Lying dormant in winter

The first heavy snow finally came swirling down, covering the entire valley snugly beneath an enormous white blanket. The distant mountains, nearby trees, and newly built earthen walls all wore thick coats of silver. The world seemed to fall silent in an instant, leaving only the howling north wind and the rustle of branches bending beneath the snow.

Yet amid this silver-clad landscape, the Fire Tribe's valley revealed a different kind of vitality and warmth.

The deep snow and bitter cold shut most dangers outside the walls. Following the established strategy, the tribe entered a period of "dormancy."

· Watch duty and hunting: the Warrior Team's sentries still held their posts atop the walls and beacon towers, dressed in thick fur coats as they watched the boundless white wilderness vigilantly. Small hunting parties followed cleared, safe paths to check the traps they had set earlier. Occasionally, they brought back a frozen-stiff hare or a foolish roe deer, an unexpected addition to their meals. Ice fishing also yielded the occasional catch, but it was no longer a primary source of food.

· Indoor work: the women gathered in several of the largest huts, working by the light and warmth of charcoal braziers. Their needles flew as they worked tanned hides, wove hemp cloth, and mended clothing and fishing nets. The air was filled with the mingled scents of fur and smoke. The livestock pens had their roofs reinforced and were lined with thick layers of dry grass. The animals huddled together for warmth, watched over by designated caretakers.

· Food distribution: managing the storehouse became especially important. Every day, under Jianya's personal supervision, the day's food rations were precisely calculated and distributed using the new counting method Wang Yan had begun introducing, ensuring fairness while preventing waste. Ample reserves set the tribespeople's minds at ease. Although their food had become monotonous, no one went hungry.

The long winter days gave Wang Yan an excellent opportunity to introduce mathematics education. With Chief Jianshi's wholehearted support, the plan quickly got underway throughout the tribe.

Wang Yan first gathered all the personnel who needed to manage supplies-the company commanders, squad leaders, storehouse keepers, gathering team leaders, and others-as well as all eight squad leaders of the Youth Team, in the chief's large hut. There, he began the "First Fire Tribe Mathematics Training Course for Key Personnel."

Beside a charcoal brazier, Wang Yan used charcoal to write the ten numerical symbols "0, 1, 2, 3...9" on a smoothly polished stone slab serving as a temporary blackboard.

"This circle represents having none. It's 'zero.'"

"This vertical stroke represents one. It's 'one.'"

"The one that looks like a duck is 'two'..."

He patiently explained how to write each symbol and what it meant. At first, even experienced elders such as Jianya and Dali found these winding symbols as incomprehensible as a heavenly script, far less intuitive than knotted cords. Younger people such as Shibang and Yingmu found them novel and worked hard to memorize them.

With tireless patience, Wang Yan used the most familiar things around them as examples.

"Uncle Dali, your company has fifty people. That's a 5 followed by a 0, like this-50."

"The storehouse distributed one hundred and twenty dried fish today. That's 1, 2, 0."

He then introduced the concepts of addition and subtraction.

"Yesterday, we had 500 fish in the storehouse. Today, we ate 50. How many are left? 500 minus 50 is 450."

"Shibang's company has 42 people, and Yingmu's has 43. How many people are there in the two companies altogether? 42 plus 43 is 85."

He arranged little wooden sticks, demonstrating over and over. Gradually, sparks of understanding began to flicker in the eyes of these key personnel. They began to understand that, when combined, these seemingly strange symbols could express quantities so clearly and precisely, resolving the uncertainties and confusion they encountered in their daily management!

Once the key personnel had grasped the basics, the Fire Tribe's "mathematical literacy" campaign spread at an astonishing speed.

· The Youth Team became the main force: Shibang, Yingmu, and the eight squad leaders became the most enthusiastic "little teachers." Each day, they set aside a fixed period during the Youth Team's training to teach the members what they had just learned. More than eighty youths became more than eighty sparks spreading knowledge.

· Homes became classrooms: Wang Yan encouraged the "little teachers" to teach their families after returning home. Inside the huts, beside the charcoal fires, children could often be seen writing and drawing on the ground with wooden sticks while their parents watched and learned with curiosity and concentration. "My boy taught me to count to a hundred today!" became something worth boasting about in the tribe.

· Learning through play: Wang Yan devised a few simple games. For instance, different quantities of pebbles represented numbers in contests to "see who can calculate fastest," or food distribution was simulated so everyone could put addition and subtraction into practice.

The campaign was not all smooth sailing. For many elders accustomed to keeping records with knotted cords, accepting something new was particularly difficult. They often forgot the next day what they had learned that day. Some adults also considered it "children's stuff" and could not swallow their pride enough to learn.

Wang Yan and Jianshi took a gentle but firm approach to this. They encouraged rather than forced. At one gathering of the entire tribe, Jianshi even personally used the new numbers to count the members of the Warrior Team. His speed and accuracy silenced every doubter. At the same time, cleverly linking mathematical ability to tangible benefits such as managing supplies and selection as squad leaders also kindled everyone's enthusiasm for learning.

As time passed, the results began to show. The storehouse accounts became increasingly clear, and arguments during the distribution of supplies decreased noticeably. During simulated tactical exercises, the children of the Youth Team had already begun trying to calculate distances and personnel allocations. A more precise, rational way of thinking was quietly beginning to sprout within this primitive tribe.

Outside the windows lay a world of ice and snow, but inside surged a fervor for knowledge. This winter, the people of the Fire Tribe not only used food and firewood to keep the cold from their bodies, but also used their newly acquired knowledge to kindle the flames of wisdom in their hearts. Though these flames seemed faint, they held boundless power to illuminate the future and change the course of civilization. When spring arrived and the ice and snow melted, a Fire Tribe transformed not only in military strength and agriculture, but also in wisdom, would bring an even greater shock to this land. The seeds of knowledge had been buried deep in winter, quietly awaiting the moment they would break through the soil.