Chapter 483: Following the Trend

Huangpin went to prepare the Slaves immediately after; with as many as ten thousand Slaves, there was no need to deliberately select them, he only needed to ensure the quantity was correct. Their Slaves were already on the verge of starving to death, after all, they could only eat a meal every two or three days.

In seasons like summer and autumn, the lives of these Slaves could be considered barely acceptable, with one meal a day still guaranteed, but in Winter, Slaves who were never treated as people to begin with were ignored by everyone when even their own tribesmen lacked food.

The Slaves felt absolutely no fluctuation in their hearts about being picked away; they couldn't survive in the Suiren Clan anyway, so they might as well be sold to another tribe to suffer, and perhaps the next tribe wouldn't be any worse than this one.

Baoxi wrapped himself up very tightly, because as soon as he caught a draft, he would cough, cough, cough incessantly, feeling as if his lungs were about to be coughed out.

For this trip, he prepared something more comfortable for himself: several people carrying a chair, and outside the chair, it was covered with a layer of leather, so at a glance, one would think they were carrying a Tent.

Baoxi had no way to be sure whether the remaining people would take the opportunity to leave him after he left, hollowing out the entire Suiren Clan, but he had no other choice now.

Because he had to personally exchange these Slaves for grain to feel at ease; in order to ensure he could keep a little bit of his family foundation, he brought over ten thousand Soldiers, so that even in the worst-case scenario, he could eventually possess enough grain and Soldiers to support his rise again.

This year's Winter was somewhat dry; from the beginning of Winter until now, there had only been a few falls of Snow, and now it had all melted away. Baifeng looked out, and everywhere was a yellowish-brown, without a trace of Snow to be seen, which made Baifeng feel somewhat anxious.

A dry Winter meant that when Spring arrived next year, there would not be enough moisture in the fields, the soil moisture would be very poor, and the Winter Wheat would also be susceptible to freezing. If it snowed, it could actually act as insulation for the Winter Wheat; the Snow was equivalent to a quilt.

There was one more point, which was that static electricity was more annoying than ever. It was fortunate that their rooms and all their objects were mostly made of wood; if it were like later generations, where everything was made of Ironware, he would have already achieved great success in the way of thunder.

However, as soon as he came into contact with anyone, Baifeng would get zapped. Baifeng really couldn't stand it, so he found a Blacksmith and had him use gold to make a very thin little chain for him, then tied it to his ankle. Even if he was wearing a Boot, he had to let the gold chain touch the ground.

Baifeng artificially connected a ground wire for himself; ever since he started wearing it, the annoyance of static electricity had left him, and subsequently, he also set one up for everyone in his household.

Sharp-eyed people noticed the gold chain that fell from Baifeng's body to the ground and were very curious, but they only thought it was a very novel ornament; after all, the various ornaments Baifeng had created over these years were too numerous to count.

They also gradually started wearing bracelets or wristbands, moving on from wearing feathers, but this was limited to the ruling class. Ordinary people could not wear them; it wasn't about any class system, but rather that they had to work, and physical labor made it impossible for them to wear those accessories—wearing a necklace could potentially interfere with them.

Baifeng had only been wearing it for a few days, and he hadn't even told those people the reason for wearing it yet, when he discovered that a large group of people had already gotten themselves one too, purely out of imitation; they didn't even know the reason.

This made Baifeng even more certain of the spiritual emptiness of his countrymen and their pursuit of ornaments and "trends," so he directly had the Ministry of Works produce chains in large quantities. There were Iron ones, gold ones, and Bronze ones, with gold being the most expensive, Bronze second, and Iron the cheapest, but in terms of manufacturing difficulty, it was the other way around.

Because in Baifeng's view, although this thing was initially for practical use, it seemed that everyone valued its decorative function more, so a simple little chain, after adding some tiny, various-shaped ornaments to it, entered the state-run market openly and aboveboard at a high price.

This was also the first time other items besides grain, oil, meat, eggs, salt, and various tools appeared in the Huaxia state-run market. This thing was also the first product Baifeng created for his commercial plan.

Once this product was released, it was immediately snapped up. Although the price was ridiculously high compared to other Ironware, for families who already had enough surplus grain, it was a very good thing; they couldn't just use grain to trade for a pile of Iron Pot to keep, could they?

Baifeng exchanged a staggering amount of grain at a very small cost; after a few days, the grain collected was already enough to fill a small warehouse.

Baifeng had never calculated exactly how much stored grain an ordinary household had, but given the current situation, it seemed he had underestimated it.

Thus, Baifeng's series of follow-up products began to be designed one after another; exquisite clothing was the most important category of goods, because it was about food, clothing, housing, and transportation.

As for food and housing, Baifeng had no way to deal with that; it had to follow the grand policy and required overall macro-control, but the other two were relatively simple. However, Huaxia was still too small now; perhaps in the future, Baifeng would build a luxury car, a carriage or an ox cart, that would hollow out an ordinary family's grain reserves.

Returning to the matter of the drought, the problem of static electricity had been quietly solved; no one noticed it, and Baifeng didn't mention it.

But if there wasn't a sufficiently thick snowfall this year, their farming operations next year would be very difficult, because in addition to plowing and planting, they would have to add irrigation, which would waste a large amount of unnecessary manpower.

Huaxia was setting off a wave of ornament trends. Baoxi was on the "sedan chair," bumping along all the way into the territory of Huaxia. The biggest advantage now was that all the river surfaces were frozen very solidly, with no fear of breaking at all, only that it was easy to slip.

When the two-thousand-strong team of the Suiren Clan appeared majestically on the river surface in front of Huaxia, the Soldiers wrapped up tightly on the city wall were startled and immediately sounded the alarm.

When Baoxi heard the sound of the Huaxia Drum, he felt very fearful in his heart, and some extremely unpleasant images flooded his mind. To avoid unnecessary trouble, he immediately had the team stop, standing right in the middle of the river, and then sent someone to Huaxia City to say that the Suiren Clan had come to trade, not to attack.

Everyone in Huaxia who was working was in disbelief when they heard that the Suiren Clan had come again, especially Baifeng. He thought he had misheard, or rather, he wanted to confirm that he had misheard, because he had sworn to everyone that the Suiren Clan would not have the ability to attack them in the next few years; wasn't this slapping his own face now?