The other is the group of horses, the last time Ding Qi met them and headed south, it should be to spend the winter in the warmer south, presumably in the spring they will definitely have to return to the northern grasslands, this will be an opportunity to obtain a large number of horses, before the snow melts in the spring, we must look for the horse road to welcome their arrival.

As for the bison herd, they have not been seen around for the time being, and when the exchange between the tribes begins, we may be able to get a little bit of news. Once the horses have been tamed and then the right animals are found, the process will be easier and the time will be much shorter.

At dinner, looking at the people of the tribe who were in and out of the food and had a harmonious atmosphere, Ding Qi's face showed a trace of worry that others could not perceive.

The tribe is currently a small tribe dominated by young and middle-aged people and basically meets the requirements of medium-sized tribes, which is a bit of a twist, but this is the actual situation. Large and medium-sized tribes are not large and medium-sized tribes as long as they reach the corresponding population number, they require a higher population structure than the population number.

Whether the ratio of men to women is appropriate, the proportion of minors and the proportion of the elderly should neither be too large nor too small. The proportion of the two is high, and the tribe is weak, and it does not have enough food to develop. The proportion of the two is small, especially the proportion of minors, and the proportion of the elderly will still be too high after five or even ten years.

The decline in the number of young and middle-aged people who replenish the tribe will lead to a significant decline in the strength of the tribe, and the tribe will eventually decline until it dies out.

What Ding Qi is worried about is that there are only four minors in the tribe at present, only Shi, Yu, Xue and Dan, excluding the two older ones, Buck and Mei, young adults account for more than 90 percent, how can this make Ding Qi feel at ease?

Therefore, he must allow intermarriage between men and women of different surnames in the tribe, give birth to as many offspring as possible to supplement the population base, and even need to exchange more women or children to quickly adjust the population structure.

Of course, there is also a way to quickly increase the population base, and that is to wage war and take people from rival or weak tribes. But Ding Qi had good intentions, and he would not take this step unless he was forced to do so, but he hoped that other tribes would attack him, and he would have an excuse to confiscate the population and property of the other tribe.

However, one of the things he is going to do at the moment may indirectly achieve this goal, that is, to expedition to the Qing tribe, take this tribe and the copper mine for himself, send the children and women back to the Ding tribe, and the young and middle-aged people stay in place to directly mine copper ore and smelt copper.

Ding Qi asked three hunting teams to pull the snow and climb the plow over to mine copper ore and smelt metal, and by the way, see if they could catch a few Qing tribesmen. The reason why Ding Qi wanted to do this in advance and not attack the Qing tribe with the other three allies was because Ding Qi didn't want to waste time, manpower, and food and miss this winter; The second is that Ding Qi feels that the relationship with these three allies is not strong enough, and he wants to take down the Qing tribe alone, put pressure on these three allies, let them know the strength of their tribe, and let them fall to him as soon as possible to strengthen the Ding tribe.

The Ding tribe is not the end, it is the starting point, and Ding Qi will eventually integrate more tribes and people through the Ding tribe and go to a wider world.

A day later, the red deer worked overtime and smelted nearly 100 catties of metal tin. The tin juice was served in clay pots, cooled quickly in an icy environment, and cut open by a knife on a large piece of animal skin that Tincchi had prepared earlier. Subsequently, at extremely low temperatures, these tin

The lumps slowly decompose into powdery objects that cover entire pieces of animal skins like soot.

Tin metal has a property that it will slowly decompose into powder when it encounters low temperatures below minus 13 degrees, and this powder is what Ding Qi needs, which is easy to carry, and can quickly form a bronze alloy by simply sprinkling tin powder into the copper juice.

On the afternoon of the tenth day, the three hunting teams were packing their belongings in their backpacks and placing them on snow climbing plows. The hunting team members will only act according to orders, and will not ask where the destination is and what the mission goal is, which is the concept that Ding Qi has been instilling in Ben and Cang, including all the team members.

According to the requirements, the items placed in the backpack included a set of change of clothes, two pairs of spare gloves and animal leather shoes, an animal skin moisture-proof mat, a ten-meter-long rope, about fifteen catties of jerky, half a catty of salt, and two pottery bowls, all of which were tied up on the snow climbing plow.

In addition, he had his own weapon, a bow and a pot of arrows, a spear, a flying stone rope, and a stone axe or knife that he was used to use on his side.

All of the above are standard equipment and will change as the productivity level of the tribe increases. In addition, Ding Qi prepared six clay pots, two large and one small heavy clay pots, two fishing nets and various models of weapons or tools made of wood, as well as three axes, two saws, three blowguns, a bamboo sieve, and only two shovels, and finally nearly 100 catties of tin powder, which were separately loaded on ten snow climbing plows.

The two coarse clay pots were prepared for smelting copper and bronze juice to facilitate the pouring of the model. It took five or six days for the two of them to burn it out, and they made a total of nine, and finally failed five and succeeded four.

In the evening, Ding Qi convened a meeting of the main backbone of the tribe as usual to arrange the daily work of the tribe, especially paying attention to the safety of the tribe. Therefore, the two hunting teams should step up their training, focus on the wind, and at the same time do a good job of tribal protection, and arrange people to patrol the watchtower every day.

Early the next morning, after everyone had a full meal, Ding Qi led everyone to embark on the journey again, leaving only the expectant eyes of everyone in the tribe, not knowing what surprises they would bring back to the tribe.

On the snowfield, two wolves, one black and one white, ran in front of them pulling sleds, and two columns of teams stepped on skis, waved ski poles, and dragged snow climbing plows behind, showing no tiredness at all.

There were two people in the queue who didn't drag the snow plow, and that was Zhuang and Fox. The skiing skills of the two were not skilled enough, so they could only follow the team slowly without being left behind. Zhuang was added to the White Fang's team, taking the place of the wind. The fox was specially brought by Ding Qi for the Qing tribe to see if it would work at a critical moment.

The team doesn't travel very fast, stopping every hour or so to rest for a while, allowing the body to get plenty of rest, including the eyes. On the way back from the Yu tribe, there was a tribesman who suffered from snow blindness, and after Ding Qi's emergency treatment, he went back lying on the snow plow, and finally it took three days to finally recover. So this time, Ding Qi specially told everyone to be sure to apply the powder that can prevent and treat snow blindness.

When the campfire burned, the people who had been on the road all day were relieved and began to enjoy the rich aroma of meat and the warmth of the shack. Zhuang and Fox were half tired to death, but when they started to barbecue, they quickly turned over, as if they were afraid that they would eat less.

The two wolves and the golden eagle accompanied them this time, and Ding Qi didn't dare to let them eat jerky

Instead, hunt a few hares to replenish their exerted stamina and let them rest in the middle of the shack to get better warmth. In fact, the little cutie wants to come along, but Ding Qi feels that there is still a beast in the tribe to watch the house, and the little black and white want to pull the sled, so he can only be wronged by the little cutie.

Everyone's snow plows were neatly arranged in front of the huts, and a bonfire was lit to ward off the wild beasts that might be there. Although a group of carnivores were cleaned up a while ago, they still did not dare to take it lightly and continued to arrange people to keep vigil at night.

With skis, everyone walked much faster than they walked, and they could catch up with the speed at which Ding Qi and Ben ran at a constant pace. Two days later, the group arrived at the location of the original deer tribe, and after resting here for the night, they immediately set off for the Qing tribe, and arrived in a jungle on the outskirts of the Qing tribe on the afternoon of the third day.

After resting, choose a more secluded place, start building the hut where you used to sleep, and arrange for people to hunt around, as much as you can. Anyway, it's winter, and no amount of prey is afraid of spoiling. Moreover, they have to stay here for a while, and food and water must be solved in advance, so as not to affect the morale of the army.

Ding Qi and Ben each put on a cloak made of white rabbit skin, put on a hat made of the same rabbit skin, propped up their ski poles, and rushed towards the Qing tribe. The cloak and hat were specially requested by Ding Qi to be made by Qiao'er, in order to facilitate the two of them to get close and observe the situation of the Qing tribe.

Soon the two of them reached the dirt slope where they had been when they had come to rescue the bucks, and there they were lying there, wrapped in white cloaks, and even if they got closer, they might not be able to see that the two big men were hiding there, provided that they ignored the four legs or hid them in the snowdrifts.

The entrance of the cave feels smaller than before, and it should be that the Qing tribe people are afraid of the cold and deliberately block a large part of the cave entrance. The snow at the entrance of the cave was trampled in a mess, and there were people who went in all directions, but there was only one way out, and the footprints were clearer. Not far from the entrance to the cave, there was a place full of filth, which seemed to be the place where they used to go to the toilet.

In another place, there were piles of animal bones, some of which were covered with tooth marks and even smashed open, and the marrow inside was eaten by them. In the age of lack of food, anything that could be eaten would be used to wrap the stomach.

Looking at the footprints far away from the tribe, and some traces of dragging, Ding Qi wondered for a while, did they have to come out to look for food on a snowy day? Does that mean that the green tribe is now facing a food crisis?

Just when the two were still observing, a few figures walked not far away, looking weak, with animal skins on their bodies, animal skin skirts underneath, bare legs, and their feet were wrapped in animal skins and tied with a rope in order to protect them from the cold. The beggar-like group of people walked staggeringly, making people feel as if they would suddenly fall to the ground in the next moment, but they showed amazing resilience, did not fall, dragged heavy steps, swayed and supported each other towards the entrance of the cave.

Suddenly, the man at the back couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed in the snow. The man in front paused for a moment and continued to walk forward, in their minds, they knew that when they got back to the cave, someone would come and drag the fallen man back, but what was waiting for him might become a piece of roast meat on the campfire.

Cannibal tribes, their own people are also people!

Didn't the tribal leaders want to eliminate the existing people in this way, not only to eat meat, but also to reduce the number of people and allow more people to survive. I just don't know who will be the next person to fall?