After entering mid-January, although it is still cold in the morning and evening, the temperature has obviously begun to rise, and there is already a warm feeling in the river breeze.
After two spring rains.
On the withered river beach, some blooming wild flowers began to be seen sporadically.
Dandelions are the most common, and their yellow flowers look fresh and eye-catching.
There are also some green shepherd's purse and other unknown weeds and plants.
In fact, this winter is definitely not cold compared to the winters Xu Chen has experienced.
The climate is not much different from that of Jiangnan, and even warmer.
Throughout the winter, there were two moderate snowfalls in mid-December, but they basically melted after they hit the ground.
Even freezing weather is rare, and the total number of days will not exceed ten days.
As long as you have enough animal skins to keep out the cold, and a house to protect you from the wind and rain, you can basically survive this kind of cold without any problem.
But for these primitive tribes, it may be an insurmountable cold winter.
Because without powerful hunting tools, enough beasts could not be captured, and there would not be enough hides.
And not all animal skins have good cold protection effects.
The first choice was sheepskin and wolf skin, but in fact before Xu Chen crossed over, the most hunted by the tribe were small wild deer, wild muntjac, and roe deer. Their skins were thin and their fur was thin, and their ability to withstand the cold was weak.
Even if a large tribe can hunt large beasts such as buffalo and wild boar through manpower advantages, the skin of this kind of animal is thick and hard, not even warm, and can at best be used as bedding.
Therefore, it is very difficult for all tribes to obtain fur that is soft and thick enough to keep the tribesmen warm from the cold.
Even a powerful tribe like the Uzbek tribe with a population of several hundred cannot meet this condition.
Mild winters are okay, but if there is a severe cold winter and several heavy snowfalls in succession, all those small and weak tribes may freeze to death overnight.
The winter that just passed was a nice warm one.
And thanks to the pottery made by Xu Chen and a large number of animal skins from other tribes, the whole tribe hardly felt too cold and the whole winter passed.
Of course, the biggest reason is that with the invention of bows and arrows and fishing nets, the Ba people have obtained a lot more meat than in previous years. In addition, with the invention of pottery, they can eat hot meals and drink hot water at any time. In addition, they also eat a lot of food.
Fish, yams, mushrooms and other foods with high nutritional value can greatly warm and nourish the body.
In short, the appearance of Xu Chen completely changed the living conditions of the Ba people, and they quickly entered a situation where they were almost comfortable with food and clothing.
Including building houses, the daily consumption of hiring nearly forty foreign men is almost more than the entire tribe's winter food consumption in previous years.
But the Ba people managed to survive unscathed, and everyone was still full.
However, the situation of the Ba tribe cannot be replicated at all in other tribes.
In order to maintain the dominance of the Ba people, Xu Chen did not teach the method of making bows and arrows.
Although the structure of bows and arrows is simple, it will definitely take several years to fully learn how to make them and put them into large-scale use.
Moreover, in order to obtain enough pottery, the neighboring tribes had to squeeze out a large amount of scarce high-quality leather goods to give to the Ba people.
Xu Chen didn't know whether the other five tribes would freeze to death this winter, but it would definitely be difficult, or it could be said that the situation was far worse than that of the Ba tribe.
But this is not an issue Xu Chen needs to consider right now.
Natural selection, survival of the fittest.
He is not the savior. At the moment, he can only focus his attention and energy on the Ba people's three-thirds of land.
Only when the Ba people become stronger can other goals be gradually achieved.
Therefore, after clearing the wasteland, he took all the men and women of the tribe to start sowing seeds.
Of course, he did not simply dig a hole and bury the seeds, but asked to use a wooden hoe and a stone hoe to loosen the soil as much as possible, dig ditches and raise ridges to spread the seeds, so that after sowing neatly, it would be conducive to field ventilation and weeding.
The wasteland is now roughly divided into seven sections by stone ridges and ditches, which are criss-crossed and look like farmland.
For easier management and harvesting, oats and beans are sown separately.
However, these seeds are mixed together when harvested, and they can only be roughly distinguished when sowing. In fact, large areas are still mixed.
Xu Chen was also helpless.
You can only do your best within the scope of your ability.
He had to make do with most things due to the harsh conditions, and more often than not, in fact, he gradually became a habit.
After the sowing, the weather was good. Although the temperature fluctuated, but after two light rains, the temperature began to rise rapidly. In just a few days, a large number of wild flowers bloomed on the river beach, and weeds also appeared.
Come, the river beach that has been barren all winter has been covered with a beautiful carpet of fresh and green flowers.
The trees and thorns in the mountains and fields are also beginning to bloom with new green, and unknown flowers are also blooming one after another. Especially on some hillside, you can already see trees full of pink and snow-white flowers, which look full of spring.
More than a dozen familiar fruit trees planted inside and outside the courtyard have also begun to bloom. They are red like fire, pink like clouds, and white like snow. They dress the entire courtyard full of spring, and there is a faint scent in the air.
Floral.
Various fruit seeds sown in front of and behind the house also sprouted one after another.
The changes in the reclaimed wasteland are even more obvious. Rows of neat buds protrude from the soil, and the tender green leaf buds are hung with rain and dew, gently swaying in the cool wind of early spring, looking extremely fresh and eye-catching.
Although I’m not sure Xu Chen’s farming method is effective.
But since the sown seeds began to sprout in large areas, both men and women of the Ba people came to watch every day.
This is a unique labor experience and a completely different attempt. Everyone hopes to get a different harvest after the arrival of autumn.
Because Xu Chen has used various abilities to prove that he is magical and unique.
Therefore, this large area called farmland also carries the hope of the entire tribe's harvest this year.
Xu Chen pays more attention to this piece of farmland, visiting it two or three times a day, and carefully inspecting each piece along the field ridges to observe growth changes.
These seeds have a good germination rate and are growing vigorously. They are changing almost every day. In just a few days, the farmland is completely covered with a layer of tender green.
However, it is not only the oats and beans that are growing vigorously, but also a large number of weeds.
Because the large amount of plant ash left after burning wasteland makes the soil more fertile, both seedlings and weeds in the farmland grow faster and stronger than in other places.
In the surrounding areas that have not been burned, there are still withered yellow grass and thorns that are half a person tall and one person tall. The new green emerging from them is not eye-catching yet, but the farmland mixed with the deserted beaches and mounds is already full of green, making the eyes full of green.
He was both surprised and depressed.
Too many weeds will inevitably rob crops of fertility.
It's too early to weed now, we still need to wait until the seedlings grow bigger.
But seeing the wildly growing weeds gradually covering up the oat seedlings every day, Xu Chen could only sigh helplessly.
All plants are currently in a wild state.
Be it oats or wild beans, although they are crops, they are not considered crops at the moment.
These purely wild plants have strong vitality, but their yields are rare. If you want to harvest them in large quantities, you need to go through countless generations of selection and cultivation.
This process cannot happen overnight, and it may take hundreds or thousands of years to truly obtain high-yielding crops.
Therefore, for Xu Chen, the significance of planting crops is to guide primitive humans to develop into a farming civilization. First, open this channel for correct upgrading, so that primitive humans can see the advantages of farming in ensuring survival.
This large area of land has used up almost all the oats and wild beans left by the Ba people.
The quantity cannot be calculated accurately, but it is estimated to be six to seven hundred kilograms.
If used as rations, supplemented with wild vegetables, yams, meat, etc., it can feed the entire Ba people for almost a month.
Therefore, when sowing the seeds, although Muba and all the men and women did not say anything, they could clearly feel their distressed emotions.
Since ancient times, they have only obtained it from nature, and have never returned the harvest to the wild.
But if Xu Chen said they wanted to plant it, they would plant it and would not ask why or why, because Xu Chen was now the backbone of the entire Ba tribe and no one could replace him.
Xu Chen kept observing every day. Although he knew that farming would yield a harvest, he was equally worried when he saw the weeds growing crazier than the crops. He began to have serious doubts about his previous estimate of being able to harvest fifty kilograms per mu of land.
of doubt.
But everything is difficult at the beginning. Even if the yield is low, it will definitely be much higher than that in the pure wild state. Even if the yield per mu is only 30 kilograms, the scale of 100 acres will be 3,000 kilograms, which is definitely higher than that in the pure wild state.
times.
Therefore, after slowly figuring it out, Xu Chen's anxiety gradually calmed down. In order to harvest as much as possible, he put more energy into this farmland.