Chapter 245: Four Years Later

"Yulong, when you take your younger brother out to play, take Changwei and the others with you, and don't trick Uncle Hui and the others away again!"

Sui, with her plump figure, urged Bai Yulong from the second-floor window as he prepared to go out and play. Four years had passed; not only had Bai Yulong shown his strong side, being able to use force to subdue all the children of his age in the tribe, but his intelligence was also far ahead.

Warriors like Hui, who only had muscles in their brains, were led around in circles by Bai Yulong. Originally, they were assigned to look after the children, but they were often tricked into leaving, which made Sui very angry. Every time the two children returned, they had to be punished with a beating first.

Chinv also gave birth to a son for Baifeng, one year younger than Bai Yulong. Baifeng named him Bai Zhangle, a name expressing the hope that even if he did not obtain power, he could still spend his life happy and prosperous under the protection of the tribe. His performance was quite ordinary; he was not as strong or intelligent as his older brother, but he was still among the best in the entire tribe.

After several years of development, the population of the Baifeng tribe had long exceeded ten thousand, and the entire city had expanded several times over. The newly reclaimed farmland was no longer enclosed by city walls but extended longitudinally along both banks of the Dahe.

The hills behind them had also been opened up into terraced fields, where dry-land crops like wheat and soybeans were planted.

Because they had obtained soybeans, the tribe no longer lacked oil, and ordinary tribespeople were already able to use oil for cooking in their daily lives. Gunpowder also made their mining much simpler; the extraction and transport of iron ore were no longer difficult tasks. They even repaired roads and expanded various kilns for this purpose.

Iron pots and kitchen utensils could be seen in the houses of the tribespeople. The women's culinary skills were improving day by day, mainly thanks to the iron pots and oil. With these two things, they could stir-fry and pan-fry, instead of dumping all the food into one pot to boil.

After the annual Harvest in the Baifeng tribe, whenever they felt their grain reserves were sufficient, they would go to other tribes to trade for Slaves. Because of Baifeng's policy, half of the earliest batch of Slaves in their tribe had already become members of the Baifeng tribe or Free Persons. Free Persons, in Baifeng's words, were long-term laborers hired by the tribe.

Of course, the word "hired" only existed in Baifeng's understanding. Those Free Persons never considered themselves outsiders; in their view, they ate the Baifeng tribe's food, lived in the Baifeng tribe's houses, and worked for the Baifeng tribe, so they were just tribespeople with a relatively low status.

The Slaves who did not get promoted were either mediocre in ability, with nothing outstanding to make the Baifeng tribe value them, or they were content with the status quo, feeling that living their whole lives like this was not bad.

The new Slaves knew the Baifeng tribe's policy and, having seen that the policy truly allowed them to enjoy benefits, were all very diligent and obedient. They worked with all their might, and the people of the Baifeng tribe did not need to worry much about them.

Under the careful cultivation of the old craftsmen, the number of various types of craftsmen had multiplied several times. Although most were only at the apprentice level, the things Baifeng had promised them before had not yet been realized. He had said he could make things easier for them, but because the tribe was developing faster and faster while the number of craftsmen increased very slowly, their work remained heavy.

Now the old craftsmen had begun to seek out Baifeng, hoping to open up the policy again to select a group of people from the Free Persons and Slaves to learn, as they really wanted a chance to take a break.

Baifeng also felt a bit embarrassed. After the tribe grew larger, there were more and more things for him to handle, and he himself felt physically and mentally exhausted. Even the Tribal Chief had never had a vacation, but the craftsmen were indeed working non-stop every day. Therefore, Baifeng not only agreed to recruit more people but also promised them that one craftsman could take a rotating rest every ten days; as for who would rest, he let them regulate it internally.

To refine the division of labor, the embryonic form of a government had already appeared in the Baifeng tribe. Baifeng led all affairs and held absolute dominant power, with departments such as the Military Department, Finance Department, Agriculture Department, Animal Husbandry Department, Construction Department, Industrial Department, and Household Registration Department established underneath.

Among them, in military affairs, Baifeng was the supreme commander, with Xiong and Chi as joint commanders below him. There were no official titles, just the granting of power; the two of them checked and balanced each other. Below them, they managed secondary commanders like Hui and Yishang, though Hui was mainly responsible for the tribe's security work and was basically managed by Baifeng.

The army had taken shape. The earliest Bow and Blade Team had completely separated from production and was trained exclusively for combat, with the number of personnel increased to three hundred. The tribe had no pressure at all in supporting these three hundred professional Soldiers, and their Weapons were the best.

At the Full Moon Gathering the year before last, they encountered a tribe from the southern marshes and traded for a batch of Crocodile Skin from them, which was used to make Leather Armor to replace the Elephant Armor that was already somewhat damaged.

They also made an agreement to trade for Crocodile Skin in large quantities with that tribe. Last year, they obtained a lot of Crocodile Skin and re-equipped half of the Bow and Blade Team with new armor.

The Baifeng tribe and the Xuanyuan Clan were still trading, but the frequency was very low; they had only traded twice in three years. Baifeng was mainly after Slaves. They had already established stable trade for Tea Leaves with the Suiren Clan and no longer needed to trade with Xuanyuan.

During last year's trade, they learned that there were also crocodiles in the Xuanyuan Clan's territory because the Juye Marsh was not far from the Xuanyuan Clan. According to Xuanyuan's description, Baifeng estimated that the Juye Marsh was even larger than the current Yunmeng Marsh, which was exactly where the Jiuli and the Dongyi Tribe were located. Baifeng did not know why this Juye Marsh disappeared shortly after.

Xuanyuan said he could trade Crocodile Skin with the Baifeng tribe. After the price was negotiated, Baifeng felt it was acceptable and agreed. It was just unclear whether Xuanyuan went to hunt the crocodiles himself or traded with the Dongyi and Jiuli and then acted as a middleman to sell them to Baifeng. However, what Baifeng could be sure of was that Xuanyuan had already had close contact with Chiyou and the others; he just didn't know when the conflict between the two sides would erupt.

During the trade, Baifeng overlooked the fact that they were wearing Crocodile Armor. He estimated that with Xuanyuan's wisdom, they would likely see their own Soldiers wearing armor when they met again this year.

Finance was managed by Wu. Using his unremarkable brain, he managed the Baifeng tribe's warehouse in an orderly manner. Up to now, there had been no instances of accounts not matching, property being lost, or embezzlement.

He himself also trained many apprentices; they all first followed Baifeng to learn characters and arithmetic, and after passing, they followed Wu to learn how to manage the warehouse.

To ensure they did not make mistakes in calculation, Baifeng made an Abacus based on his memory. Because when Baifeng was in school, the abacus was still something that had to be learned, and the formulas for using the abacus, like the multiplication table, had to be memorized. Even though Baifeng had never used an abacus after growing up, the formulas were still on the tip of his tongue.

In the Finance Department's dedicated office, on the wall were the abacus formulas written by Baifeng himself: "One: add one, add five subtract four, subtract one carry one; Two: add two, add five subtract three, subtract two carry one...".

There were formulas for addition, subtraction, and multiplication. They understood the basic principles of calculation, and then with the help of tools and formulas, they could easily calculate all the data clearly.