CHAPTER 287: CHAPTER 180: SHIPYARD

By the Feiyu River, Jing Jie was leading several Warriors in building new ships.

They were still using the ancient method, first covering one side of the massive wood with wet clay, then burning the uncovered part.

After each burn, they would chisel it once with a stone axe, gradually forming the hull this way. It was highly inefficient, and the ship’s size was limited by the size of the original log.

When Jiang Xuan walked over, he saw them laboriously tending to the fire.

"Building new ships again?"

"Greetings, Chief!"

Upon hearing Jiang Xuan’s voice, the warriors stood up to greet him.

Jing Jie also lifted his head and said to Jiang Xuan, "Chief, our tribe has grown, and we often need to move things across the river. The old ships are not enough, so I want to build a few more new ones."

Jiang Xuan nodded, "That is indeed an issue. You all continue with your work, don’t mind me, I’m just observing."

"Yes!"

The warriors saw that the wood was nearly burned through, so they carried it aside, flipped it over, and began chiseling the charcoal with small stone axes.

Jiang Xuan watched for a while, thinking: Building ships like this is too slow, and the burning is uneven, resulting in ships that are thick in some places, thin in others, not strong enough, and not large enough.

The Vine Tribe has now forged bronze and explored how the ratio of copper to tin affects the hardness and toughness of bronze, allowing the creation of excellent tools.

Saws, chisels, planes, and even bronze nails could all be manufactured.

Given that, why not use more advanced shipbuilding methods to make better, larger ships?

Jiang Xuan stood by the river, watching the warriors of the Fishing Team busily working, pondering these questions.

After standing there for a while, he made a decision.

"Jing Jie, come with me for a moment, I have something to discuss with you."

Hearing Jiang Xuan’s words, Jing Jie quickly got up and followed Jiang Xuan to a deserted part of the riverbank.

"Chief..."

Jing Jie was quite anxious inside, not knowing why Jiang Xuan called him, thinking he might have done something wrong to upset Jiang Xuan.

Jiang Xuan glanced at Jing Jie, seeing his cautious expression, he found it amusing yet vaguely uncomfortable.

The tribe was growing larger, the population was increasing, and their strength was rising too, but the warm camaraderie he used to feel with the tribesmen had faded.

Everyone now showed him great respect, even Jing Jie and the others behaved more formally around him than before.

He sometimes wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Jiang Xuan shook his head, putting those thoughts aside for the moment.

"Don’t be nervous, I called you here to discuss something, I’d like to hear your opinion."

"Chief, feel free to instruct me."

Jiang Xuan sat on a large river stone and said to Jing Jie, "I plan to build a shipyard in the tribe."

"A ship... yard?"

Jing Jie was a bit confused; he understood shipbuilding but not what a ’yard’ meant.

"Sit down."

Jiang Xuan patted a nearby large river stone, Jing Jie hesitated for a moment, then sat down.

"A shipyard is a place dedicated to making ships, not the small ones like we have now, but big ships, very big ships!"

"Chief, how big are these big ships?"

Jiang Xuan thought for a moment, "They are ten times, even dozens, or hundreds of times bigger than the ships we make now!"

Jing Jie listened to Jiang Xuan’s words but couldn’t quite imagine how those ships looked or how big they really were.

"Chief, for ships that big, how big must the trees be to build them?"

In Jing Jie’s mind, the size of a ship depended on the size of the tree.

Jiang Xuan laughed, "You don’t need very large trees; ordinary trees can be joined together to make large ships!"

"For example, our bamboo rafts are made by connecting individual bamboo stalks, right?"

Jing Jie tried to imagine it, then said to Jiang Xuan, "Chief, you mean we tie large trees together with vines to make big ships?"

Jiang Xuan shook his head, "If you tie large trees together, that’s a log raft, similar to a bamboo raft, but it’s not a ship. The large ships we want to build must be watertight."

"Let me draw it for you."

Jiang Xuan randomly picked up a twig and slowly drew the shape of a large sailboat on the sand of the riverbank.

"Look, this is the big ship we aim to build. It looks like this. These are sails that harness the wind, and below, the ship’s hold is particularly large to store a lot of goods. At the front and back, there are anchors to secure the ship in place..."

Jiang Xuan pointed to the drawing in the sand and explained the structure of the large sailboat to Jing Jie.

Jing Jie still couldn’t fully imagine what a real large sailboat looked like, but at least he had a vague impression in his mind.

"Of course, such a large ship cannot be built by our Vine Tribe right now, but that doesn’t matter. We can start with small sailboats and gradually accumulate experience."

"Once we have the first batch of real ships, whether you fish along the river or transport people and goods across it, everything will be much more convenient than before."

After listening to Jiang Xuan, Jing Jie hesitated for a while and asked, "Chief, how can we build such large ships?"