Fishponds

The shock brought by the new fishing net was like a massive rock hurled into a tranquil lake. The next day, without Jianshi needing to rally them any further, the twenty selected tribespeople-mostly nimble-handed women and teenage boys-gathered early in the clearing outside Wang Yan's "hemp workshop."

Looking at the faces before him, brimming with anticipation and enthusiasm, Wang Yan felt filled with strength as well. First, he divided everyone into three groups.

The first group, led by the meticulous Aunt Baiya, was dedicated to processing hemp stalks. They soaked, pounded, and rinsed them to separate out the precious hemp fibers.

The second group, led by Gubang and Daya, who already had some experience, was responsible for twisting the hemp fibers into threads of even thickness.

The third group, led by Wang Yan himself, included Shouchai and several of the most dexterous people. They were responsible for combining the hemp threads into thicker ropes and weaving new fishing nets.

He taught everyone hands-on how to tie those strong fishing-net knots that would not easily come loose, and how to control the size of the mesh. Many hands made great strength. Though they were all thumbs at first, producing ropes of uneven thickness and crooked mesh, under Wang Yan's patient guidance and repeated demonstrations, they gradually got the knack.

Meanwhile, the "frog-fishing squad" led by Shibang continued to provide a steady supply of frog meat every day, and the shrimp traps Gubang and the others had set earlier kept yielding good catches as well. On top of that, once the new fishing net went into use, the fishing team-temporarily operated in shifts by several people who had learned to weave nets-could bring back a hundred jin or even more fish from the river almost every day.

Food became more plentiful than ever before.

The large clay pot and small stone pot were busy almost from morning to night, cooking delicious fish soup, frog meat, or shrimp and crabs. Even the hunting team felt much more at ease when they went out, no longer treating every hunt as a test of life and death as they had before.

Yet Wang Yan saw the hidden problems.

The first was food preservation. They were catching large quantities of fish, but apart from eating them on the spot or drying them in the sun, they had no better way to preserve them. Sun-drying fish depended heavily on the weather, and the flavor lacked variety; eating it for too long grew tiresome. More importantly, the tribe's stores of precious coarse salt used to cure meat were nearly exhausted.

That evening, the family sat around the fire eating, with fragrant boiled fish pieces in their bowls. Wang Yan put down his clay bowl and said to Jianshi and Qingye, "Father, Mother, we're catching plenty of fish now, but when we dry them, they're hard and salty to eat, and they aren't easy to store either. We don't have much salt left in the tribe, do we?"

At the mention of salt, Qingye immediately furrowed her brows. "That's right. We got this salt at last year's autumn gathering, trading several prime hides for it with the Fish Tribe. Around here, the Fish Tribe is the only place where we can trade for salt. It's terribly precious."

Salt was essential for survival. Without salt, people would have no strength, and food could not be preserved. Before, when food was scarce, the need for salt had not been so urgent. Now that there was more meat, salt was being used up faster.

Jianshi's expression grew grave as well. "The autumn gathering is still some time away, and this year we planned to trade mainly with pottery. We don't have many hides in reserve. Salt... is indeed a problem."

Wang Yan took the opportunity to put forward his idea. "Father, Mother, dried fish doesn't taste good when we eat too much of it, and we're short on salt. I was thinking, could we dig a few small ponds near the tribe and keep the live fish we can't eat right away in them? Whenever we want to eat some, we can scoop them out, and they'll all be fresh! That would reduce our reliance on salt for drying fish, and the fish would taste better too."

"Dig ponds? Raise fish?" Jianshi paused in surprise. "Put fish from the river into holes we dig? Won't they escape? Won't they die?"

"We'll choose somewhere not far from the stream to dig," Wang Yan said, having already thought it through. "Once we've dug them, we'll lead a small channel in from the stream to keep the water flowing, so the fish won't die so easily. We'll make the pond openings a little smaller and block them with branches and stones, so the fish can't escape. We can start by putting in fish that don't die easily, grow quickly, and are easy to raise."

Qingye was the first to be won over. "That sounds like a good idea! Keeping fish alive really would make for much tastier food than dried dead fish. And right beside the tribe, it would be safe and convenient too."

Jianshi weighed the advantages and disadvantages. Digging ponds would require labor, but the tribe now had ample food and could spare some workers. Besides, this did seem capable of solving some of their food storage and salt shortage problems.

"Good!" Jianshi was not an indecisive man. "Tomorrow, have the hunting team staying behind to rest send half its men, led by... by Dazhuang! Together with some of those twenty people you've assigned, they'll first choose a spot and dig the ponds! We'll dig two to try it out!"

The next day, the new project began. Under Wang Yan's direction, Dazhuang led five strong workers from the hunting team, along with ten tribespeople responsible for making ropes and weaving nets, to a flat patch of easily dug ground near the lower reaches of the stream beside the tribe, where they marked out the outlines of two large, square pits.

The hunting team's warriors were strong and took charge of digging the earth with stone shovels and bone spades; the others carried away the excavated soil or, following Wang Yan's instructions, selected suitable flat stones by the stream, preparing to use them to line the ponds' sloping banks and build their inlets and outlets.

The whole worksite bustled with fiery energy. Though their tools were crude, with so many people working as one, progress was not slow. Wang Yan moved through the worksite, guiding them on how to dig, how to leave openings for the water, and how to tamp the sloping banks until they were firm and smooth.

Looking at the ponds beginning to take shape, Wang Yan felt a little relieved. Building fishponds was a stopgap measure to deal with their current surplus of food and shortage of salt.

But he knew that the salt problem was far more complicated and urgent than building fishponds. They could make pottery themselves, grow hemp themselves, and raise fish themselves, but salt required a specific source. Was there a source of salt near the Fire Tribe?