Zhou Xu's Line of Thinking

Names were a problem. Their tribe now had only a little over sixty people, but even among them, duplicate names had already become a serious issue.

The fundamental reason was that there were simply too few names the primitive people could think of.

Put bluntly, they were uneducated.

He had asked the people in the tribe about it long ago. Although an Old Civilization once existed in this world under the rule of the Old Gods, they themselves could not read.

But thinking about it, that made sense. Just staying alive every day was already difficult enough. Where would they find the spare time to learn how to read?

In fact, even now that the tribe had begun to take shape, Zhou Xu had no time to deal with this.

But the problem of names had to be dealt with somehow.

They could not keep calling out "Dashan" and have a whole crowd of Dashans come running over to ask what he wanted, could they?

With that thought, Zhou Xu immediately gave Ye Jinghong his orders.

He himself had no time to name the rest of the tribe members one by one. Otherwise, if he had to name every single person from then on, when would he ever finish?

Thus, Zhou Xu recited a string of the Hundred Family Surnames to Ye Jinghong and had him memorize them first. After that, the tribe members could choose any surname they liked and simply place it before their own names.

Even if they were all named Dashan, Zhao Dashan, Li Dashan, and Sun Dashan could be effectively distinguished as long as people used both their given and family names. The problem was thus more or less solved.

Ye Jinghong's intelligence ceiling was three stars. With his potential fully developed, his mind was enough to make him stand out from ordinary people and become one of the very few exceptional individuals in this world.

After following Zhou Xu through the list several times, he quickly memorized the surnames.

Since it was already getting late, they spent the night resting at Salt Lake Camp.

That very evening, Ye Jinghong called over all the tribe members at the camp and assigned them the task of choosing names.

Early the next morning, Shi Lei, as the person in charge of Salt Lake Camp, stayed behind, while Ye Jinghong accompanied Zhou Xu to Black Moon Camp.

Of course, before setting out, Ye Jinghong took Shi Lei around once more and familiarized him with the daily affairs.

After that, they hurried off. Moving quickly, they successfully reached Black Moon Camp before noon. Nothing unexpected happened along the way.

The people from Salt Lake Tribe all knew him, of course. As for the former members of Black Moon Tribe, after witnessing Zhuang Mengdie's capabilities, they naturally did not dare underestimate Ye Jinghong, who had likewise been sent down from above.

After a simple introduction, Ye Jinghong did not waste any time. He once again carried out the task of assigning names that had been given to him earlier, showing no intention of taking a break.

The task itself was not difficult and basically required no attention from him. At that moment, Zhou Xu's attention was entirely focused on the snare trap before him.

There had simply been too many things to deal with lately, leaving him with almost no time to study it.

But he had nearly finished researching the trap already. Once he settled his mind and pondered it briefly, he quickly figured out the key points.

"It's done!"

Holding the finished snare trap in his hands, Zhou Xu split his lips into a grin.

He immediately signaled a subordinate nearby to catch a wild rabbit from the rabbit cage for testing.

To prevent the rabbit from accidentally escaping, they had first tied a sufficiently long bark rope to one of its hind legs, then guided it toward the prepared snare trap.

The next second, the moment the wild rabbit touched it, the trap sprang up and caught one of its hind legs.

The frightened rabbit struggled desperately, but the more it struggled, the tighter the snare became. Breaking free was impossible.

Needless to say, the snare trap was a success.

"Mengdie, come help me weave these."

Now that the snare trap had been successfully developed, the basket-cover traps from before could officially retire.

That was not to say they were ineffective. In fact, basket-cover traps worked well, but they required manpower.

By comparison, snare traps had far lower manpower requirements.

Once deployed, there was no need to watch them constantly. They only needed to be checked from time to time.

A large area could be handled by a single person, which greatly saved their tribe's manpower.

As for the discarded basket-cover traps, they were essentially nothing more than bark baskets. Once brought back to the tribe, they could still be used as baskets, so there was no waste.

After learning the steps, making snare traps was simple. One could be finished in just a few movements, far less tedious and time-consuming than weaving baskets.

With that in mind, Zhuang Mengdie and the others no longer needed to continue weaving bark baskets for the time being. What should they do with the extra capacity in the handicraft department?

Naturally, they would begin weaving new fishing nets!

Raising wild rabbits would take time. During that period, they could eat some of them when appropriate, but for now, the rabbits definitely could not be treated as their main food source. Their focus still had to remain on fishing.

Thus, upgrading the fishing nets and improving fishing efficiency became the handicraft department's primary task.

However, the grinding and production of stone tools such as stone axes and stone picks could not stop either.

These kinds of stone tools were typical consumables. Stone picks in particular were currently supplied mainly to the mine at Salt Lake Camp for the miners to use.

As a result, stone picks wore out heavily, and they had to keep making new ones every day.

Under these circumstances, stone axes had originally been stone tools with relatively low wear. After all, Zhou Xu and the others had previously only used stone axes in combat.

But things were different now. They needed to use stone axes to chop down trees and stockpile timber.

Without even mentioning the timber needed for the tribe's future development and construction, just consider the matter at hand: he planned to increase the number of rafts at Black Moon Camp to four.

At present, Black Moon Camp had only two rafts for fishing.

What did that represent?

It meant they could send out at most two rafts and two fishing nets to fish on the lake at the same time.

But if they increased the number to four, their efficiency could immediately double!

As a modern man, Zhou Xu had naturally also considered whether fishing the lake's fish so aggressively might lead to overfishing and affect the lake's freshwater fish production in the future.

After all, people developing in this way believed in a steady stream of benefits. He had no intention of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Starting from this point, Zhou Xu reached the conclusion that there would be no major problem in the short term.

The primitive people had never known how to fish before. In other words, the fish in this lake had barely been caught at all in the past. This meant the lake held an enormous number of freshwater fish, each one plump and robust.

Given that, and considering the lake's size as well as the current population of their tribe, it would be difficult for them to pose a threat to the lake's freshwater fish at the species level.

Even so, Zhou Xu had already thought out his follow-up plans.

The core of those plans lay in raising wild rabbits.

A rabbit could produce six to eight litters a year, with each litter containing roughly six to eight kits. The kits could begin breeding after five or six months, and after a one-month pregnancy, they could give birth.

With such reproductive ability, once they had raised one or two litters of kits, their tribe would soon be able to maintain a stable supply of rabbit meat.

By then, with a new food source, their demand for fish would fall. Naturally, they would avoid overfishing.