Chapter 152: The Younger Generation

The moths that died after laying eggs all ended up as food for the chickens, but for now, the matter of reeling silk had to be set aside, because the wheat harvest season was almost upon them. This year's prey was truly too scarce, so almost no one went out hunting; most of the time was spent weeding and removing insects in the farmland.

This year, the wheat was growing exceptionally well, and the rice was also better than last year's. Best of all, up until now, there hadn't been a single rainstorm this year, nor had they suffered from hail. The buckwheat that failed to mature last year was now blooming with pink flowers.

Everyone was full of expectations for this year's harvest. After getting used to eating it, they discovered that grain could completely serve as a staple food, with meat being merely a supplement. Moreover, the quantity of straw this year was so great that it was not only enough for the cattle herd to eat for several years, but the remainder could also be used by the tribespeople as material for bedding.

Baifeng looked at the wheat, whose roots had begun to turn yellow, his heart filled with pride. However, there was also a small regret: they hadn't found any other wild tribes. Otherwise, with the support of these supplies, they could have absorbed more tribes to expand their own strength.

This year's rainy season came relatively late. It was only after Baifeng and his people had moved all the wheat into the warehouse that the rainstorms began to fall every few days.

The rice had also reached the grain-filling season. Although rice usually needs to be soaked in water year-round, during the grain-filling stage, it must be kept without water; otherwise, the plants would waste a large amount of nutrients to maintain the survival of their root systems, and the rice yield would drop significantly.

The rainstorms almost always occurred in the afternoon or evening, so every time it finished raining, they had to work through the night in the rice paddies to divert the water and drain it dry. Waiting until daytime to drain it would already be too late.

While they were working tirelessly to harvest the grain, Baifeng discovered another thing that made him feel very desperate: he found dense clusters of small black insects crawling on the floor of the silkworm room. Shouldn't these things hatch only once a year? Why, after only ten-plus days, had a second batch hatched?

Although Baifeng felt somewhat weary, he couldn't just ignore it. However, this time he didn't intend to raise so many at once. From the start, he only picked four or five hundred to keep, and swept the rest out the door with two broom strokes, leaving them to wait for death on their own.

The Baifeng Tribe could now be called extremely wealthy. Just the wheat they had recently moved into the warehouse was roughly estimated to be enough for them to eat for over half a year, not to mention the other crops that hadn't been harvested yet: millet, buckwheat, and the rice, which was planted in greater quantities and had a higher yield.

The chickens raised by the Baifeng Tribe, after one round of breeding in the spring, now numbered nearly 200. The insects picked out while harvesting wheat were all fed to them. The chickens were now all plump and sturdy; even without clipping their wing feathers to keep them from flying, they had no desire to fly away.

The cattle herd had now also bred to over a hundred head. Furthermore, Baifeng intentionally had the tribespeople raise the calves separately from the first generation of cattle to better cultivate their docility and affinity for humans. As for the first generation of cattle, although they couldn't be used as labor, they could give birth! And with the experience of having birthed calves, future births would be even easier, without needing the Baifeng Tribe people to worry.

Most of the small fruit trees that Kaichun and the others planted had survived, but they weren't doing very well. Currently, not a single one had blossomed or borne fruit; they were merely stubbornly taking root in the Wasteland. Baifeng looked at the small insects wriggling on the ground and felt that they should plant a few more acres of mulberry trees next year.

At this time, the Suiren Clan saw a surge in the prey resources within their territory because many wild beasts had fled to them, and the strength of their tribe had also gained an increase.

However, they didn't have the habit of farming; most of their grain sources were gathered from the wild. But for things like wheat and buckwheat, they would casually scatter them in the wasteland near the tribe and let them grow as they pleased, making it more convenient to gather them when the time came.

Seeing the full warehouses, Baoxi now had greater ambitions, so he began to take the initiative to attack outward, seizing the opportunity to gain more territory.

Regardless of whether he could control it after occupying it, he felt that any place he could conquer should be the territory of the Suiren Clan. Thus, he personally led the Soldiers to attack outward in all directions. Whether the tribe was large or small, he would attack them, seize their territory, confiscate their grain, and then incorporate them into the Suiren Clan.

In this process, he also grasped a lot of knowledge regarding warfare and promoted many powerful Soldiers to serve as commanders. At the same time, all the occupied places implemented his policy: grain was to be distributed uniformly by him.

In a very short time, the strength of the Suiren Clan surged, but at the same time, some drawbacks were exposed: their food was not as abundant as imagined. Added to this were the losses during distribution and transport, or the grain being lost because the transporters were killed by wild beasts, or the grain being stolen and eaten by the transporters. Furthermore, some tribes that were not too weak, even after being occupied, would rebel again once Baoxi and his men left and they received the distributed grain.

Therefore, while Baoxi had gained a lot of territory, tribespeople, and Slaves, he was also left overwhelmed by these matters. He truly couldn't think of how to obtain enough grain. All he could do was continue to wage war, snatch back the grain of other tribes to supply his own Soldiers. As for the people of the plundered tribes, if their combat strength was insufficient, they were directly turned into Slaves.

At this time, within the Youxiong Clan, Xuanyuan had already become the Tribal Chief. There was no complex power transition like that of the Suiren Clan; his father had simply died of old age, and he naturally became the new Tribal Chief. Not a single tribesperson objected.

The first thing he did after becoming Tribal Chief was to establish villages, because he discovered through long-term observation that crowding tens of thousands of people together had no great benefit other than avoiding attacks from wild beasts, and the entire tribe was very chaotic.

The living space was cramped with nowhere to step, while just a little further away from the living area, it was completely empty, and the land was not utilized in the slightest.

Thus, Xuanyuan creatively proposed the concept of villages, letting hundreds or thousands of people leave the living area to establish a new living area nearby. However, everything still belonged to the Youxiong Clan—no, it should now be called the Xuanyuan Clan.

When there was war, they needed to fight together to defend against the enemy. If one was attacked, all nearby villages would come to support, and the empty land could also be utilized.

The Xuanyuan Clan also farmed, but they didn't practice intensive cultivation. They just casually used bone plows to scratch the ground, or didn't scratch it at all and just scattered the seeds on the ground, waiting for them to grow.

Xuanyuan discovered that in places burned by mountain fires, the grass and trees would grow more lushly the following year, so he also had the tribespeople burn the grass on the farmland before planting. He didn't know the reason, but it was indeed effective.