Golden Retriever looked at Yao Xiaoqing, scratched his head and barked twice, then squatted down next to Yao Xiaoqing with his wife and children.
Muba and Xiongniu arranged for the warriors to keep vigil, and everyone fell down on the animal skin mats and fell asleep.
Golden Retriever huddled at Yao Xiaoqing's feet with his wife and children. When it was almost dawn, he glanced at Yao Xiaoqing, climbed up the pine tree with his wife and children and left.
Yao Xiaoqing woke up and looked around but couldn't find the Golden Retriever family.
The warrior Asong said to her: "Qing Wu, Golden Retriever took those two and left at dawn."
Yao Xiaoqing nodded, "The forest is its home." She would not leave it behind, as long as she knew it was fine, after all, the golden retriever was the first creature she encountered in this world.
The next day, a group of people continued to walk through the woods, and Yao Xiaoqing also found some herbs.
It took a group of people three or four days to find almost all the Poria cocos in this forest, and the bamboo baskets and bamboo baskets they brought were already full.
Yao Xiaoqing and Muba and others went to the mountain area outside the pine forest. As expected, there was a jujube forest there, but most of the jujube trees had been frozen to death.
Only the small jujube trees had sprouted new branches. A few people found a few small jujube trees in a sheltered area in the forest, dug them up, put them on the backs of the cattle, and started walking back.
Everyone went back to unload the Poria cocos, rested for a day, and then set off into the mountains again.
At noon, a fine drizzle like ox hair began to fall, dyeing the new grass green, and the faint fragrance of the grass mixed with the smell of rotting soil in the mountains and forests, filling the mountains and fields.
Looking at the weather like this, Grandma Shan was a little worried, "Xiaoqing, it's still not hot today. Will the millet in the ground produce millet?"
She felt that although the heat was unbearable in the past two years, the millet and beans in the fields grew well.
It rained for more than ten days last year, and the millet harvested were all empty shells. Xiaoqing said that the millet grains were filling, and without the sun they would be empty shells.
Yao Xiaoqing looked at the sky and said, "It's okay now. The hottest days are the grain-filling period of the millet. If the weather remains like this, our millet will only be able to feed livestock.
That's why I asked everyone to go into the mountains to collect poria and taro, and let the leopards and the others catch as many living animals as possible to raise.
Let Uncle Achun and Uncle Agen hatch more chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Even if the harvest of pumpkins, millet, and beans is not much, there will still be Poria cocos and livestock."
After hearing this, everyone understood why Yao Xiaoqing didn't let them go out to collect wild vegetables and took everyone out to collect poria and taro.
The drizzle fell for two or three hours before it stopped, and everyone arrived in front of a pine forest.
Yao Xiaoqing saw a mulberry forest not far from the pine forest, and she suddenly thought of camphor silkworm cocoons. Are there silkworm cocoons in the mulberry forest?
"Amu, you go in first, Brother Niu and I will go to see the mulberry forest over there."
Shan'am turned around and said, "Okay, let's look outside the forest first."
Yao Xiaoqing nodded, and he and the bull pulled up waist-deep weeds and walked to the mulberry forest, "Brother Niu, look for any fat, white insects on the trees."
The male bull looked at her and smiled and said: "There are no fat and white bugs. Why are you looking for a fat and white bug?"
Yao Xiaoqing smiled and said, "Look for it, I can use it."
The bull nodded, and the two of them dug up the mulberry leaves and found a few mulberry trees. Yao Xiaoqing saw something brown on the trees, with a small head, two particularly bulging sections on the chest, and some uneven surfaces.
There is an ugly bug with a pointy thing on the top of the back of the butt.
The male bull came over with a piece of mulberry leaf with several bugs on it. "Xiao Qing, there are not the fat white bugs you mentioned. I found a lot of these ugly things."
Yao Xiaoqing took a look and found that it was no different from the one she found. "The one I found is also like this. It's just that the color is lighter."
Xiong Niu looked at her disappointed look and said, "Xiao Qing, what are you looking for that insect for?"
Yao Xiaoqing thought for a moment, "I know that there is a fat, white insect that produces something called a cocoon. It's a bit like the cocoon on the camphor tree we cut down last year. It's bigger and whiter than it."
The bull frowned, "I think I've seen it there before!"
"Really?" Yao Xiaoqing grabbed the bull's arm excitedly.
The bull thought for a long time, "Haha! I remember it. I saw it on the acorn tree at the foot of the mountain. It's not white but a little yellow."
Yao Xiaoqing lost interest when he heard the one on the oak tree, "Oh! It's different from what I want. Let's look for it again. If it doesn't find it, we'll go to the pine forest to look for Poria cocos."
Xiong Niu nodded, unable to bear her disappointment, and comforted her with a smile: "Xiao Qing, wait until I find that thing and show it to you."
"Okay." Yao Xiaoqing said.
The two of them searched around and found that except for the different colors, they were all the same kind of ugly bugs. They couldn't find any white and fat silkworm babies.
Disappointed, Yao Xiaoqing and Xiong Niu returned to the pine forest and continued to search for Poria cocos. The people who were separated worked in the forest for thirty or forty days, and the poria cocos and kudzu root they found filled several warehouses. They also found many fruit trees and returned
Plant in orchards.
The ramie scattered under the wall and at the foot of the mountain has grown one meter long. All the ramie leaves are collected and fed to chickens, ducks and livestock. Livestock fed with ramie leaves are not prone to plague.
Shan Amu and the women in the collection team carried baskets on their backs again. Some went up the mountain to collect mushrooms, and some collected wild vegetables. They cut the grass and returned it to the tribe to dry and store it to feed livestock in the winter.
Yao Xiaoqing was happy that the weather finally felt a bit hot, the ears of wheat in the wheat field began to fill, and she led people to fertilize the wheat.
The wheat planted in the summer has also begun to joint and ear, the rapeseed has also grown buds, and the millet in the fields has begun to bloom.
Pumpkin flowers, winter melon flowers, beans, peas, the fragrance of various flowers and plants can be smelled everywhere in the tribe.
Everyone has never prayed like this year that it will not rain so that these crops can bear fruit smoothly.
Everyone is busy in the fields all day long, catching insects, chasing birds, pollinating, weeding, and fertilizing. It takes more than half a month to finish working on a large field.
****
Jiang Li and his men worked hard for more than two months before they moved all the felled firewood down the mountain and piled it at the foot of the mountain to dry, so that construction could begin during the dry season.
Yao Xiaoqing saw Jiang Li and his people clearing the road from the tribe to the river, "Jiang Li, it's best to harden this section of the road."
Jiang Li looked at her with a smile, "Xiaoqing, I'm going to pave the road from the tribe to the river into a slope, and build two barges in front of the slope to serve as docks."
"We will wait until the dry season to use hardwood to drive stakes by the river and build a water corridor and a hut. At the end of autumn, we can go there to hunt for plump wild animals. We can also go to the pine forests over there to dig poria and collect chestnuts."
What he wants to say is that having more meat can also lighten some of your burdens.
Yao Xiaoqing nodded, "Okay, it's best to carbonize the firewood before it becomes firm."
Jiang Li looked at her puzzled, "Carbonization? How to carbonize?"