Chapter 167: Population

The Salted Fish of the Baifeng Tribe are of high value and can be exchanged for many things, but the tribes here have nothing good to trade; they haven't even traded away half of the Salted Fish and salt they brought, and not a single grain of Sorghum has been touched.

Of course, Baifeng will not deliberately raise prices to give other tribes benefits; the price is what it is, and he will never give more, though he occasionally gives a little benefit to tribes with good attitudes and solid goods. As for the others, he would rather throw the Sorghum into the river as bait than give it to them.

They lack propriety, righteousness, integrity, and a sense of shame, and they do not know how to be grateful; giving them extra things would only stir up their greed and bring harm to the Baifeng Tribe.

At night, Baifeng is too lazy to even count the things they have traded for; the quantities are not very large, only the hundreds of various animal skins they traded for have filled the cabin of the Boat, and since they haven't been processed, they are foul-smelling, though Baifeng has basically gotten used to it.

Except for the soybeans, all the other Wax Seeds put together wouldn't even fill a sack, so as long as they don't get mixed in with other things, it will be fine.

Tomorrow, Baifeng will begin trading for people; judging by the prices he roughly inquired about today, their two ships of grain could trade for two thousand Slaves of various qualities, almost enough to sweep up all the Slaves and women at the entire gathering.

No Slave is very valuable; powerful Soldiers will not become Slaves. Even if such people are defeated, they will immediately become sacrificial offerings for the victors; keeping them is impossible, as they would not only refuse to obey orders but might also rebel. Only those who have been oppressed for a long time and have always hovered on the verge of starvation will never have the heart to rebel.

The only thing Baifeng worries about is how to escort so many people back; it is indeed very difficult for their forty people to watch over so many, but there is always a way when the cart reaches the mountain, so let's just sleep for now.

Waking up late, today's goal is very clear; Baifeng first heads toward the tribes selling Slaves and women. There is absolutely no need to worry about the women; seeing that the Baifeng Tribe is so wealthy, they are all eager to be traded to the Baifeng Tribe. Let alone running away, they will likely help the Baifeng Tribe watch over the Slaves the moment they are traded, because the status they are being traded into is that of tribespeople, not Slaves, and they are in a completely different price bracket from Slaves in terms of both physical appearance and value.

Those tribes trading women all chose to take Salted Fish; they look down on Sorghum, this type of Grass Seed, even though Sorghum can be eaten for longer when it comes time to eat.

Two sacks of Salted Fish and one sack of salt slabs were enough to sweep the entire gathering of women clean. Behind the twenty fully armed Soldiers, more than four hundred women followed in a dense crowd; no matter how you look at it, it is very shocking.

They are not afraid at all that they will escape; would they rather go back to their original tribes to suffer, or flee into the wilderness to feed the wild beasts? Some women, distracted and falling behind the troop, would consciously go to the side of the small Boats on the riverbank to wait, fearing they wouldn't be able to cling to the Baifeng Tribe's thigh.

The young, high-quality women have been traded for, and the old women they don't want are also targets for the Baifeng Tribe; the batch traded back in the past not only returned to their youth but have basically all given birth to children.

Therefore, this time, the tribespeople have no confusion or rejection regarding the Tribal Chief's practice of trading for old women, especially since the price of these women is less than one-fifth that of young women; they can be traded back for half a jar of Sorghum, which is less than what they use for bait when fishing.

The entire morning was spent trading for women; at noon, they rested and brought all the women to the shore nearest their Large Ship. Now that these are their people, they are the only ones responsible for feeding them.

There are plenty of fish in the Dahe; even if the ones in this stretch of water are mostly caught, it is not a loss to sail a bit upstream and cast the nets again. Several people share one large fish; they don't need to be full, just having something in their stomachs is enough. Furthermore, the Baifeng Tribe is not stingy with salt, so the women traded back are very satisfied.

In the afternoon, they were left to set up camp and find firewood themselves; Baifeng and his men will not take them everywhere anymore. Baifeng has decided to go and talk to Baoxi about the biggest deal of this trip.

Baoxi already knows that Baifeng is frantically harvesting the people here; he can no longer estimate how much grain the Baifeng Tribe has. The things traded away for so many people are actually not much, just enough for a dozen people to spend a wealthy Winter, but the grain required to support all these people traded for is an extremely huge number.

If he still dares to come and trade for his Slaves, or even trade them all away, then the Suiren Clan will really have to go up the Dahe to attack the Baifeng Tribe. If they conquer it, the Baifeng Tribe's grain would definitely allow the Suiren Clan to stand invincible on this land.

Baifeng is not afraid of Baoxi coming to attack later, only of him causing trouble right now. With so few people, no matter how strong their combat power is, they cannot win; being able to escape would be a stroke of luck.

However, the benefit of this moment is that many local tribes or scattered wild people have already finished trading their own things but want to see the excitement of the Baifeng Tribe, so they have followed along the way, which instead gives people the impression that the Baifeng Tribe is numerous and powerful.

He sent someone to the Suiren Clan in advance to notify them, and also to scout how many Soldiers Baoxi brought to evaluate the risk in advance; if they brought more than a thousand Soldiers, Baifeng would have to think about whether he wants to do this deal.

Fortunately, the person who went to notify them returned quickly; according to him, the Suiren Clan has only about a hundred Soldiers, but there are a full thousand Slaves tied up on the ground.

Then Baifeng is not afraid at all; if a war breaks out, with the Baifeng Tribe's Soldiers and their superior Weapons, they could really defeat the Suiren Clan directly, which is not a difficult task.

When Baoxi received the news, he was not surprised, as it was within his expectations. While thinking about how to sell these Slaves to the Baifeng Tribe at the highest price, he was also calculating how much combat power should be used to attack the Baifeng Tribe and whether their supplies could last until the troops reached the Baifeng Tribe.

During the conversation, Baifeng was already squatting on the ground observing the quality of the Slaves; they were all skin and bones, much like the Yishang Tribe when he first found them.

Moreover, looking closely, there were those with disabilities, those with serious injuries that hadn't healed, and even those who had already died; the corpses hadn't started to stink yet and were already thrown into the pile of Slaves. Baifeng couldn't help but feel sorrow and pity for these Slaves, and at the same time, he worried about the sanitary conditions here; if this continues, he fears there will be an epidemic, or perhaps there already is one.

Baifeng knows well the terror of infectious diseases and subconsciously stepped back a bit. The quality of these Slaves is poor to begin with, and if they are also carrying viruses, it could bring a catastrophic disaster to their tribe, so he became hesitant about whether to trade for these Slaves.