I am a Primitive Man-Chapter 806: The Oil Extraction Method Derived from Character Analysis
Chapter 806 – The Oil Extraction Method Derived from Character Analysis
After Han Cheng completely cured Shaman’s heat-induced loss of appetite with several bowls of cold jelly, Shaman’s spirits improved significantly, returning to his usual lively self.
Shaman noticed Han Cheng’s delight when seeing the fruit that had nearly poisoned Da Jiao, and he had long wanted to ask what use these fruits had.
However, seeing Han Cheng so excited and busy arranging things earlier, Shaman had held back until now.
“This stuff can be pressed into oil,” Han Cheng said, excitement in his voice. “The oil can be used to coat rattan armor, rattan helmets, and rattan shields. Timber for building tribal houses can also be coated.
Rattan armor treated with this oil becomes extremely sturdy.
Not only will it no longer rot, but it will also be so tough that even a knife can’t easily cut it!
Other timber coated with this oil will resist wind and rain, greatly extending its lifespan…”
Han Cheng excitedly explained the benefits of tung oil to Shaman.
Hearing this, Shaman was happy too—but his joy differed from Han Cheng’s. Han Cheng was excited to obtain tung oil to improve the quality of rattan armor. In contrast, Shaman was relieved that they would no longer waste precious animal fat, which had previously been used for coating.
A few days ago, Han Cheng had coated rattan armor with fat oil, which had made Shaman very anxious.
Since these fruits were poisonous, the extracted oil could be used without concern for consumption. Coating the armor with it no longer pained the Shaman.
“Divine Child, let’s hurry and extract the oil from these fruits!” Shaman said excitedly.
“Yes, let’s get the tung oil out!” Han Cheng agreed.
Extracting the oil sooner meant he could improve the rattan armor sooner.
Han Cheng rose to begin pressing, but after taking a couple of steps, he froze.
Damn! What should he use to press the oil?
In the future, Han Cheng had only seen soybeans or rapeseed pressed in factories with electrically powered machines. The seeds were crushed into cakes, and oil flowed into a container below.
As a humanities graduate, he had no idea how to replicate such a machine by hand.
Apart from machines, there was another method: using a stone mill. Roast sesame seeds, grind them finely into a paste, put them in a large round-bottomed pot, and shake continuously. Over time, the oil rises to the top, where it can be skimmed off.
Han Cheng’s grandfather had done precisely this with sesame oil, using stone mills passed down through the family.
Han Cheng remembered visiting his desolate hometown before traveling back in time. Many things had decayed, but the two stone mills remained leaning against the wall.
As a child, he had often seen his grandfather making sesame oil, so he was not unfamiliar with the process.
However, sesame seeds were small. Tung fruits were much larger, making direct grinding difficult.
“Divine Child, why aren’t you pressing the oil?” Shaman asked, puzzled.
Han Cheng sniffed and thought, “I want to, more than anyone, but I have no suitable tools!”
Using teeth to press? Impossible. Even if he managed, prolonged chewing could cause serious problems…
Primitive life was never simple.
After hesitating, Han Cheng decided to mimic the small-scale sesame method to see if he could extract some tung oil. He quietly changed “pressing” to “grinding” in his mind. Shaman didn’t notice.
Han Cheng placed the tung fruits on the ground and fetched clean river sand. He put plenty of sand in a pot and lit a fire beneath it.
The tribe watched in disbelief. Even in hard times, they had never eaten dirt. Now, the Divine Child seemed to be “eating sand”!
The sand, typically coarse enough to chew, could now distribute heat evenly during roasting, preventing the fruits from burning on the outside while remaining raw inside.
After roasting, the fruits cooled slightly. Han Cheng used a bamboo sieve to separate the sand, leaving only the roasted tung fruits.
“Smells amazing!” someone exclaimed.
Han Cheng then began shelling the roasted tung fruits. Unlike raw fruits, these emitted a fragrant aroma when hot.
Shaman, unable to resist, secretly tried some cooled sand. As Han Cheng warned, it was inedible. Shaman spat it out, but his adventurous spirit earned a smile from Han Cheng.
The shelled tung fruits were then crushed using a mortar. Due to their large size, crushing first was necessary before grinding them into powder with a stone mill.
“Bang! Bang!” Han Cheng pounded the fruits with a wooden pestle.
Each strike caused tiny traces of oil to appear briefly, then retreat. Once all the fruits were crushed, he transferred them to a stone mill.
Rotating the mill, the crushed fruits fell from the edges, but unlike sesame paste, they did not form a smooth paste. Instead, they became a loose, oily powder.
This was unexpected. The powder did not yield oil as easily as sesame, making the next step—shaking to extract oil—ineffective.
Frustrated, Han Cheng tried shaking the powder in a pot for a long time, but no oil appeared. He sighed, feeling a mix of disappointment and exhaustion.
Night fell. After the children slept, Han Cheng lay on the kang, staring at the ceiling, thinking about oil extraction.
He cleared his mind and considered the fundamentals: pressing oil is simply applying sufficient pressure to extract oil from raw material. Modern machines work on the same principle.
Even without modern machinery, ancient people still obtained plant oils for food or lamps. Thus, it was possible to extract oil with primitive methods.
Han Cheng grabbed a charcoal pen and wrote the Chinese character “榨” (zhà, press/expel) on the ground, squatting to analyze it.
Breaking it down: the character is composed of “柞” (oak) and “穴” (hole). This suggested using oak wood to compress contents inside a hollow.
Recalling the day’s pounding, Han Cheng realized the method: insert wooden poles into a hollow containing crushed fruits, gradually compressing them to extract oil.
Next: preventing oil from retreating when the poles are removed. Solution: continue compressing with additional poles until the space is fully compressed.
Once he understood this, many related problems became clear.
Stone mortars were unsuitable for hollows due to a lack of resilience. Instead, a hollowed oak trunk could serve as the “穴.” Oak grows slowly and densely, perfect for this purpose.
Han Cheng was filled with excitement at this realization.
The next morning, he gathered tribe members to cut down oak trees. He selected a massive one, tall enough that two people could barely hug it.
A large cavity would allow more tung fruits to be inserted at once. The trunk also had to be thick to hold compression tools.
After cutting branches to reduce noise and danger, the tribe sawed down the massive oak using large bronze saws. Due to the tree’s size and age, felling it took nearly two days.
Once felled, branches were carried back: thick ones for construction, thin ones for charcoal.
Han Cheng then had the tribe hollow out a circular pit in the trunk, tying ropes around it to prevent splitting. Wooden poles and planks were prepared to compress the tung fruits.
He placed the crushed fruits wrapped in cloth inside and then inserted poles. The loose powder initially expanded, so he adjusted by adding a wooden board to evenly distribute pressure before inserting more poles.
Gradually, the poles sank, compressing the powder, and oil began to seep out.
Han Cheng’s face lit up with a broad smile. After days of work, tung oil had finally appeared, validating his plan!
A new problem arose: extracting the oil. The hollow was nearly full, leaving few gaps. Han Cheng rotated the trunk, pouring out less than two bowls of oil—low yield, but still satisfying.
Another problem: removing the wooden poles. They had been hammered in with force, making extraction very difficult.
The hollow, once painstakingly prepared over two days, became essentially a single-use tool.
Additionally, the hollow was too shallow and small. Each batch could yield only five to six pounds of tung oil, making the method inefficient. Finding a larger tree for repeated use would be very labor-intensive.
Despite these challenges, Han Cheng had successfully developed a primitive, functional method of extracting tung oil—an achievement blending ingenuity, observation, and the wisdom embedded in Chinese characters.
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Chapter 806: The Oil Extraction Method Derived from Character Analysis
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