🌾 Chapter 25: Seeds of Progress
🌍 May 22, 99 BCE – Late Spring 🌼
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🌾 Harvest Pressure
The wheat fields stretched to the edge of the valley like a golden sea—wave after wave of grain swaying under the warm sun. Beautiful. And brutal.
Harvest season always hits like a hammer. You had a narrow window before the autumn rains came. Once the grain got soaked, the heads would start to rot, drop kernels to the soil, or even sprout if the weather stayed warm. You missed your chance, and weeks of work vanished into the mud.
Junjie remembered past harvests all too well—aching backs, blistered hands, and the sick feeling of watching grain go to waste because the work couldn't be done fast enough. This year was going to be different.
📦 The Gadget Arsenal
For the next two weeks, the Artisan Quarter rang with hammer blows and the metallic grind of gears. Out of sight, Junjie and Nano worked at a fever pitch. By the time the heads of wheat bent heavy in the sun, Junjie had not one, but several new contraptions ready.
He'd worked hard on these:
The Combine Harvester & Thresher Wagon – A reinforced hardwood and blackened steel monster nearly three meters long, sprung wagon wheels to soften the ride, and a rotating cutter head mounted to the side to avoid trampling grain. Spinning blades sliced stalks clean at the base, feeding them to a conveyor that carried them into a compact thresher. Inside, the crop was split with precision: straw discharged in a neat row out the back, while grain heads dropped into a chaff separator. A fan blew the lighter chaff away; the clean grain flowed down a side chute into a waiting wagon. The chute could be shut between swaps so not a kernel was lost.
The Straw Collector – A separate machine, pulled by two horses walking on either side of the straw row. Rotating bristles swept up the straw and tossed it into a trailing wagon. When the wagon was full, another rolled in to replace it, keeping the process nearly continuous.
The Precision Planter – A steel-reinforced wooden frame drawn by two horses, topped with a metal-lined seed hopper. Wheel motion drove notched seed plates that dropped seeds evenly into adjustable furrows. Angled paddles covered them, and a press wheel tamped them in. Row spacing and seed drop could be adjusted from the driver's perch.
The Compost Wagon ("Dung Dragon") – A tilting wagon bed on a gear linkage that lifted as it moved, feeding compost toward a rotating spreader bar at the back. Powered by the axle, the paddles flung compost in an even arc six feet wide, cutting days of labor to hours.
The Grain Mill – A large millstone powered by a horse walking in a circular track, turning a gearset that ground grain into flour. Smooth gearing meant less strain on the horse and faster output.
đź“…Â Harvest Day Reveal
When Junjie rolled the Harvest Engine into the first test field, villagers froze mid-step. Kids clung to fence rails, wide-eyed. Old farmers shaded their faces against the glare off the steel fittings.
Junjie climbed into the operator's perch, nodded to the horse handler, and the combine lurched forward. The cutter bar sliced clean, the conveyor fed the thresher, and the first stream of clean grain poured into the collection wagon alongside.
Every so often, the machine ground to a halt. Young boys swarmed over it with small oil flasks, greasing the moving joints and gear housings. Then the handler clicked the reins, and the beast rolled forward again.
Behind it, the straw row waited for the Straw Collector to sweep it up and toss it into wagons—part two of a smooth, unbroken chain.
From a distance, the whole operation looked like a three-part machine made of wood, iron, and horseflesh:
Combine & Thresher Team – Cutting and separating in one pass.
Grain Collection Wagons – Swapping in and out without slowing the harvest.
Straw Collector – Gathering every last stalk into neat wag"1">