Those who followed Xu Chen were a group of hunters who had just gone to the southeast for a month or two. They were already very experienced in survival experience in the wild. They could hardly use Xu Chen's command to find a quiet and sheltered cave or field to camp, hunt, make fires, set up tents, patrol and alert, etc. Therefore, although the journey was difficult, Xu Chen did not worry much, and was moving along the way as he traveled around the mountains and rivers.

Five days later, they arrived at a small tribe territory closest to the poor tribe.

This small tribe has only more than forty people, which is smaller than the Ba tribe at the time. The living environment is also very harsh. It is located in a steep valley and the cave where it lives is not big. In the cave in winter, there is nothing except a fire. Men, women, old and young in tattered animal skins are crowded in the haystacks and trembling with frozen.

Xu Chen was a little surprised by such a poor tribe.

In his impression, it seemed that he had not had such a truly poor tribe who could not afford to wear a piece of animal skin around him for a long time.

However, this is the norm for human tribes today. The Ba tribes and Gonghuo tribes have broken this primitive state of poverty and weakness because of their slap. It has only begun to develop rapidly in the past or two years, presenting a completely different atmosphere of civilization.

But Xu Chen was not here to help poverty alleviation this time.

In his opinion, if there is no mine in this poor mountain and bad water, it is best to relocate the tribe to the Gonghuo Bain as a whole, enrich its urban construction, and contribute to future kingdom construction...

Therefore, he did not care too much about this small tribe called the Lapu tribe. He just threw more than ten animal skins left after hunting and eating meat along the way to them, and then asked them to follow them as guides.

Faced with Xu Chen's generous actions, the men, women, and young and old were very grateful. Several hunters volunteered to lead the way, and a large group of people rushed straight to the poor people dozens of miles away.

In fact, some of the poor people have been thinking about when they will come again since the Ji clan Cang tribe last exchanged items.

Because the Ji clan Cang clan is a little stupid and does not like precious animal skins and beautiful feathers. Finally, he exchanged a bunch of useless tattered stones with exquisite and mysterious pottery and vine baskets. Therefore, some poor clans are addicted to taking advantage of the situation recently. When they are waiting for these fools to come again, they are also collecting large quantities of ores of various colors, many of which are castone of high purity.

When Xu Chen and others were raising the roar under the leadership of the Lapu tribe, although the poor tribe was briefly panicked and nervous, they soon danced with excitement.

Because the group of fools really came again last time, not only did they bring more pottery and vine baskets, but this time they only changed the name of a stone, and it was also a stone that was easily found in a valley near the poor.

Therefore, the poor people were very welcome to the trading team brought by Xu Chen from top to bottom. Not only did they not have the tense hostility of the last time, but they cheered warmly all the way to lead them to their habitat. The great witch personally brought a group of patriarchs and leaders to receive Xu Chen and others.

The poor witch is still very young, in her forties, with a slightly gray hair and full of energy. She is very happy that Xu Chen and others are willing to come and exchange items again.

Under the translation of the guide of the Lapu tribe, after a simple exchange between Xu Chen and the Great Wizard, they took out the pottery, stone salt, fishing nets, hemp ropes, etc. they brought on the ground, indicating that these exquisite and magical items can be exchanged in large quantities with the poor people in the future.

Magical and practical pottery is definitely the first choice for the poor people, and they also like the vine basket and back basket. After Xu Chen's introduction, all the hunters onlookers exclaimed. It turned out that this magical tool that seemed to be a hole could easily catch fish from the river. As for the ropes, they were even more useful and needed everywhere in daily life.

When Xu Chen melted a grain of salt crystal into a pottery jar, and then poured a bowl of salt water for each of the great witch and a group of patriarchs and leaders of each, the entire cave was completely boiling.

Not only did the patriarch and a group of leaders get madly, the great witch even grabbed the small cloth bag containing salt crystals, drooling and reluctant to let go.

Even if they don't know where these magical stones with salty taste come from, this taste that satisfys the soul is the most familiar and urgently needed.

The body's urgent need for salt stimulates their souls, making them desperately want to get more salt to meet the life needs of the entire tribe.

Therefore, the great witch and a group of patriarchs and leaders agreed without hesitation to Xu Chen's request to smelte.

With the mysterious cargo like salt opens the way, the transaction has a good start. Xu Chen breathed a sigh of relief and said that he wanted to go to the valley rich in castone to see the situation, and then guide the poor to learn smelting.

So the great witch personally accompanied him, and the entire poor family almost came out in full bloom. Hundreds of people surrounded Xu Chen and others and rushed straight to a valley a few miles away. Not far along the almost dry stream, Xu Chen had already found a large amount of scattered cassite and scattered tin sand in the river beach and mud. He grabbed a handful of densely packed pieces and dug up the mud and sand on the river beach, and all the thick ones were thick underneath.

In other words, there is a shallow tin ore nearby, which should be very easy to mine.

Xu Chen's speculation was soon confirmed.

The more you walked along the valley, the more mud and sand there were mixed with a large amount of castone and tin sand in the river. Finally, you reached the location where the poor people had found the castone before and found it was a large collapsed fan-shaped hillside with a large amount of gravel silting half of the river. The hillside was covered with weeds and thorns, but it can be seen that the collapse here was not too long, maybe it was only three to five years.

The cassiterite and tin sand in the river were washed down by rain.

Accompanied by the great witch and a group of patriarchs, Xu Chen climbed to the collapsed hillside and checked it. Sure enough, he found a lot of traces of castone among the large amount of gravel. A large number of differentiated and scattered castone mixed with mud and sand to form a kind of gravel with diamond luster. He used a wooden stick to pick it up for a few times. More castones can be seen below, and some other colors of companion ore can be seen, which aggregated with castone and refracted colorful colors in the cold winter sun.

This is a very rich tin ore, and it seems that the entire mountain is.

Through a simple analysis of the collapsed part, the tin ore here is mainly native tin ore, and the components are mainly tin dioxide. However, most metals have associated habits, so some other metal ore are inevitably involved in these tin ores, so the purity will not be particularly high.

However, this is not a problem. The melting point of tin is extremely low. Reducing with carbon for a slight heating can obtain metal tin. As for other impurities, they can naturally be discarded as slag.

Although it may contain elements such as copper, lead, zinc, and tungsten, and even some rare earth elements, for Xu Chen, all of them are garbage.

Just like various rare minerals such as gold and gems, it is worthless or meaningless at the moment, and at most it is just to pretend to be a fool.

Found the coveted tin mine.

Xu Chen, who came from afar, went back immediately without any haste.

He spent a day searching the valley around it and confirmed that his speculation was correct. Almost all tin exists on several gravel slopes near the valley. This is an open-pit mine that is very easy to develop, and it is much easier to develop than the steep and narrow copper mine of the Wu tribe.

Next he began to discuss with the poor witches about how to mine and smel.

The great witch was not interested in mining and smelting at all. Her only attitude was that no matter how you did it, the poor people would cooperate with each other. Anyway, just give me urgently needed items such as pottery and stone salt.

After the great witch's guarantee, Xu Chen arranged a group of hunters to direct the poor men to start digging soil and mud in open areas in the valley to build smelting furnaces, cutting trees and digging pits to build wooden sheds and other supporting facilities.

Although the poor tribes are large, they are actually no different from the previous Gonghuo tribes and the Wu tribes. They are still in the primitive era of eating raw meat and drinking blood. They do not know how to build houses or make complex tools. They can only simply make stone swords, stone axes and hunter-gathering.

Therefore, watching Xu Chen and others dig pits, repair stoves, log wood and build houses in the valley, they were shocked and screamed.

The witches of the poor clan were completely frightened by the magical and great creativity of Xu Chen and others.

She only thought that the pottery and fishing nets of Xu Chen and others were the most mysterious and magical things, which were expensive and small in number, but she did not expect that a group of people had more powerful hands-on ability. However, in just half a day, several thatched huts were built in the valley and a strange mudstone building was also built.

There is a difference between this smelting furnace and the lead-smelting furnace of the Five Ghosts.

Lead sulfide only needs to be dried and heated to remove sulfur through oxidation reaction, and then the remaining one is melted lead water.

However, tin ore is tin dioxide. If you want to remove the oxygen element in it, it is not possible to heat it alone. Carbon must be added to allow the oxygen element and carbon to react at a high temperature to become gaseous carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and release it, and the rest is tin.

Therefore, this smelting furnace is not much different from the original copper smelting furnace. It adopts a double-layer structure of an inner furnace and an outer furnace. The outer furnace is mainly used for filling firewood and heating. The inner furnace is filled with some broken wood branches and tin sand cassite for mixing. The high-temperature baking of the outer furnace can cause the broken wood of the inner furnace to react with the tin ore after carbonization. The reduced tin is deposited down to the bottom of the furnace, and finally can be discharged through holes and guide grooves.

The structure of this smelting furnace is also suitable for smelting hematite.

Unfortunately, the melting point of iron is too high and cannot be melted with ordinary firewood.

So I can only think about it.

To smel out iron, at least it needs to have good quality charcoal.

Although it is not difficult to burn charcoal, it requires a large number of chestnut trees, oak trees, green bar trees and other tree species. However, these trees are very hard and ordinary stone swords and stone axes cannot deal with at all. They must be metal swords and axes or even saws.

But metal knives need to be smelted with high temperature.

This creates a circular paradox of whether to have eggs or chickens first.

The problem Xu Chen is facing is that there is no egg or chicken. He starts from scratch and starts with a torn fur skirt, and the rest depends on his own.

Fortunately, Tin finally found him.

With tin, the melting point of copper can be greatly reduced. It only needs to be melted with an ordinary firewood kiln. It’s just a little longer. After the first batch of bronze knives are made, you can log wood and charcoal to process metal knives through a simpler heating furnace.
Chapter completed!