"Don't ask any more questions!"
After Shi Jing heard the conversation between the two people, she also showed the dignity that a mother-in-law should have.
The two children didn't understand, but as an old man in the tribe, Shi Jing did know the importance of salt very well. Although Yanshi might not have any extra thoughts, this kind of thing was obviously not something he could inquire about now.
Not to mention the stone and stone, even Shi Jing still doesn’t know where the salt was brought back from. People who have participated in salt mining are also very secretive about this.
After all, Yanshi had just arrived, so if other people heard him asking this question, it would inevitably make people think too much.
Shi Jing also nudged the signs in the cradle in time.
Hearing what his mother-in-law was saying, Yanshi quickly understood. He looked at each other and Shi Duo, and the two stopped talking about the matter.
After this salt mining, there is nothing particularly important in the tribe for the time being, and everything is going according to plan.
Shi Meng also returned to the hunting team in time.
Although Yang Yang only led the team out twice, the effect seemed to be pretty good, and the hunting income did not decrease significantly.
But now that Shi Meng has returned, the task of leading the team naturally has to be returned to the leader.
Although the tribe can now reduce its manpower and free up a team for Yangyang to lead, the efficiency may not be as good as it is now, so we can only wait for a year or two to have more manpower, and then open a team for Yangyang alone. .
According to the current number of children in the tribe, if everything goes well, there will be an additional ten people in one or two years.
This year at least five people will reach the standard of adulthood, and then they can join the hunting team.
After a winter of hard work, the women in the tribe are very motivated, and one-third of them are already pregnant.
If everything goes well, at least 20 babies will be born by the end of the year.
However, although there are more children, it is not so easy to feed them all. They have to go through various hardships from childhood to adulthood, and many children cannot even survive their infancy.
Slightly older people will also encounter various dangers, so although no tribe will restrict births, the population growth is very slow. Slightly older tribes like the Kite Tribe can still have no problem with a dozen children a year. Yes, but most of the tribes can stay at most, less than one third.
The grown-up children all appear rough-skinned and thick-skinned. That’s because the skinny ones have been eliminated long ago. Even the Soaring Snake Tribe is like this. Although there were a few more babies last year, there were still two who died soon after. Died in infancy.
Song Xuan is not a medical professional, so he is helpless. He can only give some suggestions on minor issues, such as keeping clean and hygienic.
There may be an effect, but it's not very obvious.
Fortunately, there is basically no need to worry about food in the tribe now, and the children can also be better raised. If you pay more attention, it shouldn't be a problem to partially increase the survival rate.
Although they had several children last year, these mothers soon needed to continue working after giving birth.
We take turns raising them every day. When there are more people, we can't take care of them so well. Moreover, there is no concept of precise feeding in everyone's mind. If the care is not adequate, the risk of contracting various diseases will naturally be greater.
Song Xuan has made up his mind this year. Although it is impossible for every mother to feed alone, he must not be able to handle several people by himself like last year.
After everyone gives birth to children, one person can only take care of two or three children at most. Although Song Xuan has never given birth to a child, he still knows a little more than these primitive people in some aspects.
At that time, everyone will definitely have to take care of me more carefully.
In this era, population is the primary productive force. The more tribal people there are, the stronger the tribe will naturally be. No matter how powerful a tribe of sixty or seventy people is, it is difficult to compete with a tribe of several hundred people.
Even Soaring Snake has fought several battles with the Black Feather Tribe without losing, but when it comes to true strength, the gap is still huge.
However, most of the children in the tribe are still relatively young, and it takes time to grow up, which is something that cannot be rushed.
Most of the surrounding tribes are relatively stable now. Unless they encounter a natural disaster like Blackwater, Song Xuan feels that it may not be so easy to pick up the slack again.
If there is no way to directly absorb the entire tribe, they can only rely on their own reproduction. At this time, the survival rate of the babies is particularly important. If most of them die, the development of the tribe will be very slow, just like the Kite tribe. Although it is still considered a relatively powerful tribe among the surrounding tribes.
But the population growth is not fast. According to Shuiyun, the Yuan tribe has only grown by thirty or forty people in the past ten years. If Teng She also grows at this rate, Song Xuan feels that even when he is old, he will not be able to reach the level of Wu. That level of feathers.
But if most of them can survive, economies of scale will form in the future, and the snowball will roll very quickly. Especially Teng She may not marry too many people in the future. As long as she pays more attention to it, she will try to reduce losses as much as possible. , after decades of development, there should be quite a lot of manpower.
Song Xuan is not without ambitions, but Teng She's size is here, and normal development can only rely on time to slowly increase.
…………
The weather this year has been smooth, and there has not been a long period of heavy rain like last year. Even in the rainy season, the rain would come and go, lasting only five or six days at most.
Although the rain was not heavy, as long as it didn't last too long, it wouldn't have that big of an impact on the tribe.
When it rains, everyone takes a break. After all, most people have been running around outside in the past two months, and their time in the tribe is not long. Like Shi Meng, they usually come back in the afternoon, and then the next day Set off in the morning.
This year, the cultivation of rice fields has taken up a lot of everyone's time. In the past, it was used for hunting. Although the harvest is not much, it can meet the daily expenses of the tribe and even save some. This year, the pressure on manpower has been greatly reduced. Naturally it will be much bigger.
And everyone knows very well that in the autumn, these rice will be harvested. This is not the three or five acres of land at that time. Everyone can finish it in one morning. Just harvesting so much land, I don’t think there will be seven or eight. It will definitely not be completed in ten days.
Harvesting rice is even more important than hunting. Everyone must be involved when the time comes, and when the prey is the most plentiful during the year, the harvest in these ten days can be more than the usual half month.
So now I can only go out and run more. The more prey I bring back now, the easier it will be in the future.
Working so hard now is naturally to prevent the rice from not getting enough yield. Although the current growth is not bad, no one can guarantee it before it is put into storage.
Although the rice harvest has not yet started, the warehouse needs to be planned in advance. It will definitely be too late to build it after the harvest.
If this year's production can be harvested normally, it will definitely not be able to handle the pots and pans of last year. Even if one acre of land only yields 180 kilograms, that is tens of thousands of kilograms.
It would definitely not work without a special place for storage, and after the experience of being ruined by rats this year, Song Xuan didn't want to encounter such a thing again.
Although the loss was not big, it really bothered Song Xuan so much that he had to check the entire tribe carefully every few months for fear that something might have slipped through the net. Of course, the results were quite obvious. Basically, every time There can be new discoveries, but fortunately most of them are caught shortly after arriving, and it is difficult to escape even if they are poured with hot water.
Even with this level of cleanup by the tribe, there are still rats coming in continuously. It is conceivable that once the rice is harvested, there will definitely be a lot of rats coming.
There was no trace of the cat that Song Xuan longed for, and when he asked Shi Meng occasionally, they said they had no chance of encountering it. Even if they saw it sometimes, they couldn't catch it, so now the main force for finding mice still depends on Wang. But Wangcai is an amateur after all, and the tribe provides good food and drink. His greater interest in mice is playing with them, and he has not developed any interest in hunting.
When Song Xuan leads people to find mouse holes, Wangcai will also actively participate, but it is rare to see him take the initiative to find mice, and now Wangcai basically stays out all night.
Most of the time, we don't see him walking back slowly until the morning. As soon as he comes back, he gets into his little nest. It seems that he has been busy at night, but Song Xuan doesn't know what he is doing. Fortunately, he still knows to come back. , so he didn’t care much about him.
The granary Songxuan originally wanted to design it so that it would be stacked directly after completion, but it seemed difficult, and how to control waterproofing and moisture-proofing was also a big challenge.
After thinking about it, Song Xuan decided to build it in a semi-crypt style. Although the construction was not easy, it was relatively easier to prevent moisture.
Taking advantage of the heavy rain in recent days, which prevented everyone from going out to hunt and gather the tribe's first granary, they have begun digging.
Song Xuan didn't do it directly in the open space. It was still raining outside and he couldn't work in the rain, so Song Xuan chose an unoccupied house.
Anyway, we have to build a house in the granary at the back. It is better to requisition the empty one in advance. If there is a need among the tribe, it will be built very quickly. After all, the manpower and skills are already very mature and the materials are available.
First of all, the ground must be dug up and a hole of sufficient size must be dug.
Although there is no one living in this house now, the ground was tamped down at that time, and a lot of fires were made to dry the grass mud. Now it seems that it has added difficulties to myself. The ground is obviously much harder, but at least it is still It's just superficial.
As for after digging...it will be even more difficult.
The soil layer below is the most difficult place to dig, especially after reaching a depth of half a meter, you can already dig gravel. The stones and dry soil fit together, and each small piece requires a lot of effort. , so Song Xuan could only ask everyone to dig while splashing water. After moistening the hard soil with water, it would be much easier to dig.
