Volume 1: Farming Chapter 46 Playing Hard to Get
"I...I want to ask my tribesmen."
After saying this, Yu was a little distracted. Seeing his reaction, Xiao Yun knew that this guy was caught between a rock and a hard place, so he simply adopted the strategy of procrastination. For Xiao Yun, Yu's failure to refuse was half the battle... He immediately followed suit: "Okay, tell me the result after you've discussed it." He turned to look at the clan leader, "Clan leader, what do you think?"
It is too stupid to ask others to express their opinions on the spot. Xiao Yun will not reveal his intentions. He has to cool down when it is time!
The patriarch thought for a moment and said seriously, "Let's do it."
"Then let's arrange the preparations before we start building the houses..." Xiao Yun flipped through the planning map, and the preliminary preparation project list neatly arranged on the north side of the cloth was filled with numbers and graphics, "...First of all, there is the issue of sewage discharge within the tribe. For reasons of hygiene and epidemic prevention, I think it is necessary for us to design an underground sewage discharge system that connects all the houses in advance..."
Except for the old goblin monk, everyone else present understood what he said - they didn't realize it before, but now with the emphasis on hygiene, a lot of domestic sewage is generated every day. If you just drain the water onto the ground, you'll get your feet covered in mud wherever you go. Firstly, it's dirty, and secondly, the more dirty water accumulates on the ground, the more mosquitoes there will be. Even if you're not very afraid of being bitten, the buzzing sound will be very annoying.
When Xiao Yun explained the details of the underground sewage system, even Hongye, Qingyan, Qiuqiu and others were so smart that their eyes started to swell... In order to discharge sewage, ceramic pipes need to be specially fired? Ceramic pipes need to be spliced together to form underground pipes? This pipe also needs to be buried underground. Aren't they afraid that it will be crushed?
The tribe needs to build public toilets and the houses owned by families need to be equipped with private toilets? Why build so many toilets when they can just build them outside like before?
Huh? We need to build a waste disposal site specifically for burning garbage?!
...If you want to develop the tribe into a village or even a town, then sewage and garbage disposal must be put on the agenda as soon as possible, unless you are willing to endure a Paris filled with garbage and feces like the people in Europe in the Middle Ages - Xiao Yun couldn't accept this anyway, and would rather spend a little more effort in the early stages of construction.
The manpower and resources needed to burn red bricks, tiles, and underground ceramic pipes, the manpower needed to make bricks and cut wood, the priority arrangements when tribal infrastructure work conflicts with the soybean harvest period, the wintering preparations for the herds of cattle and sheep... After adding up all the details, the stupid Ashan vaguely felt that this autumn would definitely be more than ten times harder than in previous years - Ayun even suggested not to look for a caravan this year because there were really no spare manpower!
The work meeting that made everyone sweat profusely ended. The others walked out dazed. Ashan grabbed Yu and said sincerely, "Why don't you go back when it snows? Otherwise, we will definitely not be able to finish the work this fall."
Xiao Yun, who was packing up, looked up at his uncle in astonishment. How could someone as silly and cute as Ah Shan actually assist? !
Yu, who was held by Ashan, said: "...Of course we will stay until the work is done as much as possible." Anyway, their tribe's work in autumn is to collect forage for the winter.
Shaking off Ashan, Yu walked out of the activity room with mixed feelings. He was a little confused for a moment... If he were allowed to choose, he would like his partner and cubs to live in the Huoyan Tribe, where they would not be hungry all year round and would not be afraid of the cold even if it snowed... So, what would the females choose?
After following Ayun to the beach and working for so long, Yu thought he knew this cub who was different from the others better. Ayun always had a purpose in what he said and did, never doing unnecessary things or saying useless words. He seemed to want to keep the females to reproduce for the Fire Tribe, and he did not show any intention of rejecting others. Yu guessed that Ayun might be willing to keep them to live together, which seemed to be a good thing for both parties, but... did he want everyone to abandon their original tribe? How could he do such a thing!
With a sigh, Yu went to look for his tribesmen. Today was the third day of the holiday given by Ayun. Tomorrow they would be busy again, and everyone was seizing the time to have the last carnival. For example, the five adult tribesmen who came to work with him were now squatting in the sheepfold to milk the sheep under the leadership of the big foodie Niu Jiao, saying that they were going to make cream for everyone's snack.
Although they had not been grazing or hunting for meat for more than half a year, the number of cattle and sheep raised by the Huoyan Tribe did not decrease much, especially the sheep. After being kept in captivity, the long-wool sheep no longer had to roam around the pasture to graze on their own, so their fat content increased and they competed to fatten up. The lambs were fed with plenty of breast milk and alfalfa silage, which is considered the king of forage grass. The more than 400 lambs born in the spring (the gestation period of ewes is about 150 days) are now about half the size of adult long-wool sheep. If they are raised a little longer, the rams can be slaughtered in the winter.
Yu Momo had observed for so long that he knew that the lambs could grow so fast and fat all because of alfalfa. The yield of concentrated alfalfa was much higher than that of wild grass, and it was also nutritious. In Ayun's words, two kilograms of alfalfa could replace one and a half kilograms of concentrated feed (black beans) - which tribe was rich enough to feed sheep with beans? In this regard, his own tribe could never learn from the Fire Tribe.
In the sheepfold surrounded by mud, stones and thorn wood, Yu's tribe and the people of the Fire Tribe mingled together, laughing and squeezing the ewes into clay pots. When they saw Yu coming, the tribesmen waved at him happily: "Yu, are you here to beat the cream too?"
Yu waved his hand, signaling them to take care of themselves first. He needed to think about it again. The question raised by Ayun concerned his own future and the future of so many tribesmen, so he did not dare to make a decision casually.
The floor of the sheepfold was cleaned very well. Not only the sheep dung, but even the grass that fell out of the stone trough was picked up. There was a large pit outside the sheepfold for fermenting soil fertilizer. Every day, Ayun would arrange for people to clean the sheepfold and sweep the sheep dung into it for accumulation. Yu, who had participated in several fertilization work, knew that Ayun's doing this was beneficial. First, a clean sheepfold would prevent the sheep from getting sick easily . Second, the sheep dung waste was used and turned into soil fertilizer to increase crop yields.
Yu sighed again. He had really learned a lot since he came to the Huoyan Tribe to work. The more he learned, the more he realized that he had just wasted his life for the past few decades... If he hadn't come to the Huoyan Tribe, how would he know that the animal bones left over by wild beasts, the bird droppings and rotten leaves in the woods, and even the feces of the sheep could all be turned into magical fertilizer, allowing the tribe to harvest a lot of precious food from the land?
——After learning these things and taking them back to let your own people follow them, can you make sure that your people will never lack food again, and never fear the long, cold winter, just like the Fire Tribe?
Ever since Yu came to the Huoyan Tribe, this thought has been constantly in his mind. At first, he was full of confidence, carefully observing and learning from Ayun's words and deeds, but as time went on, Yu gradually became uncertain... Could he do it? Could he really guide and lead the tribesmen like Ayun did?
Ayun asked him to dig an artificial canal. At first, he didn't understand why such a meaningless thing was done in a place far away from the tribe. It was not until Ayun explained it to him many times that he realized that it was a precautionary measure to prevent floods. Facts proved that Ayun was right. The water overflowing the river bank was greatly reduced after the artificial canal was opened, and all flowed southward along the artificial canal.
——Even if their tribe lived in a place with less water flow upstream of the river and didn't have to worry about the river flooding the tribe, Yu didn't think his people could build a waterwheel to lift water from the river and irrigate the alfalfa field... He had also helped the caracals when they built the waterwheel, and those small, uniform-sized waterwheel parts were not something the snow wolves could make themselves. If they wanted a waterwheel, where could their tribe find such a group of agile caracals? The tribe didn't have enough food for themselves, so how much food could they give to the caracals?
- Unable to build water wheels, unable to provide sufficient water for irrigation, unable to grow alfalfa, unable to raise cattle and sheep to save manpower for grazing, unable to free up manpower for farming to obtain a more stable source of food, and even less manpower and time to slowly bake bricks and build houses... It's a dead cycle that cannot be escaped!
Yu thought about all this over and over again, but his confidence was defeated by the young Ayun - he couldn't learn from Ayun! He really couldn't learn from Ayun!
Well, it is inevitable that people will lack awe when facing things that they do not fully understand. Let alone Yu who has not received any education, how many idiots on earth think they are smarter than everyone on earth after reading a few local literatures? Amateur writers despise full-time writers, idiot couples mock the seniors in the crosstalk industry, those who have difficulty signing contracts point fingers at the masters of the golden list, and passers-by sneer at Prince Ma for not knowing how to write books - in a word, only those idiots who have a full understanding of a certain field and claim "I think I can do it" can have some knowledge.
Therefore, it was normal that Yu, a resident of the grassland, took half a year to realize that he could not compete with Xiao Yun, who traveled through the technological society of information explosion.
It was also because he discovered that the Huoyan Tribe's bold operations could not be replicated that Yu became even more conflicted. Having seen the Huoyan Tribe prospering under Ayun's arrangement, could he still tolerate his own people living like before, "just grazing around and living a carefree life" as Ayun said?
Sighing again and again, Yu, who was so worried that his hair was falling out, was hesitant and didn't know how to talk to his tribe members...
After dragging his feet until after dinner, Yu finally gathered the five adult tribesmen and conveyed Ayun's intention to them - in theory, the choice of whether to go into heat was entirely in the hands of the females, so there was no need for him to keep two males, but he couldn't care less at the moment.
"We're going to give houses to people who choose to be in heat? The same kind of houses that Qingcao and the others live in?" The three females became excited when they heard this.
"That's what Ayun said." Yu nodded reluctantly, "But... everyone knows what it means to accept the house of the Fire Tribe. We can't just take the house back with us."
The three female tribesmen looked at each other and fell silent.
"What do you think? If you like the people of the Fire Tribe and want to stay... then it's your choice." Yu said with some difficulty. It is not uncommon for snow wolves to move to another tribe to live because they become partners. Of course... normally the male follows the female.
None of the three females said anything, but their expressions were all very complicated... No matter how silly or cute they were, they could tell whether their lives were comfortable or not. Although the Fire Tribe had too much work to do and could never be finished, they were indeed impeccable in other aspects.
"Well...if I want to have cubs, I would definitely want my cubs to spend the winter in a warm house instead of staying in a drafty tent." One of the females said in a conflicted tone.
"Yes, newborn cubs are not as resistant to cold as we are." Another person nodded.
"But... that means I have to leave the tribe. I do like living in the Fire Tribe, but I don't want to leave my people either." The last person said in pain.
The three females sighed in unison. Isn't it true? It has always been the males who follow the little female wolves outside. How could the females leave the tribe?
Yu Zhen was touched by the unity of the tribesmen, but was also troubled by the fact that if he refused the Fire Tribe, he would not be able to work there anymore...
"I say... why don't we... discuss with the Fire Tribe and merge our tribe into the Fire Tribe?" Fei Niao, the younger of the two male tribesmen who were listening obediently, said hesitantly, "The Fire Tribe should be able to support us, right?"
The female werewolf's eyes lit up: "Yes, although our people are more gluttonous than caracals and goblins, they can also do work!"
Yu pursed his lips and said nothing. In fact, when A Shan pulled him aside to talk, he had had such a thought in his mind; but this kind of thing could not be done by just talking, especially since their tribe had a larger population than the Fire Tribe.
One of the females had the same idea as Yu: "Will the Fire Tribe agree? There are so many people in our tribe, how much of their food will we have to eat? Besides, winter is coming soon!"
This silenced everyone present. That's right, winter is the time of year when food consumption is the highest and there is not much work to do. Bringing the entire tribe, more than 50 people, to eat the Fire Tribe? It's a bit embarrassing!
"We have a lot of cattle and sheep in our tribe, and it's not just people who come to eat their food." The young male bird wanted to fight for it again, "Maybe the Fire Tribe is happy that all our people are here? You know, the work that Ayun arranges always requires everyone to work hard together and get up at night to barely finish it... He always says that the work is not done fast enough or too slow. Wouldn't it be better if there were more people?"
Fei Niao emphasized this, and even Yu felt that there was great hope - isn't it? That cub had arranged countless tasks for people to work when he called them together during the day! Yu felt his scalp tingling just thinking about it, and he wished he could have some more help!
"...I'll go ask Ayun." Yu made up his mind and said firmly. It's not that our females don't want the house you gave us, but our tribesmen don't want to leave the tribe...If you want our females to stay, you have to support them with their whole family!
The five adult snow wolves clenched their fists and watched Yu's back, silently cheering him on in their hearts - whether you can get the whole tribe, young and old, to come to the Fire Tribe to eat and drink depends on how spicy you are~!
Although the young male bird tried hard to persuade everyone, he actually did not have much confidence. After thinking for a while, he started running towards the No. 2 main room.
It was autumn, and it was rainy again. The air was cooler after the rain, and the room was not as stuffy as before. Hongye was sitting on the kang covered with a rattan mat, talking to Ashan. When she saw Fei Niao coming in, she waved at him: "How is it, have you convinced Yu and the others?"
Asuka nodded: "Yu went to find Ayun. It's just... I'm a little worried, Hongye, will Chief Huoyan and Ayun be willing to let so many people from our tribe come?"
"Ayun will definitely be willing. He will be so happy to have more people working for him." Hongye said with a hearty smile.
Fei Niao was somewhat happy, but still looked a little uneasy: "But Yu said that Ayun only plans to build houses for females who want to stay..."
"That refers to the small house. This big room that can sleep many people is open to anyone who wants to live in it." Hongye said comfortingly.
"Wait a minute, what do you mean by so many people? What people?" Ashan finally reacted.
"Feiniao and his tribe are going to move to our place." Hongye had long been accustomed to the silly and cute behavior of her tribe members and was not surprised at all.
"..." Ah Shan's eyes widened in a daze, "Doesn't that mean that there will be many people working with us?"
"That's right, there are more than fifty people in Asuka's tribe." Hongye nodded.
Ashan immediately cheered...waking up everyone who was sleeping.
Hongye let Feiniao sleep in the same room with them. After everyone lay down, Hongye quietly raised her head and rubbed her face which was a little stiff from smiling...Ayun was really something. She clearly wanted Yu's tribe to join in but refused to say it directly. She beat around the bush and let others bring it up actively. She had to pretend that she didn't know about Ayun's plan even though she knew it. She also had to bite the bullet and coax Feiniao - it must be tiring to do this kind of thing, okay!
Complaining in her heart, Hongye recalled what Xiao Yun had said to her earlier when he asked her to cooperate with the operation...
"We need to organize and manage people. The first thing is to understand what others are thinking and what they need. After understanding others' thoughts and needs, should we satisfy them directly? Absolutely not. If we really want to give them everything they want, then we are inferior. Others may obey the arrangement in the short term, but if it lasts for a long time, something bad will happen."
"Why? Because all intelligent creatures are mean by nature. Don't stare at me. I'm serious. All intelligent creatures have the same character. They will never cherish or value things that they get casually. They will only take things that they have worked hard for and put in a lot of effort seriously..."
"So I will pretend that I only have opinions about the females and some of them, so that they can be embarrassed for a while... Of course, we can't really force these stubborn guys to run away, so during this period of confusion, you can go find anyone among them who has a good relationship with you, and privately tell them what we talked about in the work meeting, and let this person give a push during the internal discussion of Yu and his tribe... As long as they are willing to do so, just give this push and it will be fine."
Xiao Yun was squatting in the activity room discussing with the caracal how to weave the pattern of the blanket. When he saw Yu Da coming over at night without sleeping, he knew that this matter was settled.
Maomao is a bit like Hongye, but not quite. Hongye is a more decisive type, while Maomao is the type who can keep things to himself... He knows it in his heart but doesn't say it out loud and doesn't show it in his attitude.
Such people are more steady in doing things and are suitable to be a middle-level manager. Let them lead a small team and assign them work tasks. As long as you explain the details of the requirements clearly, they will definitely do the job well for you. But if you give them a larger degree of freedom and let them play on their own, they will be at a loss... They think too much but cannot make decisions. They can plan but cannot make decisions. This is the kind of people like Maomao.
Xiao Yun has been working in the workplace for more than ten years and he has led subordinates of this type. People with this kind of personality can be put under appropriate pressure, but they cannot be pushed too hard. If they are pushed too hard, they will either rebel or simply give up… So while forcing him, you must also prepare a "lifeline" for him to grasp so that he can get ashore smoothly - it would be strange if he didn't think that it would be more beneficial to bring in the whole family, it's just that he doesn't dare to make a conclusion and has to have someone take the lead to take the lead.
Let the caracal go to rest, Xiao Yun patiently listened to Yu stumbling for a long time to explain his purpose, and then... pretended to be in deep thought, putting some pressure on Yu again.
When Yu was a little overwhelmed and his nervous and anxious emotions were exposed, Xiao Yun nodded seriously and said thoughtfully: "Our two tribes make a living in this area. It is indeed more beneficial for the development of both tribes to join together..." Yu just breathed a sigh of relief, and he continued, "As for food, it is indeed a bit tight..." When Yu's facial muscles tightened, he drifted a little, "But with so many of us, it is not impossible that we can't even get enough food for the winter. There are always more solutions than problems."
Finally, end with a starry-eyed smile, showing how happy she is to be trusted by the other party: "The most important thing is, Maomao, you can believe that our Fire Tribe can make your people's lives better. This kind of trust is the best persuasiveness. We really have no reason not to welcome you. If the chief knew this, he would definitely be very happy... Let us work together for a better life!"
Can you use people who can plan but not make decisions, who have enough brains but are indecisive? Of course you can! Arrange the work tasks in detail, so that the other party feels that you trust and value him very much. Such people will fight for you and will never do unnecessary things on their own initiative. You can obey and rest assured!
Yu excitedly stretched out his paw to hold Xiao Yun's hand, and nodded heavily: "My people will not let you down!"
Well... one of the reasons why this type of people are often not very successful in the workplace is that even if they really want to lick someone's ass, they can't flatter them...
