Traveling through the mountains and farming

This place is like a paradise on earth, magnificent and intoxicating.

Lin Wan was immersed in the beautiful scenery before her when she suddenly heard a voice behind her:

“It’s not bad here.”

Lin Wan turned around and saw Luo Dashan walking towards her.

There was some sweat on his face and his clothes were slightly wet. It was obvious that he had just been through a busy time.

"Yeah, it's beautiful here. Uncle Dashan, why are you sweating so much so early in the morning?" Lin Wan greeted with a smile.

Luo Dashan walked up to her and said:

"I just went to patrol the surrounding area and found no wild animals nearby, but we can't be careless. After all, we haven't fully understood the situation here. And this cliff, we have to quickly surround it with a fence to prevent children from accidentally playing close to it and getting into danger."

Luo Dashan was left behind to guard the camp and did not go with the others to carry food.

Because there was another martial arts master Li Chongwu in their team, he took over from Luo Dashan to lead the team to transport grain.

Lin Wan had just met this distant cousin yesterday. He was the husband of her distant cousin Luo Fang who had come to the city to sell ice jelly.

She learned that Li Chongwu was the grandson of Uncle Li Si, a distant relative of the Li family.

Uncle Li Si died on the road fleeing famine 20 years ago, leaving only his wife Mrs. Zhao and his son Li Changmao.

After settling in Quanshui Village, Li Changmao married Huang and later had a son, Li Chongwu (19 years old) and a daughter, Li Ju (10 years old).

Li Changmao was also drafted last year and there has been no news from him yet.

Lin Wan agreed, "Uncle Dashan is right. Besides that, we should probably discuss together how to live here in the future."

"Lin Wan is right. After their grain transport team returns, the seven families will gather together to discuss this matter."

After hearing the sound, the two men immediately turned around and saw Uncle Li walking towards them.

After Lin Wan greeted Uncle Li, she continued to ask, "Do we have any other roads leading outside?"

She thought there must be an emergency exit. In case the front entrance was attacked or blocked, it would be best to have a retreat route at the rear.

Luo Dashan pointed to one side of the cave entrance and said, "We can make a path from here to the outside, but we need a knife to clear the way."

"Then we still have time to open up a path and leave ourselves a way out."

Luo Dashan and Uncle Li agreed. The three chatted for a while and then returned to the cave to have breakfast.

At this time, the two little ones also got up and were working together to fold the quilt.

Seeing Lin Wan coming over, he took the toiletries and asked her to go to the stream outside to wash up.

When they came out of the cave, they saw Aunt Li and several old ladies making breakfast together outside.

Because the residential areas for each family have not yet been planned and there is no time for each family to build a stove and cook, they were told last night to eat breakfast together.

After they finished washing up and entered the cave to put down the wooden basin, they heard several ladies calling everyone to have breakfast.

And remind everyone to line up with their bowls to serve, and be responsible for washing their own bowls and chopsticks after eating.

Before Lin Wan could react, Li Chongle brought three bowls and took Li Ke to make porridge.

After a while, the two siblings came back with steaming porridge, and the three of them sat on the hay and started to eat breakfast together.

Not long after breakfast, the grain transport team returned carrying grain.

After all the people transporting the grain had finished their breakfast, Uncle Li gave an order and everyone gathered in the middle of the cave and began to discuss how they would live in the future.

Lin Wan saw that no one took the initiative to speak or put forward any opinions, and she had already had a preliminary idea of ​​the space inside the cave last night.

So she said, "Grandpas, grandmas, uncles, aunts, I think the first thing we need to solve is the housing problem. Our cave is quite spacious, and we don't know how long we will have to live here. Moreover, winter will come in a month or two, and the weather will become increasingly cold. Therefore, I suggest building an adobe house in this cave to solve the problem of long-term living."

Then, Lin Wan motioned for everyone to follow her. She led everyone to the scene and explained her ideas clearly while gesturing:

She walked to the middle of the cave, gestured with her hands, and explained that it was suggested to build seven adobe houses in a row in the middle area on the east side of the cave, with a small courtyard planned behind each house.

In this way, it can not only ensure that each household has independent space, but also enhance communication and interaction between neighbors to a certain extent.

Afterwards, she came to the entrance area of ​​the cave on a gentle slope, walked around, measured and circled out an open space, saying that it could be used as an activity area for children, where they could make some wooden toys in the future, and it could also be used as a place for children to study and entertain.

Providing children with a place where they can play and learn to their heart's content is beneficial to their growth and development.

Then, she walked to the upstream of the stream flowing on the west side of the cave and explained how to use bamboo pipes to lead water to a dug pool, then filter it through a purification pool, and then lead it out with bamboo pipes as safe drinking water.

This will ensure the safety and convenience of everyone's daily water use.

Finally, Lin Wan also suggested building a public toilet in a relatively hidden place outside the cave at a suitable distance. This would not only maintain the sanitary environment inside the cave, but also make the public toilet not too far away and inconvenient to use.

Seeing that Lin Wan explained her ideas in such detail and considered them very comprehensively, everyone expressed their agreement after listening.

Since Luo Dashan was familiar with the site, Uncle Li asked him to give his opinions on residential safety.

In addition to enclosing the cliff as mentioned earlier, Luo Dashan also suggested that the outside entrance to the gentle slope area should be covered with large rocks or vines to prevent it from being easily discovered by outsiders.

He knew where there were big rocks nearby and would bring a few people to deal with them.

Based on his proposal, everyone brainstormed.

It is recommended to arrange personnel to take turns to guard the entrance to ensure that there is always someone alert to the surrounding situation.

There are also some traps dug in the transition area between the east and west sides of the large gentle slope connecting the mountains and forests to prevent attacks by wild beasts, which can also play a certain blocking role.

In addition, Lin Wan suggested that Luo Dashan lead everyone to practice stick fighting and archery to enhance the self-defense capabilities of the entire team in case of foreign invasion or other dangerous situations in the future.

After the housing and safety issues were discussed, the elderly people in the family were most concerned about food.

Although every family brought the autumn harvest safely, it could not withstand long-term consumption. The food could only last for more than half a year at most, and they could not always rely on stored food and wild vegetables to survive.

Everyone had another heated discussion and finally decided to work in three directions: reclaiming wasteland for planting, developing breeding, and exploring the mountains.

Regarding land reclamation and planting, there are two large areas of grassland on both sides of the cave that can be developed. The one on the gentle slope can be developed into terraces with staggered layers. This will have to wait until next year's spring plowing season.

Now we are focusing on reclaiming the relatively flat land near the cliff. After reclamation, we will distribute it to households according to population to ensure that each household can grow their own vegetables and be self-sufficient.

Lin Wan made a rough calculation and found that if such a large piece of land was divided per person, their family could get more than 500 square meters.

For her, this area is really large.

As for breeding, we first fenced off a piece of land on a gentle slope near the forest area for raising poultry and livestock, and built sturdy huts and pens.

When the time comes, we can go out and catch pheasants, wild ducks, wild rabbits, etc., and each family can make reasonable arrangements for their breeding based on actual conditions.

Considering that it is autumn now, there are many ripe wild fruits and edible fungi in the mountains.

So everyone discussed and decided to form a hunting and gathering team to attack the mountains, explore more food resources, pick those abundant fruits and collect fungi.

In this way, they formed a housing construction team, a defense team, a planting and breeding team, and a hunting and gathering team.