Chapter 11: 11

Chapter 11: Firing Pottery

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

After he was done with the fish pond, Jiang Xuan started digging clay and making pottery.

On this day, he took a rattan basket and a bone plow and walked to the stream.

He first used the bone plow to shovel the soil with more impurities to the surface, revealing the grayish-white fine clay below.

He dug up an entire basket of clay and brought it to a flat area beside the stream. He found a relatively flat stone slab and started to slap and knead a ball of sticky soil.

“Clap, clap, clap…”

Clay was sticky, just like dough. The more it was slapped, the stickier it became, and the surface became smoother.

Then Jiang Xuan used a bamboo piece to cut open the beaten clay and rubbed it into strips. He then shaped a round clay pot with his bare hands.

Next, he began to make earthenware.

First he dipped some water onto the base and began to stick the mud strips. Then he stacked them one by one and molded them into the shape of clay pots.

Before long, a rough clay pot with a diameter of about twenty centimeters and a height of about thirty centimeters was formed.

After the shape was formed, it was not very round. Jiang Xuan sprinkled a little water on the surface and made it as round as possible.

Finally, he made a matching lid for the clay pot. He also made a handle on the lid by pinching the clay.

Chi Shao had been watching from the side. When Jiang Xuan finished making the lid, she asked curiously, “Can we fire it into a clay pot?”

Actually, she wanted to say that this seemed so easy, but she didn’t say it.

Hook Vine, Stone Loach, and South Star also looked at Jiang Xuan. Because the process of making the clay pot was so simple, it gave people the feeling that they could do it too.

Jiang Xuan said, “This is only the initial form. After that, it has to be placed in a shady place for seven to eight days to let it dry naturally. Then we have to build an earthen kiln and put the dried pottery into the kiln to burn for an entire day. After it cools down, it can only be considered real pottery if it’s not cracked.”

Chi Shao and the three youths did not understand. They did not understand the terms ‘dry naturally’, ‘kiln’, or ‘cools down’.

The three youths who thought that they could do it immediately cast away their contempt.

Chi Shao wasn’t surprised. If pottery was so easy to make, it wouldn’t have been so rare in the Deer Tribe in the past.

In fact, Chi Shao did not know that the Deer Tribe, including many other tribes, felt that pottery was precious because they made it only when the opportunity arose. They did not specially look for suitable clay, nor did they go through the procedure of drying it.

They did not build a special kiln. They did not have a standard for the temperature and duration for firing pottery. They could only rely on themselves to figure it out. This way, the success rate of the pottery was extremely low, so it naturally seemed precious.

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On the other hand, the memories left behind by Jiang Xuan in his previous life were the crystallization of wisdom that countless generations of people had continuously recorded and improved on. The success rate of making pottery based on this knowledge was naturally much higher.

At last, Jiang Xuan made two heavy cauldrons, two clay pots, and 10 clay bowls, and placed them in the corner of the bamboo house to dry.

The reason why they were placed in the bamboo house was that it was best not to have any wind or strong light when they were drying. When clay naturally emitted water and was left to dry naturally, the pottery would retain its shape.

This step was important. If the pottery wasn’t dry enough when it was fired, the vapor contained in the clay would expand, causing the pottery to crack.

By the time he was done, most of the day had passed.

After watching for a while, Chi Shao and the three youths went off to hunt, fish and dig for plant tubers. Winter was approaching, and storing food was more important now.

Jiang Xuan ate some fish and roasted two pieces of Solomon’s seal.

Solomon’s seal was also one of the herbs used by the tribesmen. It was widespread in the mountains of the Southern Wilderness.

Unlike the spicy wild ginger, the Solomon’s seal was slightly sweet after being roasted and could be used to fill one’s stomach. The tribesmen often dug it out to eat.

After eating the Solomon’s seal, Jiang Xuan opened a bamboo tube. There was solidified beast blood inside. He added some water to the bamboo tube and stirred it with a piece of bamboo. Then he placed the bamboo tube on the charcoal fire to roast.

The green bamboo tube was charred black, and the beast blood inside was being cooked with the boiling water.

Jiang Xuan opened the bamboo tube and ate the beast blood inside in small bites.

As there was no salt, eating a large amount of mammal meat and beast blood became an important way to replenish salt in the body.

Chi Shao and the others could directly drink raw blood without batting an eyelid when killing prey. However, Jiang Xuan found it a little difficult to accept, so he used a bamboo tube filled with water to boil the beast blood before eating it. This was easier to accept.

After eating his fill, Jiang Xuan went to dig clay again, this time to build an earthen kiln.

Actually, ordinary soil could be used to build a kiln. However, ordinary soil cracked easily when it was heated. Since Jiang Xuan wanted to have a kiln that would last a long time, it was better to build it with clay.

There were several ways to build an earthen kiln. Jiang Xuan chose to build a simple horizontal kiln that could fire many pieces of pottery at once.

In front of the horizontal kiln was the stove door. In the middle was the furnace. At the end was a cylindrical vent that stood at a 90-degree angle.

When the stove door began to burn, the air was heated and circulated upward. It passed through the long hearth and escaped through the cylindrical vent. It was similar to the earthen stove, except that the bottom half of it was long.

Jiang Xuan chose a relatively flat area in the open space beside the bamboo house. After clearing the ground, he went to the stream and dug a lot of clay. He then used a rattan basket to carry the clay over.

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