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Chapter 244 First experience in farming

The strong wind shook the mountain forest, making a low and endless roar.

Unlike the northwest wind earlier this week, this wind is blowing from the south. The change in wind direction has warmed the temperature. The temperature may be around freezing. The ice on the water is showing signs of melting, but it is warm enough. Spending hours outdoors in a thick fur coat is no problem.

The severe cold that made people's bones and bones ache has passed. The warm air has made everyone's bodies feel very good. The children's faces glowed with a peaceful and contented red light.

Without counting the time, people can feel that the cold days here are much shorter than in their former homes. This gives the tribesmen who are accustomed to long cold winters an illusion, as if hot warm days are coming.

The mountain forest that had been silent for a cold day finally glowed with some life. The trees stored food at their tips in preparation for sprouting in spring. The birds flying in groups seemed to be reveling in the fact that they had escaped cold death.

The hoofprints of artiodactyls gradually increased. They searched for food in the woods, cut off the tender tissue that had grown on the shrubs, and swallowed it in their rumens.

In the following week, the weather became warmer and warmer. The warmth at noon caused water droplets to drip from the eaves. At night, it froze into hanging ice. In the following days, which became warmer day by day, long cone-shaped icicles gradually formed. Finally it fell off.

Shuijing Lake and Xiaonan River slowly wake up from their deeper and colder hibernation, washing away their frozen shells and releasing abundant torrents.

People who were as imprisoned by the cold as the river poured out of their bamboo huts. Even though the weather was only relatively warm, they transformed their restricted indoor lives into energetic outdoor activities. Any excuse to go out was warmly welcomed.

But outdoor activities were quickly curtailed by successive showers.

The dense rain sometimes fell violently and sometimes stopped, launching an attack on the earth that lasted for a whole week.

The last rain before winter knocks off all the dead leaves, and the first rain in spring brings forth patches of new green.

The first wildflowers in spring smell this change in the air and can’t wait to squeeze out from under the fallen leaves; the moss is green and dripping, jumping for joy in the breath of early spring, arching towards the precious oil rain, showing a full and plump look. green.

The melting of ice and snow has caused the water flow to become turbulent, and the continuous rain has raised the water level of Shuijing Lake. A large amount of lake water has washed through the hills and bare rocks. Some rivers that dried up in autumn and winter are once again filled with abundant water flow.

These seasonal rivers flow like blood vessels into this vast C-shaped basin, connecting isolated weirs, ditches and swamps scattered here and there, and injecting new vitality into it.

Also brought were fish.

Very many fish!
After a dreary winter under the ice, the fish were so suffocated that they jumped out of the water to take a breath.

These new rivers are seasonal rivers with short runoff, small catchment area, and shallow water. It is not easy to catch fish!

Although they have moved to a new home, they have not forgotten their old customs.

The chiefs of each tribe ordered people to bring the unmelted ice and snow, burn it and heat it, wash away the dirt of the babies born last year, and tie their own knots on the "family tree".

Zhang Tian and Lin Yu also took a comfortable hot bath and welcomed the New Year with a new look.

Zhang Tian announced to everyone: "Spring is here!"

In the past, in the Northeast, spring and autumn were too short and their characteristics were not obvious. Therefore, in the tribe's perception, there seemed to be only two seasons in a year: summer and winter.

This understanding was broken last autumn. For the first time, the tribesmen truly felt the existence of autumn. It was not as hot as warm days, but also far warmer than cold days, and it lasted long enough.

The sky priest said it was autumn.The moment the leaves turn yellow is the beginning of autumn, and the moment the leaves finish falling is the end of autumn.

And now, they know the name of another season: spring!
Zhang Tian said: "The moment the ice and snow melts, it is the beginning of spring. When the cicadas chirp in the forest, it is the end of spring! Spring is the time when all things revive. Today is the first day of spring, and it is a day worth celebrating! Days worth celebrating are called festivals, and today is the Spring Festival!”

The tribesmen originally had the habit of celebrating spring, but it was mainly to celebrate that the newborns in the tribe had successfully survived the long cold winter and turned one year old.

Sky Priests give new meaning to ancient customs!
After the sacrificial day, they have a second festival: Spring Festival!
Everyone cheered and the children shouted excitedly. They knew that there would be good food to eat today!
Why celebrate the holidays?Only good food!
The hunters, fully armed and with their wolves, went to the mountains to hunt the artiodactyls that scurry in the woods for the first time in a long time; the women blocked the rivers to fish, and basket after basket of fish was caught ashore.

Of course, bamboo rats are also indispensable. After one winter, more than 60 bamboo rat couples have given birth to babies, giving birth to more than [-] healthy baby rats in total.The baby mice are first fed by their biological mothers. When they grow older, all the baby mice are brought together to raise them in groups to cultivate affection from an early age.

Those bamboo rats that were passive in their work and evaded the task of reproduction were singled out, and what awaited them was the burning.

Lin Yu took the women to the mountains and forests to collect various sprouts, twigs, bulbs, roots and flowers.

Spring wildflowers take advantage of the inertia of trees and scramble to grow and multiply before the canopy steals sunlight. These flowers that bloom in the cold spring rely on nutrients stored in the previous year to supply energy.Only when leaves grow does photosynthesis add to the balance sheet of these short-lived plants.

The new green leaves of clover, nettles, vetiver, dandelions and wild lettuce are common vegetarian foods. Lily bulbs, cattail twigs and rush stems are loved by the tribe. There is also licorice, which is sweet, delicious, heat-clearing and detoxifying. The huckleberries that became soft and sweet after freezing and thawing...were all picked back.

The staple food is naturally cereals.

Lin Yu's experimental field has just harvested the third batch of grains. Some of them were selected as seeds and the rest were used for food.

The yield per mu dropped significantly in the third harvest. Even with fertilizer supplements, the fertility of the land will inevitably be depleted after intensive development.

She plans to leave the field fallow for half a year, during which time she will open another experimental field. This time she will not use the power of bluestone, but will farm and plant the same field with her tribe and let it grow naturally.

Selective breeding should not only focus on yield, but also study its disease resistance, insect resistance, and lodging resistance. These characteristics cannot be reflected in the process of rapid growth. This is one of the disadvantages of cheating with bluestone.

The food is fragrant, the men's rough voices, the women's singing and dancing, the children's flutes and the howling of wolves from time to time are intertwined together, and there is a festive atmosphere everywhere.

After a winter of exhaustion, depression, and laziness, we need such a heartfelt release to cheer us up.

Unfortunately, one good thing is missing: wine.Otherwise, it would be several times more exciting!
After the festival, it’s time to work hard.

In early spring, the weather is cold and it is not yet time for farming.

This year is undoubtedly the most stressful year. There is no food left at home, and everything is starting from scratch. The tribesmen not only have to farm, but also hunt and gather to obtain food. The tasks are heavy and there are many things to do, which is a great test of physical strength and willpower.

Fortunately, this place is rich in resources. You can save a lot of effort by relying on the fish caught in the lake and the cultivated bamboo rats.Zhang Tian roughly measured the land burned by Lin Yu in autumn with his feet. Excluding the land reserved for the camp, the remaining land was at least seven or eight hundred acres, if not one thousand acres.

There are a total of 400 people in the tribe. If they farm intensively, they won't be able to plant so much if they go into battle together, not to mention there are many children among them.

There are almost 250 young men and women together. Calculated as 250 people, considering that they have to hunt and gather and cannot farm full-time, each person can farm two acres of land. A total of [-] acres of land can be cultivated, and the yield per mu is [-] kilograms. It is calculated that [-] kilograms of grain can be harvested in a year, which can barely meet everyone's staple food needs for a year.

It doesn’t matter if it’s not enough. We can still make up for it through hunting and gathering. It is foreseeable that hunting and gathering will not be completely replaced for a long time in the future.

Before farming, canals must be built to divert water.

After some spring tidal rain, the water system in the basin has more than doubled, and it is much easier to get water now than in winter.

However, these rivers have strong seasonality. Water is available during the flood season and rainy season. At other times, the river bed is dry and very unstable.

Because the total cultivated land area is not too large, Zhang Tian's idea is to simply dig a ditch from the Xiaonan River. The water flow of the Xiaonan River is large, and there is abundant runoff even in the dry season, making it an ideal water source.

The total distance is three to four kilometers. Compared with famous water conservancy projects such as the Zhangshui Twelve Canals, Zhengguo Canal, and Ling Canal in later generations, this amount of work is really nothing. Of course, considering today's productivity, it is not too short. .

Zhang Tian asked the men to bring back more food, at least enough for two days a day, so that they could free up time to work on the project.

After the men left, he took the children to dig. Children should do physical work from an early age so that they can grow taller and stronger.

He wielded the engineering shovel and started digging toward the Xiaonan River from the camp.

Digging about one meter wide and one meter deep is enough. If necessary, we can widen or add tributaries later.

After all, the children were weak. They dug less than 200 meters in one day of hard work, broke several handfuls of stones, and Zhang Tian was exhausted.He felt that he had dug at least seven or eight cubic meters of soil!
Fortunately, the men exceeded the task and collected three days' worth of food in one day.In the next two days, everyone did nothing else but rolled up their sleeves and dug in the soil. In two days, they covered one kilometer, and one-third of the road was cleared.

In the afternoon nine days later, the trench finally reached the river. The men leaned on their tools and gasped, looking at the sky priest with burning eyes.

Zhang Tian swung his shovel and broke through the last layer of soil.

The white water instantly poured into the ditch and rushed towards the camp.

Everyone's eyes followed the water flow, and there was an endless sense of accomplishment in their hearts!
Slowly walking back to the camp along the ditch, they were greeted by the laughter and compliments of the tribesmen.

The water is available at home, which is a great news!

The men were in a great mood. No matter how tired they were, they cheered up and accepted the compliments from their tribesmen with a smile.

Zhang Tian asked the wizard to name the newly dug ditch.

Lin Yu thought for a while and said, "Let's call it Fengshou Canal."

Everyone grinned and said that this name is great!
The Harvest Canal runs through the entire cultivated land, and the furthest distance is only three to four hundred meters, which is completely acceptable.

The next day, Zhang Tian led people to dig a pond at the end of the harvest canal, filled it with water, and threw in the fish that had not been eaten that day to raise temporarily.

In the next half month, the tribesmen hoarded food to prepare for the upcoming spring plowing and took time to cultivate the land.It's working at full capacity every day, without even a chance to take a breath.

Zhang Tian lacks practical experience in farming. When it comes to rice and wheat, he can still talk about it on paper. He knows very little about corn and relies entirely on Dr. Lin's command.

Although Lin Yu studies botany and agricultural archeology, he does not have much more practical experience than Zhang Tian. Most of his knowledge comes from textbooks.

The Yellow River Basin in my country and the areas north of it have less rainfall and a drier climate, which is very unfavorable to agricultural production.In response to this actual situation, the ancients created two famous farming and cultivation methods in the Han Dynasty, the Daitian method and the District method, based on summarizing the experience of their predecessors.

Lin Yu promotes the field method, which is a farming technique in which crops are planted in ridges and furrows interchangeably in the same field.

To be more specific, it means digging three ditches and raising three ridges in one acre of land.In the first year, the crops are sown in the ditch. After the seedlings emerge, weeding needs to be done frequently and the seedlings must be blocked with ridge soil on both sides until the ridges are exhausted and the ditch is flat in summer.The next year, ditches were dug where the ridges were, and then planted according to law.

Through the method of exchanging ridges and furrows, the Daitian method realizes the principle of rotational utilization and fallow of land, achieving the purpose of balancing work and rest, and taking into account both use and nourishment. It can be called a model of intensive farming and has an obvious effect of increasing production.

She led her tribe to apply manure and soil and dig ditches to make ridges.

The Daida method has been used in northern dry farming areas for more than 2000 years. It has stood the test of time and there is no problem with the method itself.

However, this new production technology is linked to new agricultural tools, which comprehensively reflects the development of cattle farming and agricultural tool reforms in the Han Dynasty.

Relying on primitive stone and bone grass, their reclamation efficiency was much lower. With more than 200 people, they only managed to cultivate thirty or forty acres of land in half a day's work.

I just gritted my teeth and worked hard for half a month, and finally completed the reclamation of [-] acres of land.

Even though he is as strong as a tiger, he still wants to lie down and sleep for two days.

However, the weather has become warm and pleasant by this time, and the coldness of early spring has passed. You can feel the soft warmth of the ground when you step on the pitted soil with your bare feet.

Corn is a typical crop planted in spring and harvested in autumn. It is suitable for sowing in the warm spring and frost season. Of course, this refers to natural conditions. If you use bluestone, you don’t have to worry about these.

Lin Yu said: "It's time!"

So everyone could not breathe, and then went to the fields to sow seeds.

Fortunately, sowing seeds was much easier than digging furrows and ridges. People used seed sticks to lift up the soil, drill in the seeds, and then bury them in the soil. It took two days to complete the sowing of all the cultivated land.

(End of this chapter)