Of course, to these illiterate people, every character looked like a scribbled charade; the only difference was which ones looked pleasing to the eye and which ones didn't. But it didn't matter; Qiao Yu would ask them to call out their full names next time, and they'd get used to it after a while.
Once her literacy program was implemented, everyone knew how to write their own names, and this surname was passed down from generation to generation.
Qiao Yu naturally wanted to have the surname Qiao. If she told Shan that she wanted to have the surname Qiao, he probably wouldn't object, given his indulgence and the hidden respect he harbored for her.
As for Koizumi, he could take the surname Shan, his father's name, or he could choose one of the ten surnames. Of course, if Shan felt that Qiao Yu, his daughter, was of higher status than him and was willing to let his son take Qiao Yu's surname, Qiao Yu would have no objection.
After Qiao Yu finished writing the ten surnames, he leaned the slate against the wall.
"What is a surname?" Jian squatted beside her and watched Qiao Yu write. When he saw that she was done, he quickly asked a hundred thousand questions.
Qiao Yu was very experienced in dealing with primitive people who always had a lot of questions. She knew that if you patiently explained their first question, there would be countless more questions waiting for you.
So she simply and rudely refused to explain: "You'll know tonight."
Jian scratched his head: "Okay."
Qiao Yu turned around and asked Shi, "Before I went to the trade fair, I asked you to collect stones from around here. How's your collection going?"
Shi put down the stone tool in his hand, stood up and opened the door behind him. "I've been looking for stones everywhere recently, and I also asked the men, women and children who went out hunting and gathering to help collect them. They are all here."
Qiao Yu followed him into the house. When he looked up, he saw that the room of only 20 to 30 square meters was filled with stones for half of the room.
Actually, there are only about 20 or 30 types. But the quantity of each type varies, so the whole thing seems to be more.
"So many?" she asked.
"Yeah." Stone nodded. "There are many more types of stones here than in the Valley Tribe. Many of them I have never seen before."
He pointed to a small pile in the corner. "These are the ones the Valley Tribe doesn't have. It's possible they do, I just didn't notice."
Shi was skilled in polishing stone tools and was very familiar with the types of stones near the tribe. He knew which stones were hard and which were loose; where the stones were white and which hills had black or gray stones.
After arriving at this new place, his first task as a stone grinder was to familiarize himself with the nearby stone sources.
Fortunately, after arriving here, because a lot of stone tools were needed, Qiao Yuxue selected all the people who were good at polishing stone tools during the season and distributed them to Shi, including Shi's son and grandson.
Shi was now in charge of a small team of stone-polishing workers. With his men under his wing, Shi only needed to speak up and no longer had to traverse the mountains and plains to find stones. Otherwise, with his physical condition, he really wouldn't be able to complete the important task entrusted to him by Qiao Yu.
When Qiao Yu established his tribe, he designated a plot of land near the clearing at the foot of the mountain and built several houses specifically for Shi and his team of stone-polishing workers. One large house served as a workshop, while the other rooms were used to sort and store the polished stone tools. There were also two rooms: a small one for Shi and a large one with a kang (a traditional Chinese bed) for the workers to rest.
"Have you seen and understood these stones?" Qiao Yu squatted in front of the small pile of stones and looked at a stone that was black with a hint of red and some metallic luster.
There were more than a dozen such stones under her feet. The largest one was the one she was holding in her hand, which was about the size of a ping-pong ball; the smaller ones were only as big as her little finger.
"I threw them all into the fire as you instructed," Shi said, pointing to a corner of the room. "Look, that's where it was burned."
Qiao Yu ran over to look again.
After looking at it for a while, she compared one of the stones with the one she was holding and found that they were the same kind of stone. This kind of stone did not change much after being burned compared to before.
Qiao Yu called out "Jian" outside, and Shi's grandson Jian ran in and asked, "Yu, what's going on?"
"Go to the fire hall and get some fire and charcoal. I want to burn the stones." Qiao Yu ordered.
"Okay." Jian agreed and turned away.
Lighting a fire is still difficult. Qiao Yu chopped up the oily part of pine wood, mixed it with a slow-burning straw, and wove it into tight, thin strips. He then stuffed the strips into a small bamboo stick, sealed one end with mud, and covered the other with a bamboo joint lid. This made a simple tinderbox that could burn for a long time. But it was still too labor-intensive. Furthermore, tinderboxes were unsafe for children.
Therefore, she found a place near the open space at the foot of the mountain, dug a cave with half of it underground and most of it above ground according to the terrain, and built a fire hall there.
The reason for digging caves instead of building houses is that houses are made of wood, which is easy to catch fire. The caves are half open, with no doors, windows or beams, and there are no other buildings around them. Even if the fire guards were not careful and started a fire, it would not cause a fire.
Across from the fire hall, she built three rooms at a distance for Huo and two disabled people to rest during their three-shift work. A further large house was built a short distance away. Qiao Yu used mud bricks to scientifically design a row of extremely fire-saving and safe earth stoves. Just like in the valley tribe, the women could still grill meat and cook soup together on these stoves, without having to go home to use fire. They could chat and laugh together, looking after each other, while ensuring fire safety.
The stone processing workshop is not far from the fire hall.
After a while, Jian came back with a stone basin of half-burned charcoal.
Qiao Yu asked him to put the stone basin outside the house, put two black stones into the charcoal fire, picked two leaves to fan the charcoal to make it burn.
After burning for a long time, the two stones were finally completely ablaze. Qiao Yu asked Jian and another man to break some branches, put the stones between them, put them on the stone slab, and beat them with a stone hammer.
Shi frowned as he watched Qiao Yu fiddling with it and asked, "Wouldn't this just break the stone?"
"If it is broken, it is not hard. If it cannot be broken, then the stone can be used as a weapon." Qiao Yu said.
She suspected it was hematite, so she wanted Jian to try this method. Although she couldn't explain to Shi what hematite was and what iron smelting meant, her explanation was not wrong.
Shi became interested as soon as he heard it and stared at Jian and the other man hammering the stones.
After a while, Qiao Yu saw the red color of the stone fade away, so he called a stop and picked it up with a branch and held it in front of his eyes to look at it.
Although the stone had become smaller and some impurities had been knocked out, it seemed to be more compact and its shape had changed.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
