Volume 1: Farming Chapter 24 Welfare Housing Distribution
Acorns need to be soaked in water to kill insects before processing. This operation is not difficult for humans, but it is very difficult for snow wolves... Even bean sprouts are grown in pits, so where can they find equipment to soak acorns?
They made do with what they had. Since they were mainly feeding the livestock, there was no need to be too particular. Xiao Yun simply skipped the soaking and insecticide steps and took the cubs to dig out the acorns that had been frozen under the snow all night, and piled them in the mobile home to dry them directly by using the floor heating.
Once the floor heating was turned on, the whole house was warm. The young people were excited. Without Xiao Yun's instruction, they took the initiative to add firewood and dragged rattan grass over to weave in the mobile house - after all, the mobile house was a large room of about 50 square meters, much more spacious than the long kang room for sleeping.
Xiao Yun didn't worry whether the cubs would step on or crush the drying acorns. As he said, they were for feeding livestock anyway, so there was no need to be so particular... As for eating, he took a water pitcher and filled it with snow water to soak half of it. When he had free time, he would grind it into powder and cook it for the tribesmen to change their taste.
In addition to utilizing the floor heating in the mobile home, Xiao Yun also planned to open a pottery kiln - without having to worry about fuel, the more pottery the better, as the tribe was in short supply of water jugs, pottery pots, and other items.
This time, Xiao Yun was thinking about making some larger clay pots. With the clay pots, he wouldn't have to rely on the earthen pits to grow bean sprouts, and he wouldn't have to occupy the water jar when he wanted to soak some acorns.
It is hard work to run to the river bank and the edge of the swamp to collect mud in this weather, but the weather below zero degrees is not without its advantages. At least the large wild beasts in the wild cannot be as active as before. The teenagers can form groups and run to the swamp to collect mud by themselves without having to be accompanied by adults.
After retrieving the mud, Xiao Yun rubbed it with water warmed from the stove in the bathroom, and added powder made from broken pottery in the tribe (it was done by slowly smashing and grinding it with quartz stone, which was very hard work). Then, Xiao Yun took Yangmao, the most skillful of the young men, to work on making a pottery basin. The basin had a diameter of about 0.8 meters, which was much larger than the pottery pots they had made before. Although it was not a product to be sold and there was no need to make it round enough, the basic shape had to be good, right?
Use the clay ball to shape the bottom of the basin, and then pinch out long clay strips and add them upwards in circles. Taking into account the small area of the earthen kiln for firing pottery, only three pots can be placed in it at a time. Xiao Yun must be careful and cautious in preparing the clay. After pinching the basic clay, it is impossible to glaze such a large pottery basin after plain firing, so Xiao Yun simply brushes glaze on the dried clay... The pottery basins for personal use do not require much attention to appearance, so the glaze is made of long stones, quartz stones, wood ash and mud. There is no need for natural pigments.
After placing three pottery basins in the earthen kiln, there is still some space in the corners. Needless to say, all of them are used. Then make pottery bowls and apply colorless glaze, make a few large spoons and try firing two pottery knives with one side thin and the other thick...
When we started firing pottery, the temperature in the firewood room was even higher than that in the mobile home. There was nothing much to say, so we just piled in as many acorns as we could.
After a day and a night, the pottery in the kiln was fired and the first batch of acorns were dried. Xiao Yun picked up one at random and shook it. He heard the sound of the acorn kernels colliding inside. He then found the cubs that were playing with vines and grass in the house, running outside to play in the snow, or hugging their parents to act cute, and they worked together to shell the acorns...
The cubs were busy, and the adults were not idle either. After all, the cubs spent most of their time in the house doing things, while the adults were out in the wind and snow. The reason was that Xiao Yun went to see the place where the cattle and sheep were kept and he disliked the tribe's way of feeding them - just throwing grass down for the cattle and sheep to eat. Those that were eaten in time were fine, but those that were not eaten were trampled into a pulp by the cattle and sheep, mixed with mud, snow water, feces, etc., making it extremely dirty, which was wasteful and unhygienic.
In the past, the tribesmen didn't think there was anything wrong with feeding them this way, since all the tribes on the grassland did it this way. Now that Xiao Yun had pointed it out and asked for improvement, everyone looked at each other in bewilderment, but no one objected... After all, facts had proven that the changes proposed by Ayun were beneficial to the tribesmen, and the Snow Wolves' slow reaction time didn't mean they were stubborn.
As soon as the young Xiao Yun moved his mouth, the adult tribesmen started to work hard. Xiao Yun's suggestion was to change the open-air sheep pens that used to raise all the sheep together into batch feeding mode, that is, to use soil, wood, thorns and other things to isolate every hundred cows and sheep in a long strip for feeding, and then use mud, stones, wood and other usable materials in this open-air feeding area to build simple feeding troughs that allow the cows and sheep to eat the grass with their heads down, but they cannot step in or defecate in them.
For the twenty adult members of the tribe, this was indeed a major project that could be called "transforming nature"... It was equivalent to creating a clearly planned breeding area to truly "circle" the livestock that were originally free-range. In the absence of convenient tools and with the ground frozen hard, this was really a life-threatening undertaking for the Snow Wolves.
“I’ve never felt that doing things is so hard before!”
"I'm so tired, my paws hurt..."
"Ahhh, I dug into a stone, it hurts, it hurts..."
"Why do I feel that there are too many cows and sheep in the tribe now..."
"My hands are freezing..."
…The snow wolves all howled as above.
After three snowfalls, Xiao Yun fired five kilns of pottery, and the cubs shelled more than 20 tons of acorns for feeding, the adult tribesmen, exhausted and with bald claws, finally managed to divide the cattle and sheep into open-air sheep pens. The tribe leader took a hot bath and a nap, then cheered up and took Xiao Yun to "inspect" their work results. After Xiao Yun showed a slightly dissatisfied but basically acceptable expression, the tribe leader felt relieved and itchy, wanting to beat Xiao Yun up.
"Let's keep them like this for now. When we have more manpower, we can consider building a better sheep pen." Xiao Yun said reluctantly, "If we can finish this... Chief, do you think we should build some houses next?"
"...Aren't there enough houses?" The patriarch's accumulated anger was interrupted by this inexplicable proposal.
"How can it be enough? There are more than a dozen people in the tribe sharing one kang." Xiao Yun's face was gloomy. "Didn't I say at the beginning that this big kang is for emergency use, to ensure the basic requirement of 'whether there is' first?"
"..." The clan leader couldn't remember Xiao Yun saying this no matter how hard he tried, but he was not very confident in his memory, so he could only keep his mouth shut.
"The house with floor heating is now used to bake acorns, meat strips, and as an activity room for the tribesmen. We also have to eat in it. The dining room and living room are integrated, and it is basically a public space. It can't be used for other purposes. So if I want to cultivate mushrooms, I have to build another mushroom house. Do you agree with this?"
The chief nodded. The enoki mushrooms picked from the wild had been eaten two days ago. Although he didn't like to eat them, the tribesmen who loved to eat them were particularly missing the days when they had enoki mushrooms to eat.
"Singles in the tribe... well, it's not a big problem for cubs to squeeze into the big bunk bed with people without partners, but there are couples in the tribe, that is, couples. During the period when the snow just fell and in the spring after the snow melts, the adult females in our tribe have the probability of estrus. We have to prepare private space for the tribe members who want to have children and want to find a partner. After all, the development and prosperity of the tribe cannot be separated from newborn cubs, right?"
"Ah!" The patriarch opened his mouth wide. This question... he had never thought about it!
In fact, this is not the chief's fault, because in terms of the current population ratio of the tribe, the tribe is not short of cubs - including Xiao Yun, there are a total of twelve underage cubs in the tribe, accounting for more than one-third of the total population. This ratio is shocking no matter which tribe it is... Of course, the reason for this situation is very tragic. It is not because the tribe has a high fertility rate, but because too many adult tribesmen have been lost in the past ten years. Xiao Yun and Yangmao and the other four are orphans, and five of the other eight are single-parents, and only three have both parents. Two of the cubs are siblings. In other words, there are only two complete families with both parents and children.
With such a tragic population structure, it stands to reason that the tribe would not consider the issue of reproduction until at least half of these cubs have grown up, because the number of adult tribesmen is not enough and the food hunted and gathered will not be too abundant. In this case, the cubs born by female snow werewolves during estrus and mating cannot be guaranteed to survive. Then the female snow werewolves will definitely skip the estrus period, not go into estrus, or not mate during the estrus period - there are only a few creatures in nature that go into estrus all year round like humans. Snow werewolves only have two estrus periods a year, each lasting only three to five days, and only during this period of time will snow werewolves have the desire to mate.
This is also what makes most intelligent species different from humans. It is the females who decide whether to mate and give birth.
The chief had not considered this issue before because of the tribe's living environment. Before Xiao Yun was dragged to this world, the tribe had trouble even surviving the winter. Now they have a heated bed in the house to keep out the cold, more wild boar meat than in previous years, bean sprouts to supplement vitamins, and no more pottery to trade. If this survival advantage continues, raising one or two more cubs next year will not be a problem at all.
"Indeed...it should be so." The clan leader nodded and once again stared at Xiao Yun with watery eyes as if he were looking at a lover . It turned out that Ayun had always been thinking about the important matter of reproduction and survival that even he, the clan leader, had ignored. Why didn't he realize that Ayun was so outstanding earlier?
"..." Xiao Yun silently moved away from him, "I have walked around the tribe several times during this period. The terrain where we live is quite good. It is at a higher altitude than the water source. There is no groundwater seepage when digging the foundation. The soil is relatively compact and not loose. It can be used as a long-term residence. So I think that the small family residence we build can be durable for more than ten years. We should try to complete it in one go to avoid spending time on repairs in the future."
"Hmm..." The chief showed a gloomy face, which meant that he couldn't keep up with Xiao Yun's thinking again... Let's not make things difficult for him. As the chief of the snow werewolves, it's far-sighted of him to consider next year's affairs this year. How can we expect him to be born with the ability to make long-term plans?
"In this case, we have to consider the planning of the residential area..." Xiao Yun picked up a branch, squatted down and drew a city...er...town...um...village pattern on the mud ground with a cross street as the framework. "This is a tribe. The ground altitude in this area is higher than the river surface, and it can be used as a residential area. Now we have two temporary kang rooms and a temporary mobile house, forming a triangular pattern. If we want to build a new building next, my suggestion is to extend it to the west or east first, especially the east part. The soil here is full of gravel. Did you also find it when you were building the sheep pen? It is also laborious to cultivate this kind of land for farming. It is better to use it as a homestead..."
"Hmm..." The clan leader's expression became more serious, and he was confused. What on earth was Ayun talking about? Should he continue to pretend that he understood or confess that he didn't understand?
"... Chief, what do you think?" Xiao Yun looked up.
The clan leader had a firm expression and determined eyes: "...Let's do it." It would be too shameless to admit that he didn't understand something. He is already old and he should have some dignity!
Xiao Yun suppressed his laughter, stood up and clapped his hands seriously, and said sincerely: "Since you agree, let's discuss it with the tribe members. Now it's winter and everyone doesn't need to graze or patrol, so it's just right to use the strength of the whole tribe to solve the family housing problem."
That’s right... Xiao Yun just wanted the clan leader to not understand, so that he could have the final say and the final right of interpretation would be in his hands.
The tribesmen who had been repairing the sheepfold for more than ten days were now lying on the kang with their bodies stretched out in exhaustion. Xiao Yun waved the tribe leader's chicken feather order and attacked in all directions, calling eight adult female tribesmen, including Hongye, Qingcao, and Dahe, to gather in the mobile home - including two mothers who had partners and children. They might not be willing to go into heat and have children this year, but since Xiao Yun used "family housing" as a gimmick to encourage childbirth and cultivate a sense of private property among the tribesmen, he could not leave them out.
Xiao Yun had also thought deeply about why he should cultivate a sense of private property... It would be harmonious and beautiful if all the tribe members were like one family, but the tribe would have to expand and recruit people of the same tribe sooner or later. Without a sufficient population base, it would be nonsense to talk about development. So before that, Xiao Yun must first cultivate a sense of private property among the tribe members, take good care of the personal interests of the elders, and let them understand why Xiao Yun is good to them. Over time, the tribe members will become his indestructible and unshakable base.
——In short, it means to win people's hearts by both talking and doing.
This is not a shameful thing. Anyone who wants to accomplish anything must manage his or her own base well. This is the most basic common sense. If you are "ashamed to talk about profit" when managing your base, then to be honest, you'd better not manage this base, because your team will not go far anyway.
As for those who confuse the interest distribution model between the basic base and the newcomers, and don't know how to maintain a solid foundation... you'd better not come here to mislead others and yourself.
"Family...housing?"
Sitting in a mobile home piled with acorns and hung with meat strips, the female tribesmen, who were so pure that they didn't even have a clear concept of private property and knew nothing about such good things as welfare housing distribution, all looked at Xiao Yun with confusion.
"Yes, a couple of adults should have their own family housing." Xiao Yun was used to it anyway, so he had nothing to worry about. He explained with a smile, "Now that the tribesmen don't have to herd or patrol, we have more manpower. We should seize this opportunity to build a family housing for the couple first."
"Is it like... a tent?" asked the mother of two children puzzledly.
"Yes, it's bigger, more spacious and sturdier than a tent. It's a family house for couples, with a kang and basic household crockery, all allocated by the tribe." Xiao Yun once again insisted on the word "partner". There was no other way. The weather factors had too much influence on building a house in winter. If single-parent families were also allocated houses, the tribe members would be exhausted to the point of rebellion.
As for the tiny possibility that two people could get together to "cheat" the house, Xiao Yun was not worried at all. As the saying goes, wolves travel in pairs, and snow wolves attach great importance to their partners. Basically, they only have one partner for their entire life and will never change. Female snow wolves who are not in estrus will not have the desire to mate at all, and cheating on their partners that would affect the harmony of their marriage is simply impossible.
Uh… male werewolves do have the possibility of being gay despite being in heat, but the probability is too low, so it can be ignored. If anything, being gay and lesbian is more prevalent among cats…
"So, Ayun wants to build houses for couples?" Dahe understood, and after thinking about it, he showed a very tangled expression, "This seems good, but I don't plan to get horny yet."
"It doesn't matter. If you don't want to go into heat this year, you can come back next spring. Now I'm just asking if anyone has plans to choose a partner during this heat period, and see how many houses we need to build first to meet the demand."
The female tribesmen looked at each other in bewilderment. Except for the two tribesmen who had children and partners and were overjoyed, everyone else was very conflicted... Due to the survival pressure faced by the tribe, the adult females in the tribe actually did not intend to go into heat in recent years. Now Ayun suddenly took out such good conditions to "tempt" everyone, which made people very embarrassed.
"There is no male suitable for me in the tribe." Hongye said regretfully. Snow werewolves are considered adults after the age of 30. She has been wandering around the tribe since she became an adult. Now she is 40 years old. The people of the same age as her in the tribe either have a partner, or their partners have died, or they are younger than her. After all, there are only eleven adult males except the tribe leader who is over 60 and considered middle-aged. The choice is too narrow.
"I do... like A Yue, otherwise I'll be the one." Qingcao thought about it and decided that he still wanted a house of his own. That way, he wouldn't have to be disliked for his sleeping posture.
"Ayue?" Xiao Yun thought hard for a long time before he remembered that it was the brother who replaced the Bullhorn Warrior. This brother was about the same age as Qingcao. "Okay, then there are three houses to be built first. What about the others?"
"Shui Shui seems good. Daha, don't you like him?" Qingcao looked at Daha.
Da He shook his head like a rattle: "No."
A female tribesman with a child hesitated for a long time and said hesitantly: "I don't plan to go into heat in the next two years, but I want to form a partner with Lan Guo. Is that okay?"
"Of course, the fourth room belongs to you." Xiao Yun immediately gave a thumbs up. This way, there will be four complete families in the tribe, and there will be two more cubs with both parents... He remembered that Lan Guo was also a single father. As for why Lan Guo was not invited to this meeting, it was because the male snow wolf had no say in forming a couple...
After a "mobilization", only Qingcao expressed the intention to have a child, which was not bad. It was better than no one having a child. The tribe's newborns still needed the accompaniment of the crying of newborns. After deciding on the four houses to be built, Xiao Yun threw another bait to the tribe members: "It is too cold to start construction now. The tribe will continue to build new houses after the snow melts next year. The priority will still be given to the partners. The tribe members with partners will have houses, and the rest will be allocated according to age."
He himself was the youngest in the tribe, and if all the single guys divided the profits in this way, he would be at a great loss. However, the best thing about this distribution method was that it pleased the tribe leader. The tribe leader, who had been listening to the whole process, immediately gave him a cheesy look as if he were looking at a lover... When making any distribution of benefits, one must not forget to provide a little priority privileges to the person who currently has the most say. This is the quality that an adult should have.
In the short term, the tribe members may not feel anything about the obvious difference between those with a partner and those without a partner sleeping in a large bunk bed. But over time, can the singles who slowly find themselves at a disadvantage really not have any thoughts? As the saying goes, it is not the lack of wealth that is worrying, but the inequality of wealth. Everyone has a share, it is just a matter of time. This distribution model can dispel the resentment that the tribe members may have to the greatest extent... It is not okay to exploit people just because they are naive. Sooner or later, big problems will arise. This is also the basic quality of the organizer.
After reaching a consensus with the female tribesmen, they told the good news that "everyone in the tribe will have a house sooner or later". Not to mention the single guys who were looked down upon by the female tribesmen, even the underage cubs were very excited. It was really great that they could roll around on the kang that belonged to them and sleep however they wanted. It was indeed better for more than a dozen people to squeeze into a big bunk bed than to sleep in a cold tent, but the feeling of being often used as a pillow was really terrible. The difference in sleeping conditions among the tribe was not just between Qingcao and Dahe.
With such a carrot dangling in front of them, Xiao Yun then drove his tribesmen to do hard work such as digging mud, collecting water, making mud bricks and building houses in the cold and snowy days. No one could even think of complaining about being lazy... As long as their fingers were not frostbitten, everyone was very hardworking, which made Xiao Yun feel secretly guilty.
When it snowed, they stayed in the house for the winter, and when the snow stopped, they went to work. This was the first time in their lives that the Snow Wolves had experienced such a fulfilling and tiring winter. Fortunately, there was plenty of food, and Xiao Yun often found ways to get some snacks such as fried beans and homemade meat floss as "placebos" for the tribesmen. Half a winter passed unknowingly in the busyness.
In the third month of winter, the fourth family house, built mainly of red bricks, was completed. When the tribe members happily sent the fourth family into their new home, Xiao Yun finally saw the light of recycling the wool of the long-haired sheep that he had been struggling for for almost half a month...
