I am a Primitive Man
Chapter 55 – Excavating the foundation, driving wooden stakes
Lame split the mother wolf, who had died a tragic death, belly open. for the tribe, such a delicious meal was not to be abandoned.
Han Cheng was worried that the little wolf cub would be saddened if it saw this, so he instructed someone else to perform this activity outside the cave.
In the meantime, he prepared a small pot of meat soup for the wolf cub to enjoy.
The reason Han Cheng cared so much about the little wolf cub was twofold. Firstly, the cub’s soft fur was amusing and always clung to him. Secondly, this little one reminded him of the second-tier divine beast, Er Ha (Husky), he raised in his past life when he was still a cub. Nostalgia for that creature made Han Cheng feel sympathetic toward the wolf cub.
Even though Er Ha, in his past life, was a bit destructive and tempted Han Cheng to live-stream eating a divine beast several times, after such a long time without seeing it, Han Cheng still missed it.
The third reason was that he wanted to try and tame this little wolf cub and see if he could turn a white-eyed wolf into a loyal companion for humans. If successful, it would be a great help for guarding and hunting in the future.
Since the wolf cub was too small and couldn’t directly drink the meat soup from the bowl, Han Cheng had to dip his fingers in and let it lick.
The little mouth with newly grown milk teeth nibbled and sucked on Han Cheng’s fingers, feeling ticklish.
Whether due to hunger or the soup with added salt, the wolf cub eagerly devoured half a bowl of meat soup and two large pieces of meat chewed by Han Cheng.
After getting full, the cub didn’t whine around Han Cheng, looking for milk. Instead, it lay on the ground, snuggling up to Han Cheng’s feet, resting its head on its small paws, and fell asleep.
Before sleeping at night, Han Cheng fed the little wolf cub twice.
At the edge of the inner cave, Han Cheng used some previously made clay bricks to build a small nest for the wolf cub. He filled it with soft, dry grass and then, holding the cub in his hands gently placed it inside. After settling the cub, Han Cheng went to sleep.
As a result, as soon as he left, the little one came out and followed Han Cheng.
After this happened five times, Han Cheng finally gave up on letting the wolf cub sleep alone in the doghouse.
The cub, no longer being taken away, was quite excited. It occasionally used its small head to nuzzle Han Cheng’s arms, playing with him. It would snuggle tightly at Han Cheng’s feet when it was time to sleep.
However, there was a risk to this arrangement. Sometimes, the hungry cub would snuggle up Han Cheng’s legs at night, searching for milk.
After two instances of this, when Han Cheng slept at night, he had to put on his airtight leather shorts.
Dealing with trees on the ground was much easier than with standing trees. One reason was that the trees had completely given up resistance, lying on the ground entirely at the mercy of anyone who wanted to care for them.
Another reason was that people’s feet were on the ground, allowing them to exert force.
After about a day and a half, with Han Cheng’s verbal guidance and the relentless efforts of the eldest disciple and others, the three lines designated for the wall construction were cleared.
Next on the agenda was digging the foundation.
At this point, the tools were primitive, making it somewhat challenging to dig deep. Therefore, Han Cheng didn’t require the foundation to be too deep, approximately only 30 centimeters.
In the first two days of excavation, the soil was moist due to the recent rain, making it relatively easy. However, after a few days of sun and evaporation, the ground became dry, making digging much more laborious.
Han Cheng instructed a few people to stop working and not to dig the foundation anymore. Instead, he used clay pots to carry water from the river, moistening the area to be excavated. This made the digging process much more manageable.
With the combined efforts of more than twenty people, the digging of the foundation progressed relatively quickly. In five days, the westernmost 300-meter foundation was completed.
Han Cheng did not plan to start digging the remaining two lines now. Since it was already summer and there was more rain, digging at this time would require additional cleaning when it came time to pile up the soil and set up the stakes.
Of course, the foundation of the wall connecting the southern end of the western wall to the east-west wall needs to be dug up a bit. This is because the corner of the wall is crucial. If not constructed together, the three walls will act independently after the wall is built and won’t connect seamlessly.
This is also why the corners are usually built first when building houses or walls in rural areas.
Moreover, the person building the corners must have strong skills, usually done by the best among the masons.
Because the corner construction quality directly affects the straightness of the two walls.
With experience in this regard, under Han Cheng’s guidance during the construction of the wall, they didn’t start from the northern section against the mountain wall where the tribe’s cave was located. Instead, they began with the southernmost corner.
Once the corner was well-built, they could extend a wall to the north and another to the east.
“Thud, thud, thud.”
Holding a stone, the burly Second Senior Brother effortlessly hammered a tree stump, more than a meter long and as thick as an arm, into the excavated foundation.
The wooden stump sank into the ground to about forty centimeters.
Without a hammer, using a stone to pound the wooden stump into the ground seemed more laborious. Han Cheng began to demonstrate his cleverness to speed up the process and ease the difficulty for everyone.
He first had someone find particularly sturdy wooden sticks, sharpening one end as much as possible for easy insertion into the soil.
These sticks, called drill-like wooden sticks, were also required to be thicker than those intended to be used as stakes.
They were ready to start after producing a batch of such drill-like wooden sticks.
Before nailing the wooden stakes into the excavated foundation, they used these drill-like sticks to pound at the designated locations. After reaching a certain depth, they wiggle the stick back and forth, pull it out, and then continue pounding. This was to prevent the stakes from being driven too deep and becoming difficult to remove later.
They repeated this process until the approximately 35-centimeter mark on the drill-like stick matched the ground level. Only then was the job considered complete when the stick was pulled out.
Because these wooden sticks used as drills were hard, had a sharp tip, and were relatively thin, nailing them into the ground was much easier than using the thicker arm-sized stakes.
After pulling out the drill, it left a hole in the ground. The person in charge of nailing the stakes, who was ready behind, picked up a stake and placed it in the hole. Then, using a stone, they pounded it down.
Since there was already a hole due to the drilling, this process was much more labor-saving. Moreover, because the original hole was narrow when the thicker stake was pounded down, there was no issue of it becoming loose or unstable.