Volume 1: Farming Chapter 48 Cub Ayun
On the first night in the Huoyan Tribe, the grassroots chief thought that she would have a lot of thoughts in her mind and would be too nervous to fall asleep, but the fact was... when she lay on the kang which was still warm after the big stove was turned off at night, she only recalled the delicious mutton bone soup at dinner and fell asleep.
No matter how tough the Snow Wolf Man is, he is not made of iron. It would be strange if the grassroots chief, who is over 70 years old, had the energy to think about other things after leading his people on a journey for a whole day and night and working hard to prepare food for a hundred people...
The Grassroots tribe leader was unaware of the passage of time in her sleep. She was suddenly awakened by a piercing demonic sound that pierced her brain. She held her eyelids open and hurriedly sat up, only to see that... the other people sleeping in the same room were not as panicked as she was. Instead, they yawned calmly and got off the kang. The Fire Tribe leader who was sleeping next to her even spoke to her in a natural manner: "Thanks to you guys coming, I didn't have to be woken up in the middle of the night last night. I slept much more comfortably today."
Grassroots Chief: “……???”
The Grassroots Chief, with a bewildered look on his face, followed the Fire Chief out of the house. A bonfire made of stones had already been lit in the square outside. Five large iron pots were lined up in a row. The cubs and caracals of the Fire Tribe were already holding ceramic bowls and scooping food there.
"Come, Grassroots Chief, have a bowl in the morning to have energy for work."
The Fire Chief took two bowls and handed one over. The Grassroot Chief took it and saw that the bowl contained the soup they had eaten last night, with a lot of enoki mushrooms, radishes and green vegetables, and a lot of noodles at the bottom of the bowl.
"In the past, when there were few people, we could eat wheat cakes in the morning. Now there are many people, and it's too late to make wheat cakes, so we just make do with noodle soup." The cub who scooped up food with a big spoon explained loudly to the person who stretched out his hand for wheat cakes. Others were fine, but the grassroots tribe leader, who came later, felt a little guilty and drank the noodle soup obediently. It's true that the noodles cooked with reused mutton bone soup are really delicious, but the portion is a little small, so I always feel unsatisfied.
The Grassroots chief slurped up the noodle soup and licked the bowl, and then the caracal came up to collect the bowl. Reluctantly, she handed the bowl to the caracal and turned to look at the Fire Chief, waiting for him to give her instructions on how to do things, but to her surprise... The Fire Chief just waved at her and walked out, with no intention of arranging any work for her at all; the Grassroots chief was startled and quickly looked at the others, only to see... her own people had been called out to be taken out, and even Yu was one of the leaders.
"No need to arrange work? Or has it been arranged? Without my knowledge?" The Grassroots Chieftain felt uneasy instinctively. While she was stunned, all the people in the square had been taken out as if they were being forced to die. Only the caracals were left to clean up the battlefield. She had no choice but to quickly catch up with the Fire Chieftain.
The two chiefs went straight to the sheepfold one after the other. Chief Huoyan pulled out a ram and shared his experience with the new chief Caogen: "We don't need to keep so many rams in the sheepfold now. The rams without marks on their butts have been selected by the caracals and can be killed and eaten. The cattle and sheep you brought are now in the other side and have not been selected yet. You can't kill them yet. Eat all the ones that can be killed here first."
The grassroots chief was stunned. When did the caracal decide whether the snow werewolves ate sheep? "Select? Select what?"
The Fire Tribe leader pulled off the wool of the ram that was eliminated and showed it to her: "It's the wool on the sheep. The ones with good and thick inner wool are kept for breeding, and the ones with less wool are eaten."
Grassroots Chief: “……???”
After leading the ram back to the tribe, Huo Yan signaled Cao Gen to help him hold the ram down. He placed an open clay pot under the ram's neck, and slit its throat with his shining iron weapon. While pressing the ram's head to drain the blood, Huo Yan licked his lips and explained to Cao Gen happily, "Add some salt to the ram's blood, and after it solidifies, cut it into blood clots and cook it in mutton bone soup. It's also delicious, better than mutton offal. Unfortunately, there's not much blood from a ram, and you can only eat a little bit when you kill the ram."
Grassroots: “…”
"The sheep blood and offal will be given priority to us older ones and the young ones. Even though there is less, we can still get some, don't worry." Huo Yan thought she was worried about not having anything to eat.
Grassroots: “…”
While the ram was being slaughtered, the caracals had already lit two large stoves and set up iron pots. Huoyan went to add salt to the sheep's blood, and several adult caracals worked together to carry out the iron pots filled with hot water.
No matter what Cao Gen said, she couldn't bear to watch the caracals, who were only as tall as her chest, doing heavy work, so she hurried over to help carry the iron pot. The caracals smiled at her, drew out their gleaming iron weapons, and skillfully ripped open the ram's intestines, took out the sheep offal and washed it with hot water, skinned it, cut off the sheep fat, cut off the thicker fat layer on the sheep's belly, and sorted the wool on the sheepskin... Cao Gen was dazzled by all the operations, and couldn't help showing a shocked expression, thinking, "There are so many ways to slaughter a sheep."
When the caracals were struggling to split the ram into two pieces, Grass Roots quickly came to help... The caracals' strength was not enough compared to that of an adult snow werewolf.
The mutton was divided into two halves, and two caracals carried them to the lower reaches of the canal to soak. The rest of the caracals washed the mutton and put it into the pot before going out to do other things. Cao Gen once again fought with Huo Yan against more than 200 kilograms of flour, just like yesterday...
Practice makes perfect. This time, Cao Gen's efficiency in making wheat cakes has improved a lot. Of course, it is still very tiring... After putting the extra-large wheat cakes into the steamer, Cao Gen leaned against the wall to take a rest. He turned his eyes to the clean ceramic bowl used for fillings, as if thinking about something.
An adult ram weighs about 200 kilograms. After removing the hair and bones, the meat obtained is only about 300 kilograms. This amount of meat is only enough for two meals even for the tribe members. However, if the mutton is sliced and made into wheat cakes, half a piece of mutton can make the wheat cakes needed for two meals, and these wheat cakes are enough to fill the stomachs of 90 snow wolves, a group of caracals, goblins, and a human, and they are very delicious. No wonder the Fire Tribe has the confidence to raise sheep and slaughter excess rams. They have really reduced their meat consumption a lot.
"As long as their fields can continue to produce food, they really don't have to worry about going hungry. No wonder... no wonder the Fire Tribe is determined to learn farming from the Tauren and abandon the grazing habits of our Snow Werewolf tribe for many years."
Cao Gen couldn't help but turn her head to look at Huo Yan who was squatting in front of the big stove and adding black stones. As a fellow tribe leader, she both admired and was convinced by Huo Yan's courage. If it were her, even if she knew that imitating the planting methods of the Tauren tribe could produce more stable food, she would not have the courage to try it - if the farming failed, the future of the entire tribe would be ruined in her own hands.
After adding the black stone seriously, the Fire Chief used two thin swords that served as fire tongs to dig around in the stove. Suddenly, he chuckled and pulled out a piece of vine root with a burnt surface from the flue of the kang.
"Ha, I wonder which glutton secretly hid here to roast them, and I found them~" The Fire Chief blew a few breaths excitedly, used his claws to dig open the bulging skin at the root of the vine, caught the fat, roasted, fragrant worm hidden inside, and stuffed it into his mouth happily, "Hmm... It smells so good, Grassroot Chief, would you like some too?"
Grassroots: “…” He shook his head woodenly.
"Then I'll eat spicy food myself~ um, add some salt~"
Grassroots: “…”
When Cao Gen went to the shed where the supplies were stored to get the enoki mushrooms, he ran into a human taken in by the Huoyan tribe. This human was about the same size as the cubs, but thinner than the cubs. In the weather when the snow wolves were shirtless, he wore neatly made cloth clothes. When Cao Gen followed Huoyan into the shed, he was piling a large bundle of enoki mushrooms wrapped in straw on the ground.
"Thar? Why are you moving it by yourself again? Ask someone else to help you!" Huoyan yelled at the human in blame. The tribe depended on him for the supply of enoki mushrooms. What if this fragile human got exhausted?
"I can do it myself, Chief." Thrall smiled and shook his head. He would never let anyone get close to his mushroom house. He nodded to the grass roots as a greeting and immediately ran out in a hurry.
"Is that the human who grew the Enoki mushrooms?" Grassroots looked at Sal's back curiously.
"Yes. He has been acting more and more strange since he started growing enoki mushrooms. He used to be willing to hang out with the cubs, but now he seldom leaves his mushroom house. By the way, the two rooms next to each other behind the mobile home are his mushroom house, so it's best not to get too close." Huo Yan picked up the enoki mushrooms that had been left there for a long time and had yellowed roots, and warned Cao Gen.
Cao Gen was nodding when he suddenly heard the human's uncontrolled and distorted roar from outside. He was so startled that the hair on his ears stood up: "What, what is this?"
"The caracal cub ran over to peek again." Huo Yan said nonchalantly, "That's why I said that Thrall was getting weirder and weirder... Ayun did say that the mushroom house was important, but he didn't say it was so important that people couldn't get close to it."
"Ayun?" Cao Gen remembered that Yu had mentioned the name of this cub several times.
"I really want to eat fried pine nuts. Now is the season for pine nuts. Oh, I must go get some pine nuts when I have time." Huo Yan muttered as he walked out holding the enoki mushrooms.
Grassroots: "..." Why does she always feel that the Fire Clan leader is different from what she thinks, and always feels that he is weird! What is wrong?
While the wheat cakes were being steamed, the Fire Clan leader took a break and walked to the mobile home where the caracal cubs lived without hesitation. As soon as he entered the door, he shouted, "Who has something delicious?"
The grassroots who followed: "..."
Cao Gen was shocked when he saw the situation inside the mobile home. The room was filled with slightly yellowed wool. Four caracal cubs were inside, using a strange tool to spin the wool into thread.
Cao Gen had been to the Tauren tribe and seen them spinning flax, but she had never seen wool being processed into thread. The way she looked at these manuls suddenly became different, and the back of the Fire Chief seemed taller in her eyes - no wonder they took in so many manuls, in addition to the waterwheel that Yu mentioned , the ability to spin wool into thread was enough to protect these manuls.
"Ayun gave us some fruits, and here are some left." A caracal cub took out a small bag woven from tree bark (provided by the goblins) from a pile of wool, with a few red wild fruits left in it.
"Is this all? Ayun didn't give you anything else?" The clan leader was not giving up. This wild fruit, which he used to like very much, he didn't think much of now. The radishes grown at home were much more delicious than most wild fruits, but eating too much would make you hungry.
"No more." The caracal cubs shook their heads. Ayun liked to give them all the delicious food, but Ayun was very busy now.
The Fire Chief was dejected... He distributed his collection of pickled radish slices to the cubs, and returned to guard the stove in shame. Pickled radish requires vinegar, and after the black beans were planted in the tribe, there was no bean sprouts to eat, so there was naturally no beans to make vinegar... The existing vinegar had to be used to process wool, so there was very little pickled radish.
Grassroots: “…”
"Chief Huoyan, I don't think you are short of food." Cao Gen couldn't hold it in any longer.
“There’s no shortage... I was able to find a lot when I was working outside before. If you guys are coming, Ayun asked me to come back and take you to prepare food. Although it’s much easier than before, we’re trapped in the tribe all day long.” The Fire Chief sighed and looked at Cao Gen worriedly... There is food everywhere in the wild in autumn, and when has he ever lacked snacks? Now he is as greedy as Niu Jiao, and he is forced to do so.
"...You mean, because we are here, you are in charge of the food?" Cao Gen didn't even have time to be shocked that Huo Yan said this job was easy. At this moment, her shock was not enough.
"Yes, the caracals could have made the food before."
Grassroots: "..." No wonder those caracals were so good at cleaning up the mutton. Wait, why do I feel something is wrong? "Aren't you the one who arranges the work in the tribe, Chief Huoyan?"
Huo Yan was even more shocked than her: "What are you talking about? I'm not Ayun."
"Ayun?" Cao Gen didn't understand.
"Ayun has always been the one who arranges work in our tribe. Maomao...Didn't Yu tell you?" Huoyan asked in surprise.
"..." Cao Gen thought about it, and it seemed that Yu Zhenzhen had said that... But at that time, she was thinking about whether the Fire Tribe would dislike her if all the tribesmen moved here, so she didn't take it to heart.
"Then why should you and I be responsible for preparing food just because we are here?" Cao Gen couldn't understand.
The Fire Clan leader put on an innocent and confused face that made Xiao Yun spit blood countless times. How could he know!
Confused, Cao Gen squatted at the door and held his head in his hands. It was so strange, the Fire Tribe was so strange! It didn't match her experience or what she had heard from the deceased elders. Not to mention the Snow Werewolves, even the Tauren Tribe, which was headed by a sage, had never heard of letting the cubs arrange tribal affairs!
Just as she was doubting her life, she saw a group of werewolf cubs and a few goblins dragging a lot of stones into the tribe using a vine trawl...
Cao Gen suspected that he was dazzled, so he closed his eyes and looked again. What the group of cubs and the goblins dragged back were indeed stones, grayish-white stones, which looked like stones no matter how he looked at them.
The cub walking in front seemed very happy, as if he had killed the fattest wild boar. When he saw the grass root squatting at the door of the big room, he greeted her enthusiastically: "Grassroots Chief!"
Grassroot nodded in response, this wasn't a cub from her tribe, she couldn't recognize it.
The cub, whose expression was filled with joy, asked the other cubs and the goblins to put down the stones, and said something to the other side of the activity room. The caracal cubs then came out with wool and textile tools, and sat in the square to continue spinning.
Grassroots: “???”
The young man who was directing everyone asked people to move the stones to the strange earthen mound (pottery kiln) on the other side of the mobile home, and also moved a lot of black stones into the mobile home. Not long after, Cao Gen, who was squatting in the main room, saw black smoke coming out of the chimney on the earthen mound.
The grassroots chief was really curious... so she simply walked over and walked around the strange mound of earth, then ran to the door of the mobile home and looked inside. Then she discovered a fact that shocked her to her core: these cubs were actually burning stones in a serious manner!
"Huh?" Xiao Yun turned around, and the door was empty. The Grassroots Chief had staggered back to guard the stove, and he didn't see anything.
"Ayun, what's the point of burning stones like this?" Yangmao girl asked curiously.
"It's going to be very useful!" Xiao Yun was eager to talk. If he didn't share his winnings with others, it would be the same as if he didn't win anything. He immediately raised the small piece of gray-white limestone in his hand...
This stone is exactly the same as an ordinary stone, and there is no difference. Xiao Yun didn't recognize it at first. It was not until he accidentally stepped on a piece and found that it had a very low hardness that he thought of limestone. Limestone is a sedimentary rock with low density and low hardness. The surface has either a clastic structure or a crystalline structure. It is not difficult to break the limestone with a hard wooden stick.
"This kind of stone is called limestone. When it is calcined at a high temperature of about 1,000 degrees, which is about the same temperature as burning bricks, it turns into a white solid, which is quicklime. Quicklime is made into earth cement, which is much better than the black mud mixed with yellow mud that we used to bond mud bricks. It is countless times better!"
"This stone is gypsum." Xiao Yun held up another piece of gypsum. Compared with limestone, which is easy to miss, gypsum is much more obvious. It is colorless and translucent, with a little gray and yellow. The cross section has shell-like monoclinic crystal characteristics and a slight pearly luster. "This does not need to be calcined in a kiln. Just bury it in the soil and burn it with firewood. When the stone core changes color, it can be used to make new cement."
Yangmao put on a righteous face, saying, "Isn't the earth and cement we used before very good? Is it necessary to go through so much trouble to burn stones?"
"Hey, who told you this is troublesome? Think about it carefully. The earth cement we used before required digging a lot of yellow clay, picking up swamp mud, cutting reed stalks, adding water and kneading them. How much less effort is needed than bringing this kind of stone back and burning it?" Xiao Yun threw a charming look at the blind man and was very angry. "Besides, the new cement is more durable than the old one. It won't be dispersed or cracked by water. It can be used to make bricks, as an adhesive, or to paste walls. It is more solid and reliable. It is completely better than heaven and earth!"
"Hmm... that makes sense. Dealing with reed stems is really troublesome." Yangmao ignored the second half and only listened to the first half. "But we are here to help transport the millstones, and you gave us a job to move stones... Oh no!"
Xiao Yun was so angry that he couldn't help laughing. He bent his finger and flicked Yangmao's forehead - instead of learning good things, he just followed Dahaha to be lazy!
In order to find suitable stones for making water-powered millstones, the three goblins dug the hill where they were going to get the stones into many pits and holes. Thanks to the goblins' obedience, Xiao Yun accidentally discovered that there was limestone and gypsum so close to the tribe... These two types of rock minerals are also extremely common rocks, but if you don't dig into the rock layer in that place, you won't be able to find them, right?
After teaching Yangmao a lesson, Xiao Yun felt that the three goblins were pleasing to the eye. Why didn't he think these little creatures were cute before?
Old Shaman & Baron & Gar: "..." What's going on? Ayun's eyes look weird, a little scary...
A huge amount of limestone is needed for use. Xiao Yun is also ambitious to cover the river embankment built with mud with cement, and the dug canal should also be redone... Well, he is not in a hurry to say it now so as not to scare the tribesmen. He should finish the project in the tribe first.
With limestone and gypsum, calcining relatively primitive cement to make cement bricks is definitely more convenient, faster, more time-saving and labor-saving than making mud bricks and then burning them. When the tribesmen came back for lunch, Xiao Yun stopped the brick-making work and called back the brick-making team led by Daha to participate in the cement project.
All nine goblins, young and old, went out to dig out the limestone. Dahe and other first-level laborers divided half of them to drag the stones, and the other half worked with Xiao Yun to build a kiln specifically for calcining cement. Burning limestone into quicklime requires no technical skills at all. The simplest vertical kiln or the primitive kiln that burns wood directly underneath the kiln can do it.
A row of ten vertical kilns with a diameter of two meters and a height of half a person, similar to a stove structure, were built outside the tribe in an area that did not occupy the ground in the square. The opening at the top was used for putting in and taking out limestone and quicklime blocks, and an opening was left at the bottom and a semi-concave hole was dug for adding coal as fuel.
The proportion of limestone in the cement used to make bricks can be slightly reduced, 70% limestone (if used as a binder, limestone should account for more than 80%), 30% clay blocks (yellow clay is fine, if not, ordinary soil blocks will do) are stuffed into the vertical kiln from the top opening, and the red-hot coal taken out of the big stove is put into the fuel port at the bottom to burn directly, or firewood can be used if there is no coal...
The temperature in the kiln rises to 1100 degrees, the raw limestone put in gradually enters a molten state and is sintered into clinker. After the fire is turned off and the kiln is cooled, the soil and quicklime are taken out... At this time, the lime has turned into white lumps, which are very brittle and can be broken by hand.
The burnt quicklime and earth are broken up with wooden sticks, mixed with about 3% gypsum (gypsum stone can be matured at a temperature of only 200 degrees, so anything can be done), and ground back and forth with a stone mill (a byproduct of making stone mills) until it is ground into powder as much as possible, and it becomes earth cement that can be put into use immediately; add coal slag (the residue after coal combustion), gravel, and sand, and mix it with water and it can be used... The strength and performance indicators are definitely not comparable to modern cement, but cement is cement, and being able to use it is king.
Take relatively fine sand from the river bank, mix it in the ratio of 2 sand to 1 soil and cement, add water to mix, fill it into the brick mold, use a wooden stick to poke the cement sand in the brick mold tightly to make sure there is no air inside, then lift the brick mold up carefully without damaging the shape of the cement brick embryo, and leave it in the open air for 24 hours - fresh cement bricks are out of the oven!
No need to add any cut reed stems, no need to wait for several days to dry in the shade, no need to open a kiln to burn! It is so simple and crude!
Cement, even the earth cement that is processed so roughly and is so primitive that it makes all civil engineering students cry, is also a construction artifact!
In just three days, eight of the ten original vertical kilns that had been burning for three days and nights were burned out... When these vertical kilns that had undertaken the historical mission could finally stop to rest, the area in the northwest outside the tribe that was originally used to pile up fodder was filled with neatly arranged blue-gray cement bricks; Xiao Yun stood in front of the burned vertical kiln, with his hands on his waist facing the cement bricks that looked like a military parade, and his mood was so refreshing - creation is indeed a wonderful thing! The sweat you put in is sweet at the moment of reading and harvesting!
"See, everyone? These are not cement bricks. These are houses!"
Xiao Yun seemed to have returned to the time when he was appreciated by his boss and promoted to management three years after graduating from university. Endless energy was born from the depths of his soul. He would have no problem working overtime for another ten days or half a month. However, no one could understand his surging emotions. When he turned around, the Dahe Brickmaking Team was already littered with corpses...
Da He propped up his upper body tremblingly and opened his heavy eyelids with difficulty: "Ayun... can we go to sleep now..."
"...Go to sleep." Xiao Yun said in a bored tone.
Dahe used up his last bit of strength to lean his body to the side, pressing his head onto Niu Jiao's belly, then he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
"Are we going to sleep here? Don't you think it's dirty?" Xiao Yun said dissatisfiedly. What's the point of sleeping directly on the place where cement is mixed? Even if he is not afraid of catching a cold, he shouldn't be so wasteful.
...But now these guys are all as dirty as mud, Xiao Yun doesn't really want to move them back... so forget it. He is also very tired, he didn't get a good night's sleep when the brick-making team worked day and night.
Xiao Yun walked around this bunch of unruly guys and went into the tribe, yawning and with bloodshot eyes. He relied on his willpower to cross the square in the center of the tribe and went into the bathroom to wash off the mud on his body. Then he staggered into the activity room and fell asleep.
The caracal cub that was spinning looked back at the dead Ayun, and considerately took out a woven blanket to cover his stomach.
The two chiefs who had just returned from washing vegetables looked silently in the direction of the mobile home, then turned their heads to look outside the tribe, at the group of corpses of the tribesmen whose outlines could be seen.
"Look, I told you that it's pretty easy for us to be responsible for making food." The Fire Clan leader said seriously.
Grassroots Chief: “…”
