Chapter 455: A Chaotic Era

Huangpin gritted his teeth and simply stayed in the tribe, relying on his status as a Leader to try and serve Baoxi personally. Baoxi did not have much strength to speak, but he did not refuse. Now, the only ones remaining by Baoxi's side were his personal guards; everyone else was watching from the sidelines to see if Baoxi could survive. If he died, they would immediately support the still-ignorant Gaoxin to take over the Suiren Clan.

In just a few short days, the Suiren Clan split into many small tribes. Only half of them actually still belonged to the Suiren Clan, and the Suiren tribe instantly returned to how it had been several years ago.

But what was happening to the Suiren Clan now was unknown to the outside world. Only Xuanyuan's group still thought Baoxi was already dead, but they had no way to send word to their tribe to let them come and share in some of the benefits. They were now galloping at full speed, having left the territory of the Suiren Clan, and were on the road cutting diagonally across the territory of Huaxia toward Kongtong.

The Lieshan Clan, which originally had the most tense relationship with the Xuanyuan Tribe, had suffered a great loss of strength after several battles with the Xuanyuan Tribe and did not have much combat power left. They had originally just intended to hole up in their own tribe, develop slowly, and not stand out anymore.

However, because the Tribal Chief of the Xuanyuan Tribe had left and Winter had arrived, they did not attack the Lieshan Clan again. But the long-scheming Shennong Clan, following an order from Linkui, assembled a great army and, sparing no cost, completely annihilated the Lieshan Clan. Most of the Lieshan Clan's territory was also incorporated into their Shennong Clan.

Linkui, who had been timid and lacked great ambition ever since taking over the Shennong Clan, suddenly felt the pleasure brought by war at this moment, as well as the benefits it brought to his tribe.

Thus, Linkui was in high spirits and wanted to continue his conquests, attacking all the tribes around the Shennong Clan and bringing them under his jurisdiction. The tribesmen also supported this strongly; in their view, the Shennong Clan, which possessed the deepest foundation, was absolutely not something other tribes could resist.

The Chiyou Tribe was far from the center of the war. He only had some contact with Xuanyuan, but he felt a greater sense of identification with tribes like the Sanmiao and Dongyi. These few tribes gradually established a close alliance, including the Baiyue, who were further away but had also slowly made contact with them.

The Chiyou Tribe possessed the technology to refine Bronze, and their level of Weapon manufacturing was even far higher than that of Xuanyuan or the Suiren Clan, but they had never had a very high output.

However, after Chiyou discovered a large mine, everything changed. Chiyou believed that military force was the most important thing, and all matters had to give way to the forging of Weapons. Only if there were enough Weapons, and they were good enough, could their strength surpass all other tribes.

The Jiuli began to build a large number of furnaces for smelting Bronze, refining copper day and night. The trees around their tribe were decreasing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

They were not worried about the source of food either, because as long as they forged a single Bronze Weapon, they could trade it with the other few tribes for enough food.

Those few tribes lived by the water for a long time, even reaching the sea along the water outlets. The abundant aquatic resources meant they did not lack food much, but they were relatively lacking in various handicraft products.

Even animal skins and cloth often had to be traded with Chiyou, but what they never lacked was salt. People of this era did not understand at all what the differences were between salt from various sources, and they understood even less about processing salt. They only discovered that seawater was very salty; if they took the seawater up and sprinkled it over rocks again and again, it could turn into salt under the high-temperature exposure of the sun.

They did not consider whether there were any poisonous substances in the sea salt; after all, no one had this concept. The inland tribes were the same; even if the salt was covered in various unknown substances, they would not mind. Only Baifeng would think about refining salt.

Or perhaps, the fact that people of this era had such short lifespans had something to do with the impurities and the many poisonous components in the salt.

After Xiong returned, Baifeng gave him a few days of long leave. After all, he had been out for so long, living in the open and sleeping in the wind, which was too hard. Baifeng looked at his much thinner frame and knew the hardships of the journey; now, if Xiong were to put on his armor, he probably wouldn't be able to hold it up.

Xiong also gladly accepted this vacation. He didn't care at all about things like the restoration of his position. After returning home, he had a wonderful sleep on his long-missed heated kang, along with his several wives.

When his sons saw their father arrive, there was happiness, but there was more fear. After all, Xiong had always played the role of a stern father rather than a kind one. He had given most of his patience to Shaoyin, but Shaoyin's personality was not very good after growing up, and things had not developed according to his own expectations, so he learned from Baifeng and changed his own approach to parenting.

Xiong wanted to go see Shaoyin, but Shaoyin's status was quite special now, and coupled with previous events, the management of that Pasture was extremely strict, and unauthorized persons could not approach at will. Xiong found it difficult to go directly to the Pasture to see him, so he first asked for Baifeng's opinion. Baifeng did not say much and wrote a warrant for Xiong directly.

Xiong successfully entered the Pasture with the warrant. The others at the Pasture already knew the news of Xiong's return, and they also guessed that Shaoyin would probably leave the Pasture soon. After all, his father had made great contributions to Huaxia, and now that he was taking Shaoyin away, no one could find fault with it.

They also told Shaoyin about this. Their relationship had only just warmed up, though it could not be called intimate; they had only come to accept Shaoyin, but there was still a rift in their hearts. Regarding the fact that Shaoyin was about to leave, they only felt a little bit of unhappiness in their hearts, but they would not say much.

After hearing this, Shaoyin remained silent and said nothing, just going about his own work.

When Xiong met Shaoyin, Shaoyin was still heating water for the horses. The current river channel had not yet completely frozen because the water was flowing, with only scattered thin ice, but all the stagnant water had frozen over. The water faucets were no longer in use, and now they all carried well water by hand.

In order to take good care of these horses, they would boil hot water to mix into the feed; it could be said they were raising the horses like ancestors. However, the horses' arrogance was truly too strong, and they still hadn't been able to build a relationship with them.

The foals had already been weaned, and all Shaoyin thought about every day was how to separate the foals from the herd. As for leaving the Pasture and using his father's merits to seek another position for himself, he had already stopped thinking about such things.