Volume 1: Farming Chapter 12 Let the Patriarch Move Bricks
The less people understand a field, the more blindly optimistic and overconfident they become. Xiao Yun soon found himself in this blind spot - when he had dug the foundation and was ready to move on to the next process, he discovered that... digging the mud at the bottom of the river was not an easy task.
In autumn, the river is shallow and the water flows slowly, but it is still a river after all, a river that is twenty meters wide even when the water is shallow in autumn.
Standing on the river bank, carrying his homemade pole, Xiao Yun stared blankly at the water for a few minutes. Realizing that he was still too naive, a song started to play in his mind: The autumn wind blows, the autumn water flows...
Xiao Yun turned his head stiffly to look at the horns, trying his best to keep his face from being too distorted: "Well... we need a lot of mud, mud that has been soaked in water. Are there any dry ponds or shallow swamps around here?"
Niu Jiao thought about it seriously, nodded, and then led Xiao Yun to walk to the south of the tribe for about an hour, and saw irregularly distributed swamps and water bodies appearing among the wild grass...
The big claws of the ox horn stretched out again and pressed Xiao Yun's shoulders, saying seriously: "You can't go over there."
Xiao Yun turned around and left. Damn, it would be better to dig the soil and mix it by yourself instead of carrying mud from such a far place to fill the foundation!
After wasting some time, the house-building project started again from self-reliance. We still started digging soil near the mud brick making site on the river bank, carrying buckets of water and mud, and mixing them with straw and reed stalks...
After a busy day, the foundation of the long mud brick house was roughly completed. The next day, Xiao Yun checked the hardness of the foundation and thought that he should wait until it was completely dry before starting the work, so he continued to drag the ox horns to make bricks - considering the frustration of getting thin mud, he could not expect to find thin stone slabs on the grassland to replace cement slabs, so he had to prepare wider mud bricks in advance to replace the cement slabs for the big project of building a kang in the house.
The mud bricks Xiao Yun made for building the house were slightly shorter than the elbow, as wide as a palm, and as thick as a fist. The mud bricks used for the kang could not be of this specification. After writing and drawing for a long time using his junior high school level numerical knowledge, Xiao Yun took into account the hardness and load-bearing capacity of the mud bricks and made the new mud brick mold without increasing its length. He only increased its width and thickness by about one third each.
As a southerner, Xiao Yun has never seen a heated kang in real life. However, in modern society, there is a magical mobile phone app called Douyin. When Xiao Yun was bored, he not only saw truck drivers chatting and crew members fishing on the Yellow River on Douyin, but also saw a bricklayer from the Northeast live broadcasting how to build a heated kang... This kind of redundant and boring knowledge is not even qualified as a topic of conversation in modern society, but it plays a big role in this evil alien world.
A new batch of mud bricks has been formed and dried, and the foundation is also dry, so it is time to start building the house. Xiao Yun also has to start worrying about the problem of soil and cement.
In the video of the Australian guy, this internet celebrity who is good at hardcore handicrafts uses a mixture of snail shells and clay to replace earth and cement. However, the grassland is not a jungle, and Xiao Yun has nowhere to find so many snail shells. So he can only find ways with the existing materials. This time, Xiao Yun must use the silt in the swamp south of the tribe.
It was absolutely impossible to persuade Niu Jiao, but it was very easy to persuade the tribe chief. Xiao Yun found the tribe chief and mentioned that mud brick houses required enough fine silt from the swamp as mud brick adhesive. The tribe chief immediately picked two herders from the tribesmen and put them under Xiao Yun's command together with Niu Jiao.
Leading three adult tribesmen, each carrying a hand-held shoulder pole, to the edge of the swamp south of the tribe, Xiao Yun specifically looked for a place where the water level had receded and dug for a long time. He chose a place where the silt was so fine that it could not be grasped by hands, and asked the tribesmen to carry the silt back to the tribe.
Needless to say, the Snow Wolf people's ability to work is very high. Xiao Yun walked two round trips, which was estimated to be at least twenty miles. The Snow Wolf people could run a trip in half an hour. In order to prevent the silt from being wasted on the road , Xiao Yun had to deepen the depth of the manual load... Forget about making a cart, Xiao Yun did not have the technology to make a wheel by hand.
Swamp silt mixed with yellow clay and then mixed with chopped grass stalks and reed stalks. This kind of adhesive is definitely not as good as cement, but it is better than nothing. Xiao Yun also knows that homemade cement cannot be separated from lime. The problem is that he has nowhere to find it. Anyway, he doesn't expect the mud brick house to last for many years, and he doesn't need too strong corrosion resistance. Just make do with it...
Building a wall, this technical job cannot be relied upon by Niu Jiao, who can't even dig a foundation. At this time, the women in the tribe showed their talent - with the help of grass stalks and stones as auxiliary lines, Yangmao and the two adult female snow wolves assigned to Xiao Yun by the tribe leader were able to build relatively straight walls. In the process of building the wall, they also felt the fun of playing games and enjoyed it very much.
The mud brick house designed by Xiao Yun is long and narrow, twelve meters long and five meters wide. Considering that more people can keep warm on snowy days, the fire bed in the house has to occupy half of the area. The big stove is inside the house, and the smoke outlet is outside the house. The brick-made kang surface is not as strong and long-lasting as the one-piece cement board, but Xiao Yun didn't expect this thing to last for many years anyway...
After two days of work, four walls were completed, including the main door, smoke exhaust, top ventilation window and beam slope. This magnificent (...correct) man-made creation caused quite a stir among the tribesmen. Although Xiao Yun repeatedly stressed that people should not touch the wall before it was completely dry, there were still countless tribesmen who secretly poked the mud brick wall with their fingers when he was not paying attention...
The beams of the mud brick house could not be put up yet, but the bean sprouts that had been growing silently in the bean sprout pit for five or six days could be eaten. When Xiao Yun uncovered the animal skin and reed cover, even the clan leader could not help but run out to watch the fun.
Anyone who has experience in buying vegetables knows that bean sprouts that are six to eight centimeters in length are the most tender and crisp. However, Xiao Yun had never grown bean sprouts before and lacked experience. The first batch of bean sprouts were all over ten centimeters in length, and the taste was a bit old... But this is not important. After many days of collecting wild vegetables, the amount of wild vegetables near the tribe has been greatly reduced. The newly grown bean sprouts can make up for the gap in the demand for wild vegetables, which is enough for the snow wolves.
Hundreds of kilograms of bean sprouts were dug out from the bean sprout pit. The tribe leader confirmed with Xiao Yun five times that he had only poured half a bag of black beans into the pit before. The way he looked at him was just like looking at his first love, which gave Xiao Yun goose bumps all over his body. It was not that the tribe leader was too ugly. The snow wolves who could not live to old age were all young and middle-aged before they messed up their bodies. If you ignore the body odor and hygiene issues, the tribe leader actually looked okay. The key to the problem was that without the original owner's memory, Xiao Yun could not tell the difference between male and female snow wolves... The two adult female snow wolves who were assigned to him would definitely be handsome if they were cleaned up. If they hadn't introduced themselves, Xiao Yun would definitely not know whether they were male or female.
Bean sprouts are known as the poor man's companion. They are cheap and delicious no matter how they are cooked. Twenty pounds of bean sprouts are divided into four pots and cooked in the soup used to cook meat. With a little salt, the boiled bean sprouts, which taste better than wild vegetables, won the praise of all the Snow Wolf people on the same day - of course, wild vegetables are still added to the boiled bean sprouts. Among the wild vegetables, Xiao Yun forced to add plantain and purslane, both of which can prevent and treat dysentery and diarrhea. Under the hygienic conditions that the Snow Wolf people could only be required to wash their hands before eating, they were forced to eat these two vegetables regardless of how old or delicious they were.
After a meal of bean sprouts, the tribe leader took the initiative to propose digging another bean sprout pit without Xiao Yun's persuasion. They discussed the storage time and daily consumption of the bean sprouts (the snow wolves pay attention to dinner and eat whatever they want during the day. Xiao Yun believes that this is a habit formed during the long winter on the grassland when the snow wolves found that it is not easy to fight the cold nights without eating enough). The two of them decided to add only one bean sprout pit next to the original one on the river bank and use them alternately. If the daily consumption is 20 to 30 kilograms of bean sprouts, there is no point in adding more. If you can't finish soaking too many bean sprouts and can't eat them all, they will only be wasted. There is no market on the grassland for you to sell bean sprouts.
As for the strange phenomenon that Xiao Yun, a young cub, could actually discuss and decide the important matters of the tribe with the tribe leader... The other snow wolves did not envy or jealous of this at all. Instead, they surrounded Xiao Yun and asked him what the mud brick house was used for and when it could be used... They were really unique.
Compared to the snow werewolf's thick nerves, Thrall's reaction was much bigger. Of course, when Xiao Yun entered Thrall's tent to spend the night, this guy didn't even dare to look in Xiao Yun's direction. He avoided Xiao Yun when going in and out, as if Xiao Yun was covered with poison and any touch would kill him.
During the two days of waiting for the mud brick wall to dry, Xiao Yun led Niu Jiao and two adult female snow wolves to add black beans to the original bean sprout pits and dig new bean sprout pits. After completing this vegetable basket project, Xiao Yun, accompanied by three adult snow wolves, once again rushed to the primitive jungle west of the tribe - his reason was to find materials for the roof, and this thing really had to be done now, as for the other things... well, it was just a side job.
However... even though he was accompanied by three adult snow werewolves, he was still not allowed to enter the jungle and could only wander around the outskirts of the forest...
Thinking about the dangers of the primitive jungle, Xiao Yun was too lazy to argue anymore. Anyway, there was hope of finding new treasures in the area where the birds flew over. He would wait for two years at most until he became an adult before exploring in depth.
It's no wonder that birds are the main contributors to the spread of species in primitive environments. After just half an hour of wandering around the outskirts of the forest, Xiao Yun was pleasantly surprised to find hairy chestnuts - tiny shelled fruits wrapped in needle-shaped spheres. The shells were quite hard. Xiao Yun, who didn't recognize the hairy chestnut tree, only discovered this thing when he stepped on a chestnut ball that fell to the ground.
Xiao Yun remembered that chestnuts grew in the south. He didn't know which large birds brought the chestnut seeds to the grasslands and forests in the cold temperate zone. Birds loved to eat this thing. Most of the ones hanging on the branches were eaten by birds, but those that fell on the ground are still there.
The snow wolves also knew that chestnuts were edible, but they probably thought that chestnuts were too small and troublesome to eat, so when Xiao Yun asked them to pick one up, they were a little uninterested...Except for cow horns, they would not be picky as long as it was edible and delicious.
After picking about four or five pounds of chestnuts, we came across a pine tree. Needless to say, we packed up all the pine cones hanging on the tree and those that had fallen on the ground.
After picking up pine cones, Xiao Yun also encountered several wild fruit trees that he didn't recognize. He became more interested in this snow werewolf. Unfortunately, the juicy wild fruits were the staple food of birds, and 70 to 80 percent of the wild fruits hanging on the branches were just empty shells.
What surprised Xiao Yun the most was finding wild garlic... This thing is also very common on Earth, and its wild range is extremely wide. In ancient Chinese, it is called Xiebai, and people in the south call it bitter garlic. It has a special bitter taste and garlic flavor. Chinese medicine regards it as a warming and tonic medicine. In Xiao Yun's hometown, people like to use bitter garlic for cold dishes and cooking, and use it as a seasoning. It can remove fishy smells, season, and warm up, so Xiao Yun must not let it go.
After collecting wild garlic, it seemed that his luck had almost run out. Or maybe there were still countless delicious things to eat outside this forest, but Xiao Yun didn't know which ones...
They wandered around like this for an entire afternoon, harvesting forty or fifty kilograms of various wild fruits and wild garlic. Then they chopped the necessary wood and returned to the tribe. On the way, Niu Jiao saw a family of wild boars wandering on the grassland, and he chased after them happily... Unfortunately, the wild boars had also discovered a few snow wolves early in the morning, and they ran away very fast, so Niu Jiao couldn't catch up.
After patiently waiting for two days, the adhesive composed mainly of swamp silt did not disappoint, and the solidified mud brick wall was quite sturdy... As long as the snow werewolf did not change back into wolf form and use brute force to charge, Xiao Yun felt that it would be no problem to use it for a few years.
Xiao Yun was not in a hurry to build the roof. Firstly, the wood he had found needed to be dried, and secondly, the kang would dry faster if it had a larger ventilation surface.
That day, Xiao Yun asked Niu Jiao and his men to bring back the swamp mud to prepare for the kang. The tribe leader, who always looked after the cattle and sheep, did not go to the pasture for the first time and insisted on staying to help. Xiao Yun thought that more labor was a good thing, so he asked the tribe leader to move bricks. Lou Kuang, who was made of rattan and straw, was fine for carrying mud, but it was hard for him to carry mud bricks. He could only carry the bricks back from the river bank by running back and forth with his hands. It was not tiring for the snow wolf people, but it was very troublesome.
Two kinds of mud bricks are needed to make a kang, one of ordinary specifications, and the other of widened and thickened specifications. Xiao Yun roughly marked the location of the kang on the mud floor in the house and started to build a big stove - this was not difficult for him, as he had seen big stoves in rural areas when he lived in his uncle's house in the countryside. This thing almost does not require any technical skills. Apart from requiring strength, it is as difficult as making handmade toys.
The big stove and the kang are integrated. The big stove is built on the left side of the house. A smoke hole is left at the connection between the stove body and the kang to transmit the hot smoke from the big stove into the kang. This is the principle of kang heating. The kang is for people to sit on, so there are strength requirements. Building a flue with ordinary bricks in the kang can make the heat transfer on the kang surface more evenly and disperse the pressure on the kang surface.
Xiao Yun built a large square stove with a hollow belly by himself, and asked Yangmao and several female tribesmen to help him build the flue inside the kang.
The so-called flue is a design that builds a passage inside the kang to allow the hot smoke from the stove to circulate inside the kang, transfer the heat to the kang surface, and then discharge it from the smoke exhaust port. In simple terms, it is a design that builds an extremely simple mud brick maze inside the kang with the same entrance and exit... It is a skill that ancient Chinese farmers who didn't know anything about mathematics, physics, and chemistry could learn. To put it bluntly, that's it.
Because Xiao Yun wanted to make a kang similar to a large bunk bed, he couldn't use a U-shaped flue and could only choose a straight-hole type , that is, four parallel flues simultaneously transfer heat and then send the smoke out of the house. The straight-hole kang consumes more heat energy than the U-shaped one and is not so energy-efficient, but anyway, this large bunk bed kang was originally shared by the tribe and did not belong to one family, so it was a bit of a waste and he couldn't care less about it.
After building the flue, the next step is to lay a layer of sloping loess inside the kang, and then a layer of gravel of varying sizes. The key is to leave space where the heat from the stove comes in and at the smoke outlet, and to allow the hot air flowing in the flue to be transferred to the kang surface as much as possible to provide heat. The gravel also has the function of maintaining heat.
The work of building the kang, which was neither too elaborate nor too troublesome, was finished. The next step was to lay the kang surface with specially made wider mud bricks...
After the kang is laid, the surface is sealed with swamp mud version of earth cement to ensure that smoke does not leak into the house...
It took Xiao Yun and his five helpers a whole afternoon to prepare the kang, which was similar to a large bunk bed. They then waited for two days for the surface of the kang to dry. Xiao Yun then tried to light a big stove and check the heat transfer performance of the kang.
The hot smoke from the big stove enters the kang and passes through the straight-hole flue. During the flow of the smoke, part of the heat energy is absorbed by the gravel, part is transmitted to the kang surface, and part is lost along the smoke outlet leading to the outside of the house. The straight-hole kang is wasted in this way and cannot retain heat energy as effectively as possible. However, this is enough - the fire in the big stove burned for about ten minutes, and Xiao Yun felt the warmth when he lightly pressed his hand on the kang surface.
"It's settled!" Xiao Yun punched hard. All his hard work over the past few days was finally not in vain.
Then he saw Wool rushing in with a panicked look on his face, gesticulating incoherently outside.
Xiao Yun followed Yangmao out of the house and took a look... Well, the smoke outside the house not only scared Yangmao, but even Sal who had been hiding in the tent was startled. He half showed his head and was peeking over there... Damn, he forgot to build an upward chimney at the smoke exhaust outlet.
