I Became The Chief Of A Primitive Village

Chapter 237, Determining the Centre Point

Translator: Silavin

“Shaman, we’ve prepared a lot of stones and dry grass. What are you planning to do?” Yu Ying asked.

After returning to the Tribe, the fox eared girl had started organising things and helping Su Bai follow up on his previous instructions.

For example, she had the slaves and people from the Black Snake Tribe start moving stones, as well as looking for large amounts of dry grass and preparing water.

Of course, water pipes had also been connected in the Ancestral Land. They used Hollow Trees to connect them. A large storage tank had also been dug near the river close to the Tribe.

“We’ll use them to build houses later.” Su Bai explained.

Yu Ying looked around at the wooden houses surrounding them and asked in confusion, “To build houses? But don’t we already have… houses?”

Su Bai smiled and said, “I want to build better houses than these. Houses that won’t be damaged even in heavy rain.”

“Houses that won’t be damaged in heavy rain?” Yu Ying’s pink eyes blinked non-stop as she continued to ask, “Shaman, using those stones and dry grass?”

The fox eared girl was very confused. In the past, when they lived in the Tribe, even wooden houses had to be replaced every few years. After all, since they were built with wood, they would get soaked when it rained, and there was also damage from insects.

The lifespan of wooden houses was not long and they had to rebuild them every few years.

But now, Yu Ying was hearing about building houses with stones and dry grass, which she had never heard of before. [Teepees are easy to understand. WE just had to set up a triangle shape and wrap Animal Hide around it. But how would one do it with stone? Also set them up a triangle shape? Or a square shape like the wooden houses? If so, how are we going to stick the stones together?]

[How confusing.]

“That’s right, you’ll understand when they’re built. These houses are meant to withstand the rainy season.” Su Bai explained further.

Yu Ying was even more perplexed. [How could stone houses withstand the rainy season? Wouldn’t the rain leak through the cracks? The house would surely be full of rainwater by then, so how could it withstand the rainy season? Wouldn’t the whole house be flooded?]

“Haha…” Su Bai laughed seeing the fox eared girl’s confused face and said, “You’ll see when the time comes. Don’t worry about it.”

He patted the fox eared girl’s head and continued planning his city project.

Indeed, Su Bai wanted to transform the Tribe into a city, implementing a set of city rules.

Were the rules of the Primitive Tribe not good? Of course they were good too. Work and get meat to eat. In that regard, everyone was the same, everyone had a fixed job, this was certainly good.

Were there any downsides? Of course there were. None of them had been culturally educated, they all had basic thinking and beliefs. They all had different concepts of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame in their minds.

Culture was very important. It was a kind of strength for the people to understand and transform the world. It also had a profound impact on social development. An advanced healthy culture would promote a more Humane way of life and better social development.

Having culture did not refer to book knowledge like astronomy, geography, medicine, divination, and astrology. It was a spiritual practice composed of ways of thinking, outlook, common sense, and ways of life.

It was about a person accepting good behavioural norms and correct values, internalising them, and externalising them in actions.

Humans were, at the end of the day, fragile creatures. However, culture and expectations of oneself could infuse them with strength and pride, making them exceptionally resilient and strong.

Thus, the development of culture, the development of a spiritual practice to evolve one’s way of thinking and outlook, was as important to our hearts as the land beneath our feet. As important as the land was, culture was equally important.

This was why Su Bai wanted the people of the Tribe to be literate, understand etiquette, and so on. Because only by achieving this would the entire Tribe get better and better, rather than settling on their prior crude ways, and acceptance of mediocrity.

“Although it’s difficult, it will eventually happen.” Su Bai swore to himself.

Gradually transforming a group of people from primitive society into cultured individuals was not an easy task. Of course, it was not about making them experts in astronomy and geography. They just needed to learn some simple literacy and how to get along with each other. Not just in the Tribe itself, but outside of the Tribe.

“Shaman, what’s wrong? I just heard you say something.” Yu Ying paused her linen weaving.

Su Bai shook his head with a smile and said in a calm voice, “It’s nothing, I just thought of some things.”

Yu Ying nodded thoughtfully and picked up the linen to continue sewing. When she was alone in the Teepee, she would sew linen every day.

Su Bai picked up the blueprint he had drawn yesterday and compared it with the rough layout of the current Tribe.

He kept turning his neck back and forth between the two sheets of paper, muttering, “Seems like we need to re-establish the centre.”

The current centre of the Tribe was not the wooden house where Su Bai lived, but an open space quite far from it. That was the true centre of the Tribe.

The rough layout of the Tribe was drawn by Shu Feng at Su Bai’s request. Of course, it was not drawn very well. It was just a rough circle sketching out the general layout of the Tribe, but it was already quite good that Shu Feng could draw it at all.

He had scribbled and drawn several times before getting this relatively accurate drawing. The previous ones were all crooked and unrecognisable.

Su Bai’s index finger pointed back and forth between the two sheets, finally settling on a point as he muttered, “Let’s set it here.”

He raised his head and picked up another paper, which had house designs drawn on it.

“Xiao Yu, go call the Chieftain over. I have something to discuss with him.” Su Bai said.

“Okay.” Yu Ying immediately put down the linen in her hands and quickly left the wooden house.

Ten minutes later, the fox eared girl brought Yan Jiao to the wooden house, then retreated to the side to continue sewing linen clothes.

“Shaman, what instructions do you have for me?” The Chieftain’s deep voice sounded.

Su Bai handed over the two sheets in his hand and said, “Find Shu Feng and have him take you to the place I’ve drawn here, then start digging holes.”

Yan Jiao took the two sheets of paper with both hands, quickly browsed through them, and asked, “Shaman, what are these two supposed to be?”

“For digging holes, as I said, on these points. As for the other one, the houses I want to build there.” Su Bai explained briefly.

“Shaman, we don’t need to dig holes to build wooden houses, do we?” Yan Jiao was a bit confused, it was the first time he had heard of digging holes to build houses.

“I’m not building wooden houses. I’m building cement houses.”

“What is cement?” Yan Jiao scratched his head in confusion.

“You’ll know when the time comes. You’ll understand when you see it. Just do as I say for now.” Su Bai instructed.

Yan Jiao nodded, looking at the patterns on the blueprint, and asked, “Shaman, how big should these holes be?”

Su Bai took out a ruler from under the table and said, “Measure according to this tool. I’ve already written down how much to dig on each side.”

This ruler was made by him yesterday. He had someone polish a flat wooden stick and then marked scales on it.

One ruler was one metre, and the blueprint also stated how many square metres the house should be built.