Chapter 1418: Material Transshipment

At the same time, the Suiren clan also brought good news to Huaxia: all the various products sent from Jiuli had already arrived at Suiren City. Originally, Baoxi had been preparing to specifically send people over to fetch them, but now it was fine; there was a free ride back.

The road from Huaxia City to Suiren City had not been cleared, because Huaxia currently did not have enough manpower to spare for road construction, and the relationship with the Suiren clan was classified as top secret, making it impossible to let people from the Xuanyuan Tribe participate. Therefore, this very important road could only be planned for now, but not built.

One of the few pieces of good news was that because of the location of Suiren City, it was very close to Huaxia. Comparatively speaking, the distance was much shorter, and if it were to be built vigorously, the cost and time required would be much less than building the road to the Western Development Group.

Now, because of the relatively frequent back-and-forth, plus the fact that this road had been simply opened up before for the sake of border stability, at least the path could already be seen in the past.

Now that there was free time and manpower, they would clear it while passing by, making the road a bit wider and clearing away the trees. Not only could they obtain firewood, but it could also provide convenience for future road construction. Furthermore, clearing some space to set up overnight camps was slightly safer, especially in the summer when rainstorms were frequent, as there was no need to worry about being crushed by trees snapped by the gale and rain.

Now this road could barely accommodate ox carts, though it was quite bumpy; however, the width was sufficient. Moreover, once it rained, the road would be washed open and broken by the water, making it impassable. A simple dirt road could not compare to a real, solid main road.

Therefore, ox carts could now get on the road, but they were still relatively few. After all, Huaxia did not have such good shock-absorption technology, or rather, it had none at all. Ox carts were easily damaged, so ox teams were the main body for transporting goods at present.

However, because of the discovery of the Magnetite Mine, the construction of this road had to be planned in advance again. This was because Magnetite and Iron Ore were different from other things. Currently, the goods transported back and forth between Huaxia and the Suiren clan were basically salt and grain, which were easier to carry and transport.

As for what was sent from the Suiren clan to Huaxia, it was wild products like Tea Leaves and medicinal herbs, which were not difficult to transport even if carried by human labor.

But Magnetite was heavy and irregular. If carried by human labor, the difficulty was much higher than that of grain of the same weight, so a road that could at least accommodate ox carts was necessary to build.

However, there was truly a shortage of manpower this year, and no resources could be spared. Unless it was planned again next year, or they waited until after this year's Autumn Harvest to completely fill the National Treasury and the treasury of Huaxia, then there would be grain to hire those scattered people from other tribes of the Suiren clan.

They were Huaxia people themselves; currently, they did not contribute much to Huaxia, and the help Huaxia gave them was minimal. So, when there was enough grain, they could be directly provided with enough grain, and then they could be made to work for Huaxia. They would not have to starve to death, and the road Huaxia needed would also be built. This was purely "work-for-relief," but Huaxia needed a big Harvest first.

According to the current plan, it was necessary to find a place near Suiren City to stack all the ore that had been mined and transported out. They would wait until the road was completely cleared to carry out a unified, large-scale transport. After all, relying on human labor to transport ore currently meant the quantity of ore that could be transported at one time was also very small.

Huaxia also did not need to spend a large amount of transport capacity specifically to go to Suiren City to fetch those ores; they only needed to have the ox teams bring some back on the return trip every time they were sent to Suiren City.

This time, the items sent from Jiuli naturally attracted the attention of the various small tribes of the Suiren clan. Although the items were not for them and were to be sent to Huaxia, they did not have such a strong sense of awareness or any such concepts.

So what if they were sent to Huaxia? Even if they were sent to Baoxi, they still had to take a little (in their eyes, Baoxi was still higher than Huaxia).

After all, with such a large quantity, who would know if they took a little? There were no marks on them either. Besides, everyone must have taken some; it wasn't just them.

Therefore, those ginsengs and seaweeds were almost left behind a little every time they passed a small tribe. The timid ones took one or two roots, and the bold ones took a dozen or so. Even if they didn't know what they were, since they could be sent to Huaxia from as far away as Jiuli, they certainly weren't ordinary Grass.

It was just that after they got them, they ate a little. The seaweed was fine, salty and quite delicious, but the root was not tasty at all and was even poisonous. After taking a bite, their noses started bleeding after a while, almost scaring them to death.

In the end, the seaweed was all left behind, and the ginseng was discarded in the wild Grass. As for the tiger skin and tiger bone, those tribes also knew that these were not things they could touch. Besides, the quantity was so small that cutting a little off for themselves was useless, and if they took the whole thing, what would they have to hand over?

Not to mention the ones sent by Jiuli, even when they hunted tigers themselves, the tiger skin had to be kept and handed over. One tiger skin could be worth a lot of grain, allowing them to hand over much, much less food. They had no use for the bones either, and no one wanted to take them, so the tiger skin was safely preserved as it passed through one hand after another.

When it reached Baoxi, Baoxi naturally kept some too. He also wanted to know what these things were and asked the Huaxia officials, but their rank was too low, and they did not know the content of the trade with Jiuli, let alone recognize what these were.

But Baoxi was not stupid. He did not eat these things casually; he just felt they might be precious, so he kept them well and did not eat them. When the time came later, he would naturally have the chance to know what these things were, and their value would naturally be clear.

The Huaxia transport team only carried out a simple inspection before bringing them back to Huaxia. Based on their experience, they guessed these were probably some medicinal herbs that Huaxia did not have, which was why such great effort was made to bring them back from Jiuli.

They were certainly very precious, after all, it took so much effort, but to them, they were of no use. Moreover, they strictly adhered to their professional ethics: they would never touch what they shouldn't touch. Looking was fine, and touching was also fine, but they could not reach their hands into the bags.

It was not until the items were delivered to Huaxia that these Grass and roots were finally valued and no longer needed to lie in the sacks.