Chapter 18 Opening a Kiln at the Foot of the Mountain
…
Early the next morning, Xu Chen was woken up from his sleep by Ye, and then he pulled him out of the hay nest with excitement on his face.
Yawning in a daze, I walked out of the cave with my eyes closed.
At this time, it was already a beautiful sunny day outside.
The woman has already started to make breakfast. By the fire pit filled with fireworks, the aroma of barbecued food is emitting.
A group of children who usually slept in were now huddled in a circle and squatting around the firepit with their buttocks bare.
They were not waiting for breakfast, but they were all observing the strange objects made of mud that Xu Chen had placed in the fire yesterday.
Of course, what they were most interested in were the two little clay figures.
There were even two older children, who were pulling wooden sticks back and forth in the fire, as if they wanted to get the two clay figures out.
Muba and several women were observing the earthen stove that Xu Chen made yesterday.
Seeing Xu Chen coming out, a group of children immediately dispersed in fright, and the timid ones even hid behind a few women.
"Moxi Gaga..."
Mother Ba pointed at Tu Zao, with a puzzled and strange expression on her face.
Moxi has a meaning of asking, which is very similar to what, but the pronunciation is reversed.
Although Xu Chen is not sure that the group of primitive people speaking is ancient Chinese, through his constant familiarity and induction, he is basically certain that this is a language very similar to Chinese.
In Wuhan in the south, when locals ask why, they usually ask Moss.
Therefore, this is also in line with the pronunciation habits of some southern Chinese dialects.
Regarding the mother's question, Xu Chen pointed to the pottery that had been burned in the fire pit all night, used a stick to pull out the largest open bowl, wrapped it in a piece of animal skin, took it out, poured out the charcoal and put it away gently.
On the earth stove.
This earth stove is very small, about the same size as a small honeycomb briquette stove. The pottery bowl is placed on it to just cover the mouth of the stove, and there are gaps left after the stones are built around it to allow ventilation and smoke exhaust.
The pottery bowl has not actually been fired yet, and it cannot be fired successfully in this kind of fire pit. However, after a night of smoking and baking, the pottery bowl has become very strong and has not cracked. This surprised Xu Chen.
It shows that the quality of the clay under the earthen hills at the foot of the mountain is very good and is definitely suitable for firing pottery.
However, Xu Chen's advanced combination invention was too complicated, and Muba and the other women still couldn't understand it. They looked at Huo Zao with doubts on their faces.
Xu Chen had no choice but to continue the demonstration.
So he grabbed a few pieces of the grain balls that were being grilled on the stone slab and threw them into the pottery bowl, and then moved some burning sticks from the fire pit to the stove.
After this operation, the mother and several other women immediately understood. While they all covered their mouths and exclaimed, their faces also showed expressions of excitement and surprise.
The staple food on weekdays is grain balls, but since there is no container to store them, we can only knead them into wet cake balls and put them on the stone slab for barbecue. Not only is it slow, but it is also easy to fall into the charcoal ash in the fire pit.
But Xu Chen combined these two things and was able to roast a large bowl of grains at one time, and there was no need to knead them into balls, just put them directly in the container made of clay.
And Ye was even more excited and excited.
When Xu Chen came back yesterday, he was busy getting these things, including mud and stones. She helped to do them for a long time, but she still didn't know what Xu Chen was doing with them.
Now she finally understood that it was used to bake food.
And it’s really convenient to bake food this way.
"Basin!" Xu Chen pointed to the big pottery bowl.
"Penga!" Mother Ba and a group of women all chanted excitedly.
Xu Chen helplessly pointed to the stove below.
"kitchen!"
"Zoga."
Xu Chen rubbed his temples and smiled bitterly.
Originally, he wanted to demonstrate to a group of women how to use a pottery bowl to boil water and cook vegetables. Unfortunately, the pottery bowl was not ready yet and was still in a clay state. It was estimated that it would break quickly if water was put in it, so he gave up and put the pottery bowl away.
He took the bowl off and put it into the charcoal fire in the center of the fire pit to continue burning. At the same time, he even explained with pictures that these pottery was not strong enough and needed to continue burning.
After Muba understood this, she quickly asked people to add more firewood into the fire pit. Soon, the super large fire pit with a diameter of three meters was blazing with flames. Thick smoke was billowing at the entrance of the cave, drawing a group of men who were still sleeping in from the fire pit.
It was smoked out of the cave.
After breakfast, a group of women went down the mountain with backpacks, rattan baskets and wooden hoes to collect food.
The group of men also divided into two groups. Feng took a few young and strong men down the mountain to hunt, while the rest stayed on the mountain to continue preparing materials for making bows and arrows.
The life of primitive people is simple and pure.
Either he is looking for something to eat or he is on his way to find something to eat.
It looks extremely boring.
But for Xu Chen, this is a new life for safety.
Away from the temptation of science and technology, away from the hustle and bustle, away from noisy cities and humans, staying with mountains and rivers, associating with birds and beasts, and making friends with a group of prehistoric humans. Those tools and lifestyles that he once considered backward in rural areas are now useless.
It is an unprecedented invention.
His simple creation brought a new life and hope to a group of primitive humans who lived in caves and slept in grass huts with no food or clothing.
This kind of success and joy has never been experienced before.
Therefore, he did not feel simple or boring at all, but instead felt high-spirited.
After all the primitive people went out to do their business, he put his bow and arrows on his back and a wooden hoe, and found two half-year-old children of similar age to himself to prepare to go down the mountain.
The mountains were not suitable for kilns, so he wanted to build a kiln at the foot of the mountains.
It doesn’t need to be too big, just enough pottery for dozens of people to eat and drink on a daily basis.
Seeing Xu Chen and the others about to leave, Ye was very nervous and grabbed his hoe and refused to let go.
"Under the mountain, dig the soil, Bonga!"
Xu Chen pointed to the foot of the mountain not far away and explained with pictures.
The two teenagers also held up the spears and wooden hoes in their hands and laughed loudly while explaining, saying that they would never put Xu Chen in danger.
No matter how hard it was, Ye refused to let go. In the end, Xu Chen could only point to the fire pond and the pony to explain, and Ye reluctantly let go.
Ye, like him, is a child without a mother.
In this era, the life span of both men and women is very short, and children in their teens are basically orphans. Therefore, family tribe is the key to raising children.
No one would dislike orphans, but a completely harmonious big family, where children are raised together, and raising children is the woman's business, and men are only responsible for spending time outside.
It is impossible to find your father when you encounter difficulties, because no one knows who his father is, and he can only bear all the sorrows and joys by himself.
And half-grown children like Xu Chen have basically become the reserve force of the tribe, and they have to go down the mountain to follow the hunting and open up wasteland.
However, at this age, one grows up slowly but quickly.
It's like he died once not long ago.
It seemed that the tribesmen were not too sad, and they were busy preparing to burn him to offer sacrifices to heaven.
The two young men who followed Xu Chen down the mountain were named Gu and Ju.
Gu means stick, and lift means feather.
Judging from the pronunciation, Gu and stick are somewhat similar, and lift and feather are also similar. Therefore, Xu Chen now believes more and more that the language of this group of primitive people should have some connection with ancient Chinese. He can completely create stick and feather based on these two pronunciations.
The word Yu is used as an ancient Chinese dialect similar to Hakka. Once you get used to it, there is no problem at all.
Half an hour later, the three of them walked to the foot of the mountain talking and laughing.
Mother and a group of women were collecting oats, beans and other food nearby.
Xu Chen didn't go far, so he found a suitable location near the foot of the mountain and directed his two companions to help start digging.
An earthen kiln is just a larger stove.
However, in order to ensure that the temperature does not dissipate too quickly, the soil is usually dug out and built inside the soil, so a certain slope is required.
The location Xu Chen chose was a soil slope with no big trees around, so it was relatively open, but the ground was still covered with weeds and thorns.
In the past, if you wanted to dig a pit, you could only dig it with a simple stick or even your hands. However, the appearance of the wooden hoe has greatly improved the working conditions.
Although the two teenagers didn't know what Xu Chen was going to do, they were still happy to accept the command. After all, the news about the earthen stove and the pottery basin had spread, and everyone was surprised and interested in these two things.
The three of them were talking and laughing. Although they often talked about nonsense, the atmosphere was quite harmonious.
A group of women who were collecting nearby would occasionally come over to take a look when they were resting. When they learned that Xu Chen was planning to build a large stove here to make pottery pots, they were surprised and tried to persuade them, saying that this place was not suitable for cooking.
However, Xu Chen couldn't explain it clearly and could only insist on doing his own thing.
Half a day passed by in a flash. The three of them dug out a large pit with a diameter of three meters at the foot of the mountain. However, the depth was far from enough. However, such overload of labor made Xu Chen feel that all the food he had eaten in the morning had been completely consumed.
They were so hungry that they had no energy at all, so the three of them gave up and went to the nearby mountains and forests to find some food to satisfy their hunger.
At the foot of the mountain are low hills and hills. There are not many large plants. Most of them are weeds and thorns. The three of them went back and forth in search of edible wild fruits and roots. What surprised Xu Chen was that among the grass,
There are actually a lot of mushrooms in it.
There are many types of mushrooms, with different colors and shapes.
Maybe it was because the temperature rose after yesterday's heavy rain, and it was all over the mountains and plains overnight.
During the inspection in Yunnan, Xu Chen ate an unknown amount of mushrooms with the survey team.
Beef liver, chicken fat, jianshouqing, chicken fir, broomstick, old man's head, these are common fungi in Yunnan.
Of course, I ate a lot and vomited a lot, and I had strange hallucinations several times. In short, wild mushrooms are both delicious and dangerous. Even the natives of Yunnan are not considered authentic unless they are poisoned several times a year.
Red umbrella, white pole, let’s lie down together after eating...
If there are no locals to guide picking and cooking, you can usually ask the suona team to play music after eating.
Therefore, many people have a love-hate relationship with wild mushrooms.
At the moment, Xu Chen was surprised and happy looking at the mushrooms that could be seen everywhere in the grass and woods.
Wash it clean, simply add some onions, ginger and garlic, stir-fry it in hot oil, and it will be a rare delicacy, hot pot shabu-shabu and chicken soup, which is even more mouth-watering.
"hiss!"
Thinking about it more, Xu Chen felt his saliva filling the air like a waterfall.
So Gu Heju went everywhere looking for wild fruits to satisfy his hunger, and he started picking mushrooms.
I picked up a lot in a short time.
Of course, he didn't pick it up randomly.
I don’t want anything that’s too bright in color, I don’t want anything that’s too weird in shape, I don’t want anything that has juice...
Soon he came out of the grove with an unkempt face. Gu and Ju also came out almost one after another. They both wrapped some fruits in broad leaves. However, when they saw Xu Chen carrying a bunch of mushrooms out of his fur skirt, his face turned green with fear.
He lost the wild fruit in his hand and rushed forward and pushed Xu Chen to the ground. The mushrooms in his skirt were scattered all over the ground.
"Quack, what are you doing!" Xu Chen's accent was so frightened by the sudden change that he changed his accent.
"Du Ga Du Ga..."
Gu held an egg-shaped snow-white mushroom ball and shouted with horror on his face.