Chapter 687: Baifeng's Wild Thoughts

The Huaxia Construction Team boarded the Navy's Large Ship, bringing along some Cement and Glass, and then departed from home once again, preparing to head toward the Xuanyuan Tribe. Zhishou also left today, together with those musicians.

The Construction Team members were away from home year-round, so they did not feel there was anything to it; moreover, the Xuanyuan Tribe was even safer, without the trouble of wild beasts or savages. Compared to the places where they had worked before, it could be said to be much better, and they were also treated with respect at the Xuanyuan Tribe, so it could not be considered a bad thing.

According to their construction speed, in the time of one year, they would be able to finish building all the planned structures. At that time, the exchanges between the Xuanyuan Tribe and Huaxia would also be fully launched.

Changle could no longer wait; he was eager to go to the Xuanyuan Tribe for exploration and research. In Huaxia, he could only go to those hilltops he had already turned over countless times to search for plants he had never seen before; it could be said to be very difficult.

Changle also completely let go of the work of the music troupe, leaving it for Miaoyin to be responsible for herself. The scale of the troupe was not large, there were not many matters, and since it was under the Ministry of Rites, there were not many things that required Miaoyin to manage. What she could do was urge everyone to practice and then try to compose new music.

The operation of the entire Huaxia government institution was already very smooth. Coupled with the fact that a large number of talents entered various departments every year, everyone's pressure was getting smaller year by year. The country had not expanded, and the matters remained the same.

Some departments had the situation of redundant officials, which meant that the number of officials in a department had already exceeded the number of officials needed for the institution to operate normally. Several people doing one job—this phenomenon appeared in the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Justice.

This would lead to unnecessary expenditures from the National Treasury, but Baifeng was not worried. Currently, the National Treasury was very full; even if another natural disaster came this year and grain production dropped significantly, he would not be afraid. Generally speaking, Huaxia had enough stored grain to get through it.

Instead, he hoped that all departments could have the situation of redundant officials, because every town needed to be sent a portion of officials to manage. In the future, after building another city, all the institutions would have to be relocated there. Directly splitting up Huaxia's current ones would have too great an impact on Huaxia. It was better to take advantage of the present to cultivate talent well, let the students combine what they learned in school with reality, and when they were to be sent out, they would be able to become qualified officials.

The existence of a large number of inferior Slaves gave Baifeng a bold idea, which was to let the Slaves test for poison to select edible mushrooms. Although most mushrooms required artificial cultivation and detoxification before they could be eaten, there were still a large number of mushrooms that were non-toxic and edible.

However, because the difficulty of distinguishing them was too great, the varieties were numerous, and the cost of trial and error was too high, this type of food was simply ignored. But now, Baifeng had the confidence; as long as he tried with a very small amount, he could still select a portion. As long as they could be selected, then Huaxia's menu could be expanded a bit more.

Baifeng had already discovered several kinds of mushrooms that looked very familiar to him, such as matsutake and bamboo fungus, but he did not dare to try them. Now he could let the Ministry of Agriculture start the experiment, beginning with the mushrooms he was familiar with.

This kind of thing went against the harmony of Heaven, just like the later generations saying that burning the Vine Armor soldiers with fire would shorten one's lifespan, but Baifeng felt that the benefit would last for a thousand autumns; he only needed to pass the test of his own conscience. But Baifeng had been in the wilderness for so long that he did not have much conscience left to speak of, only maintaining the minimum moral standard of being a human.

He could now even make decisions without much hesitation regarding things like letting Slaves dig for coal or mine Sulfur, so letting Slaves test mushroom poison could not be considered anything. Baifeng would sometimes be afraid: if he continued like this, would he completely turn into a heartless poison-man?

If he could use Slaves to test poison now, then when he died, would he let Slaves be buried with him? If he did this, then future generations would certainly learn and imitate it. Emperors might not have been heartless originally, but time pushed them toward turning into cold-blooded animals.

Baifeng sometimes wondered whether he should let the people of the Ministry of Works fire some Pottery burial objects for him in advance. Anyway, this kind of thing was very normal in actual history. Not to mention the First Emperor, just looking at the Pottery unearthed from various civilization ruins, a considerable portion were burial objects.

But hindered by the lack of a suitable reason, and because Baifeng felt it was still early for him to consider this matter, he had someone fire a Pottery figurine of the same size according to Chi's stature and placed it at the entrance of the Chaotang. This was to constantly warn himself that even when he was about to die and felt fear or loneliness, he could not let living people be buried with him. He should learn from the First Emperor and have a tomb full of Pottery figurines; that was domineering enough.

However, when others felt puzzled about this, Baifeng said that making such a Pottery figurine was just to guard this place day and night, and it had no other meaning.

At the same time, he used stone to chisel out two pairs of stone tigers and placed them at the entrance of the Chaotang and his own home. Baifeng wanted to make them look like lions, but unfortunately, no one had seen one, and Baifeng could not draw it either. In the end, it would be bad if they turned into cats, so he chose the tiger, which everyone had seen and was familiar with, to let the tigers guard the gate.

The existence of the Pottery figurine suddenly became reasonable. Without Baifeng needing to explain, everyone unanimously believed that it was because he was afraid that the two tigers would not obey, so he let Chi turn into a Pottery figurine to keep an eye on the tigers. They even strongly requested that a Pottery figurine should also stand next to the two tigers at Baifeng's home.

Baifeng had not expected this kind of shift in the situation, but he felt that standing a Pottery figurine at the front door was a bit creepy, so he rejected this proposal and said that there were living Soldiers guarding it day and night, so there was no need for a Pottery figurine.

Baifeng would also often think about what kind of custom this thing he created out of unreasonable trouble would turn into if it were passed down in the future. Would the stone lion never appear again?

Would a stone person or a Pottery person have to stand next to the stone tiger as a convention? Baifeng felt the possibility was high. After all, Emperor Taizong of Tang was frightened into insomnia by ghosts and let two great generals stand guard for him, which could create the custom of pasting door gods.

But whether there would be changes in the future, Baifeng could not guess. Like door gods, it was not just the pair of Qin Qiong and Jingde; counting them down, there might be nearly ten different pairs of door gods.

These wild thoughts of Baifeng had been hidden in his heart and told to no one. Only once did he mention to Yulong: "After I die, remember not to use living people to sacrifice to me."

These words scared Yulong quite a bit; he thought his father, who was not yet old, had some kind of problem.

Fortunately, Baifeng explained: "You only need to remember my words now. I am afraid that when I am old and muddled in the future, I will do some muddled things that are unfavorable to Huaxia. Even if I tell you to use living people to be buried with me at the last moment of my death, you must not listen, because the me who would say such things must be muddled to the extreme. The current me is very wise; you just remember my request today."