Chapter 1454: Extracting Intelligence

For Huaxia, a sheep pen is an extremely poor and humiliating way to arrange housing, yet for these savages, being able to live in such a good place meant Huaxia was being too good to them. Moreover, they were built in sheltered locations, so they did not feel cold at all, and no wind blew inside.

They were even tossed hay to use as bedding. The people of the Western Development Group were doing fine now; having lived a good life, they did not feel this was excessive. Of course, they said it was "excessively good," because back in their own savage days, such a situation would have meant being tied up and thrown outside to blow in the night wind—let alone being given hay, having a sheep pen to live in would have been the best treatment they could get.

That same night, Huaxia made arrangements to randomly grab a few savages and pull them aside for questioning. A group of people surrounded one savage, forced him to kneel on the ground, and a person who understood the Wulengebu language questioned him in front of the others.

Under such circumstances, and through various forms of coercion and inducement, they quickly extracted the information they wanted. Once they integrated the words of these people, they had the complete intelligence on the Wulengebu.

The small leader they thought they had caught turned out to have a much bigger background than they imagined. Bosa was not his name, but his duty and profession; in the Wulengebu, a Bosa was equivalent to the shaman of other tribes.

A Bosa could communicate with the gods, communicate with the Tiger God, and then, through rituals, bestow blessings upon these savages, allowing them to possess the speed of a tiger and the strength of a tiger, fearing nothing. This was also the reason why, during the first mutual attack, they did not fear Huaxia's bombs.

The second time, they lacked the Bosa's ritual blessing, which was why they were defeated so quickly. Of course, the Regimental Commander and the others certainly did not believe the Bosa had such abilities; they estimated that it was just that this tribe had a relatively deep belief in the so-called Tiger God.

And the Bosa was also the number one person below the Tribal Chief, meaning they had captured the second-in-command of a large tribe under the Wulengebu in one fell swoop. This was truly a great achievement, yet the Bosa had been deceiving them all along, claiming to be just a small leader.

Everyone now had a relatively clear understanding of the precious intelligence regarding the Wulengebu. At the very least, within the currently known western region, the Wulengebu was the largest tribe, even larger than the former Jiangshui Tribe. It was just that each of their tribes lived relatively far apart and could not be as unified or concentrate their strength like the Jiangshui Tribe; otherwise, they would have defeated the Jiangshui Tribe long ago.

The Wulengebu's main way of survival was actually herding and fishing/hunting. According to them, the center of the tribe was beside a massive, boundless lake where there was more fish than they could eat and more birds than they could eat.

There were also various wild beasts like sheep, cattle, and donkeys. The water and grass were lush, and they had been domesticating livestock since a very, very long time ago. Cattle and sheep were the most common, and there was also a type of Changmaoniu that they raised on a relatively large scale.

At the same time, they would hunt everywhere and gather the grass seeds that could be seen everywhere, so their food supply was relatively sufficient.

What allowed them to be so unified was their faith and language, and one other point: their yearning for that Shenhu, the endless food, and the most lush water and grass.

As for the population, these savages could not say clearly at all; they only said that every few years their leaders would gather for a meeting. The leaders alone were too numerous to count, not to mention the tribes under them.

The Regimental Commander did not believe this, because the savages themselves said that their tribe was considered a relatively large one within the entire Wulengebu, yet it only had a few thousand people. The fact that they could gather over ten thousand people this time was because several nearby tribes had united, preparing to seize the territory of the Jiangshui Tribe.

A shaman like a Bosa was not present in every tribe; only the relatively larger tribes had them. Apart from them, the other tribes that came were all tribes of several hundred to a thousand people.

During the last natural disaster, their Wulengebu suffered a severe catastrophe. Many people died, and many livestock died or ran away, causing them relatively serious damage.

However, there was also intelligence saying that the Jiangshui Tribe was completely gone, which was why they gathered together, preparing to seize the Jiangshui Tribe's territory. After seeing it on the ground, the Jiangshui Tribe was indeed gone, so they occupied the Jiangshui Tribe's territory, believing themselves to be the masters of that place.

Plus, with the Golden Autumn Gathering approaching, they simply ambushed and besieged the tribes on their way to the gathering, looting their wealth, and also gained considerable profits, until they met Huaxia and had their bad luck.

Ce and the others even had these savages count, and unexpectedly, their ability to count was really not bad; it was just that addition and subtraction were not their forte, and they did not even understand these concepts.

Thinking about it in the end, it was clear: because they herded, they needed to pay attention to the number of their livestock herds at all times and take inventory every day. If they did not even have this ability, how could they look after their livestock herds?

After Ce learned that they knew how to herd, his eyes brightened even more, because what they needed most here were people who knew how to herd. If they could manage these savages well and let them be responsible for herding for them, wouldn't that save a lot of manpower? They could free up more labor to do other work, or raise more livestock?

Ce immediately had an idea. He had to get his hands on these savages. So, on the night he summarized the intelligence, he used the smallest handwriting he had ever written in his life to write the most content on a tiny slip of paper, then sent it to Huaxia via carrier pigeon.

This concerned the future of his Western Development Group. Ce could not wait until the end-of-year performance review to talk about this. Although the King might not be able to reply to him in a short time, he could give the King more time to think and make decisions.

There were only a few dozen savages here now, which could not play a significant role for the Western Development Group, but how many people would the entire Wulengebu have? As long as he could get a few thousand slaves here to specialize in herding, while others engaged in the expansion of the city, wouldn't it be very easy for the Western Development Group to achieve rapid expansion?

Moreover, Ce also thought further ahead. If he wanted the importance of the Western Development Group to continue to rise, just looking at herding would not be enough, because herding would lead to a dispersed population. They must expand to other areas; planting was a must. This way, they could concentrate more of the population slightly, and only then could it have the appearance of a city.