I really don't want to be a rebel [infrastructure]

Holding the ruby ​​in his hand, Luo Shixing's eyes were about to turn into the shape of a ruby.

To be fair, he had never seen such a big ruby.

Although this gem has not been cut, so it does not look so shiny, after some cutting and polishing, it will definitely be smaller than it is now.

But even if it is small, it is still a big gem!

Li Youdao was a little surprised and asked, "Where did this come from?"

Luo Shixing carefully put the ruby ​​on the pigskin. Although he knew that the ruby ​​was so hard that it would not break even if it fell, he was still very careful.

After putting it down, he answered Li Youdao's words: "It was dug from a gold mine!"

Li Youdao looked at him smiling so much that his eyes turned into crescents, he almost couldn't hold back and licked the cat's head like Cheng Jingwei.

Fortunately, he resisted the urge in time. We are not familiar with each other yet, so we can't treat the younger generation like this.

He restrained his gaze on the ruby, and said with some surprise, "Ruby was dug out of the gold mine?"

Luo Shixing nodded: "Yes, this kind of stone is actually a companion to the gold mine."

Li Youdao was a little puzzled: "I haven't heard of it before."

There are a few people in the aristocratic family who don't have gold mines, and they haven't found rubies from the gold mines either.

Luo Shixing explained: "The accompanying creature of the gold mine is actually called corundum, but gold mines generally have this kind of companion, but corundum may not be able to extract ruby, and there are not many corundum that can reach gem level."

In fact, pure corundum has no color and is pure and transparent, and its hardness is second only to diamond, so when Cheng Jingwei just opened this ruby, he ground it out bit by bit.

Only when the corundum contains different trace elements will it show different colors.

The discovery of this ruby ​​surprised Luo Shixing, but thinking about it, the place he is now should strictly be considered as the territory of Vietnam in later generations.

At that time, the most important suppliers of rubies and sapphires in the world were Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, and flower growers also produced rubies, but relatively speaking, there were not so many and the quality was not so good.

Looking at it this way, it is not surprising that he can get rubies now.

After Luo Shixing finished explaining, he asked Cheng Jingwei: "Has anyone been sent to the gold mine? When mining, pay attention to mining corundum."

Although not all corundum can produce rubies, Luo Shixing felt that the gold mine in his hand had a high probability of producing rubies.

Thinking of this, he suddenly remembered that part of the gold mine had already been dug, and he hadn't seen rubies or anything like that in Argen's place. Presumably they hadn't discovered that corundum could be polished into rubies.

If they were further behind, maybe these people didn't know what ruby ​​was at all.

Then if you treat corundum as waste rock in the mining process...

Luo Shixing covered his chest.

Cheng Jingwei couldn't help asking: "What's wrong?"

Luo Shixing was very sad: "When I think that they might throw away all the corundum they mined before, I can't breathe because of heartache."

Cheng Jingwei hugged his shoulders dumbfounded: "Okay, let's just dig it out carefully in the future."

Luo Shixing sighed: "Hey, in addition to red corundum, other colors are also needed. Even if the color is not so pure, it must be mined. Corundum itself has great value."

Both Cheng Jingwei and Li Youdao don't quite understand the value of this thing, isn't it just a stone?

In fact, the value of corundum itself is not only pure red sapphire, but its biggest role is as high-grade abrasive materials, as well as bearings for watches and precision machinery.

Even if you don't need it now, you can save it first, and then look for it when you need it later. Isn't that asking for trouble?

After Luo Shixing's heart ached, he turned to look at Li Youdao and asked, "Is there something wrong with Mr. Li?"

Li Youdao was in a daze for a moment, then remembered to ask: "What is that yellow flower raised by the lynx mantle? The flowers have faded in the past two days, do they still need to be kept?"

Luo Shixing jumped up immediately after hearing this: "Thank you already? I'll go and have a look."

He has been so busy working on the salt well these days that he has forgotten about the rape blossoms.

After careful calculation, it is now April and the rainy season is about to enter. The flowering period of rapeseed flowers is already around February in the lunar calendar, and the flowering period is about one month.

The end of the flowering period is the pod period for about a month, and it is almost the same now.

Luo Shixing hurried to his rape flower field. At this time, there were no rape flowers in the rape flower field, and the positions of the original rape flowers had turned into pale yellow pods.

The pod is sort of like a string bean or something, and the rapeseed is hidden in it.

Luo Shixing picked off a pod and twisted it lightly, and the rapeseed inside leaked out.

In fact, this should be the first time he saw rapeseed, small round black particles, not very beautiful, but thinking of the rich oil in it, Luo Shixing thought it was very cute.

He put the rapeseed in his pocket and said, "It can be collected, let someone collect these seeds."

Li Youdao asked curiously, "You want these seeds?"

Luo Shixing nodded: "That's right, what I need are seeds. Of course, rapeseed flowers are also beautiful when they bloom, but this season's rapeseed flower season is over, and you can plant other vacant land, but you must plant them before September this year." Make room for me."

Cheng Jingwei asked: "This thing will be planted in September?"

Luo Shixing responded: "If I'm not mistaken, this is very useful, but anyway, it's still early before September, if it's not suitable, we can arrange something else."

It is impossible to grow food in just five months from April to September.

Li Youdao immediately arranged and said, "It's just a matter of time to grow some vegetables."

Luo Shixing nodded. In fact, there are two types of rapeseed planting and harvesting in later generations. One is winter rapeseed, which is planted at the end of September and harvested at the end of May. Most of the rapeseed fields that appear in spring tourist destinations are winter rapeseed.

There is also spring rapeseed, which is planted at the end of April and harvested at the end of September.

It seems that the two kinds of rapeseed can be seamlessly connected, but in fact the quality of the two kinds of rapeseed is different, so the production areas are also different.

The wild rapeseeds that Luo Shixing found now are winter rapeseed, and it is impossible for them to be sown and grow within the time of spring rapeseed.

After the rapeseeds were harvested, Luo Shixing watched the slaves pull out the rhizomes of the rapeseed flowers, and pulled out the whole plant to prepare the land for planting.

Luo Shixing watched their backward working methods put the production of harvesting equipment on the agenda.

Of course, the first thing he has to do now is to see if the rapeseed can extract oil.

Rapeseeds must first be dried in order to extract oil. He did not dry all the rapeseeds. Once dried, there is no way to continue planting them. These seeds are the power of regeneration in the future!

So he only took out two handfuls of rapeseed in the end. In fact, he didn't want to take so many, but he was worried that if there were too few, it would not be easy to operate.

Fortunately, although he didn't find many rapeseed flowers, he had a lot of rapeseeds, and he carefully hid the rest.

While waiting for the rapeseed to dry, he has to prepare other things.

The extraction method of rapeseed oil is actually the same as the extraction method of soybean oil, both of which are pressed.

However, the treatment of rapeseed is different from that of soybeans. Rapeseed also needs to be crushed, but it cannot be crushed in the same way as soybeans.

In fact, because of the higher oil content of rapeseed, it is not possible to use such a violent method. The seeds need to be crushed, and the seeds should not be too crushed. It is best to break the skin.

It is very difficult to operate this thing manually, because it is necessary to control the force. Generally, if you are not skilled, the force may be lighter or heavier the next time, and the efficiency is very low.

As for experienced hands... If Luo Shixing's guess is correct, although there are rapeseed flowers now, the place of origin has not yet started to use rapeseed to extract oil. Where can he find experienced hands.

The easiest way is to use machinery to complete, such as a roller machine.

The name of the roller machine sounds unfamiliar, but the structure is actually very simple. It is just a conveyable flat plate under the upper roller. When the time comes, the rapeseed is placed on the flat plate, and then the roller rotates and grinds.

The advantage of this thing is that the gap between the roller and the plate can be controlled, and you only need to find a suitable position, and then you don’t have to worry about it, just keep turning the roller to crush the rapeseed.

Of course, in the later generations, the roller machines were all electric, and they definitely don’t have this condition now, so he decided to make a manual one!

It has to be said that it was very wise to let Cheng Jingwei lead people to understand the structure of the keel waterwheel, because this time they will use that structure.

The scroll wheel needs to be turned manually. In fact, this is still good. The only troublesome thing is how to control the tablet below.

If the flatbed cannot move forward automatically, feeding will be very troublesome and manual feeding is required. The trouble with manual feeding is that if it is uneven, it will easily cause the rapeseed to be over-rolled or some rapeseed will be taken away without being rolled.

Of course, there is another possibility that the rapeseeds can't get in when they gather in front of the rollers, and they need to be transported manually.

When Cheng Jingwei saw Luo Shixing slamming into this thing, he said, "Then send someone to feed it."

Luo Shixing looked up at him: "We are short of people. If the lower plate can be automatically conveyed, this roller machine can basically be operated by one person, and the rest of the people can do other things. Otherwise, two people will be assigned here. For individuals, two more are needed to deliver the rapeseed, and a few more are needed to extract the oil, and a small oil mill needs more than ten people, which is too much of a waste of manpower.”

The development of machinery is to liberate manpower. Of course, if the population is overpopulated and the price of labor is relatively low, that is another matter.

Cheng Jingwei lay on his desk and looked at Luo Shixing earnestly and asked, "How can you be so sure that rapeseed has oil? What if it doesn't, what is this... Didn't you build the roller machine for nothing?"

Luo Shixing chuckled and said, "This thing can be used in many places. For example, steel rolling is used to roll steel into flat plates or other things. How can it be useless?"

If it was really useless, how could Luo Shixing ignore Caizi and come to study this?

Cheng Jingwei immediately became interested and asked, "What's the use of pressing iron into iron plates?"

Luo Shixing thought for a while and said: "Have you ever thought about this, if the requirements for iron are not high, it can be used in many places, for example, the solar energy on our roof can be replaced by iron."

Iron conducts heat much faster than bamboo, and with a layer of black paint, it may be possible to have warm water when the sun is not very good.

Cheng Jingwei couldn't think of it for a while, just watched Luo Shixing scribbling there, got up after a while and said, "I'm going out for a couple of laps."

No matter how busy Cheng Jingwei is, he still insists on exercising every day, which is in stark contrast to Luo Shixing, a lazy cat who can lie down and never sit.

Luo Shixing waved his paw: "Go."

However, before he could put his paws down, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Huh? Running? Treadmill? Tracks?"

Yes, he can add tracks!