private matters, so he did not think too much.
The iron door was pushed open with a creak, and Anna walked out naked. Roland immediately handed over the prepared water.
The witch's body was gray. Although the wet cement production had low dust, the hot air during calcination would still bring up dust. For her who could not wear a mask, it was obviously not very comfortable to stay in there for dozens of minutes. The gray dust covered her snow-white skin. She drank water in big gulps, so much so that she coughed because she drank too fast. The water slid down the corners of her mouth, taking away the dust along the curves of her body. The water marks once again exposed her delicate skin. The contrast between gray and white skin revealed the same temptation. Roland and Carter found that they could not look away at all, until Anna finished drinking the water and looked at them with contempt, then smiled and looked away.
Everything is based on His Highness's affairs. I don't feel embarrassed, so why are these two embarrassed?
Anna felt the heat coming from her lower abdomen, and the magic power in her body became active again. She knew what Roland was focusing on, and said with a sigh, "It's already burnt into powder."
Roland couldn't wait for the temperature in the firing room to drop enough. He wrapped a wet towel around his head, grabbed a shovel and went in through the back door.
The hot air instantly surrounded him, and he felt a little difficult to breathe for a while, and the skin on his hands was burned. Fortunately, it doesn't take too much time to shovel a handful of ash, otherwise staying in this environment for a few minutes may cause high temperature shock.
Carter looked at Anna wiping her body with a wet towel, and didn't know how to deal with it for a while. The other party obviously didn't mind, and the look just now was mocking his cowardice?
Thinking of this, Carter also looked at it openly. After all, it's not like he hasn't seen it before. When he was in the cell, not to mention naked, he had seen the slutty look of being fucked and drooling.
The wet towel was rubbed over Anna's body, removing the dirty dust from her beautiful body. It seemed that due to a good diet, her skinny and malnourished body had become plump. After being wiped, her full breasts were shining with water, and her rosy nipples were even more beautiful, like buds waiting to be picked by others.
Carter couldn't help swallowing his saliva. The witch in front of him was like a flower that was moistened and gradually bloomed. Why didn't he find her so charming before?
After wiping her upper body, Anna changed a towel and began to wipe her lower body. With a little force, the two plump labia were squeezed together. After being wiped hard for a few times, they returned to their original state, tightly closed, protecting the delicate hole. Is this still the vagina that couldn't close because of the gang rape before?
Carter seemed to understand why His Royal Highness had to go to the underground prison quietly before.
While Carl was still thinking, Anna had already put on her witch suit and poked her head at the door of the brick house and asked, "Is this what you want?"
"It looks very similar," Roland spread the powder and felt its residual heat with his fingers, "We have to try it to know if it works."
"What's its use?"
"Building houses, bridges, and roads, there are so many places where it can be used. If it succeeds, people's homes will not be afraid of wind and cold, and rainstorms and heavy snow cannot destroy them." He patted the little girl's head with his other hand, "It's because of you that it was made."
Anna lowered her head. I don't know if it's an illusion, but she was naked in front of other men and she didn't change her expression. At this time, her breathing became faster.
In theory, the fired clinker should be ground with gypsum to adjust its hardening time. But there is no need to think so much at this time. Roland took a short rest and shoveled out two more handfuls. Then he called Carter and asked him to prepare cement mortar with a ratio of three parts of ash powder and one part of river sand.
The chief knight didn't mind doing some rough work at all. For him, doing this kind of thing is much better than fighting for His Highness or hooking up with noble ladies when he was in Graycastle.
Because there was no iron powder in the raw materials, the cement slurry was light in color and appeared grayish white. Roland poured them all on a stone brick and then put another one on it. The cement solidifies in about four hours. Considering the instability of the trial product, he decided to wait until tomorrow to see the results.
The next morning, Roland hurriedly took Carter and Anna to the backyard of the kiln. When he opened the door, he noticed that the cement had solidified and was tightly bonded to the two bricks. The solidified surface looked uneven, with white frost on some parts.
Roland squatted down and scraped off the white frost produced by the alkalization reaction. He pressed the hardened cement with his fingers, and the touch made him happy - the cement surface was solid and rough, completely different from the touch of rammed soil. Even if he used his fingernails to scratch it hard, he could not leave a trace on it.
After receiving the signal from the fourth prince, Carter first tried to lift the brick, but failed. He kicked it hard from the side several times until the joint between the cement and the ground was broken, and the two bricks were still firmly bonded together. Finally, he swung the hilt of the sword and hit them hard, but he could only knock off a small piece of the edges and corners.
"Is this the effect of cement?" Carter immediately realized its effect. "It's incredible. It was flowing like a melted candle yesterday, but it became as hard as rock after just one night. With this kind of thing, the city wall can be built as fast as we want. As long as there are enough stones, we can even build a wall around the border in five years!"
"What's the use of that?" Roland said disapprovingly, "No matter how tall the wall is, it can't stop the enemy from within. I would rather turn the dilapidated wooden houses in the border town into solid cement houses, so that my people will no longer have to worry about being homeless after a natural disaster." "
..." The chief knight was stunned. He really didn't expect that the fourth prince, who had all kinds of aristocratic bad habits, would say such a thing.
"You will see it later," Roland reaffirmed the path he was going to take-for many time travelers, technology is the primary productive force. And here, witches are the primary productive force.