In the next few days, Xu Chen focused on repairing the cave.
The next day, I went down the mountain to inspect the kiln factory and instruct several kiln workers to make pottery. At the same time, Muba arranged for people to soak the collected bark into a puddle by the river.
This hemp-like plant mainly grows near the mouth of the valley, so a group of men are responsible for the main collection tasks.
They worked very quickly and brought back several large bundles every day. At the same time, they also collected a lot of seeds of this plant. Xu Chen had people dry them in the sun and store them in preparation for planting them on the banks of the river in spring.
Ever since he learned that several nearby tribes would hold collective exchange activities twice a year, Xu Chen had a feeling that time could not wait for us.
Food, clothing and housing are the four basic needs for human survival.
The standard of measuring the quality of life lies in the amount of materials.
At present, due to climate reasons, coupled with the vast land and sparse population, food is relatively abundant. As long as they work hard to hunt and gather, this small primitive tribe can basically ensure stable food, so wearing warm clothing has become an urgent need.
Especially as winter is approaching, there is a greater need for warm clothing.
Building walls can increase security and protect you from wind and rain, but if you really want to survive the winter safely, clothes are more important.
The animal skins accumulated by the tribe were far from enough for everyone, so cloth became the best choice.
The birth of cloth can almost be regarded as the most important symbol of mankind's transition from wilderness to civilization.
Because of cloth, human need for hunting wild animals has been greatly reduced.
In addition to meat and supplementary salt, the beasts provided primitive humans with animal skins.
When animal skins are no longer a necessity, people will seek safer food sources, such as livestock farming and planting.
Therefore, learning to weave is also an important task in driving tribes down the mountain.
With cloth, Xu Chen can use it to exchange more useful items with other tribes and obtain more useful information.
For example, where is the salt, where is the copper and iron ore, etc.
Once the metal is smelted, these primitive human tribes can truly begin to take the lead in nature.
The stone wall continues to grow taller and longer every day.
In just a few days, the cave, which looked like a gaping hole, was completely sealed by the stone wall, leaving only a small door for entry and exit.
After the wall is built, the next step is to renovate the firepit.
In order to make it easier to eat and cook, Xu Chen planned to build a stone platform around the fire pit and cover it with ceramic bricks. This way, he could both warm up by the fire and place food on it, which was equivalent to a collective dining table.
In addition, a row of stoves was built near the mountain wall of the fire pit, and the stoves were also covered with ceramic tiles, making it much more convenient to boil water and cook.
The most important thing is that this will save a lot of firewood.
At present, we only have simple stone knives and stone axes. It is impossible to chop firewood specifically. We can only maintain fire and barbecue food by collecting these.
But as winter approaches, the demand for wood will increase.
Generally, large pieces of wood are used to maintain the fire, so as to ensure that the charcoal fire will not go out. However, when grilling food every day, in order to obtain sufficient firepower, a lot of firewood will be added. After the food is cooked, it can only be wasted.
But if it is converted into a fire stove, you can use as much firewood as you need, and the remaining firewood after cooking the food can be thrown directly into the fire pit to maintain the fire.
In order not to waste the remaining fire power of the fire pit to maintain the fire, you can also design several fire holes specifically for boiling water on the fire pit, so that you can ensure that you have hot water for drinking all day long without having to go to the stove to boil water.
Although Xu Chen has not specifically studied these things, he has seen many of them in rural areas and only needs simple modifications.
Let’s not talk about whether it is useful or not. At least after doing this, the living environment will be greatly improved.
Therefore, in the next few days, Xu Chen began to carry out large-scale renovation of the fire pond.
Although this transformation temporarily affects food preparation and eating, everyone is very supportive.
Especially the group of women responsible for cooking were all looking forward to the scene Xu Chen simply described.
In the busy life, Huotang is also undergoing tremendous changes day by day.
The large and small smoked black stone slabs that once filled the circle were replaced by a neat stone wall half a meter high.
The fire pit also changed from an irregular and messy circle with a diameter of more than two meters to a square rectangle three meters long and two meters wide.
On one side of the cave wall, connected to the fire pit, is a row of four fire stoves.
In order to make full use of the firepit, he continued to improve the design while renovating it. He specially reserved some positions around the firepit for fixing wood. In the future, he plans to install a wooden frame above the firepit, which can be used for smoking meat and barbecue.
It can be used to install hooks to hang earthenware pots for cooking food.
The hanging pot, an ancient cooking utensil, is the crystallization of the wisdom of the common people.
Because as long as there is a fire in the fire pit, the food in the hanging pot can be heated continuously.
Kill the chicken in the morning, put it in a hanging pot and stew it slowly, and it will be soft and fragrant by the evening.
Although with the continuous improvement of living standards, the living habits of the vast majority of rural areas are also undergoing tremendous changes, and stoves and cookers are also being rapidly updated. However, in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing, many mountainous villages still retain traditional living habits.
They would hang bacon on the fire pit to smoke it in winter.
They would use hanging pots to cook rice and stews.
Nowadays, a group of primitive people smoke meat in the same way, but there is no hanging pot.
Xu Chen's invention will not have a cognitive impact on them, it will only be a small step forward at most.
While renovating the fire pit and building the stove, Xu Chen also took the time to go down the mountain several times to guide the kiln workers to start firing the second batch of pottery.
The second batch of pottery was not large in number, only about twenty pieces, but they were all large vessels.
In order not to waste the kiln fire, he also filled it with a lot of limestone and fired a batch of ceramic bricks.
Since then, the furnace has obviously become insufficient.
Therefore, he had to ask several kiln workers to find time to dig a larger kiln next to it.
While Xu Chen was busy, Ye also kept spinning every day.
This primitive hand spindle is extremely inefficient.
Although the first harvest of hemp was not much, it would not take a day or two to finish spinning it, so she could only change her job and become a slightly resentful weaver, sitting alone on a stone every day and spinning continuously.
line, and then looked at Xu Chen and Gu with pouted lips, the two of them were busy and joking in a lively manner.
Originally, she could also help with building the wall.
But Xu Chen told her that spinning thread was more important than building walls.
Although she was a little sad, she was still very satisfied with Xu Chen's arrangement and completed this task that no other clan member could participate in.
The puddles by the river at the foot of the mountain are already filled with bark collected by the men.
Although it seemed that there was enough bark, Xu Chen was still not satisfied and wanted to collect as much as possible.
Therefore, several large piles slowly piled up next to the puddle.
The tribesmen gradually learned that the bark was collected and soaked to spin a kind of thin rope called thread, but they didn't know what he was doing with so many thin threads.
However, as Xu Chen's prestige in the tribe increased, no one questioned his words, but implemented them very seriously.
Now when people in the tribe ask him anything, they come to him immediately instead of asking Muba for advice.
Of course, Muba had no objection either.
Because Xu Chen's arrangements are often more thoughtful than hers, and the division of labor is more appropriate.
The kiln fire is roaring every day at the foot of the mountain. The pottery in the second kiln has been fired for five or six days. On the mountain, Xu Chen has completed the renovation of the fire pit and stove, leaving only the laying of bricks and exterior treatment.
However, his work was not over, and he began to build a granary in the cave.
A large amount of dried fruits, oats, wild fruits, roots and other overwintering foods collected now are piled randomly in the cave. They are simply surrounded by stones and filled with some broad, sun-dried leaves.
Preserving food in this way is too crude. Geckos, centipedes, ants, and spiders crawl around all day long. There are also a lot of mice, and occasionally even the shed skin of snakes can be found.
It doesn’t matter how long it can be stored. First of all, it is not clean and hygienic.
The project of building a granary is no smaller than rebuilding a firepit, but the structure is much simpler. It only requires a few stone cellars built against stone walls.
However, when he started to build the granary, Xu Chen discovered that there was a problem with the order of his planning. Because the stone wall outside blocked it, it was very troublesome to get stones and mud in. Gu and Ju could only run back and forth.
Fortunately, the two savage boys were simple-minded and honest enough.
Otherwise, he, the little foreman, will definitely be beaten to death.
In order to cooperate with Xu Chen in building the granary, a group of women cooperated to move all the food that had been dried and put away. Fortunately, there were enough rattan baskets, so not much time was wasted.
Another three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Xu Chen worked hard and mobilized people to build a row of stone cellars in the cave.
These stone cellars are not large, each about a cubic meter.
However, it could not be used immediately after it was built, because it was still wet. In addition, he wanted to wait until the lime was burned, smooth the inside with lime clay, and apply a layer of lime mortar before drying it.
Therefore, while building the stone cellar, he notified the kiln workers and bark collectors to bring up a basket of clay when they returned to the mountain every day. Over the past few days, a large pile of clay gradually appeared in front of the cave.