Chapter 22: Savages Who Cannot Be Called Savages

Everything is proceeding in an orderly fashion; because of the specialization of labor, everyone is becoming more proficient at their own tasks, and efficiency is higher as well.

The fish in the river next to the Old Camp seem inexhaustible, and one wonders what kind of auspicious land lies further upstream or downstream that allows these fish to multiply crazily without destroying the food chain in the stream.

Over the past few days, the quantity of fish caught has accumulated more and more, and a fishy smell has spread throughout the entire camp. And the few people in the Fishing Team are not just using Fish Traps anymore; they have also started using fish spears.

The salt at the Old Camp has run out, so the Infrastructure Team led by Baifeng, after working for half a day, took them to the salt lake to fetch a load of salt.

Baifeng roughly estimated the earth foundations at the New Camp and they are already sufficient; after all, savages do not have the same housing requirements as modern people. A fifty-square-meter house is low, dark, and gloomy, but they can squeeze a dozen people together, which gives them a sense of security and is warmer in Winter.

Added to the scorching heat of summer, the earth foundations were soon dried until they were hard enough.

The planned living area already has a drop of about half a meter from the outside, so even if a rainstorm comes, there is no fear of water accumulation.

Previously, Baifeng was very afraid of rain, but nearly half a month has passed since the last rain; the rainy season, after such a long interval, is almost at the time for rain.

This evening, when work ended, Baifeng looked at the earth foundations covering the plain and decided to start building houses tomorrow; once the houses are about half-built, he will have all the tribespeople move over.

Yi has already left the Infrastructure Team; Baifeng felt his former partner's constitution was not good—too poor—so he arranged for him to go to the Fishing Team.

Yi's daily work is to follow Baifeng to learn how to make grilled fish, identify medicinal herbs along the way, and also learn basic knowledge. Although Yi is eager to learn and remembers quickly, he also forgets quickly; the moment Baifeng finishes speaking, he forgets it, which angers Baifeng so much that he keeps a bamboo strip handy. Whenever he asks a random question and Yi cannot answer or answers incorrectly, he whips his butt hard.

Why not whip his palms? Because he still has to cook and make grilled fish, and touching salt would be like torture. Baifeng felt there was no need to be too harsh on him; it is better to proceed step by step.

Baifeng does not know how long it will take to build the houses, but to avoid complications from delay, the next day, only the people from the Fishing Team were left behind, and everyone else headed to the New Camp, including the children.

He also gave orders to the Fishing Team to catch fish with all their might, to block the downstream with a bamboo dam, and to drive the fish from upstream to downstream, having one big harvest before moving away.

As for the Pottery Team, Baifeng also called them over; the children are responsible for digging soil and mixing mud, and the adults now have to make Tiles. Burning them at the Old Camp and then moving them here is too troublesome and not cost-effective, mainly because there is no such thing as a cart.

There is no coal near the New Camp, so they have to chop the firewood for the kiln themselves, but fortunately, there is a forest nearby.

The construction site has started working in full swing, and Baifeng has no way to slack off, because only he knows how to build houses.

Three large houses of about fifty square meters are being built at the same time. After these three are built, construction will continue; for now, he must first build a few houses that can provide shelter when all the tribespeople move over.

Leveling and tamping the foundation, then using grass rope as a level line to ensure the walls are built straight.

One block of earth foundation and one handful of mud, just like brick-concrete construction; this wall of pure earth, under the joint construction of more than twenty people, soon reached about 1.6 meters.

The wall is already about the same height as the savages, and Baifeng felt it should be raised a little more; only when the wall reached about 1.8 meters was Baifeng satisfied.

What Baifeng wants to build is a single-slope house, not the kind one can see now with two slopes on the roof; a single slope is faster to build and less difficult.

Once the two gable walls and the back wall are raised, and the back wall reaches over two meters, the frame of this house is considered done. Then, he will use mud to thicken the inner and outer walls; doing this makes it more aesthetically pleasing and better at resisting water erosion.

Under Baifeng's guidance, the wall bodies of the three large houses were completely finished by evening; after all, with a construction team of nearly two hundred people, even if the technique is lacking, the efficiency must be kept up.

The tile blanks made by the Pottery Team are enough to cover these three houses, but Baifeng's requirement is to keep making them.

When they returned to the Old Camp to rest, everyone was so tired they couldn't straighten their backs, but when they thought about the thick, tall walls they had built, they all felt the future was promising.

Hearing the descriptions from the tribespeople, the people in the Fishing Team were also longing for it, just wanting to catch all the fish in this stream as quickly as possible and move house.

However, looking at the piles of fish they had covered with salt, Baifeng estimated that there were not many fish left to catch in this section of the stream. After all, with such exhaustive fish-driving and blocking, not many could really escape.

The tribespeople are not yet tired of eating fish; after all, for them, having meat to eat is already very satisfying, much better than eating grass or even starving every day.

To speed up progress, Baifeng led the people to the construction site just as the sky was beginning to brighten. Leaving two-thirds of the people to continue building the fourth house, Baifeng and more than sixty others took axes to the forest to chop wood.

There is plenty of timber; they pick some straight and hard trees, and a group of people surrounds them to chop, soon felling one. It is just that some savages are foolish; even when the tree is about to fall, they still stand in the direction of the fall. If it weren't for Baifeng being quick-eyed and fast-handed to pull them away, the tree that smashed them would have become their Coffin.

The most important thing for this house is the purlins, which are the pieces of wood laid vertically across the front and back walls; they don't need to be too thick, just the thickness of a calf, but the quantity required is very large.

With many hands, the logs enough to cover five houses were soon chopped, but they still had to chop off the branches, remove the bark, and let the scraped wood dry in the sun to remove moisture; only then is it good construction timber.

While Baifeng and the others were chopping wood, the frame for the fourth house was also built. Without anyone to command them, they didn't know what to do, so they could only sit under the wall, cooling off and staring blankly, waiting for Baifeng to arrange work.

Naturally, Baifeng could not let them be idle. Picking out a few he thought were good workers, at the very back of the planned residential area, all the way up to the slope of the hill, Baifeng marked out a thirty-square-meter homestead for himself.

The advantage of this place is that it overlooks everything; the housing location might not be the best, but it is definitely the one that best reflects power.

He had the tribespeople clear the surroundings and dig drainage ditches, then had them build the walls carefully; Baifeng wanted to make a double-sloped roof for himself, as this is both good-looking and can reflect his difference.

Baifeng could not stand them having nothing to do; once the interval was chosen and the location selected, he arranged a group of people to build the house.

Looking at the huge quantity of tile blanks, they made a "ding-ding" sound when tapped after drying, and they were ready to be put into the kiln to be fired, but a new kiln had to be built.

Baifeng did not use the kind of kiln plastered with mud from before; it burned too little at one time. Baifeng planned to do it right once and for all by digging a kiln into the hillside.

A circular kiln cave, with a hole left at the top for smoke and exhaust, and another hole for adding firewood. The surrounding kiln walls have layers like steps, which are for placing the tiles; when the time comes, he will put firewood in the middle, light the fire, and after sealing the opening, he can fire the kiln. However, for such a large kiln, it will take two or three days to fire it properly.

The sturdy savages were sweating on the soil, and Baifeng felt a strong sense of incongruity. There is no writing, no sound and reasonable social system, but they are already about to live in houses that only appeared thousands of years later, building large-scale Tile Kilns; perhaps in a very short time, various facilities will appear across eras.

So, in the end, can they still be called savages?