Chapter 745 - 741: Water Pump

The group followed the team captain to the base of a waterfall.

This waterfall flowed down from the mountain. It wasn’t very large, and it wasn’t far from Leng Yuan’s house.

When the group arrived, they saw several young men, who had been threshing wheat on the threshing ground, now securing a waterwheel.

As they got closer, they saw the waterwheel had already been fixed in place.

When Leng Yuan saw the team captain approaching, he walked over, took the heavy sheet-metal machine from him, and connected it to a wire on the waterwheel.

After doing all this, Leng Yuan directed a few people to push the waterwheel under the waterfall.

The water cascaded down the mountain, pouring onto the waterwheel and causing it to spin.

To keep the waterwheel from moving, Leng Yuan had people bring over several large stones to weigh down the frame on both sides.

And just like that, the water pump was set up.

The crowd didn’t understand how this thing was supposed to work.

The cleverer ones had a vague idea of Leng Yuan’s intention, but they still thought it was impossible. No matter how they looked at it, the idea that this small machine could irrigate the fields seemed far-fetched.

’This metal box probably can’t even hold a single bucket of water!’

The next moment, Leng Yuan connected a hose to the pump. The hose was bought from a scrapyard; it was a bit old but undamaged.

As soon as the hose was connected and Leng Yuan flipped the pump’s switch, the hose lying on the ground instantly swelled, and water visibly rushed through it into the distance.

Many people followed it, wanting to see if the thing could actually produce water.

The water flowed quickly. In less than a minute, it gushed out into an irrigation channel in the fields, filling it in almost no time at all.

Now, whenever a field needed water, they just had to dig an opening on the side of the channel, and the water would immediately flood into the field.

"This is a lifesaver! A real game-changer."

Until now, watering the fields meant the men had to carry buckets, fill them at the river, and haul them one by one to the crops. It wasn’t just time-consuming; it took a tremendous amount of effort.

But now, with this water pump, not only did they not have to haul water, but the flow was so powerful that they could irrigate all these dozens of acres in just half a day.

This was something they would have never dared to imagine before.

In an instant, all the members of the Qingshan Team burst into cheers.

No wonder the team captain hadn’t been in a hurry to start work. With such a handy tool, these thousands of acres were practically nothing.

Even if the area was twice as large, they could handle it with ease.

With planting and watering—two major problems—solved, only fertilizing was left. All the manpower and resources they saved could be devoted to spreading manure.

In any case, they could now get through this year’s busy farming season with ease.

The water pump experiment was a success, so Leng Yuan turned off the switch.

The principle was actually simple: the waterwheel generated electricity, and the pump used that electricity to draw water. The faster the waterwheel spun, the more power it generated, and the faster the water flowed.

Many people found it incredibly novel and stared at the pump, trying to figure it out. They stared for a long time but couldn’t make heads or tails of it, though their faces bloomed into smiles.

"Team Captain, where did you get such an amazing thing? I’ve never heard of anything like it before."

After speaking, the person figured it was normal for country folk like them to be ignorant. They turned to the educated youth nearby. ’These kids from the city are cultured and have seen the world. Maybe they’ve seen one before!’

"Li Zhiqing, do you know what this is?"

The person was asking Li Fenggu. Among all the educated youth, his knowledge was considered top-notch.

Li Fenggu glanced at the pump and shook his head.

"This is my first time seeing something like this, too."

Since it was the first time he—and everyone else—had seen such a thing, they all grew even more curious about where the team captain had managed to get it.