Chapter 994: Wolf Crossing Beach

The Western Development Group successfully built a brick and tile kiln at their settlement; having found sufficient clay, they could naturally begin firing bricks and tiles, but the problem was that they still had not found a limestone deposit, which meant cement could not be produced for the time being.

However, Ce was very open-minded about it. He said, "Having bricks and tiles is good enough. Without cement, mud can also be used to build walls! The houses of our Huaxia in the old days were wrapped in mud! Everyone, don't worry, keep working hard!"

In order to make houses without cement sufficiently sturdy, they had no choice but to make the bricks larger; only by increasing the contact surface with the mud mortar could the walls be built solidly.

The Western Development Group now had a rough shape; at the very least, everyone had a place to live and no longer needed to stay in tents, and life was gradually getting on the right track.

The pasture had been initially planned out, and they had already scouted the surrounding wolf packs; there were a total of three different packs that would frequently take turns coming to harass them, and more than a dozen sheep had already suffered.

But at the same time, the situation for the wolf packs was even more miserable; aside from daily guarding and defense, the hunters would go out to surround and hunt prey at any time, and these wolves were the primary target.

Although wolf meat was not that delicious, killing a wolf was a great deed that served two purposes at once, so as long as a wolf pack was discovered, they had to be surrounded and hunted with full force.

According to the hunters' current accounts, the territory of two of the three wolf packs had already begun to recede. They now identified this piece of land where the Western Development Group was as a relatively dangerous place. Although the lush grass attracted a large number of deer, sheep, roe deer, and other herbivorous wild beasts, plus the large number of cattle and sheep brought by Huaxia, making this place extremely attractive to wolves, the wolf packs believed that the risks here outweighed the benefits and could be abandoned.

Currently, only one wolf pack was unwilling to leave, constantly struggling against Huaxia. However, during the struggle, they also discovered that these humans were more concerned about those white sheep and cattle, and did not seem to care much about beasts like deer.

If they hunted these deer or similar animals within the humans' field of vision, the humans would watch but would not drive them away or chase them; however, as soon as they approached those sheep and cattle, a group of people would always quickly surround them.

Now they were just seeing who, between themselves and these humans, would lose patience first and give up this territory. In the eyes of the wolf pack, these cattle and sheep had nothing to do with the humans; they were all food gifted by Nature, and wolves, like humans, were both predators.

And between the wolves themselves and the humans, it was also a situation of being each other's prey. The wolf packs would besiege the humans, and the humans would besiege the wolf packs. Everyone fought back and forth like this; the wolf packs felt it was a joy, but the humans felt it was exceptionally annoying, because spending a large amount of energy every day on confronting the wolf packs was certainly not a good thing.

Added to the fact that they could often see wolf packs crossing the river beach on the grass flat within their view, Ce named that grassland Wolf Crossing Beach, just to see when they would be able to completely drive the wolves away.

Arable land also began to be reclaimed. Although it would be a little further away from where they lived, it was impossible not to reclaim arable land. Relying solely on grazing livestock and depending on these livestock to support so many people was very unreliable. If an accident occurred, it could lead to them having no food at all to eat. This place was also too far from Huaxia, and it was impossible to receive timely food support.

Therefore, Ce demanded that they must quickly reclaim terraced fields and also reclaim arable land on the flat Sichuan that would not accumulate water. However, they did not reclaim too many terraced fields because most of the land here was just small hillocks; there was a drop in elevation, but the width of these hills was particularly large, making them unsuitable as terraced fields, though they were not flat either, so they could still serve as arable land.

It gave people a feeling of being a plateau when viewed from afar, and a flat Sichuan when viewed up close.

After discussion and research by all the leadership of the Western Development Group, it was decided that before the ground froze this year, they would reclaim enough arable land to support half the people by next year. By the year after next, they would ensure that everyone could rely on the arable land here to achieve abundance in food and clothing, and with so many cattle, sheep, and wild beasts they had, they could simultaneously achieve a diet containing a large amount of meat.

Aside from living a bit poorly and having almost no infrastructure, in terms of eating, they were bound to surpass Huaxia; this was also the only guarantee Ce could promise to everyone.

At the same time, education and talent selection were not neglected in the slightest. The Western Development Group now had only over 1,800 people, not even 2,000. Among them, children under eight years old numbered a pitifully small 270-plus, and among them, more than 30 were born after the women arrived here.

To Huaxia, the entire tribe was very young because everyone's age was not high and they were all strong laborers, but the age structure was very unhealthy; there were too few children, and the survival rate was also very low. This was also the reason why the natural growth rate of most tribes was very low; a tribe would develop for decades and still remain that size.

Even though the Western Development Group was far from Huaxia, they still strictly observed the systems of Huaxia. Ce clearly required them to implement the One-Family-One-Household System; women were to only find fixed men and live together. If adultery or similar matters were discovered, they would need to be subjected to whipping in front of everyone. However, considering the need for labor, the severity of the whipping was reduced significantly, and penalties were imposed on future food distribution; otherwise, they would not remember the lesson.

Fortunately, after the education of the previous Winter, they also understood why this was. Men did not want to hand over their wealth to someone who was not their own son, so they would strictly demand things of their own women, but they could not control themselves and would go looking for other men's women; this was the root of the problem.

If it was the man who had the problem, the punishment was heavy manual labor, letting him work hard for a few days to see where he would still find the heart for such things.

Unmarried women and underage girls were assigned a specific area to live in, and Ce repeatedly emphasized that if any man dared to seek out underage girls, he would be severely dealt with without mercy. If a rape crime was committed against an underage girl, it would be punished directly with capital punishment, with absolutely no mercy; this was the bottom line of Huaxia law.

Burning, killing, looting, and raping were all major crimes and had to be punished severely and strictly. As for theft, it only depended on the amount; if it was too small, then the punishment would be light. After all, the situation of the Western Development Group was special and production tasks were heavy, but for major crimes, there would be no leniency. Baifeng gave the power of law enforcement and the Judiciary, with the whole population supervising. Every handling had to be registered, stating the crime, the investigation process, and the verdict, and after reading it out in front of everyone, the leadership of the Western Development Group and the criminal had to press their fingerprints.

All procedures were simplified, but management had to be strictly controlled. The concept that the law is absolute and the law must not be profaned had to be understood by everyone and carved into their hearts.