Many bronze plowshares were cast because, until now, plowshares and hoes were still the main tools used by the Green Sparrow Tribe for plowing and clearing land.
Now that bronze was available, it was only natural to first cast a batch of bronze plowshares.
The suitable mold had yet to be made for the bronze plow head, so it would have to wait for the time being.
The priority was to cast a batch of bronze plowshares and bronze hoes to prepare for spring plowing in the coming year. In the meantime, Heiwa would slowly research the bronze plow head and the plow body.
Compared to bronze halberds, arrowheads, plowshares, axes, and knives, the ‘>'-shaped plow head, hollow on the inside and designed to hold wooden shafts, was much more difficult to cast.
Using clay to create a mold and imprinting on it no longer worked; the mold needed to be upgraded and modified.
Over the past month, Heiwa has been so focused on solving this problem that he hardly plays or jokes around with Zhuang anymore. Every day, he thinks about how to create the mold for the plow head.
The method Han Cheng knew of was the one commonly referred to as ‘mold and pattern.’
This hollow tool couldn’t be made with just a single mold. In addition to the mold, a ‘pattern’ also needed to be created.
For example, when making a round bronze pot, if only a mold were used, it would only produce a bronze ingot shaped like a pot. To cast a real pot, a mold within a mold, known as a ‘pattern,’ was required.
With the ‘mold and pattern’ system, objects could be cast in the exact shape envisioned. Later, the term ‘mold and pattern’ expanded to refer to other areas of life.
For example, during the reclamation of the Nanniwan region, the phrase ‘the 359th brigade is the model’ was used.
Heiwa was upset and started losing hair. He barely wanted to play his favorite games with Zhuang anymore because Han Cheng hadn’t explained the ‘mold and pattern’ concept to him.
At first, Han Cheng wanted to see how long it would take Heiwa to solve this problem independently. After waiting a while, when he was about to speak up, he realized Heiwa had already figured it out to some extent. So, he decided to let it be.
Based on archaeological data, using bronze for farming tools in ancient times was uncommon.
Most of the bronze artifacts unearthed were ritual vessels, weapons, and various food-related items like bronze plates and wine vessels, with few agricultural tools in burial sites.
However, Han Cheng believed that there should have been more bronze farming tools in ancient times than what was found.
After all, farming had already become the dominant occupation when bronze became widely used. Ignoring such useful and valuable material as bronze was impossible in a nation that had always valued agriculture.
The reason there were few bronze farming tools found in later excavations, Han Cheng believed, was due to the following reasons:
First, bronze farming tools were often used by lower-class peasants or slaves. Since they didn’t have much wealth, they would likely pass down valuable tools like bronze farming implements to their descendants rather than burying them with them when they died.
Second, those with many burial items after death were generally high-ranking nobles with great wealth and status. As nobles, they would bury items like bronze tripods, bells, and wine vessels, which were suitable for their status, rather than bronze farming tools, which were mainly used by the lower classes.
As a result, the lower-class peasants and slaves didn’t want to bury their bronze farming tools, while the nobles didn’t consider them worthy of burial. That’s why there were fewer bronze farming tools unearthed in later times.
This led to the impression that bronze farming tools were rarely used during the Bronze Age.
Whether his speculation was correct or not, Han Cheng remained determined to continue developing and popularizing bronze farming tools within the tribe.
He would not miss such a powerful farming tool.
As for bronze ritual vessels and musical instruments like tripods, bells, and chimes, Han Cheng decided on their creation based on the tribe’s development and needs.
For now, however, they were not a priority in his considerations.
The carpenter, also known as “Lame,” was not idle either. He and a few others who often helped him out were busy removing the handles from the stone plowshares and attaching them to the bronze plowshares.
For someone like Lame, who was skilled in craftsmanship, this was not a particularly difficult task.
He would first insert the thicker end of the wooden handle into the hole of the bronze plowshare, ensuring that the curved part of the hole was at the top.
Next, he would take a small piece of wood, one side flat and the other with a groove, and place it beneath the hole on the opposite side. The flat side would face up, while the grooved side would face down, with the groove fitting perfectly around the hole's edge.
Then, he would take a longer, thicker piece of wood, tapering from the front to the back, and wedge it between the two pieces. He would firmly hammer it into place using an axe, securing the wooden handle tightly to the bronze plowshare.
This method was the best way to attach the plowshare handle. Without it, it would have been extremely difficult to find a piece of wood that perfectly matched the hole size and even harder to secure it properly.
Of course, care had to be taken to ensure that the angle between the wooden handle and the plowshare wasn’t too large or too small.
More than half of those who worked in copper smelting and bronze casting were slaves. It didn’t make sense for the citizens of the Green Sparrow Tribe to be out in the cold, casting bronze, while the slaves stayed inside by the fire, relaxing.
However, the slaves inside weren’t precisely idle either. Some used a spinning top to spin hemp rope into fine threads, while others were weaving fabric on simple looms.
The weaving slaves weren’t in the slave quarters; instead, they worked in the weaving room in the bigger courtyard of the Green Sparrow Tribe.
This arrangement was made to avoid overstocking materials in the slave quarters and to reduce the risk of slaves destroying production tools.
Although, up to this point, there hadn’t been any incidents of slaves damaging tools, it was still something to be cautious about.
The weaving rooms for slaves were built separately, with mud walls and thatched roofs to distinguish them from those used by the tribe’s citizens.
The looms, however, were the same. It wasn’t feasible to create multiple grades of looms since the best fabric made by the Green Sparrow Tribe was still far behind the machine-woven fabrics of later times.
After kissing his chubby little child’s face twice and inspecting the tribe inside and outside, Han Cheng made a decision.
After a brief moment of thought, he went to find the Shaman sitting on a heated bed, holding a female rabbit by the ears and feeding the newborn rabbit pups, who hadn’t yet opened their eyes.
He told him his plan: He intended to have Chang Ti, who had recently been promoted from slave to a first-class citizen of the Green Sparrow Tribe, manage the slave quarters.