Herald of Steel

Chapter 291 Brick Manufacturing (Part-1)

Alexander having confirmed there was something missing from the waterwheel design first made Diaogosis grimace a bit and then he felt stumped.

He thought back again and again on what could be added, but to him, the entire structure looked finished and complete.

'I guess I'll have to wait and see," Diaogosis thus finally gave up and decided to wait for Alexander's answer until the time came.

"Does my lord have a specific place where he wants to build the waterwheel?" Diaogosis asked.

"The Cisrians hills to the back of us will do. After all, I know of at least three huge springs that run through there. You can choose whichever springs you like," Alexander knew this answer because he had certainly scouted the place where he planned to build the waterwheel beforehand.

And in reality that was really the only place to build large-scale waterwheels as Zanzan city did not have any large rivers near it.

"And should I build the umm…." Diaogosis looked down at the paper as he had forgotten the name and read, "The ball milling machine too?"

"Hmmm," Alexander remunerated on whether it was necessary to also build a prototype of the relatively simple structure.

Its operation was pretty simple as it worked by taking in the required amount of clinkers and gypsum chucks and simply spinning it to grind the pebbles to a fine powder.

And conveniently this rotating motion would also finely mix the two minerals, producing Portland cement in the same process.

According to his design, it would have a capacity of 20 tons of cement, with an additional 2 tons of iron balls (the total capacity was around 45 tons, but the drum could be only filled up half so that there was enough space for the tumbling action to happen) and would take 5 hours to complete the cycle, i.e- from filling the drum up, processing it and emptying the product.

This meant that it would have a production output of around 90 to 100 tons a day, or about 4 kilns worth of product.

Alexander felt that it would be good for the workers to get some practice on making the grinding mill, as they will be making a few very large ones in the future, and so said,

"Yes, build one smaller. One meter dia and just three meters in length will do. And make the walls ten centimeters thick (10cm)." Alexander gave the dimension, and at last added, "And make it out of concrete."

"Okay, my lord. I can finish the prototype in a week with a hundred men," Diaogosis set a very ambitious deadline for himself as he was eager to show off his abilities and snatch a peerage for himself.

"Mmmn, then inform me when it's completed and I will come for a visit," Alexander gently finished.

A significant thing to note here was unlike the others and a bit to Dioagosis's dismay, Alexander did not promise the man peerage.

He was still a little angry at the little tirade the stonemason had launched when Alexander even hinted at a slowdown of his projects and so Alexander felt the stonemason was a little too ambitious for his liking.

Instead, he decided to let the man get back to work, and was about to leave after bidding his farewells, when suddenly he called out as he remembered something vital, "Oh, I almost forgot. "How much stone does the quarry produce per day?"

Alexander knew the speed of the construction workers, but not the miners.

So he wanted to get that information.

"Mining stones is difficult my lord," Diaogosis rubbed his hand that had gone cold in the chilly weather as he said so, "Each worker can haul 20kgs, to, on a good way, 25 kilograms of stone. That's also what is produced elsewhere."

This last sentence was quickly added noticing Alexander's slight scowl as if he was unhappy with the numbers.

And Diaogosis was right.

Alexander did find the numbers too low.

According to the stonemason's numbers, his quarry could only make one hundred to hundred fifty tons of stone a day.

Whereas his demand for the stuff was in the thousands of tons.

And if one did the math for per worker, each men man was making the equivalent of just ten bricks a day, or one brick an hour.

Calling this snail's pace would be an understatement.

'I will need to go see what's up with the two hundred bricks a day thing," Alexander recalled Diaogosis's complaint and decided his next visit would be to find out why brick production was so low.

And so that was where he went next, passing through many dug-up and marked plots that had been originally designed to build the large residential buildings, but would soon be replaced with makeshift tents and very large common log houses.

Though Alexander had commanded the populace to be moved to the noble houses in the western district, he knew the nearly two hundred thousand people's lodging would be unable to be met solely by the vacate premises, and such measures would be necessary.

'I need to get more people to cut firewood,' Alexander thus planned to burn huge bonfires around these camps to help the people combat the cold a bit better.

With these future plans, Alexander and his bodyguards soon arrived at the brick-making site, which was outside the eastern gates.

The reason this production facility was outside the city was simple.

Because brick-making took up a lot of space.

From gathering tons and tons of clay to stacking the bricks over huge swaths of land to the large number of furnaces that Alexander had designed all took up a large amount of space that was not available inside the small city.

"I have seen the lord, welcome," As Alexander made his way into the premises, he was greeted by a messy-haired, thin boy with a big grin on his face.

He was dressed in immaculate clothes, with nice shoes and a pair of trousers with no creases, while the eight golden rings on his fingers glittered and sparkled under the sweet winter sun, dazzling Alexander.

'This guy is no good,' Alexander instantly made up his mind to change this boy just after glancing at his get-up.

This was not the uniform of a hard-working leader.

"Are you in charge of the brick-making? Where's Jazum?" Alexander skipped the formalities and got straight to the point, a clear sign of his displeasure.

"Ah, father said he was too busy with the kilns and the armors Your Grace instructed to make. So he left me in-charge," The boy let out a pleased, proud smile.

A smile that looked like that of a fool's to Alexander.

"Oh? Are you Jazum's son? What's your name?" Alexander gave a cold, fake smile.

"Yes, I'm his eldest son. My name is Jafor," The introduction was filled with pride and self-gratification.

'I need to root out this practice in the weeds,' Alexander only silently nodded while he promised to make an example out of the boy and his father for this abominable practice.

He would never let officials get posts based on familiar ties.

Not on his watch.

"Jafor, I have come to see how the brick production is going on. Please lead me," Alexander instructed as he gestured his arms forward as a sign to lead the way.

"Umm…ehh..yes, yes. Right away my lord," After dithering for a bit, the boy quickly invited Alexander to observe the complex, and provided additional commentary along the way.

Alexander let this foolish youngster's words enter through one ear and go out the other, as he was appalled by the working inefficiency that lay bare in front of him.

There was no division of labor.

One man would do everything.

He would use his shovel to dig earth, painstakingly clean it of any useless debris like broken roots, rocks, stones, and sometimes even broken pieces of pottery, add the appropriate amount of water to soften the clay, and then use a wooden mold to turn the clay into green brick.

He would then lay these raw bricks in front of him, after a while of which, once he had made a sizeable amount of the stuff, take these bricks one by one by hand to a nearby open kiln, and place them inside for preliminary firing.

"Why is one man doing all everything?" Alexander in a deep voice asked, cutting off whatever Jafor was saying.

"Ehhh?" Being abruptly interrupted, Jafor was a bit stunned at the question.

"What does my lord mean? So many men are working here. right?" Jafor then quickly retorted, looking at Alexander as if the latter was drunk.

'Idiot!' Alexander scowled at the dim-witted boy.

"I mean why is one man doing all the different tasks? Why are they not specializing?" He then spelled out the question for the boy.

"Specializing? What does the lord mean?" This seemed like a new word to Jafor.

"...." Alexander kept silent for a while, as he seriously considered whether to continue this conversion or to find someone actually competent.

He was very angry at Jazum for putting someone in charge of something that Alexander had not only not approved of but did not even know about.

'Some people think just because you don't talk like shit to them, they can get up on your head and dance on it,' Alexander very angrily cursed as he could slightly empathize with some of the nobles who behaved quite roughly with the common populace.

Because behaving cordially and pleasantly would make some of these ingrates get ideas.