11: Chapter 10: Firing Pottery 11: Chapter 10: Firing Pottery Editor: Atlas Studios After finishing the matters at the fish pond, Jiang Xuan began excavating clay and making pottery.
On this day, he took a vine basket and a Bone Plow and walked to the creek.
First, he used the Bone Plow to remove the top layer of soil, which contained many impurities, revealing the fine gray-white clay beneath.
He dug an entire basket full of clay, then carried it to a flat area by the creek, where he found a relatively flat stone slab and placed a clump of clay on it, repeatedly pounding and kneading it.
Clay is sticky, much like dough; the more it’s pounded, the stickier it becomes, and its surface becomes smoother.
Next, Jiang Xuan used a bamboo strip to cut the pounded clay into strips, rolled them into clay cords, and manually molded a round base for a Pottery Jar.
Then, he started making the pottery piece.
First, he dabbed some water onto the base and began attaching the clay cords to it, one after another, stacking them to form the shape of a Pottery Jar.
Soon, a rough pottery jar with a diameter of over twenty centimeters and a height of over thirty centimeters took shape.
After the rough piece took shape, it wasn’t very smooth, so Jiang Xuan sprinkled a little water on the surface, trying to make it smoother.
Finally, he made a matching lid for the Pottery Jar, with a handle molded on the lid.
Chi Shao, watching from the side, curiously asked after Jiang Xuan finished the lid, “Can it be fired into a Pottery Jar just ?”
She actually wanted to say that it seemed too easy, but she didn’t voice it.
Gou Teng, Shi Qiu, and Nan Xing were also watching Jiang Xuan, feeling that the pottery-making process looked simple enough that anyone could do it.
Jiang Xuan replied, “This is just the initial molding.
Afterward, it needs to be placed in a cool place for seven to eight days to naturally air dry.
Then, a soil kiln needs to be built to fire the dried pottery piece for a whole day.
Once cooled, pieces that didn’t crack can be considered real pottery.”
Chi Shao and the three teenagers listened in confusion; they didn’t understand terms like “air dry,” “soil kiln,” and “cooling.”
The three teenagers, who just thought anyone could do it, immediately put aside their dismissive attitude.
Chi Shao wasn’t surprised.
If pottery were that easy to make, the Deer Tribe’s pottery wouldn’t be so rare.
In reality, Chi Shao didn’t know that the Deer Tribe, along with many other tribes, found pottery valuable because they used random clay without specifically searching for pottery clay, nor did they go through the air-drying process.
Moreover, they didn’t build specialized soil kilns, and the temperature and time for firing pottery lacked standards, relying on trial and error, which resulted in a very low success rate for finished pottery, making it naturally valuable.
In contrast, Jiang Xuan’s memories from his previous life are the crystallization of continuous improvement and recorded wisdom from countless generations, ensuring a much higher success rate in pottery-making.
Ultimately, Jiang Xuan made two thick pottery jar rough pieces, two pottery basin rough pieces, and ten pottery bowl rough pieces, placing them all in the corner of the bamboo house to air dry.
The reason for placing them in the bamboo house is that during air drying, they should best avoid wind and intense light, allowing natural evaporation of moisture for natural drying, reducing deformation of the pottery pieces.
This step is crucial; if the pottery piece is not sufficiently dried, the water vapor contained within it will expand during firing, causing the pottery to crack.
After handling these pottery pieces, more than half a day had passed.
Chi Shao and the three teenagers watched for a while before going off to hunt, fish, and dig plant tubers.
With winter approaching, storing food is more important.
Jiang Xuan ate a bit of fish and then roasted two pieces of Polygonatum to eat.
Polygonatum is also one of the herbs used by tribal people, widely distributed in the Southern Wilderness mountain ranges.
Unlike the spicy taste of wild ginger, roasted Polygonatum has a slightly sweet taste and can be used to satisfy hunger.
Tribal people often dig it up for food.
After eating Polygonatum, Jiang Xuan opened a bamboo tube containing a jar of solidified animal blood.
He added some water to the bamboo tube, stirred it with a bamboo strip, and placed the bamboo tube over the charcoal fire to roast.
The green bamboo tube turned charred black, and the animal blood mixed with water was boiled to a bubbling point.
Jiang Xuan opened the bamboo tube and gradually ate the animal blood inside.
Due to the lack of salt, consuming a lot of mammal meat and animal blood becomes an important way to supplement salt.
Chi Shao and the others could drink blood directly when hunting without changing expressions, but Jiang Xuan found it hard to accept, so he used the bamboo tube with water method, boiling the blood before eating it, which was easier to accept.
After eating his fill, Jiang Xuan went to dig clay again, this time to build a soil kiln.
Ordinary soil can actually be used to build a soil kiln, but it easily cracks during firing.
Jiang Xuan wanted to use the kiln long-term, so he decided to use clay for construction.
There are several methods to build a soil kiln; Jiang Xuan chose the Horizontal Flame Kiln, which is simple to build and can fire multiple pieces of pottery at once.
At the front of the Horizontal Flame Kiln is the stove mouth, the middle is the hearth, and the rear end has a vertical cylindrical vent at a ninety-degree angle.
When the stove mouth is lit, heated air flows upwards, passing through the long hearth and is expelled through the cylindrical vent, similar to rural earth stove principles, but with a long rectangular lower section.
Jiang Xuan selected a relatively flat area in the open space beside the bamboo house, cleaned the ground thoroughly, and then dug plenty of clay by the creek and transported it using the vine basket.