Chapter 41: Salt Mountain, Deer, and Boiling Salt



The delicious taste of salt is still fresh in the memory of everyone in the tribe.

After eating food with salt, eating grilled meat and fish without salt seems to be difficult to swallow, even though the food used to taste delicious.

It just so happened that they had good luck hunting yesterday and brought back a lot of prey, so today the eldest brother and his friends took their tools and went to the salt mountain with Han Cheng.

Yanshan is the name given to the salt mine by Han Cheng.

It's really inconvenient without a name.

To go to Yanshan, you have to pass by the place where he discovered the rapeseed. The rapeseed flowers are still blooming brilliantly, although some of them are left with only empty stalks without flowers.

Han Cheng pointed at the yellow flowers and told the people in the tribe that this was another good thing he had discovered, and asked them not to step on it.

Because they were thinking about the delicious salt, they did not pay enough attention to the wild grass that the Son of God mentioned.

After all, they see a lot of weeds every day and don’t think this kind of flowering weed is rare.

Han Cheng followed the marks he remembered yesterday and walked eastward.

Fortunately, he led everyone in the tribe to find the location of the salt mountain. He was not as unlucky as the fisherman in "Peach Blossom Spring" who marked the location everywhere and could not find the way when he went there again.

Han Cheng couldn't help but smile when he thought about this. After all, the situation he encountered was different from that of the fisherman. There was only a group of deer in Yanshan, while there was a group of people living in Taohuayuan.

People are wary and will follow, track, and change landmarks, but deer will not.

Grandpa Deer is still here with his herd, basking in the sun and eating grass leisurely. When he has nothing to do, he will lick the stone wall with his tongue.

When the eldest brother and other people in the tribe saw such a large group of deer here, their eyes immediately lit up. Hunting was already a habit for them, so they drew their weapons and prepared to attack the deer without even the eldest brother's orders.

Han Cheng stopped quickly.

He has his own ideas about this group of deer.

Han Cheng talked to his eldest senior brother, and then ordered everyone not to disturb the deer.

Then he led this group of reluctant people and walked some distance south, about a hundred meters away from the deer herd, so they could see each other without disturbing each other.

Grandpa Deer and his little brothers were quite wary of these uninvited guests at first, but when they found that the leader was the useless "two-legged beast" that they had bullied yesterday and the rest were guys who walked on two legs, and these guys did not approach them, they gradually relaxed their vigilance.

As their leader, Uncle Deer, after calming down, even walked with graceful steps and the demeanor of a king, leisurely and leisurely to the group of "two-legged beasts" who kept smashing the stone wall they used to practice their tongues.

Han Cheng quickly stopped his eldest brother and others who were so excited about the prey that they couldn't help but want to take action again. He took some rapeseed that had been eaten by the cauliflower and could not produce seeds that he had picked on the grass nearby and handed it to Uncle Deer who had the demeanor of a king.

These things were conceived by him last night and specially prepared today.

Ben's idea was to try to send the deer over if they were still there. However, he didn't expect that before he took any action, the worldly-wise Mr. Deer came to collect protection fees.

Faced with the rapeseed handed to him by Han Cheng, Uncle Lu was not polite and started eating.

After eating, it seemed that the old deer was quite satisfied with Han Cheng's considerate behavior. He made a noise, which was regarded as his recognition of the actions of these "two-legged beasts" in its territory.

Then it walked back to its group with graceful steps, holding its head high, looking like a proud general returning from victory.

With the participation of the eldest brother and other strong men who often fight against wild beasts, things like smashing stones can be done much faster.

The large pieces of rock salt that were smashed down were carried away directly, while the small pieces were placed in animal skins used to wrap fruits in the autumn and transported away.

Because this place is about ten miles away from where the tribe is located, they were worried that there might be danger in the trip back and forth, so when they transported rock salt to the tribe, they did not go alone. Instead, they smashed enough rocks for half the people to transport, and then set out together, just like when they picked fruits and transported them to the tribe in the autumn.

These are precious things accumulated over a long period of life.

Carrying things by hand or on shoulders is very slow, but there is no other way. There are no good tools at this time, so we can only use this clumsy method.

But after a day like this, a pile of large and small rock salts had piled up on the bank of the small river in front of the cave, not too far from where the pottery was made, weighing at least more than a thousand kilograms.

This is not an exaggeration. After all, rock salt is not too solid, so it is relatively easy to smash it down from the mountain.

In addition to all the members of the hunting team, there are also seven or eight half-grown children participating in the work today.

With so many people bringing back more than a thousand kilograms of rock salt a day, it's not too much at all.

There is no salt production today, all is used to transport rock salt.

After all, there aren't many times when we can get together with the eldest brother and his friends without having to go out hunting.

The task of making salt can be accomplished by Han Cheng, some children in the tribe, the lame people, and several women who are weak, pregnant, or with children.

However, the task of smashing the rock salt down from the mountain seven or eight miles away and then transporting it here was a difficult task for the elderly, the weak, women and children.

The next day, the eldest brother led people out hunting, while Han Cheng started making salt with the old pottery maker.

The eldest brother and his friends actually wanted to stay as well, as they were very interested in how to get delicious salt out of stones.

But if they didn't hunt, the tribe would have no food to eat tomorrow, so they had to go hunting.

Beside the stream, the salt-boiling business was going on in full swing, and Han Cheng divided the work according to the characteristics of each person.

Heiwa and Lame, who were stronger, were responsible for smashing the big stones into small stones, and then smashing the small stones into powder.

The few female primitives were not as strong as Lame Heiwa and his men, so they were responsible for filtering the melted salt mines using basins, dry grass and charcoal.

Xiaomei, Xiaoli, Xing and other people who are less strong are responsible for making fire and boiling salt.

Han Cheng served as a technical instructor and was responsible for taking the salt out of the pottery jar and putting it into jars after chopping it up.

It is necessary to move the salt-making site to the riverside. After all, salt-making requires a lot of water and a large area. If it is all carried out in the cave, the already humid cave will become even more uninhabitable.

As long as it is labor, there will be fatigue. Everyone is exhausted at the end of the day.

However, when they saw the half jar of delicious salt, smiles appeared on everyone's faces from the bottom of their hearts. With these delicious salts, even if they are more tired, it is worth it!


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