Chapter 152: Inventing the Threshing Machine

Because the forces of the Witch Doctor Sect dared not enter Hejiang Town and remained unaware of what Chu Yun was doing there, his operation of mining iron ore in Hejiang Town using bombs and explosives proceeded with absolute smoothness.

In a mere forty-five days, he had extracted a vast quantity of iron ore. Furthermore, he had used explosives to shatter the ore into sizes manageable by human labor, leaving only a small portion that required manual breaking with bronze hammers.

However, by this time, the harvest season had arrived, and the common people were all busy gathering their crops.

Chu Yun had no choice but to wait until the harvesting was completed before arranging for people to transport the iron ore out of Hejiang Town.

Nor did he worry that anyone would venture into Hejiang Town to pillage the mined iron ore and render his strenuous efforts in vain.

Since he had not yet commenced iron smelting, outsiders remained oblivious to the utility of iron ore. Coupled with the fact that he still intermittently detonated explosives in Hejiang Town, the populace had long since been terrorized into utter compliance.

Over the past month or so, several heavy downpours had occurred, though none reached the scale of causing a flood.

Yet, not a single person considered the reinforcement of the irrigation ditches to be a waste of effort.

Everyone believed that the absence of a flood thus far this year was merely a slight delay in timing.

Consequently, all hands labored frantically to gather the harvest, setting off virtually at the break of dawn and returning only after nightfall.

Moreover, ever since the harvest began, the villagers would prepare leavened flatbreads and rice balls every evening alongside abundant boiled water, carrying them to the fields the next day for sustenance.

Due to the intense race to gather the crops across the three towns, numerous cases of heatstroke occurred.

Fortunately, Chu Yun had deployed thirty nurses trained under his supervision to the various towns. They organized the elderly and children—those unable to labor in the fields—to brew massive quantities of heat-relief soup and deliver it to the workers, resulting in zero fatalities.

As a result, the people held Chu Yun in even higher veneration.

In previous years, even when blessed with a large number of able-bodied men and an ample labor force, many had still succumbed to heatstroke during the harvest season.

This year, however, not a single life was lost.

Yet, despite everyone's desperate rush to gather the crops, the reliance entirely on manual labor meant the harvesting pace remained agonizingly slow.

Particularly in Qingtan Town, where the majority of able-bodied men had perished in battle, leaving only the elderly, the infirm, women, and children. Compounded by the fact that threshing was exceptionally grueling work traditionally performed by strong men—a task the women could generally sustain for only a short period—the harvesting speed there was even more sluggish.

At the very onset of the harvest, Huang Dongmei, the commander of Qingtan Town, had sent a message via carrier pigeon to Chu Yun, hoping he could dispatch able-bodied men to Qingtan Town to assist in swiftly harvesting the rice paddies near the Sanqing River, lest a sudden flood erupt and submerge the ripening grain.

Chu Yun was well aware of the plight facing Qingtan Town, but he also knew that due to the war, able-bodied men were scarce across all three towns. Moreover, Nanhua Town possessed a flatter terrain than Qingtan Town, and the Nanhua River was much larger; should a flood strike, an even greater volume of crops would be submerged. As for Chu Family Town, it went without saying that its population was inherently meager. Thus, mobilizing able-bodied men was simply an unrealistic proposition.

Nevertheless, a solution came to his mind almost instantaneously.

Since the most pressing deficiency across all three towns was the lack of strong men for threshing, his immediate thought was to manufacture threshing machines.

Prior to his transmigration, Chu Yun had hailed from a rural background and had cultivated rice paddies. In his childhood, the threshing machines used by adults were of a relatively primitive, foot-pedaled variety.

Through recollection, he realized that such threshing machines could be constructed entirely out of wood. However, the precise method of their construction eluded him for a moment, causing him two days of frustrating contemplation without success.

He then dispatched carrier pigeons to Chu Family Town and Qingtan Town, ordering them to immediately summon all their most experienced and skilled carpenters to Nanhua Town for a meeting.

Upon receiving the message, Huang Dongmei felt a twinge of speechlessness. She inwardly lamented that the harvest had already begun, Qingtan Town was severely short-handed—especially lacking in strong men—yet Chu Yun was actually taking the carpenters, most of whom were able-bodied men, away to Nanhua Town for a meeting.

Speechless though she was, she still brought ten carpenters along and traveled to Nanhua Town.

The lands of Chu Family Town were less fertile, resulting in inherently lower crop yields, and the area faced no immediate threat of floods. Therefore, upon receiving the carrier pigeon message, Chu Wencai did not overthink the matter and immediately instructed Chu Lefu to bring fifteen carpenters to Nanhua Town.

Simultaneously, Chu Yun summoned the administrators of Nanhua Town, instructing them to also call upon experienced and capable carpenters to assemble at the yamen for a meeting.

The administrators of Nanhua Town, sharing Huang Dongmei's bewilderment and speechlessness regarding Chu Yun's actions, nevertheless complied with his instructions and gathered the carpenters.

Once the carpenters from all three towns had assembled at the yamen, Chu Yun cut straight to the chase and announced, "I have called you all here because I want your assistance in inventing a threshing machine. With a threshing machine, the physical exertion required for threshing will be vastly reduced, allowing Qingtan Town to complete its harvest as swiftly as possible despite the severe shortage of able-bodied men."

Upon hearing this, the assembled men froze, their hearts surging with excitement.

They had all felt a sense of speechlessness and incomprehension when Chu Yun summoned them to a meeting during the busiest agricultural season, assuming that he placed zero priority on the harvest.

To their utter astonishment, it was actually for the invention of a threshing machine.

Although they had no idea what a threshing machine looked like, the very name implied it was specialized for processing grain.

With such a device, their harvesting efficiency would undoubtedly multiply manifold.

This proved that Chu Yun had not disregarded the harvest at all; rather, he had prioritized it above everything else.

At the same time, they felt a pang of shame for having nearly misunderstood him.

Huang Dongmei could not help but ask, "Lord Baron, what manner of thing is this threshing machine you speak of? And just how fast is its grain-processing speed?"

Chu Yun replied, "It will certainly be far faster than your current pace, and vastly more labor-saving. When the God of Thunder revealed the appearance of this threshing machine to me in a dream, I only retained a general impression rather than precise details, which is why I have summoned you all here to brainstorm and build it together."

A middle-aged man stepped forward and said, "Lord Baron, my name is Lu Xin. I am a native of Nanhua Town and have practiced carpentry for over twenty years as part of a family trade. As long as you can provide a rough description of its appearance, I will find a way to manufacture it."

Hearing Lu Xin's words, the other carpenters from Nanhua Town chimed in, "Indeed, Lord Baron! Lu Xin has been a carpenter for many years and is exceptionally skilled. As long as you can outline its general appearance, he will certainly be able to build it."

Not only the men from Nanhua Town, but the carpenters from Chu Family Town and Qingtan Town as well, declared that they had heard of Lu Xin and praised him as a master craftsman of extraordinary ability.

Hearing this, Chu Yun was immensely gratified.

He hurriedly had someone carry over a wooden half-barrel commonly used by the locals for threshing, and then began his description: "The threshing machine described to me by the God of Thunder is mounted directly atop a wooden half-barrel."

"Above the wooden half-barrel sits a circular, hollow drum. At the front of the wooden half-barrel is a foot-pedal mechanism; by simply treading on the pedal, one can set the hollow drum spinning."

"Then, one holds the unthreshed stalks of rice against the rotating hollow drum, and the grains are cleanly beaten off, falling directly into the wooden half-barrel."