Chapter 1201: Abandoning the Bones

The elephant meat was being carved off bit by bit; all those wielding the Knives were now covered in blood from head to toe, looking like blood-men.

But one could tell just by the smell that this elephant meat probably wouldn't taste very good, as it was quite pungent (this is purely a guess, don't take it too seriously; if you do, I'll have you sent to the guardhouse). It was like those very large wild boars, as if the urine had already permeated the internal organs.

After the meat was carved off, it was immediately loaded onto Handcarts along with the hides, then dragged to the main force's camp. Vultures in the sky would swoop down from time to time to scavenge the scraps of meat that had fallen to the ground.

When the first cart arrived at the camp, the camp was already in an uproar. Seeing so much meat, how could they not be happy? Who doesn't like to eat meat?

Xuanyuan and Xiong immediately laughed and gave the order: "Light the fires and boil the water! Everyone gets a piece of meat today, pick your own fat or lean, there is enough for everyone!"

"Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Everyone had been waiting impatiently, and now that the order to boil the meat had finally been given, they no longer needed to wait and started setting up the pots directly. However, the water source was still a bit of a distance away, so a dedicated team was needed to go and fetch more water; for now, they could only use their stored water to boil the meat.

Huaxia had lost one man and one Strong Crossbow, which was something no one had expected; after all, this was a completely unnecessary loss.

But Xiong accepted it quickly; after all, that was an elephant, not cattle or sheep, so it was bound to be very dangerous. It was just that Strong Crossbow that really shouldn't have been brought along; it was a lack of experience and not enough caution.

When they returned to Huaxia, they would have to report it truthfully. It was a pity—with so much spoils of war brought back this year, was it ultimately a gain or a loss for Huaxia?

Xiong felt that if they couldn't obtain the territory, yet they still put in so much effort to fight and lost so many elites just to gain these many Slaves and a few Bronze wares, it really seemed like a loss; it was not cost-effective for the long-term development of Huaxia.

Unlike the Xuanyuan Tribe, they were able to acquire such a large territory; in the coming years, as long as they could cultivate it, the land would immediately produce value and yield grain, and those previous costs and losses would be recouped immediately.

An excellent Soldier of Huaxia, however, took many years to cultivate.

Now, Xiong had doubts in his heart about this war. After returning, he would have to ask the King properly whether Huaxia should really be participating in this war. If there were not enough benefits for Huaxia, they should withdraw as soon as possible and let the Xuanyuan Tribe fight it out themselves.

After more than half a day of cleaning by hundreds of people, the elephant carcasses everywhere had turned into bare skeletons; they even had to carefully scrape off the meat scraps on the bones.

The heads were the same; nothing was left. Even the eyeballs, as big as fists, were dug out. However, they didn't hollow out the inside of the heads—that was a bit difficult, and everyone didn't have such an idea, at least not yet.

Shaoyin and the others used various methods on the tusks, and only with great difficulty did they manage to remove all of them.

Although ivory could not be sold for money in this era (it is illegal now too), anything special had value. For example, they had seen a tribe that used a certain kind of sheep horn for Spears, and those sheep horns were very useful to them.

And they never expected that the sheep horns they used to make Weapons would actually be a very important and commonly used medicinal material in Traditional Chinese Medicine in Huaxia.

In later generations, that kind of medicinal material was also banned, but it could still be used; they used medicinal materials imported from abroad, which at least meant there was something to use.

It was better than using Buffalo Horn to replace Rhino Horn; one had to use ten times the amount of Buffalo Horn to have roughly the same effect as the original weight of Rhino Horn, and this was why Angong Niuhuang was becoming more and more expensive—because the materials were gone.

It is said that the composition of Rhino Horn is the same as fingernails, and many people accept this and use it as a basis to attack Traditional Chinese Medicine. In fact, from the perspective of protecting animals, if everyone could think this way, it would be quite good and successful; it is a great thing that everyone stops hunting rhinos.

However, Baifeng wouldn't care about that at this time. Rhinos and elephants, which are rare or even extinct on the land of Huaxia in later generations, were everywhere now.

And like wild boars, their destructive power was even more astonishing. Huaxia was to the north, too far north, so these animals were rare, but for the Xuanyuan Tribe and the Shennong Clan, there were too many of them.

In the trade between Huaxia and the Xuanyuan Tribe, Rhino Horn was among the medicinal materials. However, Rhino Horn at this time was not that precious, and the price was not high. For the Xuanyuan Tribe, Rhino Horn was completely useless, so why not sell it to Huaxia to earn a little more?

Tribes in the Jianghuai River Basin were plagued by swamp beasts like crocodiles, the Xuanyuan Tribe was plagued by beasts like rhinos and wild boars, and the Shennong Clan was even worse; their tribal territory was full of behemoths like elephants, which would come to attack the Village from time to time.

If you go to fight them, the risk is a bit high. If you are not careful and don't hit the elephant, but instead enrage them, an entire village could be finished. To a large extent, elephants were more like the masters of this land than humans.

The two longest tusks were carried back by the Soldiers as spoils of war to show off. Of course, it wasn't necessary to carry them, but carrying them made it look even more impressive.

When the last team returned, everyone cheered. The cheers of ten thousand people scared the surrounding beasts into fleeing another dozen miles away.

What kind of species can, like humans, gather by the tens of thousands and still live together in an orderly and harmonious way?

Only insects like ants, perhaps. But ants are ants after all; even if you gather a million of them, not many things will feel afraid. But when you gather tens of thousands of humans, even a sparrow knows it should hide far away.

After the humans abandoned the remaining large pile of skeletons, a large number of beasts immediately surrounded them. However, those bears and wolves didn't expect that the previous tenants would have gnawed the bones so clean, leaving nothing for them at all.

Even the bones were something everyone had intended to take away, but they discovered there were no pots big enough to boil them in. Even if they wanted to chop them into smaller pieces, they couldn't; the bones were too thick, they couldn't chop them, and it would damage their Knives, which wasn't worth it, so all these bones were abandoned.