Chapter 539: The Future of Everyone

Baifeng explained the meaning of each surname to them very attentively, and finally let them choose a surname themselves. For Chi, Baifeng bestowed upon him the surname "Wu," which could be considered quite fitting for Chi's life, and the profound meaning was also good. Juxiang accepted this surname with a grin and said excitedly, "From now on, I shall be called Wu Juxiang!"

Bocheng, Bocheng; this is because he was originally called Cheng, but people nowadays have the habit of adding their physical peculiarities to their names, or naming themselves directly after them. Like the father of Shun, he was called Gusou, which means an old man whose eyes cannot see.

As for the surname of Bocheng, Baifeng directly had him take the surname "Cheng," so that in the future, the descendants of Bosou would know that this surname was also the name of their ancestor.

Finally, everyone chose a surname, and Baifeng had the Ministry of Revenue officials present change their information and issue them new identity tags.

These Soldiers, who could face war with composure, were now so excited that their hands were trembling, unable to control themselves because they finally had surnames.

After everything was prepared, they went directly to live in the military camp, where rooms had been specially arranged for them, and there was meat at almost every meal. Now, no one had any complaints; although Baifeng had promised them this when they set out, now that it was truly fulfilled, they were still incredibly excited, not to mention that there were even more honors waiting for them later.

After more than ten days of turmoil, the wheat could no longer hold out and turned yellow quite decisively. The heavy rain that visited every day gathered into dark clouds for two days, and after dropping a few drops at random without falling successfully, it declared that this disastrous rainy season was over.

Fortunately, the terrain here was not too flat and had sufficiently large river channels; although it was on a plain, there was a drop between the upper and lower reaches, so it was not submerged by floods. Now Baifeng was also considering whether the location of his city was well chosen; the land was flat and there were water sources, which seemed reasonable enough, but the threat of heavy rain to them was still a bit too great.

Everyone did not hold much hope for this year's wheat. The grain in the fields was now being handled by those tenant farmers who were no longer working on road construction, as well as the tenant farmers who remained here. This year was not a good year for Huaxia; ordinary families still had stored grain and could basically hold out until next year. The Grain Storehouse of Huaxia was also slowly recovering enough grain, which counted as a final layer of protection.

This year, Baifeng exempted all families affected by the disaster from taxes. There was not much of a harvest to begin with, and if taxes were collected, then after calculating it all, not only would they not earn anything for the year, but they would lose even more.

And the grain used to hire the tenant farmers was the reliance for the tenant farmers to get through the Winter. Everyone did this tacitly, and Huaxia did not issue any mandatory orders.

The Xuanyuan Tribe had a big Harvest this year because they were further south and closer to the ocean, so the temperature was much higher than in Huaxia, and their wheat maturation period was almost a month earlier than Huaxia's. Having enough grain reserves, Xuanyuan now felt very secure. Not only the tribesmen, but if they collected some wild Grass Seed and fruits, and hunted some prey, their Slaves would also be able to get through the Winter smoothly, and next year Xuanyuan would have the capital to carry out larger-scale construction.

Their Bronze smelting, after Xuanyuan's transformation and support, had more than doubled in output. Many people advised Xuanyuan to use this Bronze to cast more and better Ritual Vessels for sacrifices, but all of this was rejected by Xuanyuan. The Xuanyuan Tribe already had enough Ritual Vessels; if a Bronze Tripod were melted down and forged into a Weapon, it would definitely allow at least ten more Soldiers to use a Bronze Weapon.

It was a pity that those were Ritual Vessels used to sacrifice to the gods. Xuanyuan could say that he would not cast any more, but he absolutely had no intention of melting down the Ritual Vessels to forge them into Weapons.

The Bronze refined now was mainly used to forge various farm tools and Weapons, which were basically distributed equally. Xuanyuan had increasingly realized how important a good farm tool was.

After the wheat on the plain was harvested, a portion of the straw was pulled back to be used as bedding for the tribesmen to sleep on, and the rest was lit directly in the fields. Xuanyuan really wanted to know if it was fire that could affect grain yield.

Chiyou kept expanding with his tribesmen. Because to the west was the Xuanyuan Tribe, he chose to expand to the east. As a result, they discovered a lake that seemed to have no end, and the water level of this lake would rise and fall according to the time. The tribesmen asked Chiyou why this was, and Chiyou said, "On the other side, it might be the territory of the Kuafu Tribe. When they drink water, the water level here drops, and then the lake water slowly rises again. It repeats like this every day, which is why this phenomenon exists."

Upon hearing this, the tribesmen were even more panicked: "Then wouldn't the Kuafu be unimaginably huge? Otherwise, how could they drink the water level of such a large lake down?"

Chiyou kicked the sturdy iron-eating beast: "Maybe one of their heads is even bigger than an iron-eating beast."

The tribesmen all couldn't help but take a step back. Someone's foot was stepped on hard by something, which actually made him feel very painful. He squatted down and dug with his hands, and actually dug out a very large, very hard thing. He held the white thing with patterns and handed it to Chiyou to look at: "Tribal Chief, look at what this is. I feel it's similar to a river clam. Can this be eaten?"

Chiyou tapped the hard shell with his finger; he had indeed never seen it before. After he lowered his head to scan, he realized that there were these things everywhere around, and there was even one right next to his foot.

He searched around and found some reefs not far away, then went over and used a stone to smash the thing open. Sure enough, there was meat inside. He smelled it; it was very fishy, but he didn't know if it could be eaten.

Seeing the large birds flying and making noise in the sky, occasionally landing, Chiyou had a flash of inspiration. He threw the smashed thing into the distance, and then saw several seabirds quickly dive down to snatch and peck at it.

Chiyou said happily, "It can be eaten. We have another kind of food from now on. There are so many here; let's hurry and find some more, and we won't have to go hunting tonight."

The tribesmen showed joy upon hearing this. As long as it was something that could be eaten, they liked it, not to mention this kind of meat that could be caught without any effort.

Before long, a huge mound had already piled up on the sand in front of Chiyou, consisting of all kinds of hard-shelled creatures. He had no idea what they were called, but they had a common characteristic, which was that they were hard, and now they were also motionless; he didn't know what they were doing.