The few people returned to the bamboo shed. Yao Xiaoqing used charcoal strips to draw the appearance of the tongs and sickle on a stone slab. He pointed at it and said with a smile: "You guys are watching and beating, I only know the appearance."
After several people looked at it, they felt that the fire tongs were a bit difficult to handle. Yao Hu said: "The sickle looks similar to a bone knife. Let's make a fire tong that looks like a bamboo clip and use it first."
Yao Xiaoqing nodded, "You figure it out, I'll go to the river to have a look."
Yao Hu smiled and waved, "It's getting late, go early and come back early!"
Yao Xiaoqing nodded and took two steps. Suddenly he remembered something and turned around and said, "Father, your hands will be burned after the iron is heated. After the iron clip is made, a circle of bamboo strips must be wrapped around it."
"I know." Yao Hu looked at her and smiled.
Yao Xiaoqing went back to fill the bamboo tubes, and walked towards the river with the basket on his back. He saw that the river was shallower again, and from a distance he saw Uncle Chong and others holding a bamboo raft and leaning against the bank.
Yao Xiaoqing looked at a few people and said to himself, "It's strange, when did they learn to support a bamboo raft?"
Ah Chong and A Lin were standing on the bamboo raft. When they saw Yao Xiaoqing walking towards the river, they waved to her and shouted: "Xiao Qing, there are a lot of duck eggs and waterfowl eggs on the other side of the river, and there are also little ducks."
.”
After Yao Xiaoqing walked in, he saw the two of them pulling a rattan rope, and one of them used a bamboo pole to support the bamboo raft.
He hurriedly stepped forward to help pull the rope. When the three of them docked, they saw the baskets were filled with duck eggs and bird eggs, and there were more than a dozen small wild ducks of different sizes quacking in the bamboo cages.
She smiled and asked: "How did you tie the rope to the other side of the river?"
Genbo smiled: "Muba took the rope and swam to the other side to tie it up."
Yao Xiaoqing looked at the middle of the river, where there was still some rapids, and said, "Muba is really powerful."
Gen Bo carried the bamboo basket and got off the bamboo raft. "When we were in Si Mountain before, there was also a river at the foot of the mountain. A few kids were very hungry and often went into the water to catch fish and cook them to eat."
"You learn to support the bamboo raft and learn how to cross it without a rope."
Ah Chong smiled and nodded, "That's what we planned too. Where are you going?"
"I'll take a walk by the river. You take the duck back and wait for me to come back and clip its wings."
Walking downstream along the river, I saw puddles of varying depths on the exposed river beach, with waterbirds pecking in some of them.
Yao Xiaoqing searched around the river beach and picked out a few gray-black stones. He knocked them hard with pebbles and the stones cracked.
There is gray and black stone powder on the fracture surface. I think it needs to be soaked in lime to make paper. If I want to improve the purity of iron, I also need to use lime.
She wanted to carry these stones back, wait for the kiln to be empty, and bake them in the kiln to see if they were limestone?
He put a few broken stones into his backpack, found a few more and carried them back.
Yao Xiaoqing returned to the tribe and saw Yao Hu and others using the refined pig iron to make a hammer and two sickles.
The days passed quietly like running water, and more than a month passed in the blink of an eye.
The schistosomiasis in Qiushan and Yongshi is almost better.
Qiu Shan and his warriors delivered a bucket of honey and a basket of dried meat.
Yao Xiaoqing took the honey, took some dried meat, and returned the basket to them.
Qiu Shan and the warrior bowed gratefully and left.
When Muba and his friends were hunting, they encountered migrating tribes and found that they lived a day's journey upstream from the Yaoshan tribe.
In the short term, everything seems to be fine.
The weather has been dry for more than a month, and it has only rained twice. The sum of the two times is not much.
Fortunately, there is still a stream of water flowing out of that ravine.
Yao Xiaoqing raised the pond in the yard on the mountain to three meters high and filled it with water to facilitate irrigating the pumpkins. The reservoir at the foot of the mountain was also filled with water.
Yaohu and Dashi kept making iron, and there were already a lot of pig iron in the house.
The rock salt collected by Mufeng and the others has already filled the warehouse at the back.
The number of wild boars in the pig pen increased to four more, and the number of goats and long-haired goats increased to about ten. There were dozens of pheasants, wild ducks and hares each.
The radish and vegetable seeds have been collected and another crop has been planted. The pepper flowers have bloomed all over the branches, and the dozen or so trees with the best growth have already grown peppers.
Peas, pinto beans, cowpeas and beans are already full of pods. Pumpkin vines have climbed up the fence. If you peel off the pumpkin leaves, you can see pumpkins hiding underneath.
The potatoes and kudzu are well fertilized and grow green in rows.
The millet in the field has also started to turn yellow, and the field is golden. The wheat has already headed and filled with grain. After the millet is harvested, it is time to cut the wheat. The happiest thing for everyone every day is to walk around the tribe and take a look.
Yao Xiaoqing looked at the ears of wheat and millet and found that the ears were very short. Compared with later generations, she felt that the 10% harvest she originally expected was an optimistic idea, and it seemed that the harvest was only half a percent at most.
She felt that she had to select good seeds.
After making up his mind, Yao Xiaoqing led the women through the fields, picking out plump ears of millet and wheat, and tying them with straw ropes to mark them for sowing.
Yaohu and his companions drove over a dozen craftsmen and made more than twenty sickles, a dozen hoes, and a plowshare.
It’s time to harvest the millet in the fields.
That night, after eating food, Yaohu took out the forged ironware from the basket, put it on the stone table, and said to the people in the tribe: "We have been busy in the tribe for more than fifty days. Xiaoqing
Lead us to forge an iron tool, and we will start harvesting millet tomorrow."
Everyone curiously took a look at the farm tools on the stone table.
Muba picked up a sickle and looked at the cold light on the blade. "Chief, this thing is somewhat similar to the shovel given to the Green Witch by the gods."
Leopard held it in his hand and looked at it for a while, "Hmm! It looks a bit like it. Chief, what is this made of?"
Yao Hu glanced at the people below and said, "Xiao Qing said it's called iron, which is different from the shovel given to her by the gods."
Quan held a sickle, "Chief, can we also make weapons out of iron?"
Yao Hu nodded, "Yes, after the grains are harvested, we can make the farm tools Xiao Qing mentioned and then make weapons for everyone."
Muba and the others' eyes lit up after hearing this, "Chief, can we get sickles and hoes and go out and try them?"
Dashi smiled and said: "You don't have to go out, just try it with a wooden stick and you will know."
Asen ran to the kitchen to get a wooden stick with a thick wrist, came back and handed it to Dashu, "Father, here it is for you."
Dashu happily touched his head and said, "Get out of the way, I'll be careful not to hurt you."
After Asen got out of the way, he picked up a sickle and struck it hard on the wooden stick, and the wooden stick broke into pieces. Everyone leaned over and looked at the blade of the knife, and found that the blade did not break at all.
Muba and the others also gave it a try, and all of them showed ecstatic expressions.