Chapter 1501: Assessment for You All Too

The people from the Sulfur Mine have also returned, but they reported that both on the way there and on the way back, they felt as if people from the Xuanyuan Tribe were searching for their tracks; it was the same last year, only the location of the Sulfur Mine is relatively hidden, so the Xuanyuan Tribe could not find it for the time being.

If it continues like this now, being searched for back and forth several times by people from the Xuanyuan Tribe, then whether this secret can be kept is truly hard to say.

In a situation where they do not know what the sulfur is for, the Xuanyuan Tribe should not interfere much, but they will certainly secretly go over to mine it in Winter, after Huaxia has left, and then study what it is used for; it is impossible for them to be that honest.

Furthermore, there is another point: that place is still the territory of the Suiren; after the Suiren split in the past, it led to that area being occupied by other small tribes, but the Xuanyuan Tribe did not occupy it; now that Huaxia has taken over the Suiren, that place naturally becomes the territory of Huaxia, and it can be completely controlled.

Therefore, starting now, the Sulfur Mine must be accessed by land, and the transport must be rerouted through the Suiren area to avoid the surveillance of the Xuanyuan Tribe; Huaxia must also firmly control the location of the Sulfur Mine.

Building Suiren City now is only the first step; once there is a stable foothold and a hub that can control the east, it will be easier to reach out further east.

The Suiren no longer have places that need to be conquered, but Huaxia currently lacks the strength to manage those places, and even more so to assist them, so it can only rely on Suiren City to slowly spread outward.

Being able to thoroughly control all the territory of the Suiren is, of course, the best thing for Huaxia; if it cannot be stably controlled, then it is better not to have it at all, and to directly abandon those wild, undeveloped places to focus on developing areas that can grow stably.

After all, this era is different from the eras that follow; if you take over a territory and there is no one there, no farmland, then occupying it is actually just a matter of face and has no real significance; the most important thing is territory with a population.

Now that so many minerals have been discovered in the territory of the Suiren, Baifeng has to re-examine his policy toward the Suiren; previously, he was unwilling to waste time and energy on large-scale wars, preferring to focus on developing toward the northwest.

Now that the Suiren have already been incorporated, there is no need to fight each other; it just depends on whether your financial and material resources can build it up.

By comparison, the difficulty of controlling the Suiren is actually smaller, but one cannot support the expansion of the Suiren on too large a scale or too blatantly right now, otherwise it will certainly attract the attention of the Xuanyuan Tribe and cause tension between the two sides.

Baifeng marked some important nodes on the map, one by one, and then considered where the minimum territory range of the future Huaxia should be.

The map of Huaxia is the most detailed map of this era, because Baifeng possesses a rough map of more than half of Asia, which is something completely unimaginable in this era, because almost most of the borders have never been stepped on by humans at all.

If Xuanyuan were willing to believe it, this map could be exchanged for huge benefits from Xuanyuan's hands; given Xuanyuan's ambition, he would certainly be willing to make the exchange.

The year-end summary meeting is coming up immediately; this year's meeting content is as important as last year's, and there are many major events and major policies that need to be changed; in the early days of founding the nation, too many things need to be explored and constantly adjusted; there are no predecessors' things to follow, and Baifeng only has some fragmented experiences from later generations, which he then constantly blends and applies according to the current specific situation.

Baoxi is participating in the year-end meeting for the first time; he is still sitting in the first seat below Baifeng, and because he came, Chengqie, that child, does not need to come; the main officials and Nobles responsible for the Suiren also arrived one by one, taking their seats according to the order of their rank, and Huangpin was among them.

He had thought that it would be difficult for him to be valued by Huaxia, but he did not expect that he would actually be able to sit in a relatively central position; upon asking, he found that those sitting around him were all important leaders of various departments; Huangpin suddenly felt excited about his status and future, and was no longer anxious.

This year's agenda is the same as in previous years, with each department summarizing first, followed by speeches from the City Lord and Town Mayor; Baoxi's summary report was written for him by Huaxia officials, otherwise he would not have known what to write.

It is just that he cannot fully recognize the characters in his document, so he read it stumblingly, but his voice was quite loud and full of vigor, without the half-dead, old-man-like feeling he had before.

His momentum was also very strong; if he encountered a character he did not recognize, he would take it directly to Baifeng: "King, look, how is this character read? I don't recognize it."

After Baifeng gave him a hint, Baoxi would continue to read loudly; the people below all wanted to laugh a little, but given the occasion, no one dared to make a sound, all trying their best to hold it in; if anyone dared to laugh out loud at this time, they would definitely be recorded in the Ministry of Rites' little notebook, and in the future performance evaluation, they would have a mark against them for improper behavior and lack of etiquette, which is equivalent to a minor offense.

After Baoxi finished reading and sat down, Baifeng could not help but say: "Baoxi, look at you now; you are a City Lord after all, not to mention managing so many officials under you, you also have to manage so many people; you have had a whole year, and you still cannot recognize all the characters; is this acceptable?"

"When your subordinates bring you documents to look at later, will you be able to understand them? Also, in the future, if your script for this kind of reporting occasion is not written by yourself, and I still have to give you hints for the characters, do you think your job as City Lord is qualified?"

"In Huaxia, being proficient in reading and writing is a most basic ability; without this ability, one cannot be an official; because the Suiren were newly incorporated into Huaxia, the requirements for you were very lenient, but a year has passed, and you still haven't been able to learn, which shows that you are not putting in enough effort."

Baoxi did not care too much, nor did he feel that he had lost face; instead, he said carelessly: "King, didn't we not have contact with these before? They look like toad tracks, they are a bit hard to recognize and write, but next time, next time I will definitely be able to, hahahaha."