Chapter 28: Pottery Standard
The black powder felt immensely heavy on Chen Jian's fingertips, for it represented the future: swords, spears, halberds, the Jiuding ceremonial cauldrons, and other ritual vessels.
The green pendant was malachite, one of the earliest gemstones used by humans. This black powder was decomposed copper oxide, which could be reduced with charcoal at high temperatures to produce pure copper.
Aside from meteoritic iron, copper was the earliest metal utilized by humankind. The metals used in bronze alloys had very low melting points and could be extracted using simple charcoal fires.
Chen Jian only remembered that bronze was a copper-tin alloy. The exact proportions would require constant experimentation, but even the crudest bronze was superior to stone. After all, it could be melted and cast into any desired shape, and the required temperature was not prohibitively high.
It was no surprise that malachite's natural emerald green color was aesthetically pleasing; it would have been easily noticed by nearby tribes and carved into pendants.
The prerequisites for smelting malachite were pottery, bricks, charcoal, and beeswax. At the tribe's current level of development, all of these could be produced within a year without requiring a significant technological leap.
And where there was malachite, there were bound to be open-pit copper veins. The reserves didn't need to be vast—just enough to get started.
Chen Jian touched the black powder, finding it hard to imagine how the first primitive tribe had ever conceived of smelting copper.
He handed the remaining malachite to a clansman to store safely, then squeezed through the crowd to Wolf Skin's side.
A group of men had already gathered around Wolf Skin, fascinated by the bow and arrows. The man named Hua even offered his sling, hoping to trade for it.
"Wolf Skin, go on. Show everyone what it can do. Shoot something."
Chen Jian patted him on the back. Wolf Skin was itching for a chance to show off, and he emerged from the cave surrounded by over a hundred people.
After today, word of the bow and arrow's magic would quickly spread to the dozen or so tribes in the surrounding area. The sling already existed, so the bow and arrow would likely have appeared soon even without Chen Jian's intervention. But now, all the local tribes knew this weapon was called a "bow" and an "arrow." The right to name things was a form of influence—seemingly useless in the short term, but infinitely valuable in the long run.
Bursts of cheers erupted from the men outside the cave, presumably because Wolf Skin had hit another target. The old grandmother found Chen Jian watching the excitement at the cave entrance and told him that all the tribes had arrived and their leaders were now gathered around the clay pots.
Chen Jian called over a few of his people to demonstrate how to use the clay pots, causing another commotion. His tribespeople also began sharing stories of their changed lives with the other tribes. The tales of the ancestors' guidance and the Black and White Bear spread by word of mouth, with every tribe member unconsciously becoming a missionary.
The bows and arrows, the clay pots, and their unheard-of lifestyle lent a magical aura to the Black and White Bear and the ancestors. Primitive tribes interpreted things differently. Some believed that their identical hairstyle—the bun and braids—must have attracted the ancestors' blessings, and many began asking how to style their hair the same way.
Most of the women, however, stared intently at the clay pots and bowls in the wicker baskets. Chen Jian had some broth cooked for the children and leaders of the various tribes, serving it to them in the bowls. Once they held them, they couldn't look away.
Each tribe was given a dozen or so clay bowls and pots, which averaged out to only one for every six or seven people. There were still many left in the wicker baskets. Seeing the women's anxious expressions, Chen Jian announced, "Our tribe likes all kinds of stones—different stones. As long as it's a type of stone we don't have, you can trade it for our clay pots and bowls."
There wasn't much else for them to trade at the moment, but he wanted to introduce the concept of exchange. It was also a way to get other tribes to use their eyes to find all sorts of unusual ores for him.
But after his announcement, the others remained skeptical. Could stones, which could be picked up anywhere, really be exchanged for these marvelous clay pots and bowls?
They waited, discussing it among themselves in low voices, until a young child, not knowing any better, brought a few small stones from outside, placed them before Chen Jian, and asked, "Can I trade this?"
"Yes, of course!"
Chen Jian smiled and patted the top of the child's head. He took the stones and laid them out one by one.
"Look, these are all the same type of stone, so I can only give you one for them."
He picked the roundest bowl from the wicker basket and handed it to the child. The boy held it carefully, afraid it might break, and ran back to his family, shouting, "Mom, Mom! Look! A pot!"
The people around them watched in disbelief. A few ordinary stones could really be traded for a clay pot?
Some who reacted faster rushed outside to look for stones of different colors. Every unique stone was like a clay pot, and it was first come, first served.
The leaders didn't join the scramble; they were thinking further ahead. Chen Jian's tribe kept their word. They would surely honor any promise they made.
Soon, granite, flint, volcanic rock, shale—all kinds of strange stones were placed before Chen Jian, and dozens of clay pots and bowls were exchanged.
Chen Jian carefully identified the stones. Most of them were useless, but he believed that in the near future, when these tribes were out hunting and gathering, they would now pay attention to stones they had never seen before.
To other tribes, those stones might just be clay pots. But in his eyes, they could be copper, iron, gold, silver, or coal.
More and more stones were brought over. When the people could no longer find any new types, Chen Jian said, "Our tribe is on the other side of the mountain, near the river. Just follow the river and you'll find it. If you have something good, you can come to our settlement to trade for pots and bowls at any time."
"What else can be traded besides stones?" someone asked.
"Many things. Deer shoulder blades, various edible plants, animal cubs, or other things you don't need. You can bring them and try to trade."
"In a cave by the river?"
"No, we live in houses, not a cave."
"What is a 'house'?"
"You'll know when you see it."
Chen Jian left much to their imagination, giving them a great deal of hope. Animal cubs they couldn't afford to feed could be traded for clay pots, and useless deer shoulder blades could be exchanged for clay bowls. The people of every tribe began to take stock of what they had in their caves, their eyes fixed on the pottery.
After a while, a man approached and asked, "We don't want clay pots. Can we trade for bows and arrows?"
"Yes! As long as we have it, you can trade for it. Everything is available for trade except the banner of our ancestors."
"So, how many bows and arrows can one animal cub be traded for?"
"That is something we can discuss," Chen Jian explained. "If we wanted to trade one for ten, you wouldn't agree. If you wanted to trade ten for one, we wouldn't agree. We trade only when we both agree on the price."
"Ten? One?"
The man had heard the words 'one,' 'two,' 'three,' and 'four' many times today, all from Chen Jian's tribe, but he didn't understand them.
Chen Jian called Lancao over and took out a dozen clay tablets from a basket. They had been fired before the rain and were engraved with the symbols for one, two, three, and four.
He gathered the chiefs, held up his fingers, and showed them what 'one' was and what 'two' was. Because the characters were pictographic, they were easy to understand.
The tablets had been fired hard, making them resistant to both water and fire. He gave one to each tribe. The leaders put them away carefully, repeating, "One, two, three, four." This would be useful in future trades. Chen Jian didn't teach them the numbers beyond ten, as there was no need. The only things these tribes had in quantities greater than ten were bones.
The members of each tribe began counting the items they could potentially trade, recalling the strange stones they had seen while hunting.
It was clear the clay pots were very attractive to them, but they didn't have much to exchange, and the pots Chen Jian had given out were too few.
Seeing them still lingering around the pottery, Chen Jian smiled to himself and had someone open another wicker basket. The items inside had also been fired before the rain.
The other tribes assumed it was more pottery, but when the basket was opened, they saw something different. Although made of the same material, these objects had no bottoms. They were like hollow, round pieces of wood.
Each was about the size of a fist and was painted with strange, intricate patterns that were hard to decipher. They were beautiful but seemed useless—any water poured into them would just leak out.
Chen Jian held up one of the pottery rings. "We are all children of the same ancestor, and it is the ancestors' wish that all their descendants have pottery pots. We didn't bring enough for everyone today, so each tribe will receive four of these. When the next moon is full, you can come to our settlement to trade. Each of these rings can be exchanged for ten clay pots and bowls. If you don't want to use it, you can trade it with other tribes. It doesn't matter who brings this ring to our tribe; they will receive their pots."
He handed the pottery rings to the leaders. They stroked the strange objects and asked in disbelief, "This can really be exchanged for ten pots?"
"Of course. If stones can be traded, why not this?"
"If I trade a sheep to another tribe for one of these, can I also go to your settlement and exchange it for pots and bowls?"
"Yes."
Chen Jian pretended to casually nudge a stone with his foot, making a slight noise. These people had seen meaningless stones exchanged for valuable pots. They knew he was a man of his word, so this strange pottery ring must also hold the value he claimed.
The object itself had no use value, but Chen Jian was using his tribe's production as a guarantee to endow the pottery ring with value, effectively creating a primitive currency.
For the near future, clay pots and bowls would be the hard currency. This would be especially true once he taught them how to dig traps and use bows and arrows. Within a year, they would have a large food surplus, at least until the animal populations moved away or dwindled.
This kind of pottery ring required a potter's wheel to make, so he didn't have to worry about counterfeiting for a long time. Furthermore, a tribe had to first secure its food supply and have enough non-hunting labor before it could even think about making pottery. By not giving them tools like fishing nets, he ensured they wouldn't have the spare time to try.
The value of clay pots might depreciate once the market was saturated, but by then, Chen Jian was confident better things would appear. There would always be something worth trading for.
First, he needed to cultivate their sense of exchange and guide them from bartering to a semi-currency system. It wasn't as simple as minting a currency and expecting everyone to accept it. That kind of trust required a long period of accumulation, built on time and reputation. This wasn't a game.
He distributed the dozens of pottery rings. Soon, a tribe that couldn't find food might choose to trade its ring to a tribe that had a surplus. Over time, tribes within a hundred-mile radius would subconsciously accept this object that, in itself, had little practical use.
He was using his tribe's labor as a reserve fund, with the clay pots and bowls as the material standard. He just didn't know how long it would take for them to accept such a strange concept: that a seemingly useless object could be traded for something vital to their survival.
He believed they first needed to embrace the *concept* of currency, not just the currency itself.
For now, bartering was sufficient, as the trading volume was low. But looking further ahead, Chen Jian felt it was better to prepare in advance.
Malachite had been found. Could a new era be far behind? A group of tribes wielding bronze swords and halberds but who didn't know "one, two, three, four" and had no concept of currency were still barbarians. How was that different from a tribe using meteoritic iron? Giving guns to a primitive tribe still leaves you with a tribe. But a nation with spears and swords could become a civilization.
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