Chapter 318: Five Years of Time

The New City that Baifeng envisioned was under constant construction year after year; by this year, all of the New City's basic infrastructure had been completely finished. From the project's initiation to its completion, it took a total of five years. Baifeng had also passed the age of thirty, and his two sons were no longer his little shadows. He had a new little shadow—the daughter Sui bore for him, Baimiaoyin.

The population of Baifeng's tribe had also broken through the twenty-thousand mark, though the entire tribe remained very young. There were several thousand young people who could not yet serve as labor, all of whom had been born over these years under Baifeng's policy of encouraging childbirth.

Baifeng should have served as an example and had more children, but for some reason, the number of Baifeng's children was not high. Fortunately, the quality was high. In Baifeng's view, Baimiaoyin inherited the excellent appearance of both himself and Sui; now only three years old, it was already clear that she would absolutely be a great beauty in the future.

The aesthetic standards of the entire Huaxia had also changed under Baifeng's influence. Perhaps this was a case of "the King of Chu loves slender waists, so many in the palace starve to death," though fortunately, it was not that severe in Huaxia. It was just that people no longer blindly pursued stout women, because food was now plentiful and there was no need to worry about starving to death, so women were round where they should be round and thin where they should be thin. However, those who were already over forty or nearly fifty would no longer undergo any changes.

People in this age group were likely the oldest in Baifeng's tribe, and these people finally felt the power of time. No matter how well they ate, they would not return to their youth, but were instead constantly changing toward old age.

Regarding this, Baifeng had no solution either. Everyone grows old, himself included; furthermore, they were already some of the longest-living people of this era. It was just that due to the deficiencies of their youth and the heavy amount of labor, their lifespans could not be like those of later generations.

Over these past few years, people had been dying one after another—dying of old age, dying of illness. Baifeng viewed this very calmly; at least they would not die in obscurity like before, and now, the death of a few people would not have any impact on their entire nation.

Baifeng told the families of these people that they could arrange a burial plot for the deceased on their family's private land, bury the bodies there, and go to pay their respects when they missed them. Of course, choosing cremation was also perfectly fine; Baifeng would not have any objections.

Earth burial would not occupy much of their arable land. The amount of arable land in Huaxia was now an extremely vast quantity; because the population was too small to manage so much farmland, some land that had already been cleared was simply planted with Grass.

The Ministry of Agriculture had cultivated a type of Sorghum. It was truly tall, and it was drought-resistant and wind-resistant, but the yield was very low and it produced very few seeds. After the report was delivered to Baifeng's desk, Baifeng directly had them cultivate this variety as fodder.

Fodder did not need to produce seeds; it only needed to be harvested when it grew to its tallest, while it was still green grass, and then used as silage to feed the cattle and sheep they raised.

Sheep were already commonly domesticated in Baifeng's tribe, but they dared not let them roam free because the sheep still had too much wild nature, so they had to be enclosed with high walls in order to keep them contained.

In Huaxia, sheep were not primarily used as a source of meat, but for their wool. After continuous attempts by the Ministry of Works, wool became an important Weaving Department raw material, though the technology was still not up to par; currently, wool was mainly used as filling material rather than being directly spun into thread and woven into cloth.

The acceptance of mutton was not very high, still because the gamey smell was too strong. Everyone still preferred Beef, chicken, and pork. Chicken was currently the most common meat in Huaxia, though ordinary people could not eat it many times a year.

Now, the standard of living across all of Huaxia was constantly improving, but the frequency of eating meat was constantly declining because they had gradually marginalized hunting.

In all of Huaxia, half of the land was currently privatized, while the remaining half was farmed collectively by Slaves and all Citizens. Tax collection work had proceeded very smoothly.

Because the initial privatization policy was unreasonable, it had a great impact on the income of hunters and fishermen. Therefore, Baifeng thought of a method: hunters and fishermen would be connected to the state. Aside from a portion of their harvest that had to be turned over, the rest belonged to them. Half of this private portion was then purchased by the state in bulk, and only the final remainder could be handled by them on their own.

The ownership of all rivers, lakes, mountains, forests, and grasslands belonged to the state, but they were contracted out to all hunters and fishermen. Under such a policy, not only did their standard of living not decline, it rose steadily, and their enthusiasm was greatly increased.

Because of the scarcity of meat, their local harvests could even be traded freely among the people to obtain more grain, so the lives of fishermen and hunters were generally quite good. Baifeng did not interfere with this, but rather allowed and even encouraged it.

The state took all the meat received, and after distributing a portion—such as benefits for officials and labor models, benefits for Artisans, and supplies for schools, pregnant women, infants, and the Hospital—the rest was sold uniformly by a specialized agency of the Ministry of Revenue.

This was also a way for ordinary people to obtain meat. The price of meat varied daily; if the state received more meat, the price was low, and if it received less, the price was high. It was all fresh meat; there could be no spoiled meat or anything of the sort.

Cattle were owned by the state, but ordinary people had the right to use them. Of course, the Ministry of Revenue would conduct irregular spot checks on the health of the cattle raised by every household. Those who raised them well, if they had the need and there were surplus cattle, could be allocated another plow ox to raise; if they did not raise them well, the Ministry of Revenue would reclaim them depending on the situation.

If they raised them to death, they would be directly put on a blacklist, forbidden from raising cattle for several years, and would also have to be punished.

The varieties of cattle were now also diverse; they had already categorized them into plow oxen, beef cattle, and War Oxen.

Plow oxen, as the name suggests, were used for plowing fields; they mainly had good tempers and docile personalities. As for beef cattle, they had no particular characteristics and were not suitable as plow oxen. As for War Oxen, they were small in stature and timid, so they could only be fattened up for meat.

There were currently over two hundred War Oxen. Baifeng was intentionally controlling this number because Baifeng's ultimate goal was still to raise horses for Cavalry. As soon as horses were obtained, the War Oxen would be immediately phased out.

It was just that their journey to find horses had not been going smoothly. The tribe they had previously arranged to send horses could no longer be contacted, and as for themselves, they had only found traces of horses a few more times. To this day, Baifeng had not seen a single living horse.