"Sir, I saw that stone stream a hundred feet ahead!" Liu Po ​​opened the way forward with a bow and arrow in front, and the remaining three hunters were all on guard and surrounded Chen Xu firmly.

Sure enough, after walking forward for more than two hundred meters, I saw a narrow crack of rock under a steep cliff full of ancient vines. There was a small hole under the crack of rock. The opening was very irregular, less than two meters wider. The opening was almost blocked by ancient vines and thorns.

A hunter pulled out a hatchet and cut off the thorny wild vines blocked by the hole, revealing all the holes.

Standing at the entrance, Chen Xu felt a cold air coming to his face, which made him unable to help but whine a few times.

I go, is there an iceberg hidden inside?

Chen Xu was very confused. In this hot summer, the cold air that came out of him actually made him feel goose bumps all over his body.

"Sir, it's cool enough here!" Liu Po ​​couldn't help but feel a little proud.

"Go in and take a look!" Chen Xu was very satisfied with the temperature. If he put the wine here, it would probably not deteriorate in ten or eight years, and the wine would taste better after it was frozen.

After bent down and drilled into the stone cave, Chen Xu discovered that the space inside was not small, with a small mouth and a large belly like a bottle, which was completely a natural stone cave. The more you walked inside, the higher the cave, the higher it was. It was very dark, with an area of ​​dozens of square meters. The ground was rugged and the strange rocks were rugged, like a cave, but there was no such thing as stalactite. At the innermost location, I saw a stream of thin spring water dripping out from a narrow crack of rock, and then passed through the stone and flowed into a small pool with a radius of about ten feet.

The temperature in the cave was even lower, and Chen Xu felt that the highest was not more than fifteen degrees. He suddenly entered here from the scorching summer outside, and the heat instantly disappeared without a trace, and he even felt a little too cold.

Looking at the clear and clear spring water, Chen Xu squatted down and tried it. Sure enough, the cold was so cold that he couldn't help but tremble. Then he washed his hands and prepared to pick it up and take a few sips to relieve the heat.

"Sir, no, this spring water is extremely bitter and cannot be drunk!" Liu Po ​​quickly stopped him.

"It's bitter?" Chen Xu asked blankly as he looked at the transparent spring water holding it in his hand.

"You Jiao said it well. This spring water is bitter and cannot be swallowed at all. Many people in the town know it!" Another hunter nodded and said.

Chen Xu was stunned for a long time, and as the gurgling spring water began to churn in his mind. According to later experience, water is only possible for bitterness. There are mineral salts and other things dissolved inside, but since it is bitter, it will definitely not be salt.

Chen Xu let go of his fingers, and the water fell into the pool. Then he touched the rock beside the water with his hand. With the dim light, he saw that there was indeed a layer of white powder on his fingers, like white frost, but the temperature obviously would not frost.

After hesitating for a long time, Chen Xu still didn't stuff his fingers into his mouth to taste it.

He did not have the courage to taste the hundred herbs of herbs.

What if it is arsenic? Although this possibility is zero, it would be too stupid to die if it is dead.

"Have you ever heard of this water killing people except for bitterness?" Chen Xu washed his hands and stood up.

"I haven't heard of it!" Liu Po ​​and the three hunters shook their heads together.

Chen Xu felt a little relieved, but he also had a toothache. If he guessed it well, the water was bitter because the white substance was dissolved in the water. But he could not confirm what it was, but he could infer that it was not lime and salt at least. It was difficult to guess whether it was poisonous. If a handful of wine was hidden here and some were put into the barrel, it would be done. Some chronic poisons would last for many years before they could die, and then they would die of a tragedy, and their intestines were rotten.

Chen Xu couldn't help but beat him up and said, "Let's go and find another place. The water may be poisonous. If it is secretly mixed into the wine, the consequences will be serious!"

"Lidian, Qinghe Town is only a few dozen miles away, and it is cooler here. I'm afraid that you can't hide your wine in other places!" A hunter followed and said.

"Yes, Lord Lidian, other places are either difficult to find or are not cool. I think it's the best here. You just need to surround the entrance of the cave and write a sign that idle people are not allowed to enter like a paper shop. At that time, there will be a ban at the entrance of the valley. No one in Qinghe Town dares to come and destroy it!" Liu Po ​​also said.

After walking out of the cave, Chen Xu pinched his chin and struggled for a long time. According to the temperature, it is most suitable for hiding wines here. As for hanging signs that are prohibited, it would be better if he didn't hang it. If he hung it, it would mean that there would be no silver here. Moreover, almost no one in the town knew the words, and it was useful for writing it.

"Okay, then let's make a reservation here for the time being. Don't spread it after you go back! There is no need to repair the entrance of the cave. Just cut some branches to cover it." Chen Xu finally decided to put it here for the time being and think of other solutions when summer is over.

Back in the town, Chen Xu went to the pottery workshop again.

After the wine is ready, you have to prepare a batch of wine pots. The wine pots should not be too big, and they should be made with a big belly and a thin mouth. However, the method of making pottery in the town is very primitive. First, dry the clay containing fine sand and grind it finely, then sifted it and rub it into long mud strips. Then, according to the size of the pottery to be made, it will be curled into a rough shape by hand, and then slowly pinch it into a pottery clay blank with your hands. Finally, dip your hands with water and wipe the surface roughly smoothly. After drying, it will be considered a blank. After you have enough of the clay blank, you will be sent to the earthen kiln for firing.

This method of making pottery can only make utensils with large openings, such as pottery bowls, pottery basins, pottery jars and pottery jars, etc., and the size and thickness of the made are very different, and each one is different. As for small and more delicate objects, they cannot be made at all, and they are mainly limited by craftsmanship and design.

In fact, it is best to use glass or porcelain to hold wine. Glass is definitely impossible for the time being. I don’t know the production process, but I only know that the main ingredient is quartz sand, that is, silica. But I don’t think about porcelain now. The craftsmen in the pottery workshop have never heard of kaolin, and they don’t know what glaze soil is, so they can only use pottery. However, pottery actually has one biggest disadvantage, that is, it has a certain permeability. Water will penetrate it for too long, and it is not suitable for long-term storage of wine.

But everything can only be settled.

This is Chen Xu's current situation. Everything he encountered in production and life can only be settled, not seeking good, not seeking excellence.

The pottery shop is located at the foot of the mountain one mile away from Qinghe Town. There is no yard here, only a row of straw sheds and a not-too-large earth kiln. There are discarded broken mud and pottery everywhere. There are not a large mud pit in one pergola. Several helpers are sifting soil, carrying water and mud. In the other pergola, several apprentices are kneading various pottery with mud strips under the guidance of craftsmen. In the other pergola, there are fired pottery wrapped in wheat straw and piled together, and many of the made mud blanks are placed all over the floor waiting to be dried.

"I've seen Chen Lidian!" Seeing Chen Xu coming on a horse, the craftsmen and apprentice helpers stopped to salute.

"No gift!" Chen Xu jumped off his horse, tied the reins under the pergola and walked in and asked, "Gaohe, have you made a wine pot designed for you a few days ago?"

The old potter immediately smiled bitterly and shook his head, pointing at various fine-mouthed bottles and jars all over the floor with his mud-filled fingers, saying: "Mr. Lidian, the mouth of the bottle you designed is too small. We have made many bottles that are not up to an inch in size. We cannot even reach the fingers, so we cannot pinch the clay tightly. Once it is burned, it will definitely leak, and the wine will naturally not be able to hold it!"

Chen Xu picked up a semi-dry Tao Pi who had already been secretly, and the size was similar to the requirements he designed. However, the bottleneck was short and thick, and the diameter of the bottle mouth was two inches. He reached in and touched it. The feeling of stuttering inside was still like a circle of mud strips, and it was not flat at all. The situation was similar to what the old potter said.

Later generations Chen Xu was just a rural kid. He then went to a second-tier university and lived like a salted fish for twenty-five years. He never got rid of the life of the poor. He did not study basic physics and chemistry majors. Therefore, he knew almost nothing about steel, metallurgy and chemical engineering. As for the high-end unpopular majors such as making pottery, he had never been exposed to it. Therefore, when he traveled to the Great Qin Empire, he could only stare at such a primitive pottery.

But no matter how salted he was, he had more knowledge than the group of Qin craftsmen with tattered clothes, dark and thin skin in front of him.

It is definitely impossible to make exquisite pottery by pinching the pottery with your hands. It seems that I watched a classic movie called "The Love of Man and Ghost" a long time ago. There is a scene in it that also makes handmade clay, but it is placed on a turntable that can rotate quickly...

After standing in the pergola for a long time, a camera popped out of my mind, and Chen Xu suddenly realized.

The turntable in the movie should be electric, but I have experience in making threshers. There should be no big problem with making it into manual ones, and it can even be made into foot-stepping styles, because pottery is not a thresher and does not require too much kinetic energy. It just needs to maintain a constant speed of rotation.

As soon as the thought came, Chen Xu couldn't stop and excitedly rode his horse away from the pottery workshop to find the carpenter.

"Master, what's wrong with Lidian? Suddenly I was stunned for a while, were you stupid?" An apprentice looked at Chen Xu's back and couldn't help but say.

"Bang!" The old potter slapped the apprentice's face into a half-pinched mud pot. "Lord Lidian is the best person I have ever met in my life. You can say it, but you can't talk about him. Let me know that I'll talk nonsense behind my back and my legs are discounted!"
Chapter completed!