Luo Chong was lucky. Felling fir trees had not been as difficult as he had imagined. After carefully searching through the fir grove, he found two young trees as thick as a thigh. They had apparently been knocked down by some animal and were lying across the mountain slope, already dried in the shade. They were perfect for making bows, though it took his companions two trips to carry them down.
With so few tools, making a longbow in two days was rather difficult. As the saying went, "To do good work, one first needed sharp tools." Making the Stone Axe, Stone Chisel, and Stone Knife alone took a whole day.
After another full day of chopping and carving, the one-and-a-half-meter Fir Wood Longbow finally began to take shape. It took another day of careful straightening and polishing before it could be considered finished.
The bowstring was twisted from Sisal Fiber. It had no elasticity at all, but its tensile strength was excellent; otherwise, it could not have been used as the cable for a crane.
All the arrows were cut to a length of one meter. The unit of measurement was not precise, merely an estimate. They took the width of an adult's ring-finger nail as one centimeter. With this basic value, everything else became much easier.
Luo Chong would definitely promote the centimeter as a unit of length in the future. As proven by fact, the metric system was the most conducive to the development and advancement of science.
The arrows had no arrowheads. Stone arrowheads were difficult to grind, while they had no suitable Beast Teeth. The pig teeth they had obtained last time were larger than the arrow shafts, and there were not many of them. Luo Chong had given them all to Qu Bing to make into a necklace. The arrow shafts had originally been made from sharp spikes, so they were more than capable of killing beasts. Since they were not considering armor-piercing ability for now, this was enough.
The fletching was made from the blue-green feathers of Terror Birds. He first secured them with Sisal Fiber, then glued them firmly with Fish Maw Glue. In one go, he made more than two hundred.
Three days later, one evening, after all the tribespeople had returned, Luo Chong summoned everyone to the open ground. Thirty meters away from him stood a Straw Target, with several Groundhogs caught that day hanging from it.
Luo Chong first demonstrated Spear Throwing for everyone. At a distance of thirty meters, every throw struck the target. After that came close-range thrusting with a long spear.
The tribespeople watched in great excitement. Only now did they realize that the weapons Chieftain had been making these past few days were all for them.
Luo Chong gave every adult, regardless of gender, one White-shafted Long Spear, while each member of the Hunting Team received three. Two were for throwing, and the remaining one was for close-range killing. Even children nearing adulthood received one each, regardless of gender. Every day, aside from pulling weeds and playing, they had to practice Spear Throwing.
The White-shafted Long Spears looked excellent—smooth and straight. One alone might not seem like much, but when dozens of identical ones were placed together, the sight was magnificent. Even someone with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder would have found it soothing.
The tribespeople were all delighted. They could not bear to part with these standardized weapons, especially the youths who had never participated in hunting. They were intensely curious about them.
The Hunting Team was no exception. These were the first standardized weapons they had ever been equipped with, and aside from throwing stones, they were the only weapons capable of attacking from a distance. With White-shafted Long Spears, Luo Chong believed it would not be long before they could bring back larger prey.
If the long spears excited them, then the bows and arrows had already been worshiped as divine objects.
At a distance of seventy meters—roughly a hundred paces, the distance used in Olympic competitions—five arrows in succession all struck the Groundhog. The adults stood there dumbfounded, marveling as though they had witnessed a god, unable to understand the principle behind it. The children shoved their way forward, desperate to touch the bow. Stars seemed to shine in their eyes, and drool even dribbled from their mouths.
However, Luo Chong had only demonstrated it for them. He was not ready to introduce bows and arrows yet, merely telling them that they were difficult to make and that everyone would have them in the future.
Luo Chong's longbow was only one and a half meters long, so it was not suitable for everyone. An adult would need one at least 1.8 meters long to unleash the longbow's full power. As for being unable to draw the bow, that was out of the question. Any woman here was stronger than an adult man on Earth.
Then there was the issue of accuracy. Luo Chong shot so precisely because he had made the bow himself. No one understood its principles and performance better than he did, and he had once seriously practiced archery. If bows and arrows were to be introduced later, they would require extensive practice. For now, simply making sure everyone had a bow was not something that could be accomplished in a short time.
After successfully introducing the long spears, Luo Chong began studying other things.
The two black Wild Boar hides had been soaking in lye made from wood ash and water for several days. After repeated scraping, kneading, washing, and other steps, they had become extremely tough and flexible.
Since they could not be made into warm clothing, he decided to use them for Leather Boots. He cut soles according to the size and shape of the feet. Each sole was three layers thick, glued together with Fish Maw Glue and pressed tight with stones. He then glued prepared uppers onto them, and a simple pair of Leather Boots was finished.
Without Steel Needles or awls, they had no way to sew them together and could only glue them. Fortunately, Fish Maw Glue was sturdy enough, so this did not affect their use.
To make sure everyone could wear shoes, only Luo Chong's boots in the entire tribe were made entirely from pigskin. Everyone else could use pigskin only for the soles: two layers of pigskin and one layer of Groundhog hide. Groundhog hide was covered in fur, and the uppers were made from it as well, with the furry sides facing inward. They were practically the same as modern cotton-lined boots.
Qu Bing's boots had been made personally by Luo Chong. They used white rabbit hide with pigskin soles. The shafts reached all the way to his knees, wrapping around his calves and keeping them very warm. The little brat showed them off to everyone every day, grinning whenever he saw anyone.
After Luo Chong's enthusiastic handiwork, the tribe's already scarce supply of small pieces of hide had been completely used up. The weather was growing colder, and the need for animal hide was pressing.
Luo Chong had the most to wear, but even he had only an Animal Skin Robe and a pair of Leather Boots. He especially wanted a pair of trousers; otherwise, there was no way he could leave the cave in winter.
That was the treatment of the Chieftain, to say nothing of his companions who were still running around bare-bottomed. Heaven knew how they endured it. Fortunately, they could now drink hot soup every day to warm themselves. Otherwise, Luo Chong reckoned that someone would definitely fall ill from the cold.
Lame had fired a great many pottery wares. Water Jars and Pottery Pots increased at a rate of four a day, and there were already dozens of them. They had stopped firing Pottery Bowls long ago; three per person were more than enough. Later, they fired two batches of jars, urns, plates, and similar items, then completely halted pottery production.
Luo Chong assigned him a new task: firing bricks, with no limit on quantity—the more, the better. Once they had enough bricks, they could build a larger kiln to fire big Water Jars and similar items, or even use the bricks to build walls.
The tasks he had assigned his companions—pulling weeds and clearing the shrubs—were also nearly complete.
The cave faced south with its back to the north. In front lay a vast open area. The Small River was more than nine hundred meters to the east, the jungle more than a thousand meters to the north, and another stretch of jungle roughly fifteen hundred meters to the west, in the direction of Baldy's tribe.
This enormous open area contained only grass and shrubs. Once it was all cleared, they could build houses or plant fields there. Unfortunately, they still had no suitable seeds, so they could only plant some chili peppers.
Luo Chong did not intend to plant Sisal Fiber here. It was a perennial plant: once planted, it could be harvested every year without repeated cultivation. Thus, he planned to plant it on the rear mountain, squeezing the Man-eating Trees out of their living space.
After arranging these long-term tasks, Luo Chong prepared to set out on a long journey. He wanted to search for large herbivores—even sheep would do. At present, all he wanted was fur-covered animal hide, and the more, the better.
To make such a long trip, he had been preparing his equipment for quite some time, especially a pair of durable Leather Boots.
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Thanks to book friend 20180913115233701
Ice Cloud Speaking Moon
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