Chapter 880: Five Young People

Although many matters had not yet been settled, Xuanyuan felt he should return now and could not continue to linger; he had been anxious to begin with, and coupled with the words Guangchengzi had said to him upon parting, he felt even more strongly that some major event might occur this year, which was why he was so eager to go back and see.

However, Xuanyuan proposed to Baifeng that he wanted to trade for some Huaxia chickens, because roosters crowing to announce the time was truly a very useful thing, and the Xuanyuan Tribe was in urgent need of them.

Xuanyuan also wanted dogs, because after long-term observation during this period, he discovered that both dogs and chickens were animals that every household needed, and they were of great help to human survival.

It was just that Baifeng explicitly stated he would not trade dogs; for Huaxia, dogs had a very unique and important significance, especially in times of war, when dogs could play a major role. Now he and the Xuanyuan Tribe had a good relationship, but no one could say for sure about the future, so Baifeng was unwilling to do such a thing that benefited the enemy and offered no advantage to himself.

Providing help to the Xuanyuan Tribe was natural because his own strength was not yet sufficient; although helping the Xuanyuan Tribe posed a threat to himself, the benefits he could obtain were even greater, and by comparison, a little loss was not worth mentioning.

Now that the Xuanyuan Tribe wanted to buy dogs, Baifeng refused directly without even needing to give a reason, though Xuanyuan would certainly find a way to breed them himself; as long as he was willing to spend the time, he could fully domesticate the wolves in his territory into dogs.

However, Baifeng did not refuse the chickens, but he was only willing to trade roosters; hens were the ones with the most economic value. Now, Huaxia's hens could already lay an egg every few days, which was a great enrichment to the diet of the Huaxia people.

A single hen, if let out alone, had no value, but if roosters and hens were sold together, then it could not be calculated based on meat prices. Not to mention how much time and energy Huaxia had spent to breed such chickens, having a pair of a rooster and a hen meant that the Xuanyuan Tribe would soon be able to have more chickens, and in the long run, chickens could be spread extensively throughout the Xuanyuan Tribe.

Baifeng would not cut off his own path to wealth for the sake of temporary gain; since Xuanyuan said he wanted to buy chickens back to use for crowing, then I will only sell roosters. Hens crowing is not a good thing, and besides, most of them do not crow.

A rooster can live for many years; you buy a few more to raise, and when they die, just come back to Huaxia to buy more. Huaxia guarantees it can supply enough roosters. Xuanyuan agreed to Baifeng's proposal; buying chickens to announce the time was indeed his main purpose, and breeding was just a more long-term idea, nor did he think Huaxia would be willing to let the Xuanyuan Tribe breed species they did not have.

Now everything was ready; although the Dahe still had a somewhat low water level, it had completely thawed, and even if there were an ice jam, it would not happen here.

So the large ship sailed out from the harbor, and it took the better part of a day to load the cargo, and then early the next morning, Xuanyuan set off.

Traveling along the Dahe, the people on the ship had different thoughts; mainly, there were many people who were going to the Xuanyuan Tribe for the first time, and they could not help but feel some anticipation and some unease.

The Xuanyuan Tribe was still bitterly waiting for their Tribal Chief to return; the envoys were already so anxious they could not sleep, waiting day and night for Xuanyuan to return sooner.

The temperature rose and the grass returned to life, which meant that those wild people should set off to open up their own new homes; they could not continue to stay here.

Setting off so late was to let them learn how to farm and how to use those tools; they had no chance this year, but starting from next year, they would need to begin farming on the new land.

Throughout the entire Winter, all the tribes became familiar with each other and understood each other, and at the same time, they eliminated barriers, basically becoming one family.

And Huaxia had made many efforts for this, such as holding some activities for them, like a Sports Meet, letting them compete and test each other, so that they could understand one another.

Like the team events, they even broke up the people from several tribes, with you in me and me in you, making it easier to cultivate friendship; Huaxia's many years of experience in holding Sports Meets made it easy for them to organize such activities.

At the same time, after all the Tribal Chiefs had studied, only two people passed the basic assessment, which required reaching a basic level of arithmetic and recognizing and being able to write two hundred characters, among whom was one named Ma, while the other Tribal Chiefs all failed.

Those who passed could temporarily lead the entire team and still belonged to the official class; for those who did not meet the standard, Huaxia gave them enough food and material rewards but stripped them of their Tribal Chief power—or rather, since a Tribal Chief should not exist in Huaxia, it was stripping them of a certain amount of management power, turning them into ordinary people with some wealth.

In order for the new place to have enough talent to maintain and develop it, some young people were also selected from all the tribes through a simple selection process to let them study as well.

Most people's grades were stronger than the two Tribal Chiefs, but for the sake of stability, the power of the Tribal Chiefs was still above theirs; they even discovered a few clever, good seedlings, and Huaxia decided to provide them with more in-depth training until they became qualified officials before letting them participate in the development.

Of course, sending such a group of people who understood nothing and only knew a few simple characters to develop a New City was clearly unreliable; there had to be sufficiently professional people to guide them.

Thus, under the call, five people volunteered, three of whom were young people who had just graduated from school—one studying architecture, one medicine, and one agriculture—along with a Level 3 Carpenter and a young official who had worked in the Ministry of Revenue for half a year. They were full of youthful spirit and wanted to create a brand-new career in a place that was completely equal to zero, just like their King and their fathers.

This person from the Ministry of Revenue was named Ce; because he had experience, his grades were very good upon graduation, and he had performed outstandingly during his work, Baifeng decided to let him serve as the Acting City Lord. Even if it was a barren land with a sparse population, and even with the word "Acting," as long as the two words "City Lord" were added, it was not ordinary, and his background was also in an ordinary family, not some Noble class.

But this Level 3 Carpenter was the fourth son of Chi, named Wuzhong; like his father, he still possessed an extremely strong body, but his heart was extremely delicate and steady, and his intelligence was also different from his father's.

Baifeng had originally been unwilling to let him go, but Juxiang, who was now the head of the Wu family, fully supported his younger brother, so Baifeng could only agree to this matter.