This Is My Primitive Tribe
Chapter 187 - 134 Mud Brick Thatched House_2

Chapter 187: Chapter 134 Mud Brick Thatched House_2

Now, let’s talk about tiles.

Jiang Xuan can fire pottery, so firing tiles is naturally not a problem either.

However, the number of tiles needed for a single house is enormous. With just the few small kilns of the Vine Tribe, it would probably take an incredibly long time to fire enough tiles for one house.

And the Vine Tribe currently has at least a hundred houses, requiring an extremely large number of tiles.

Therefore, the idea of earthen tile houses is temporarily abandoned. Once the Vine Tribe becomes stronger in the future, it may be worth trying.

However, Jiang Xuan thought of another type of house, whose manufacturing process is much simpler than that of earthen tile houses, and it is also quite sturdy.

That is a clay brick and straw house.

Clay bricks are made by mixing soil with plant stalks, shaping them into long rectangular bricks, and allowing them to dry. They become very sturdy and can be directly used to build walls.

The process of making a thatched roof is also not complicated. You just need to set up beams, then tie broad bamboo strips into a grid pattern, and layer by layer bind straw to form the roof.

If possible, you can also cover the roof with several layers of bark, which has much better waterproofing than straw alone.

The Vine Tribe does not lack soil, plant stalks, straw, or bark, fully having the conditions to build clay brick and straw houses.

Even for making simple mold for clay bricks, Jiang Xuan can use fired clay to make a few solid clay molds instead of wooden boards.

Tasks like painstakingly planing wooden boards and fitting joinery are still simpler for Jiang Xuan than firing ceramic molds.

Upon realizing this, Jiang Xuan immediately began preparing to build a solid and spacious clay brick and straw house to serve as the new warehouse for the Vine Tribe!

The first task is to make the clay brick molds.

Considering that ceramic products are relatively fragile, Jiang Xuan planned to make ten molds, allowing more people to make clay bricks together, and it would be acceptable if one or two broke.

He first found some rope, using a short piece as a reference, and applied the Pythagorean theorem, the principle of "three-four-five" right triangle, to mark out a right angle on the ground. Based on this angle, he drew three more right angles to form a relatively regular rectangle.

Then, he brought in clay prepared earlier, kneaded it into rough forms for the clay brick molds, and placed them within the marked rectangle on the ground, continuously adjusting the angles.

This work is crucial; if the clay brick molds are poorly made, the subsequent clay bricks would be crooked and making a stable wall would be difficult.

To prevent severe deformation of the molds, he made them very thick. Once the angle was adjusted properly, they would not deform unless cracked.

Subsequently, he used the same method to make nine more molds and let them dry in place to prevent deformation during movement.

A day later, the surfaces of the molds dried and took form. Jiang Xuan moved them indoors to continue drying in the shade.

The process of drying in the shade needs to last six to seven days. Without proper drying, steam expansion during kiln firing could cause the ceramics to crack.

When he looked at those ten clay brick molds, he felt a particularly remarkable sense of satisfaction.

While waiting for them to dry, Jiang Xuan brought in over ten warriors to level a higher piece of land and had them collect and dry a substantial amount of reeds.

Ordinary straw is light and easily blown away by strong winds, but reeds are different. They are not easily blown away, and because they are tall, making roofs with them doesn’t require layer-by-layer binding like ordinary straw, making it convenient and practical.

Most importantly, there is an abundant reed field by the Feiyu River, providing plenty of materials.

Seven days later, the clay brick molds were thoroughly dried. Jiang Xuan put the ten molds into two kilns and fired them all night long.

The next day, after the kiln temperature dropped, Jiang Xuan opened the kilns and obtained nine successfully fired clay brick molds, though one inexplicably cracked.

With the leveled ground, the molds, the reeds, and some leftover wood from building houses, Jiang Xuan could finally commence the construction of the new granary!

Jiang Xuan gathered over ten warriors to dig up clay, mix in plant stalks and mud, then pack them tightly into molds to form clay bricks.

A few days later, they had manufactured enough clay bricks to build a house.

Once the clay bricks were dried, they could build the house.

Jiang Xuan followed his plan to dry the clay bricks, then build the walls by mixing earth and lime to use as cement, bonding the clay bricks together.

After building the walls, they used thick wood as columns and beams to support the new granary’s roof.

On top of the roof, bamboo strips were bound to the beams in a grid pattern and covered with two layers of sturdy bark.

Finally, they neatly bound large amounts of reeds to the roof, laying two or three layers continuously, finishing the roof.

After spending nearly a month, under the efforts of Jiang Xuan and over ten warriors, a brand-new clay brick and straw house was finally completed!

This straw house is three meters high and covers approximately one hundred square meters. Though relatively rough, amid the large area of low and simple bamboo and wooden houses, it truly stands out as a mansion!

When the new granary was completed, Chi Shao, the Old Witch, Gou Teng, and many warriors of the Vine Tribe all stood in front of the house, staring dazedly at the brand-new building.