Chapter 479: Lema City

Within a few days, the Shangshu Department received over ten thousand name suggestions, but after several rounds of screening, only about a hundred were fit to be shown to Baifeng, as most names did not meet the requirements and were purely nonsense; some sycophants even wrote nauseating names to sing Baifeng's praises, and those that simply used "Baifeng Cheng" were considered the better ones.

Some officials felt "Baifeng Cheng" was actually quite good and considered adding it to the list for Baifeng to choose from, but Yu rejected it outright, the reason being that it did not meet the requirements; primarily, he knew Baifeng's personality, and if he had truly wanted to name it that, he would have done so already without needing to issue this document.

If they were to submit this name, Baifeng would likely doubt their work standards.

In the end, from the remaining list of over a hundred, Baifeng selected "Lema City," which could be considered relatively literary and also fit the history of the New City; since the New City was established, its greatest achievement had been assisting in the capture of so many wild horses.

In Baifeng's understanding, "Lema" (rein in the horse) also carried the meaning of being able to control horses; currently, most of their horses could not yet be controlled, so this was equivalent to a beautiful wish, and regardless of what the original author thought, Baifeng, who did too much reading comprehension, was very good at "studying" an author's psychology.

Baifeng flipped the paper over and saw the signature was Changzhi; Baifeng smiled knowingly, as this truly fit his style, and as the person in Huaxia who loved horses the most, it was only natural for him to choose such a name.

After the selection, Baifeng had the people from the Shangshu Department announce the city name, stating that the New City was officially renamed "Lema City"; to tell the truth, the moment Baifeng first saw this name, a name of a city related to horses from later generations surfaced in his mind—it could not be called pleasant, it was even very rustic and very straightforward.

The reward was not lacking in the slightest, and when he told Changzhi that his chosen name had been selected, he brought the items along with him; Changzhi wore an expression of taking it for granted, as if he had calculated that his chosen name would be picked, but as soon as the Ministry of Personnel people left, he looked through the door crack, and after seeing no one, he sprinted toward the Horse Pen, shouting and yelling, chose a horse to ride, and began to gallop wildly.

Those foals, led by these adult horses, no longer held hostility toward Changzhi and were willing to be close to him, but they were still quite resistant to outsiders; Changzhi believed this was because the time was too short, and given enough time, he would certainly be able to make these horses into warhorses that could be ridden.

The others were not distressed that their suggested names were not chosen; in fact, if Baifeng had not mentioned it, this matter would have had nothing to do with their lives, other than perhaps boosting their sense of identity with Huaxia and their sense of participation in Huaxia's construction.

On the contrary, the people of the New City, especially the New City officials, did not have a good mood for several days; their own city's name had actually been chosen by people from Huaxia City, and although they had also submitted names, none were selected, which made them feel somewhat ashamed.

Ever since a large number of tenant farmers entered the New City, although the New City's population was sufficiently filled and they could do more things and develop the surroundings of the New City to a greater extent, the negative impact brought about was also significant.

These tenant farmers did not have a shred of identity with Huaxia, though this would change given enough time, as they had all gone through that; but the most important thing at the moment was that they were causing serious destruction to the order of the entire Huaxia, whether in Huaxia City or Lema City.

They had no sense of law or hygiene; they did not dare to commit robbery, but theft was frequent, and fighting was even more common, as the tenant farmers would have conflicts over living space and food distribution.

Several incidents could occur within a single day, not at all like people who had come out of the same tribe; Huaxia spent a great deal of effort on this, and only after several public executions did things improve somewhat.

Just when they thought the situation would slowly get better, something happened in the Old City again; a family sought help from the Ministry of Justice, saying their home had been burglarized and that their grain and meat had decreased by a lot; after careful questioning and on-site observation, it was estimated that at least one hundred jin was missing.

This could be called a major case in Huaxia; since the founding of the state, there had never been a theft case of such a large quantity, and like in the era of the Baifeng Tribe, although there was already enough grain to eat, the greed and desire for grain carried in the bones of some people made them unable to control themselves from stealing other people's grain, but it was basically always in very small quantities.

For a theft of such a large quantity, it was estimated to be a gang operation; otherwise, how to transport it without being discovered would be a difficult problem.

The people from the Ministry of Justice naturally first turned their attention to the neighbors of this resident; although those neighbors were unhappy, their neighbor had been stolen from, and perhaps their own home would be stolen from tomorrow, so in order to catch the thief as soon as possible, they could only cooperate with the Ministry of Justice's investigation.

These few families were all considered poor in Huaxia because they had been in Huaxia for a short time and had not accumulated much, and the places where they lived were also the most peripheral, so they were able to discover that their grain had been stolen at the first opportunity; like those elders in Huaxia, whose homes were piled full of grain, even if one hundred jin were stolen, they might not necessarily notice.

These families were all manual laborers, and in this season, they all needed to go to their respective factories to work: the men to the Zhuan Chang, the women to the Bianzhi Chang or the Fangzhi Chang, and the children were left at home.

The family that was stolen from did not have their child at home that day, as the child had gone to play with friends, which resulted in the house being completely empty; in this era, there were no locks, so opening the door and entering was very simple.

After a simple investigation, the surrounding families were all innocent and had sufficient alibis, so the greatest suspects were those tenant farmers.

The Ministry of Justice actually also placed its focus on the tenant farmers, and checking the neighbors was just for the sake of being safe.

For such a large amount of grain, they did not have pots, and the food they ate was uniformly cooked and sent over by the managers of the tenant farmer area; those tenant farmers who earned grain and wanted to cook their own food had to borrow pots, and the Management Department would lend them out, but because the places where they worked provided meals, not a single tenant farmer who had earned grain had gone to borrow a pot, and the grain was all being saved.

To make things convenient for the tenant farmers, people from various departments were willing to let them deposit their grain first and come to collect it when they wanted to use it, but because of the tenant farmers' distrust, everyone chose to take it back the same day; perhaps in their eyes, a hungry roommate was more trustworthy than a well-fed stranger.

The people from the Ministry of Justice began to search house by house; they would first wake everyone up and drive them outside to stand, and although the tenant farmers were also citizens, because their behavior during this period was too atrocious, it caused the people from the Ministry of Justice to not even want to provide the most basic respect and mutual understanding, directly following the procedure strictly, even though the cold wind was whistling outside.