Chapter 23: New Home

The roaring kiln fire burned all night long; to fire good tiles, the tribespeople had to work in shifts throughout the night, constantly adding firewood to maintain the temperature inside the kiln.

Over the previous three days, the five large houses had finished the work of installing the ridgepoles and purlins; by adding bamboo strips and mud to the purlins and sealing every inch of the gaps, they were just waiting for the tiles to be placed on the roofs.

For the tribespeople, having a house with a roof was already enough; except for leaving a portion of the people at the Old Camp to continue collecting food and protecting the women and children, everyone else stayed at the New Camp for the night.

The tiles had been firing for two days and one night, but Baifeng still dared not open the kiln rashly, fearing that all previous efforts would be wasted, so he had to keep firing. As for the other tribespeople, some gathered around the fire, holding their Weapon to keep watch, while those who had rotated off slept and rested in the rooms.

Ever since the house ridgepoles were successfully installed and the tile kiln was fired up, Baifeng no longer called them savages, but thoroughly accepted them as humans.

The crackling sound of the kiln fire and the metallic ringing of the tiles inside the kiln made it hard for Baifeng to fall asleep, not to mention that the summer night was extremely muggy and full of mosquitoes and insects.

Washing his face simply in the early morning, he found that using water was still very inconvenient; there were too many people and the water demand was high, requiring a large amount of manpower to go to the lake to fetch water.

As soon as he stepped out, the moist morning south wind blew against Baifeng's face; although not a single cloud could be seen in the sky, Baifeng could still predict that it was about to rain.

The south wind was relatively gentle, indicating that the rain would come quite late, at the earliest by evening, and the rain would not be too heavy.

Since the weather had started to urge them, let them officially move!

Excluding those firing the kiln, the others set off in a mighty force toward the Old Camp to move all the supplies to their new home.

To avoid the rain, the Old Camp had used the earth bricks and tiles Baifeng had made previously to build a special Grain Storehouse, but now the Grain Storehouse could no longer hold everything; the Salted Fish, which had a huge amount of salt used, were piled randomly on the platform, and jars upon jars, stacks upon stacks of wild salted vegetables were also placed casually.

Where they lived before, the river was too big and too deep, making fishing inconvenient, and they knew very few wild vegetables; unless Shennong was in their tribe to try and detoxify them, and the Tribal Chief also intentionally controlled the salt, the food sources in the past were very scarce and lacking, unlike now where it was so affluent.

The fish catch over these two days had clearly decreased, so the work of the Fishing Team could be considered finished.

This trip involved nearly four hundred people, carrying all their belongings, moving like a gust of wind; they left nothing behind, and even children a few years old were hurrying along while clutching bundles of salted vegetables.

Baifeng took nothing else, only the stone inscribed with Heaven and Earth; it was not that Baifeng wanted to be lazy, but that no one else dared to touch it. Baifeng thought he could write it again when he got to the new home, but not only did the shaman disagree, the tribespeople also disagreed; they felt that it was because of this stone that the spirits allowed them to find so much food.

Nearly half of the tribespeople did not know what the new home was like; they only listened to the descriptions from their companions who had gone to work there and felt a great longing. They could not imagine that humans could also rely on themselves to build a large cave dwelling capable of housing dozens of people.

When they arrived one by one, clutching jars and holding Salted Fish, and saw the tall houses and the large kiln emitting smoke, they were all stunned, feeling it was a miracle.

Baifeng did not explain much or talk nonsense to them; he told them to put all the supplies into a large house. It would rain soon, and if the food they had worked so hard to collect got rained on, then more than half a month of work would be in vain.

The tiles were not yet fired well, and the roof's waterproofing was worrying; heavy rain might cause leaks, so he had to mobilize the tribespeople to collect pine needles to spread on the roof, which could also serve a waterproofing effect.

With so many people arriving at once, the problem of drinking water was instantly exposed. There was no such thing as the massive domestic water consumption of later generations, or even the consumption of domestic water at all, but now, just for drinking and cooking, the water was a large amount.

The Old Camp was close to the water source, taking only twenty minutes to go back and forth, but here it took an hour.

Baifeng had to use his old trick again, organizing a water-fetching team of over a hundred people, carrying various containers to go to the lake in a mighty force to fetch water; one trip was enough for the day.

Now, because the weather was too hot, wild beasts were unwilling to go out hunting during the day; once the temperature dropped, fetching water would become a high-risk job. It was truly not easy for a person to grow into a laborer, so it had to be cherished.

Regarding the bamboo pipe water system Baifeng had thought of before, thinking about it now, the possibility of realization was not high; since they had a large kiln, it was better to just fire Pottery Pipe, which would be more convenient.

Another matter was that there were still too few houses now, not enough to live in at all, and there was a large gap. According to Baifeng's idea, to live relatively comfortably, at least forty houses had to be built here.

And this work would have to continue until the arrival of Winter, when the weather was too cold to work.

After moving to the new home, the work teams had to be readjusted; with nearly three hundred strong laborers, about one hundred people would be specifically responsible for making earth bricks and building houses. The Pottery Team of twenty-some people would mainly focus on firing tiles.

As for the remaining labor force, about one hundred people had to be set aside specifically for hunting; the more food, the better. The rest would do odd jobs or take the children to pick various wild fruits and the like near the camp.

Baifeng had Xiong select one hundred of the most capable hunters from the tribe, and then Baifeng gained a general understanding of their hunting targets and hunting methods.

They could only catch some small herbivores; as for the large ones, because their Weapon were too poor, being able to catch them depended entirely on luck, and in front of carnivorous wild beasts, they were the prey, not the hunters.

Looking at their Weapon, they were nothing more than Stone Axe and Stone Spear, and some were even Wooden Spear; it was indeed not easy for them to catch prey.

Among them, the hunter Lu was skilled at catching deer, but he was unwilling to share his techniques, feeling that this was his capital for making a living.

Baifeng did not force him, but just felt that their Weapon needed to be updated; if they had powerful Weapon, paired with their savage bodies, humans could gradually reach the top of the food chain.

First, Baifeng had a few people who used Spear demonstrate their spear-throwing level; although their Weapon were very poor, they threw them far and accurately one by one. If placed in the modern era, it was estimated that average athletes would not be able to compare to them.

Since their spear throwing was accurate enough, a major sharp weapon Baifeng had prepared could also come in handy, and that was the Spear Thrower. It was because primitive humans invented this thing that they could add large wild beasts like the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth to their menu, which also accelerated the extinction of these species.

A long bamboo strip with a hook at one end was handed to the tribespeople; they all looked confused. Without a tip and unable to throw far, how could it possibly kill prey? Baifeng gave them a simple demonstration, placing the Spear on the Spear Thrower, and then pulling the Spear Thrower with force. He, a person who had never used a Spear, could throw it further than these people who specifically used Spear with a casual toss.

The hunters understood the usage of the Spear Thrower and tried it one by one; sure enough, the distance they threw it nearly doubled. This was the power of physics: lengthening the lever arm.

It was just that Baifeng's metallurgy technology had no clue; otherwise, if he could change to an Iron Spear Tip or even a copper spear tip, Baifeng felt he should be able to own a tiger-skin chair.

However, for their stone spearheads, Baifeng also made improvements. If the two sides were not sharp enough, then he would grind them on other sandstones, and grind barbs on both sides; this way, after piercing the prey, the Spear would not fall off.

As for those using Stone Axe and Stone Knife, that was simply not suitable for hunting; let's change the Weapon, for example, a bow.

Think the bow is useless? Simple, watch me build a Recurve Bow for you to try.