Making leather boots is not an easy task.

The first is to tann the hides of raw animals into leather.

Getting animal skins is the easiest step, there are many kinds of animal skins in primitive society, Ye Xi gave up cowhides, sheepskins and other conventional leather shoe leather, but chose a kind of anteater tapir skin.

The animal's skin is more resistant to abrasion and is more resilient.

Soak the peeled skin in a bucket for about four days, take out the softened hide, and use a stone knife to clean the fat and meat foam from the skin. The skin of an anteater tapir does not grow hair, so the step of dehairing can be omitted.

Then you need to use a chemical solution, the miscanthus solution.

Miscanthus is a sulfate mineral that occurs naturally in places such as salt lakes. Later, Tu Shan forced Huang Zhen to ask the secret of Huang Zhen's salt production from the mouth of Huang Zhen's slaves, and knew that their tribe had discovered a salt spring.

Ye Xi spent a day and went to this salt spring to take some natural miscanthus and came back to make a miscanthus solution.

Next up is the nitrate hides.

In the grassy valley, Ye Xi cleared a piece of land and asked everyone to help build a stove.

Building a stove is a simple job, originally Ye Xi called for the help of ordinary men in the tribe, but after these soldiers knew about it, they were very active in holding stones to grab the stove.

"Come on, come on, let's do this, you go and do other things!" Cangpan squatted on the ground with a smile.

He knelt on the ground grinding the stones to make them fit better, and without raising his head, he said to the men, "Yes, you can go and do something else!"

The cones, the mink, and the dolphin all of them also carried rocks and squeezed them aside.

These men are unwilling and unwilling to go.

They finally had the opportunity to help Ye Xi do things, and they heard that they were going to make a pair of things called "leather boots" that would make their feet not hurt and comfortable, so how could they be willing to leave? I don't know how many times they showed off their experience of making salt in the first place, intentionally or unintentionally.

But they were all warriors of the tribe, and they didn't dare to disobey them, so they could only look at Ye Xi with pleading eyes.

Ye Xiqing coughed: "I want your help later, so you just wait first." ”

They breathed a sigh of relief.

An honest-looking man said to Ye Xi: "If you have any work, we can do anything!"

"Good. Ye Xi smiled and nodded.

With so many people doing it together, the stove was quickly set up, and the fire under it was quickly lit.

Ye Xi said to the honest-looking man: "I need a stone bucket now, help me go to the cave and get a stone bucket." ”

"Okay!" the man's eyes lit up, and he was about to go.

But at this time, a group of warriors actually rushed to the cave like arrows off the string, and disappeared after a while.

The men could only look at their vigorous backs, messy in the wind.

Ye Xi shook his head, a little speechless.

Isn't it just making a pair of boots, and their posture is as if they are building rockets.

The stone bucket was quickly fetched, and Ye Xi set it up on the fire, and then poured the miscanthus solution into it. Wait until the heat is slightly above body temperature, wring out the hide and place it in the pot.

The surrounding crowd of onlookers from afar all looked serious.

Watching this scene, the cone covered his mouth with his hand, and whispered to the mink beside him in a suppressed voice: "Won't cooking like this cook the animal skin?"

Mink glanced at the cone, and his voice was inaudible: "When do you think Ye Xi made a mistake?"

The cone was a little unaccustomed to the ermine's demeanor, and snorted lightly in response.

Ye Xi found that the water was a little overheated, so he said to the men who were waiting aside: "Please help me control the fire and make the fire smaller." ”

As soon as the words ended, the men rushed to the stove like hungry tigers and started a fire.

The warehouse that was a step late waited for the warriors to stop in a sneer.

"Look at their appearance, Ye Xi said let them do it, and we won't rob it. Hulu muttered, quietly retracting his outstretched left foot.

Ye Xi touched the solution with his hands, felt its temperature, and constantly asked the men to adjust the heat, while constantly kneading the skin with his hands, so that the solution could penetrate better.

After a while, Ye Xi felt that it was almost enough, so he took out the animal skin, spread it out on a stone slab, and put it to dry under the sun.

It takes a while to dry, and during this time, Ye Xi went to the farmland to look at the crops.

In the process of drying, a group of people gathered around the animal skin and discussed curiously: "This animal skin seems to be different after being soaked in this way." ”

"That's for sure, otherwise it's vacuum?" someone scoffed.

The cone held out an index finger: "I want to poke it to see if the skin is getting soft or hard." ”

Cangpan immediately slapped his hand down and reprimanded: "You are responsible for the damage when it happens?"

The cone pursed his lips unhappily, but he didn't dare to poke it after all.

Ye Xi went to the farmland and came back, and it was already half an hour later.

And a group of people still gathered around the hides and whispered.

Ye Xi squeezed through the crowd, saw that the animal skin was almost dry, and announced, "Okay, let's continue." ”

The fire was re-lit in the stove, Ye Xi soaked the dried animal skin into the miscanthus solution, kneaded it repeatedly with his hands, and then dried it after it was almost kneaded, and then put the animal skin into it to soak and knead, and so on.

This step is called "eating nitrate". After the nitrate is eaten thoroughly, remove the floating nitrate on the animal skin, and it is completed.

Then there's the more extravagant behavior.

Ye Xi put a stone basin on the stove, filled the stone basin with grease, heated to keep the oil temperature slightly higher than the body temperature, and then put the animal skin into the oil, and kept pushing the animal skin with his hands, so that the oil could evenly penetrate into the leather plate.

Ye Xi took the animal skin out of the oil basin, walked to the cave, and dried the animal skin on the wooden pole that had been erected in advance, and let it dry naturally.

The skin is finished.

The cone looked curiously at the completely different animal skin, and asked Ye Xi, "Can it be made into boots after it dries?"

Ye Xi shook his head: "There is still one thing left to make the soles of shoes." ”

The sole cannot be made of animal skin, it must have the characteristics of thick, wear-resistant, water-resistant, oil-resistant, heat-resistant, pressure-resistant, impact-resistant, and elastic. In previous lives, most of the soles were made of synthetic rubber, synthetic plastic, or recycled leather, or even elastic cardboard.

And here, Ye Xi can extravagantly use natural rubber to make soles - the benefits of soles made of natural rubber are simply endless.

He remembered that he had seen a rubber tree in the back forest of the Ye tribe last time, so he planned to go to the Ye tribe and pay some price, asking the Ye tribe to sell the rubber tree to Tu Shan, or if it didn't work, just cut some rubber.

I believe that this requires that the Ye tribe will still sell his face.