The grand and lively collective wedding on the river beach was in full swing under the warm spring sun.
A group of patriarchs sat on the grass and exchanged the amount of betrothal gifts after reading the testimonials of the young men they had married.
Others were divided into large and small piles and formed a circle, and the sounds of crackling and spanking and the howling of ghosts and wolves came from inside.
From time to time the crowd burst into laughter.
The mood of the hunters who lined up and patrolled became much more relaxed. Most of them stood on tiptoes outside the circle to take a look, and they couldn't help but shout encouragement and beat them hard.
Muba was a little absent-minded, looking up at the mountain from time to time.
Not long ago, Xu Chen went up the mountain to look for Ye, but he didn't know if he found it.
She could roughly guess the reason for Ye's sudden disappearance, or it was because the Mother's Day wedding ceremony was too exciting for her.
However, Xu Chen also asked the great witch to intercede in person to postpone Ye's coming of age ceremony, and she had no choice but to agree.
But no matter what, what Ye did was wrong. It disturbed the solemn atmosphere of the Mother's Day held for the first time by the Ba people. She must be criticized when she comes back.
Fortunately, this incident did not spread, nor did it cause chaos in the sacrificial activities. The Ba tribe also had a great harvest on this Mother's Day. All tribes, including the Gonghuo Alliance, had a total of two
Ten young and strong men chose to join the Ba tribe.
This is a glory that the Ba people have never had, and it is also the best proof that the Ba people have been recognized by all tribes.
For these twenty new members, the Ba tribe has negotiated with other tribes one by one, and will pay a large amount of pottery and a small amount of linen as betrothal gifts in exchange.
With these twenty young and strong new members, the strength of the Ba tribe will undergo a significant expansion. In terms of population and strength, it will surpass most tribes in the Six Tribes Alliance and become the third largest tribe after the Cang tribe.
tribe.
A prosperous population is the sign of a prosperous tribe and family.
Looking back on Mother's Day a year ago, only three people were willing to join the Ba tribe.
Counting several years forward, the number of adults among the Ba people did not increase, but a few were married off.
With a simple comparison, we can see how great Xu Chen's contribution to the tribe must be.
The Ba people even said that the current prosperity of the Six Nationalities Alliance was all created by him.
It's a pity that he doesn't seem to have much interest in marrying Ye.
The relationship between the two is good, but as long as they don't get married, the tension of worrying about Xu Chen leaving will not disappear.
"Chen Ga~~"
A hunter shouted hello in the distance.
Mother turned around and saw Xu Chen walking along the path at the foot of the mountain to the river beach in high spirits.
Ye followed him, holding his clothes tightly with both hands, following step by step, her face full of shyness and satisfaction, looking like a young woman who had just become a wife.
Muba took a long breath, and the worries in her heart disappeared instantly.
It seems that the two of them have done what grown men and women should do by sneaking in the mountains just now. As long as Xu Chen doesn't resist, it will be much easier to arrange this matter in the future.
So Mother Ba stood up happily and ordered the Ba people to prepare pottery, linen and other items, and start handing over the bride price.
After Xu Chen returned to the river beach, he announced the start of trading hours before the lively wedding ceremony was over. The Ba people moved out all the pottery that had been accumulated for half a year from winter to spring and placed it on the river beach for everyone who came.
Tribes freely choose exchanges.
And all the tribes who came this time came well prepared. They put all the various furs, horns, bones, teeth, stones, feathers, etc. they brought on the river beach grass, and bargained and exchanged what they needed with each other.
items.
Ba pottery is still the most needed and sought-after item among various tribes.
In particular, common pottery such as pots for cooking, pots and bowls for eating, are the targets of exchange among all tribes.
For this Mother's Day, the Ba people have been preparing for a long time. Although the ceremony only took half a month to prepare, the pottery and cloth weaving took half a year to prepare. The ceremony officially started when the witchcraft was successfully performed at the witch masters' conference.
The Wu tribe exchanged some of these pottery for copper ore, and some of it was given as military merit rewards to the tribal hunters who assisted the Cang tribe last time. Some of it was brought to the Gonghuo tribe in the inheritance conference.
There are still thousands of pieces left.
With the gatherings and exchanges over the past two years, the pottery of each tribe in the Six Tribes Alliance has gradually begun to become richer, but it is still not enough. First, the pottery is not strong and easy to break, and second, it is used for cooking, storing water and preserving food.
The large earthenware pots and pots used were not enough, and the output was low, not to mention the price. These poor, earth-eating tribes simply could not afford to replace them. They could only exchange them for two or three at a time, which was far from satisfying.
need.
Xu Chen was also well aware of the current situation, so he announced at the trade fair that all the pottery of the Ba tribe would be purchased on credit to all tribes this year.
Xu Chen also explained carefully the new term "purchasing on credit".
After understanding this, the entire trading venue burst into cheers.
Because according to Xu Chen, they don't need to pay any money to bring back the pottery they need this time. They only need to collect the money to exchange for these pottery within the next year. However,
The price of buying on credit is slightly more expensive than delivering the goods on site, but this higher price is seen as an advantage by all tribes.
After all, there is no place to exchange such exquisite and practical utensils like pottery except for the Ba people.
However, although buying on credit is good, you still have to pay more wealth in the end. Therefore, all tribes are more cautious and act based on their own strength. There has been no large-scale looting.
For the six tribes alliance tribes, Xu Chen's credit purchase conditions were further liberalized. In addition to traditional animal skins, gemstones, ores, etc., payment could be made with linen, gauze, twine, etc.
Spinning and weaving have now been learned by all the six tribes and allied tribes, and each tribe has begun to promote linen clothes instead of fur.
Because the process of collecting bark, retting, washing, rolling, spinning, and weaving of linen takes a long time, and the output is very low, so the wealth value carried by linen is also very high.
For all primitive tribes at the moment, these are extremely scarce supplies.
With the expansion and development of various tribes and alliances, the demand and value of linen will also increase.
Humanity's demand for cloth, until the 1970s and 1980s after the founding of New China, could not fully meet the daily needs of the people.
In the West, great changes in the textile industry promoted an industrial revolution that swept the world, leading to a rapid development of human civilization.
Therefore, since Xu Chen invented it, cloth will always be an expensive and scarce material for a long, long time in the future. It even once became as important as food, assuming the role of currency transactions.
Although the linen production of various tribes has just begun, he feels that he can promote the replacement of higher value linen with relatively low-value pottery in advance, which will not only accumulate more wealth for the Ba people, but also quickly promote the popularization of pottery.
After all, for all primitive tribes, eating is still their biggest need at the moment. Living without linen will not affect their survival, and they can live just as well wearing furs.
Linen is wealth created with surplus labor. It is produced and created by women using their leisure time. It will not affect the survival of primitive tribes. Therefore, it is also a disguised means to promote the increase in the total amount of social wealth.
They exchanged linen for pottery, and both parties were happy.
Different from the Six Tribes Alliance, the Gonghuo Alliance tribe has a greater and more obvious demand for pottery, because they have just started to come into contact with pottery and are in urgent need of this magical vessel that can cook rice, meat, boil water, hold water and store food.
However, they were too far away, and the goods they brought were only very ordinary goods such as animal skins, horns, bones, and teeth, so their exchange value was of little value.
As for linen, they have not yet reached this level of demand, and Xu Chen has no intention of teaching them the weaving technology easily.
Facing a group of clan chiefs from the Gonghuo Tribe Alliance who were surrounded by piles of pottery with enthusiastic but hesitant looks on their faces, Xu Chen said that the Ba Tribe’s credit conditions were the same for all tribes and that the Ba Tribe would accept any valuable items.
Several minerals and pottery that the Ba people urgently need can even be given away for free.
Although Xu Chen's condition made all the tribes excited and surprised, everyone was at a loss as to what minerals the Ba tribe urgently needed.
Almost all the tribes that the Gonghuo Tribe organized this time brought some gems and ores, but Xu Chen did not find any minerals that he found useful.
He is in urgent need of lead ore, tin ore and salt.
It's okay if we don't have coal.
But it's a pity that he didn't find any of these. What these savages collected most were sparkling and colorful gem minerals, such as amber, crystal, fluorite, gold, agate, lapis lazuli, cat's eye, tourmaline, calcite and other beautiful crystals.
Mineral-like.
In the eyes of savages, all sparkling and crystal clear stones are rare treasures with decorative functions. Of course, they also collect some mineral pigments, such as cinnabar, graphite, realgar, green vitriol, pyrite, azurite, etc.
Etc., there are even a lot of yellow mud, black mud, Guanyin soil, gypsum and other colorful mud.
The things collected by primitive people were adapted to their current living and decorative needs, and did not have any industrial value in Xu Chen's opinion.
Although he was disappointed again and again, under the current difficult traffic conditions and living conditions, he needed to use all means to find it.
In order to change the current living conditions and once again improve the level of civilization, salt and bronze are two items that are almost insurmountable.
Salt is a necessary nutritional supplement to enter the agricultural civilization. Without salt, it is impossible to fully enter the agricultural civilization unless it develops into another animal husbandry civilization.
However, animal husbandry civilization not only requires extremely large pastures to meet the expansion of the population, but the mobility of living by water is also not in line with his living habits.
And the living environment in front of him destined him to have only one way to go.
With the promotion and development of farmland cultivation, salt is a necessity in order to reduce reliance on hunting, an uncertain harvest.
Agricultural civilization, whether farming or living, requires a large number of metal tools. From slash-and-burn farming to intensive farming, metal tools are the only way to advance. Otherwise, just relying on a few broken stone knives, stone axes, stone hoes, and wood hoes will result in low labor efficiency.
It cannot feed a larger population, nor can it afford his appetite for hegemony.
Therefore, Xu Chen introduced the styles and colors of several ores to the Gonghuo tribe in detail, hoping that they would search carefully after returning, and even encouraged them to communicate with other foreign tribes to inquire about the existence of these ores. As long as they can be found,
In the future, the Ba people are willing to exchange pottery with them in large quantities.
With Xu Chen's encouragement, in addition to exchanging the items they brought with them for some pottery from the Ba tribe, several Gonghuo tribes also purchased a batch of pottery on credit based on their own capabilities.
Regarding the special ores mentioned by Xu Chen, all the tribes said they would inquire carefully after returning and report as soon as possible if there is any news.
The so-called hunting for rabbits, Xu Chen can only search on such a large scale at the moment.
The pottery left in his hands is not of much use at the moment, so it is better to give it out on credit, which can not only win the favor of the alliance tribes and solve their urgent needs, but also stimulate their motivation to actively explore and search for it.
With the joining of the Gonghuo Tribe Alliance, he can now reach hundreds of miles away, contact more strange tribes, and obtain more extensive information.
He believes that as long as his net is cast wide enough, these problems will be solved one by one.
Copper already exists. If he cannot make strong bronze, he will not die in peace.
The current situation is that he went to visit the brothel with a handful of gold and silver, but the old madam told him that he would only accept copper coins and nothing else would work.