A Bird in Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

The snow stopped, and the brick-firing plan was put into action. The brick kiln built by the river wasn't large; it could only fire a few thousand bricks at a time. Since these were bricks for building a city, they were quite large. If they were for building houses, it could probably fit over ten thousand.

After Luo Chong personally observed two kilns of bricks, he handed the task over to the tribe members. Actually, they didn't have to work every day; it was basically only once every three to four days. First, they loaded the kiln, then firing took a day, followed by filling with water to cool, which also took a day. Then came taking out the finished bricks and loading a new kiln of green bricks.

Luo Chong had thought no one would want to do this job in the winter, but the reality was unexpected – the tribe members were all eager to do it.

Later, Luo Chong figured out the reason. Since moving bricks was physical labor, Luo Chong didn't skimp on food for those doing it. Furthermore, those participating in moving bricks could eat three meals a day. Those who didn't move bricks had to stay and learn Chinese characters, and if they didn't learn well, their dinner would be halved. So everyone was scrambling to move bricks. This was simply unbelievable.

Days passed like this, one after another. Every day involved learning Chinese and Chinese characters, feeding the Sable Antelopes and rabbits, and moving bricks every few days. It was ordinary yet fulfilling.

When people weren't busy, they would chat in Chinese. They couldn't help but use it because many things could only be expressed with the Chinese Luo Chong taught; the native dialect of the original tribe simply couldn't describe those new things.

Some people were also making ornaments to decorate themselves, and surprisingly, it was mostly men. Bone necklaces, stone necklaces, feathers, all sorts of things, they were practically piling them on.

Luo Chong didn't understand why. Later, the Elder told him that to prevent inbreeding from causing degeneration, many tribes would gather in the spring for a matchmaking event. Young men and women who had just come of age could participate. If a woman found a man pleasing to the eye, she would follow him back to his tribe.

The standard for being "pleasing to the eye" was based on how strong you were, the strength of your tribe, and the abundance of food. You could gauge this by observing the bone ornaments on the man.

If you carried a particularly long thigh bone as a weapon, it meant your tribe definitely had the strength to hunt large beasts, and it also indicated that your tribe wouldn't lack food. If you were covered in bone ornaments, it meant there was a lot of food in the tribe, otherwise, where would so many bones come from?

Ah, that makes so much sense, Luo Chong was speechless.

Actually, this was pretty similar to animal courtship. Deer would compete to see whose antlers were bigger, cattle and sheep would butt heads, and even small birds would first build a beautiful nest to attract a female bird to lay eggs in. Humans were the same; it was just that modern humans placed the most importance on the amount of food.

But did the Han Tribe lack women? They clearly didn't! What the Han Tribe lacked was men. Why was everyone so overly enthusiastic? Weren't there enough women in their own tribe? Luo Chong looked down on them.

However, this time Luo Chong had misunderstood them. Everyone knew their own tribe had many women, and they came from three different tribes, so there was no question of inbreeding. There was absolutely no need to look outside. It was just that having grown up, making ornaments every winter had become a habit.

Moreover, this year Luo Chong had given everyone a challenge. In the past, many ornaments were worn on the head, but this year everyone had tied their hair up. Suddenly, no one knew how to decorate their hair, so they could only make necklaces to wear around their necks.

Currently, throughout the entire tribe, only Luo Chong used a snakeskin hair tie to bind his hair and inserted a Bone Hairpin. Others had no decorations on their heads at all; they just casually found a strip of fabric to tie their hair, without even a Hairpin, just to distinguish themselves from the Chieftain.

Luo Chong himself also felt something was missing. Ancient people also had the habit of wearing hats. Based on the style of the hat, you could tell what a person did. Besides hats, there were various Hairpins, and right, there were also Coronets.

And so, Luo Chong brought back the Coronet as a form of adornment. Additionally, since woodworking tools had also been created, Luo Chong had Mutong make a batch of wooden combs.

A Coronet, also known as a headband, was worn on top of the head to form a Hair Bun, and the Coronet was a headband placed over the Hair Bun. Coronets were mostly made of gold and silver, or leather, jade, and also mixed materials, such as gold inlaid with jade, or leather inlaid with jade. The styles were varied and it was a very beautiful ornament.

It was fine for everyone to wear a Coronet; to distinguish themselves from the Chieftain, the style and material just needed to be different.

Since ancient times, gold had been a symbol of nobility. The Han Tribe didn't have gold, but they had copper and tin. The color of these materials was similar to gold and silver, so Luo Chong's Coronet was made of copper.

First, a Coronet was carved from a wooden board, on which patterns or characters could be engraved, such as intricate carvings. Luo Chong's Coronet had intricate carvings; this was also done to reduce weight. If it was just a simple copper hoop, it would be too heavy. There was also the character 'Han' on it.

After the wooden board was carved, an indentation was pressed into a clay block to be used as a mold. Then, molten copper was poured into the mold, resulting in a thin, hollow Copper Plate. The Copper Plate was then rolled around a wooden rod about the thickness of a wrist and hammered into a circular shape. It was then secured with a copper Hairpin.

Luo Chong, wearing a 'gold' Coronet on his head, naturally became even more impressive. This time, it was like upgrading from a bird gun to a cannon. Since he had upgraded, he couldn't leave the heads of his tribe members completely bare. So, he also made a silver one for Dashu using tin. The pattern on it was a tree, and Dashu loved it.

Under Luo Chong's guidance, the other adult males also made some headbands made of leather, and even some made of wood, as well as bone Hairpins or wooden Hairpins. Luo Chong also distributed the large teeth of the Lungfish they had gotten from their last outing, and they were ground into various shapes and glued onto the headbands.

From then on, there was a new rule in the Han Tribe: children could only tie their hair or wear headbands, but they couldn't insert Hairpins; adult men could wear Coronets or headbands, and they had to insert Hairpins to distinguish adults from minors.

With combs, the women no longer only wore ponytails. Adult women had to wear their hair in a bun and could use wooden combs or Hairpins as hair accessories. Unmarried girls could wear ponytails, have their hair down, or braid it, and also use Hairpins for decoration.

Metal was a strategic resource and couldn't be used by everyone for ornaments. So, Luo Chong distributed metal ornaments as rewards. Anyone who had contributed to the tribe had a chance to get one.

After a series of reforms, in the Han Tribe, you could now tell a person's status, age group, or whether they had contributed to the tribe just by looking at their head.

Qu Bing's headband was also made by Luo Chong, made of python skin wrapped around wood, with a cloud-patterned copper buckle on it. It was rewarded to him for being the fastest to learn Chinese characters. Qu Bing was very happy and would touch the copper buckle on his head when he had nothing to do. He was the first child among the children to own a metal ornament.

Actually, Luo Chong put so much effort into making ornaments not just to distinguish the different levels of the tribe members, but also because of that matchmaking event.

Of course, he wasn't going for matchmaking, but to meet people from other tribes and see if they could do some trading.

In the past, the Han Tribe relied on trading with Baldy's tribe for salt. Now that Baldy's tribe was gone, Luo Chong wanted to find a new seller before he found a salt mine.

One should know that the Pottery of the Han Tribe was very valuable. Luo Chong not only wanted to trade Pottery for salt but also wanted to buy some people back. If he relied on the current population of less than 200 to reproduce on their own, he wouldn't be able to fill one of Luo Chong's cities even in the next few lifetimes.

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