Chapter 461: Separating the Foals

Upon hearing this, Huaxia was surprised to find that the trade was actually possible; this was an unexpected delight, as they had assumed the Xuanyuan Tribe would never trade slaves with them at all, and that those words were merely a delaying tactic.

But now that they had already passed the message along, it no longer mattered whether the Xuanyuan Tribe was stalling them; their primary goal now was simply to complete this transaction.

When Baifeng received the news, his heart was also unsettled; Xuanyuan was truly gone, and by inferring from the various events that had occurred during this period, he could roughly estimate how far Xuanyuan had traveled, and if he went to pursue him now, he should still be able to catch up.

It was just that he still had not made up his mind, but his thoughts were immediately disrupted by news from the Pasture, because the Pasture had decided to separate the foals, but as it was a matter of great importance, they felt they still had to notify Baifeng first and have Baifeng issue the order to make the decision.

Upon hearing the news, Baifeng thought that this matter really could not be delayed any longer, so he personally took people to the Pasture to observe the situation of the horses, but he could not be considered an expert in this area, not even as good as the herdsmen, so Changzhi, who ate and lived with the horses, was the best person to judge the timing.

Based on his experience, Changzhi believed that these foals were indeed large enough to be separated, and everyone also checked their renovated Horse Pen together to see if it could really withstand the impact of the horses; after confirming there were no errors, Baifeng said they might as well start separating the pens today.

The people at the Pasture had long been prepared, but they simply lacked the courage; following Baifeng's order, the gate of the Horse Pen was opened, and the horses near the gate, after a brief observation, realized that freedom was right before them, so they immediately rushed out.

For horses without foals, people would use gates to block the path, forcing them into an open-air Horse Pen on the left, so that once all the foals were separated, they could easily drive them back into the pen.

After the first horse took the lead, more horses immediately poured out, which made the people at the Pasture a bit flustered, but they still successfully separated the first foal into the Horse Pen on the right.

To reduce the pressure, they briefly closed the Horse Pen again and only dared to open it once all the horses outside had been separated.

Their biggest difficulty was that the mares were too protective of their young; even if they whipped them, they could not necessarily drive the mares away, whereas the foals were not afraid at all, as their hearts were filled only with running and freedom; having suddenly come from the narrow Horse Pen to this place where they could see into the distance—which, although it limited their freedom, was still relatively large—not a single foal showed panic, but rather they were all very excited.

Finally, through everyone's efforts, all the foals were successfully separated; although the process was difficult, the result was a success, and everyone was very excited.

As for what the mares would be like, apart from the people at the Pasture, no one else cared much, because the second generation of horses had already been born, and they placed all their hopes on the second generation; these first-generation wild horses were merely a means of reproduction, and as long as they could continue to bear young, that was all that mattered; after all, Huaxia had paid such a high price.

Changzhi brought all these foals back to his own pasture, and now these foals were all assigned to him; in order to successfully take care of these foals, Changzhi specifically asked for a few more people.

Although the pasture managed by Changzhi was very small, for these foals that had always grown up in the Horse Pen, it was already incredibly large.

The grassland here could be galloped upon at will, although there were obstacles at the borders.

Moreover, there was another advantage: the few trained horses of Huaxia were all in this pasture, and with adult horses of massive size present, even if the foals wanted to attack people, it would be difficult to cause any harm.

This matter was considered completely resolved, but Shaoyin still insisted on staying at the Pasture; as long as Baifeng said the word, Shaoyin could do whatever he wanted, but since Xiong had not expressed his stance, Baifeng did not intervene further.

Now, Baifeng was more concerned about the matter of Guangchengzi; according to everyone's observations and searches over the past few days, no clues related to Xuanyuan had been found, and Baifeng felt that Xuanyuan should have left many days ago.

The members of the Huaxia Ministry of Revenue trading at the Xuanyuan Tribe had indeed been stalled by the people of the Xuanyuan Tribe using various excuses, and by the time they had been delayed for nearly three days, the Xuanyuan Tribe finally could not find any more excuses.

But they still waited until very late, pretending to be exhausted, to deliver over a thousand healthy slaves to Huaxia.

Huaxia also very consciously gave them that Iron, and because the quality of this Iron was indeed too poor, the quantity given to the Xuanyuan Tribe was relatively larger; overall, both sides were very satisfied with this transaction.

During the trade, the Xuanyuan Tribe was also very slow, insisting that Huaxia count the slaves one by one.

Although it was not explicitly stated, the people of Huaxia knew exactly what the people of the Xuanyuan Tribe were doing, and the people of the Xuanyuan Tribe knew that the people of Huaxia knew their intentions, so they were even more brazen when stalling, because it seemed that Huaxia was not in a hurry at all, but by now, their Tribal Chief Xuanyuan was probably about to cross the territory of Huaxia.

By the time Huaxia received these slaves, it was already dark, and they were unable to set sail, so they had to continue to drop anchor and stay in place for the night.

At this time, Xuanyuan had indeed accelerated his speed after leaving the settlement area of Huaxia and the Suiren Clan, and he was now about to cross the border of Huaxia.