Chapter 164: Arrival at Shazhou

The moon is already very round tonight; I wonder if those people will hold the gathering this year. The upper reaches were completely destroyed by the snow disaster, but the lower reaches were not, were they?

At this time in the lower reaches, many tribes have already set up their tents, bringing their goods in preparation to trade for supplies. The organizer is still the Xin Tribe, and the Tribal Chief, Qiexin, has already largely confirmed that that attack was carried out by the Suiren Clan, because their constant expansion, the ambition they have exposed, and the sudden appearance of so much material out of thin air are the most powerful proofs.

Qiexin wants to turn the gathering into a way for his tribe to profit, because this year, using the excuse of providing protection, he has levied some benefits from the tribes that want to enter to trade supplies; exactly how much depends entirely on the mood of Qiexin's people.

If they are in a good mood, they collect a little more; if they are in a bad mood, they collect even more, because the harvest of all the lower-reach tribes this year is quite good. The sudden increase in animals and the abundant rainfall have made their harvest much greater than in previous years.

There are also some tribes that have taken in many wandering savages and are using them as Slaves, just to sell them at this gathering. Qiexin looks at their condition and is certain that this trade will definitely make a fortune.

Since that is the case, he might as well make a fortune himself, so he uses the excuse of providing protection and a venue to collect fees. Everyone originally came to the gathering happily, only to encounter such a situation, but they cannot afford not to participate; if they cannot trade for the things they need, they will have worked in vain for a year, and some tribes even need to trade for life-saving things like salt.

So they have no choice but to hold their noses and accept it; handing over some things will not affect the overall situation, and since they also said they would provide protection, it is not too much of a loss.

The people of the Suiren Clan have also come, with Baoxi leading the team in person. The main reason is that the conflicts within their tribe have become very serious in just half a year; the strong have more food and other supplies than they can eat, while the weak have reached the point of starving to death, and some people have even begun to resist Baoxi.

But it is certainly impossible for them to succeed; how could a group of people who cannot even get enough to eat defeat those who have sufficient food and fine Weapons?

Thus, those who failed were naturally turned from tribesmen into Slaves by Baoxi. Although such conflicts happen one after another, Baoxi does not dare to take back the benefits given to the powerful tribesmen, as this would invite their resistance, and judging from the results of the confrontations, the things taken from this group are worth it, and their combat strength is very high.

This time he brought nearly a thousand Slaves, all of whom are people who are nearly starving to death or are injured and disabled but not dead; only a few still look relatively healthy. The Baoxi tribe has no extra supplies to bring out for trade, as their frantic expansion has also consumed a large amount of their supplies.

This time he intends to use these almost useless Slaves to trade for everything he can use. Although he knows these Slaves cannot trade for many things, some tribes need a large number of Slaves for sacrifices, and these cheap Slaves are just right.

After Baifeng and his people squeezed into the Boat cabin for a night, they didn't get up until the sky was bright, slowly and leisurely. They drew water from the river to wash up casually, then pulled up the anchor and started to move. There was even porridge simmering on the stove along the way. Except for being a bit seasick, everything was much more comfortable than walking on foot.

The wind picked up today, making their speed even faster. They had originally prepared Dry Rations for a four-day one-way trip, but unexpectedly, they saw the Shazhou of the gathering by evening.

The Shazhou is still that same Shazhou, only two years have passed and it has become even larger. However, there are not as many people coming to the gathering as before. By evening, trading had basically stopped, and patches of cooking smoke rose over the Shazhou.

That small boat saw the gathering place from afar and, remembering that escape from before, still felt a bit panicked in the depths of its heart, especially since there were only two of them. So, taking advantage of no one noticing them, they turned the boat around and rowed back with all their might.

Baifeng was still leisurely eating grilled fish on the Boat when he heard the tribesmen who were scouting report that they had already seen the gathering place. Baifeng was a bit surprised; he stood up and looked around, but still felt the scenery was all the same and didn't feel familiar.

However, since the tribesmen had already reported it, it certainly couldn't be false, so Baifeng and his people finally perked up and started heading toward the gathering point.

From afar, Baifeng saw the fires lit by the tribes on the Shazhou and both banks. The fire on one of the banks was exceptionally large and exceptionally numerous. Baifeng couldn't even see how many people were there, but he felt that was the Suiren Clan.

Baifeng's feeling was not wrong; that was exactly where Baoxi and the Soldiers he brought were, along with the strictly guarded Slaves.

Even though Baoxi is the Tribal Chief of the Suiren Clan, and one could even say the Suiren Clan is larger than the Xin Tribe, Qiexin did not give him any face and still collected his protection fee. When one is under someone else's roof, one has to bow one's head; Baoxi was very stifled and vowed to teach the Xin Tribe a lesson if there was an opportunity in the future.

However, the only revenge they can take now is to fish heavily in this river, because nominally, this river is the territory of the Xin Tribe, and the fish inside also belong to the Xin Tribe. However, the Xin Tribe did not stop everyone from fishing because their tribe does not know how to fish, or rather, their fishing efficiency is very low, so naturally, they do not value the fish resources in this river.

Therefore, not only the tribesmen of the Suiren Clan but even the Slaves rarely got to eat normal food that could fill their stomachs.

As the Large Ship of Baifeng and his people drifted downstream in the sunset, the humans on the Shazhou saw the monster drifting down the river and were terrified, picking up their Weapons and preparing to run.

Some were more knowledgeable; although they didn't know what this giant object was, they could generally tell it was made of wood and must have something to do with people, so they didn't run away but instead picked up their Weapons to prepare for an attack.

Qiexin also saw this situation and panicked a little. Was someone really coming to attack? Should they still protect these people? If they just ran away like this, would these tribes come to trouble them? He wasn't afraid of the small tribes, but mainly he had also collected things from the Suiren Clan; he was already regretting his own greed.

However, Baifeng had no intention of attacking them. When he was two or three hundred meters away from the Shazhou, he dropped the anchor and stopped, and the two Large Ships also kept a distance of a hundred meters between front and back.

Looking at the nervous crowd on the Shazhou, Baifeng had his tribesmen take a small boat to tell them that the Baifeng tribe was not an enemy, but had come to trade, and that they had brought enough supplies and could come to trade tomorrow.

The two tribesmen rowing the boat didn't dare to let the boat land on the Shazhou; they just shouted loudly from a nearby place where they could be heard and then ran for their lives, because the two of them had seen Baoxi standing on the Shazhou and the densely packed people beside him.

They just took a casual glance without looking carefully and only felt there were so many people. They only had forty-some people this time, and the two of them thought those thousands of people were all Soldiers of the Suiren Clan, never thinking that there were over a thousand Slaves among them.