The practice of drilling wood to make fire first originated in China, and it uses the principle of frictional heat generation to make fire.
When drilling wood, place flammable materials such as hay and sawdust around the hole in the wood. A lot of heat will be generated during friction. When the heat accumulates to a certain level, light smoke will come out. At this time, blow gently at the smoke source to send in oxygen that helps combustion, and flammable materials such as hay and sawdust will be able to produce fire.
Zhu Ping'an understood all these principles, but when he actually tried to make fire, he found that it was really difficult to make fire by rubbing two sticks together.
Zhu Ping'an rubbed the wooden stick with both hands, working very hard, but the little maid Baozi beside him had tears in her eyes watching. Zhu Ping'an could not even make the fire, and his hands were instead sore from the rubbing.
But it's not without effect, at least the wood feels hot.
Seeing that drilling wood was so easy, the little maid Baozi also came up to join in the fun, but it was of no use. She was not as good as Zhu Ping'an. She panted continuously and rubbed much less frequently. Naturally, she could not generate any fire.
Li Shu also tried it and failed.
"Master, what should we do?" The chubby little maid raised her head, bit her lip, looked at Zhu Ping'an pitifully and asked.
Zhu Ping'an thought for a moment and realized that the reason why the three of them failed to make fire by drilling wood was that the frequency of rubbing the sticks was too low, and the heat generated could not reach the ignition point of the dry grass and wood, so they could not make fire.
After finding the crux of the problem, Zhu Pingan thought about how to increase the frequency of rubbing the wooden stick, and then Zhu Pingan thought of the bowstring. Make a simple bow, twist the bowstring on the wooden stick, and then quickly pull the bow to drive the wooden stick to rotate at high speed.
"I have a solution." After coming up with a solution, Zhu Ping'an slightly raised the corners of his lips.
Looking at the curve of Zhu Ping'an's lips, Li Shu's eyebrows and eyes were full of moving charm, and his watery eyes were about to drip with tears. No matter what the problem was, it could not stump him.
Baozi, the maidservant, was a little skeptical. She didn't doubt Zhu Ping'an, but she doubted this stupid method of drilling wood to make fire. Drilling wood to make fire? It didn't sound reliable.
Under the gaze of the two girls, Zhu Pingan went to the stream and broke off another branch, then tore off a piece of thin cloth from his clothes and tied it to the branch to make a simple bowstring.
I found a small grooved stone from the stream and brought it with me. I wrapped the bowstring around the stick, pressed the grooved stone on the stick, and placed the stick in the small hole in the wood below. Then I started to pull the bow.
The bow body drives the bowstring, which then wraps the wooden stick and rotates at high speed, dozens of times faster than Zhu Ping'an rubbing it with his hands.
Hmm... Hmm...
The sound of friction was constant.
Simple repetitive pulling and pulling is very boring, but drilling wood to make fire requires endurance of such boredom. Moreover, success is often like this, you have to endure loneliness and boredom to succeed.
The little maidservant, Baozi, held her chin and watched Zhu Ping'an drilling wood. She even began to nod and doze off...
Hmm... ... Hmm... ... After drilling for an unknown period of time, Zhu Ping'an saw a wisp of smoke gradually rising from the drill hole. It was almost invisible, but it was indeed smoke.
"It's smoking." Li Shu narrowed her eyes.
"Ah... It's really smoking, it's smoking..." The little maidservant heard her mistress say "smoking" in a daze, and then she looked up. Then she saw that the wood under Zhu Ping'an's hand began to smoke, and then she shuddered and jumped up in joy with a cry.
After the smoke came out, Zhu Ping'an struck while the iron was hot and continued to pull the bowstring.
Li Shu walked over at this moment, squatted down, puffed up her little mouth, and blew air slowly.
When Li Shu started to blow, Zhu Pingan wanted to stop her, fearing that this young lady who had never touched water would blow out the sparks that she had finally created. You know, blowing fire is a technical job. If you blow too fast, the fire will go out. If you blow too little, it will be useless. You have to do it just right. Zhu Pingan also learned from his mother Chen for a long time before he mastered it.
However, before Zhu Ping'an could stop her, Li Shu had already started blowing.
Moreover, Li Shu's bragging was beyond Zhu Ping'an's expectation. If Li Shu was not the daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family, Zhu Ping'an would have thought that Li Shu was a pretty cook with many years of cooking experience.
This is just the right blow. I don't think Zhu Ping'an can achieve this effect even if he blows it himself.
This girl is really a genius. She can be so smart even when blowing fire for the first time. While drilling wood, Zhu Ping'an secretly sighed in his heart that this girl is really blessed.
With Li Shu's assistance, Zhu Ping'an's fire-making skills became much smoother. More and more green smoke came out, and the thick green smoke was lingering like a god was about to come out. Soon a handful of flames rose. Zhu Ping'an slowly took out the wooden stick, and Li Shu blew gently, and the flames began to burn.
The flames were promptly transferred to the stone stove, and then hay was put on to ignite the flames. The fire gradually grew bigger, and slightly damp hay was put in, followed by the picked up firewood.
The flames are very strong and the fire under the stove is very strong.
Out of curiosity or some kind of playfulness, Li Shu broke off a branch to use as chopsticks, washed it in the clear stream, and started cooking fish soup.
Pretend to be
Forget it, Zhu Ping'an smiled indifferently and let Li Shu do it. No matter how bad the fish soup tastes, it is still fish soup. He has been hungry for so long and will not be picky. He will satisfy this young lady's interest in playing house.
If it's really unpalatable later, just fill your stomach and drink less.
After Zhu Ping'an made up his mind, he went to the stream to look for other things to fill his stomach, such as wild fruits. In this kind of water source environment, the products should be relatively abundant.
Zhu Ping'an was not disappointed. After searching for a while, he found a bunch of red wild strawberries in a bush. They were smaller than modern strawberries, about the size of quail eggs. Zhu Ping'an had picked this kind of wild strawberries with his father and brother in the mountains before, and they tasted very good.
Oh, by the way, it is the famous "Raspberry" written by Mr. Lu Xun, but people in Xiahe Village are accustomed to calling it "Mencius", which is actually the abbreviation of Shu Meng. Meng means grow, and Shu Meng, as the name suggests, is the fruit that grows on the tree.
Zhu Pingan picked the ripe ones from the bunch of wild strawberries and left the unripe ones on the plants. He picked about 30 of them. After picking them, Zhu Pingan washed them in the stream, put them in his clothes and returned to the stream.
When Zhu Ping'an returned, Li Shu had already prepared the fresh fish soup. He could smell the tempting aroma of the fish soup before he even arrived.
It smells so good
Maybe he was starving, Zhu Pingan laughed at himself. How could Li Shu, a young lady who had never touched a woman's home, make such delicious fish soup on a whim? (To be continued.)