Chapter 64: Autumn Busy
*White Dew is too early, Cold Dew is too late; the Autumnal Equinox is just the right time to plant wheat.*
The Autumnal Equinox is the day in the solar calendar when the sun is directly over the equator, and day and night are of equal length.
The tribe currently used a rudimentary lunar calendar and didn't know the exact date of the true equinox.
However, Chen Jian estimated that it was within a few days, or perhaps a little later. The soil wasn't fully prepared and the wheat seeds weren't ideal, so planting a few days early wouldn't be a problem.
As they had done before, they began by worshipping their ancestors, praying for their blessing and a good harvest in the coming year.
Because people from the other tribes were watching, they didn't plant the reclaimed land on the first day. Instead, they chose to demonstrate how to set fire to the mountain. Time was limited now, and he wanted them to learn the technique quickly so they could return to their own lands and plant.
The weather was slightly cool and the grass was turning yellow. Though not completely dry, it was flammable enough.
Chen Jian led his people to mow some grass with stone sickles. They had plenty of seeds now and could afford to expand the scope of their slash-and-burn agriculture.
Setting a mountain fire was a highly technical task. Fire and water are merciless; if the blaze spread to the forest, all the acorns and wild fruits would be destroyed, and the winter would be grim.
He led the tribes in clearing a firebreak more than two people wide, forming a large circle around the area they intended to burn. Then, they set the fire from two sides.
The cleared channel wasn't especially wide, just enough to prevent the fire from spreading.
The temperature inside the burning area was higher, creating lower air pressure, so the wind naturally blew inward toward the flames. With fires lit on opposite sides, the two blazes moved toward each other like the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl from the myth, embracing in the center before gradually dying out.
He taught the other tribes how to manage the burn, then took them to a previously cleared plot to learn how to sow seeds.
Sowing too densely wasted seeds and blocked the sunlight; sowing too sparsely resulted in low yields and couldn't suppress the weeds.
Broadcasting seeds randomly wouldn't work, and they hadn't yet created ridges. So, Chen Jian had his people stretch out several parallel ropes, each spaced one step apart.
The children, with nothing else to do, were responsible for holding the ropes taut while the adults followed along the lines, digging with bone plows and scattering wheat seeds. In addition to wheat, they sowed peas in the spaces between the ropes.
Wheat has strong tillering ability and a shallow root system. Peas, on the other hand, need support and could climb the wheat stalks, while their deep root systems would fix nitrogen in the soil. The two crops could be grown together.
The only downside was the difficulty of separating the wheat and peas during next year's harvest. But for now, they only needed to think about sustenance; crushing them together would make a fine meal.
After demonstrating the process for everyone at the front of the field and estimating the time required, he signaled for them to begin, then turned to discuss a matter with the old grandmother and Shitou.
After two months of land reclamation, the two tribes had cultivated a total of about 200 mu. On average, each laborer could clear less than half a mu per day. Without metal farm tools, this was a respectable level of efficiency.
Since the land was cleared through the joint effort of both tribes, it was time to divide it. This would serve as a model for when other tribes moved to the area in the future.
The land was divided by paces according to the number of laborers each tribe had contributed. Chen Jian's tribe received about 150 mu, and the Shitou tribe received the remaining 50 mu.
At this stage, there was no formal government, just a simple tribal alliance, so there was no way to designate public and private land.
The two tribes would live off what they grew, contributing a portion each year as provisions for the warriors. For the first year, they would not be required to feed the soldiers sent from other tribes; that system would be gradually implemented after the newcomers had settled in and planted their own crops.
In addition to the reclaimed fields, the burned land was also divided. Using the reclaimed area as a boundary, the upstream portion belonged to Chen Jian's tribe, and the downstream portion went to the Shitou tribe.
The nearly one hundred slaves were also divided between them, but Chen Jian didn't say much about how they should be managed.
Shitou knew her tribe still owed a great debt to Chen Jian's, which would be repaid next year after the land was properly divided.
She decided to learn from Chen Jian. There were many things she didn't understand, and her tribespeople likely didn't either, but she figured that if she didn't understand something, she would simply copy his methods step-by-step. That way, she couldn't go wrong.
In her opinion, no matter how strange a decision seemed, if Chen Jian proposed it, she would agree. Living so closely together had forged a powerful trust.
Unlike the tribes living in the mountains, Shitou and her people saw the daily changes with their own eyes. Their understanding was intuitive and deep, not just a superficial appreciation of pottery and houses.
Her tribe was assigned more than 30 slaves. Shitou didn't put them to work immediately. Instead, she watched Chen Jian to see how he managed his slaves. Even if she didn't understand the reasons, she was determined to learn.
Using slaves was a troublesome business, especially in farming, where the quality of work couldn't be easily inspected. One could check their work during weeding or harvesting, but it was impossible to dig up the soil to see how deeply they had sown the seeds.
Among farmers, work could be divided into two types: day labor and piecework. Day laborers, as the name implies, worked from dawn to dusk, regardless of how much they accomplished. Pieceworkers were paid based on the amount of work they completed.
Slaves, of course, were not paid, so the efficiency of day labor was bound to be low. After all, the crops they grew were not their own, so why would they hurry?
Chen Jian estimated the labor efficiency, took the more than 60 slaves assigned to his tribe to a plot of land, and told them that once they finished planting that field for the day, they could rest.
He used ropes to mark out another section of land and told them that for every additional section they planted, ten of them would get an extra fish for dinner.
The same job held completely different meanings for different people.
The tribespeople worked for a better life; hope shone in their eyes. They had not forgotten Chen Jian's original promise: a life where they wouldn't have to venture far from the village to find enough to eat. Every time they bent their backs now was so they wouldn't have to chase wild animals in the future. Every drop of sweat was for the joy and sweetness of a future harvest.
The slaves had no hope. They just wanted to stay alive. The purpose of their labor was merely to avoid beatings and receive a meal. Their daily rations were never quite enough. For them, bending over and sweating was just the repetitive drudgery of survival.
For the sake of that extra fish, they had to work hard. There were overseers watching, and if they were caught deliberately planting too sparsely, a certain amount of food would be deducted from their rations. One person's mistake had to be borne by all.
After planting for a while, they were pleasantly surprised to find that it seemed possible to finish the main quota by the time the sun touched the mountain's edge. And if they hurried, they might even earn two more fish before sunset.
However, they didn't know that Chen Jian had already calculated for the decrease in efficiency caused by exhaustion. This was a management tactic he remembered from his previous life, one perfectly suited for managing slaves. The fish was like a carrot on a stick: their normal rations were intentionally insufficient. Only by "voluntarily" working overtime could they get enough to eat. If Chen Jian were to forbid them from working overtime, they would probably be upset.
These slaves were not like Spartacus and his followers. Those men had been free citizens with homes to return to. These people's homes had been destroyed. They had nowhere to go and could not survive alone in the wilderness. As long as there was a glimmer of hope for survival, their will to resist would remain low for the time being.
Chen Jian had no plans to oppress them to the absolute limit right now. There was still much to do, and the less he had to worry about managing the slaves, the better.
For the next month and a half, his own tribe would also be incredibly busy. Counting the slaves and the two rescued tribes, the population of his settlement had exceeded 400 people. Adding the children sent by each allied tribe, food supplies for the winter would be a bit tight.
The two rescued tribes were still nominally independent, but in reality, their fates were now tied together. The only reason for maintaining their tribal status was to gain a majority of support in the council of chiefs—a transitional phase before he could establish a more centralized leadership.
Fortunately, it was a mast year, and the mountains were full of acorns. Acorns had a high starch content and could be used as a food source.
But they also had a fatal flaw. Acorns contain a large amount of tannin, which binds with protein. If eaten in excess, it can form indigestible clumps in the stomach, leading to bloating and death.
It's the same substance that causes a cut apple to turn brown, or that can form stomach stones if one eats too many unripe persimmons. It's also responsible for the astringent taste in wine, and paradoxically, for the improved flavor of wine aged in oak barrels.
To make the acorns safe to eat, they had to be soaked in clarified limewater, which would neutralize the tannins.
This created yet another job: taking the tribesmen and slaves to dig for limestone and burn it to produce quicklime.
Fortunately, one of the tribes had brought limestone during the last trade. Otherwise, Chen Jian wouldn't have dared to let his people rely on acorns for the winter.
Besides gathering acorns and making lime, they also had to harvest hemp, shell hemp seeds, prepare the ewes for winter, crush struvite for fertilizer, ret the hemp stalks, peel the hemp fiber, clip the wings of the geese to prevent them from flying away, spin thread, and weave fishing nets...
The next month and a half was destined to be frantic; every day had to be carefully planned. Chen Jian had already abandoned his plan to improve the wheat seeds this year. There simply wasn't enough time for the tribe to go into the mountains to gather the daylilies he needed.
Thinking of all these tasks, Chen Jian felt a headache coming on. He had to think of everything, time was too short, and he had no suitable helpers.
A verse from the "Cutting Sandalwood" ode in the *Book of Songs* came to mind: *Clang, clang, the axes ring, we cut the sandalwood by the riverbank. The river runs clear and rippling. You do not sow, you do not reap, so how are three hundred bundles of grain in your yard? You do not hunt, you do not chase, so why does a badger hang in your courtyard? Oh, that nobleman, he does not eat the bread of idleness!*
They were both slave owners, yet the gap between their lifestyles was immense.
He wondered when he and his people would ever be able to live a life of "not sowing or hunting," eating the bread of idleness...
"Labor is glorious..." he muttered with a sigh, "but labor is so tiring!"
He lowered his head and continued digging into the earth, his hands full of grass roots.
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