Chapter 50: Salted fish appears
The entire Green Sparrow Tribe was stimulated by the fish cages, and early the next morning, the Eldest Senior Brother got up. Together with members of other hunting teams, they rubbed their hands and looked at Han Cheng and the fish cages placed in front of the totem pole.
They wanted to witness the miraculous fishing performance bestowed by the sky god with their own eyes.
Knowing their intentions, Han Cheng took a fish cage and walked outside, and everyone else in the cave followed to witness the miracle.
Even the most stable Shaman couldn't resist.
Today's luck was not too good, and by the time they returned from the riverbank, they had caught only eight fish.
However, this was enough to shock the Eldest Senior Brother and the others. It was still early, and not even half of the morning had passed.
Moreover, after the fish cages were lowered into the water, the Eldest Senior Brother's wife, who was the best at spearing fish in the tribe under the Eldest Senior Brother's arrangement, tried her hand with a rudimentary fish spear about twenty meters away.
In the same amount of time, she had only speared three fish.
The advantages of the fish cages were vividly demonstrated after this comparison.
After collecting the fish cages, without Han Cheng's instructions, the Eldest Senior Brother, who was already fervent, took the other enthusiastic people to find suitable wooden sticks.
Inside the cave, the others were busy making rope from grass.
Once the materials were ready, Han Cheng began making more fish cages, choosing three relatively skilled people within the tribe, including Lame, to teach them.
By the evening, the Green Sparrow Tribe had four more fish cages in addition to the original one, making a total of five.
The usefulness of the fish cages far exceeded the Shaman's imagination.
Because Han Cheng had woven a net at the mouth of the fish cage that could be opened and closed, there was no need to hastily pull the fish out after they entered the cage. The fish couldn't escape anyway.
Therefore, one person didn't need to guard a fish cage completely.
A person could oversee three or even four fish cages and still handle the workload.
The person attending the fish cages needed to stay by the shore. Now and then, they would pull each fish cage out of the water, take out the fish, and then put the fish cage back in the water.
And because the fish cages were left in the water for an extended period due to this operation, sometimes, when they pulled the cage out, there were two or even three fish inside.
With one person guarding the fish cages and sending two people to transport the fish back to the tribe, the catch of fish in a day was more than the tribe could eat in two days.
The food problem that had been pressing on everyone's minds, making them unable to slack off, was solved by these small fish cages and three underage individuals in the tribe.
This
This was truly a miracle.
Looking at the pile of fish inside the cave and those neatly arranged fish cages in the most conspicuous place in the tribe, everyone's faces showed sincere smiles.
They no longer needed to toil all day and still worry about insufficient food.
This was a gift from the gods and the Divine Child.
The advent of the fish cages elevated Han Cheng's prestige within the tribe even higher. He had far surpassed the Eldest Senior Brother, the leader, and even had a higher standing than the tribe's wise Shaman.
However, Han Cheng didn't feel proud about it, as he believed it wasn't something to be proud of. He maintained his respect for the Shaman and others, treating them as usualrespecting where respect was due and being approachable when necessary.
Yet, the people in the tribe showed a deep-seated respect for him. Now that the weather had become hot, they were catching so many fish daily that it couldn't be consumed before it spoiled.
However, Han Cheng did not reduce the number of fish cages in the water.
But, unlike before, the caught fish were not directly transported back to the cave. Instead, they were cleaned on the spot by the river, rubbed with salt, laid out to dry on the riverbank, cleared sandy areas, and the places designated for pottery making.
This was to make salted fish.
Those responsible for these tasks were some underage individuals, women with slightly weaker constitutions, and, of course, Lame.
Han Cheng didn't allow them to discard fish guts and scales randomly. Instead, he dug some pits about twenty meters downstream from the riverbank. Each day, the collected fish guts were thrown into these pits. When it was time to finish work in the evening, they would throw some dry grass on top of these guts and then evenly cover them with soil.
This wasn't a pointless task for Han Cheng. Doing this helped protect the environment, preventing the riverbank from being littered with fish guts. Additionally, it served as a method of composting.
Come autumn, he planned to plant a batch of rapeseed. Now that there was an opportunity, he naturally wanted to prepare in advance.
Building the walls was a massive project for the current tribe. Han Cheng roughly calculated the workload. Even if they waited until autumn, they couldn't complete all the construction.
Moreover, autumn was the season for storing food. To avoid the food storage issue affecting wall construction, Han Cheng took advantage of the hot weather to dry more fish.
In the tribe, the place specifically used for storing food was enclosed by thirteen large jars. Under Han Cheng's guidance, the open space inside the enclosure was covered with a layer of pre-made sun-dried mud bricks. On top of the mud bricks was a layer of tattered animal hides, and above that was a thick layer of dry straw.
This was the place for drying the prepared fish.
With these three layers of protection, it wouldn't be easy for moisture to rise from the ground and affect the dried fish.
As for the surrounding empty jars, they were also used for storing food. Underneath these jars were layers of mud bricks.
Storing food in this way had a good moisture-proof effect and saved a lot of space.
With the food problem no longer a daily worry, Han Cheng's planned construction of the walls was moved up in the schedule.
Han Cheng didn't want to build small walls because, after constructing the walls, he also wanted to build houses inside the walls, establish enclosures for raising livestock, and provide enough space for people in the tribe to rest and play.
Because building the walls was difficult, Han Cheng wanted to finish it properly. Otherwise, if they spent a lot of effort now and couldn't keep up with the situation in a few years, having to push for reconstruction would be a big loss.
He had been wandering outside the tribe these past two days. Considering the terrain, he could roughly build walls with a width of three hundred meters north to south and a length of five hundred meters east to west.
Since the northernmost side of the wall was the mountain wall where the tribe's cave was located, this side of the mountain was high enough, and a wall was unnecessary.
In other words, they only needed to build two walls, each three hundred meters long, and one wall, five hundred meters long, to create a sufficiently secure space for the tribe.
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