Volume 4: How big is the heart, how vast is the earth Chapter 122 Opportunity
The grassroots chief's facial muscles twitched slightly, his eyes widened, and his pupils contracted. He was obviously shocked by Xiao Yun's guess.
The seven clan leaders were completely stunned and could not react at all—
The royal court of the grassland is controlled by someone? !
The tiger tribe is suppressed by some external force? !
What on earth is this?!
Xiao Yun had recovered from his shock. When his thoughts turned in this direction, he found that the fog in front of him had dissipated in an instant, and the pattern of the northern continent became clearer in his eyes.
Bloomfield was talking about the North and South continents, but the South continent was not equal to the North continent. The South continent seemed to have no name, but the North continent was full of strong people. When he first came, he knew that there was a very remarkable Beast King in the North continent. Later, he slowly learned from humans, cats, minotaurs, and elves that there was also a Dwarf King, a Snow Elf King, a Forest Elf Queen, and the Dark Elf Grandmother in the mysterious underground world.
Before he came, the Snow Wolf Tribe had no heritage, no writing of their own, and were struggling to make ends meet, unable to pay attention to the outside world. Xiao Yun's understanding of this world could only rely on collecting information from the outside, summarizing the "testimonies" of all parties, and making his own judgments.
This obviously made Xiao Yun quite passive in receiving information from the outside world... If there was more than one person passing the message, the content of the message would change, just like his positioning of the Tiger Tribe - the grassland tribe was under the jurisdiction of the royal court, and the Beast King borrowed troops from the grassland royal court. This publicly recognized information alone was enough to mislead Xiao Yun into thinking that the Tiger Tribe was the "king of a small country" recognized by the Northern Continent and had a certain say and status in the Northern Continent...
Then Xia received another message from the Minotaur: the Tiger Tribe regards races other than its own as slaves.
Undoubtedly, this information was in conflict with the previous positioning. After passively accepting it at the time, Xiao Yun could only slightly adjust his positioning of the Tiger Tribe, and there was no possibility for him to question the authenticity of the Minotaur's information - after all, there was no need for the Minotaur to lie in this place, and it was no secret that the Centaurs, one of the indigenous inhabitants of the grassland, were crippled by the Tiger Tribe. It was an open secret that even the humans in the southern continent knew about it.
At this stage, Xiao Yun believed that the Tiger Tribe were "arrogant and barbaric" local rulers, and were brutal and short-sighted tyrants. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the Tiger Tribe's behavior patterns... There was no need for any intelligent creature to be so greedy about things that belonged to them, just like the emperors of the feudal era regarded the country as their own property and managed it carefully, while the bureaucratic groups who governed the country for a short period of time were always "generous" in plundering and dividing the country's wealth - the Tiger Tribe did not actually rule the grassland, so the grassland residents would feel that this was their property only if they became their slaves and depended on them, and vice versa.
Xiao Yun naturally found this kind of behavior disgusting but he didn't want to get involved with it... He would rather fight with smart people than say a word to fools. The tiger tribe was definitely the fools he was most unwilling to deal with on the grassland when they were the ones who had the final say. Not only did the people who had the power to make the rules of the game ignore the rules, they also didn't care about establishing the rules at all. What the hell was there to say to such people!
The attitudes of the forest elves and the snow elves also made Xiao Yun more certain of this. Undoubtedly, the two big guys next to the grassland all adopted a condescending attitude towards the grassland or an arrogant attitude of considering themselves as managers... Among the forest elves he could contact, the elf warriors such as Hailin and Kai were very indifferent to the grassland and did not care at all; the more core Evelyn was quite disgusted with the tiger tribe and was too lazy to mention it.
The attitude of the snow elves was even more blatant... They considered themselves to be the watchers of the grasslands, and the grassroots soldiers and non-commissioned officers were furious when they found out that the grassland tribes were missing, and they started searching...
Whether it is the former's cold mode or the latter's overly enthusiastic "overstepping of boundaries", both indirectly express a rather arrogant attitude: the two elf bosses are reserved about the tiger tribe's right to rule the grassland.
Of course, such an attitude would not make Xiao Yun despise the tiger tribe. After all... from the standpoint of the grassland as a whole, the elves' point of view belonged to that of "outsiders" or even enemies. Xiao Yun, whose soul came from humans, was not so confused as to not understand that the butt determines the head - a dead enemy is a good enemy, and the tiger tribe is still alive and kicking, so there must be no good words in the enemy's mouth.
In the international mainstream opinion on the planet, India's international image is so much better than China's... Who wouldn't want to trample on China's international image with ten thousand feet?
This was exactly why Xiao Yun was shocked after guessing the true situation of the Tiger Tribe. He felt that he had already guessed the two elves with the greatest malice, but he never expected that he was still too naive - it was obvious that if there was some kind of pressure suppressing the Tiger Tribe and not allowing them to use the existing conditions to strengthen themselves, then no matter who else was among this wave of bad people, the two elves must have their names.
Letting out a light breath, Xiao Yun did not hide his thoughts. He organized his words and analyzed them to the clan leaders present.
The grassroots clan leaders looked more solemn, and the seven clan leaders who were participating in this kind of meeting for the first time were so shocked that their jaws dropped...
"This world is far more cruel than we imagined." The Grassroots Chief said with a wry smile, "Even a powerful man like the Royal Court can't control its own destiny?"
Xiao Yun nodded: "Combining information from all sides, this is the most likely guess. The population of the cat tribe is ten times that of the tiger tribe and ten times that of our snow wolf tribe. The weakness of the cat tribe is only relative. The tiger tribe only needs to wave its hand and at least half of the cat tribe will follow them, such as the Yuanxia tribe in the southwest. But they didn't do that, but adopted a more intense annexation method. This can only mean that if they openly recruit the power of the cat tribe for their own use, the cost will be greater than using a more intense annexation method."
"...Wait, if that's the case, then wouldn't we be targeted as well?" The grassroots chief's expression changed.
Xiao Yun laughed at himself: "Of course, it wasn't long ago that the incident between Ah Shu and Mu Mu happened."
"This..." The Grassroots Chief was shocked, "Doesn't this mean that we can no longer continue to go to the Central Region?"
"We still have to go." Xiao Yun shook his head. "We didn't accept the cat tribe on a large scale. It should be okay if we just gather the tribe members... The tiger tribe also adopts the large tribe gathering model, but the gathering of their own race will not touch the bottom line. The tiger tribe has already stepped on the landmine for us."
Being able to cross the river by feeling the tiger's way is naturally better than rushing around blindly on your own.
The Grassroots Chief heaved a sigh of relief: "That's good."
Xiao Yun said seriously: "The current situation is that the Tiger Tribe is obviously unwilling to accept the current situation. They want to fight hard. The central region will become a battlefield in three to five years at most. Before that, we must do our best to transfer the people in the central region out."
The grassroots chief nodded repeatedly, and the seven chiefs who finally caught up with their thoughts all raised their hands to wipe their sweat... They were talking about a meeting of chiefs, but at this moment they couldn't even get a word in, and it was difficult for them to understand.
"In fact, this is not a bad thing for our Snow Wolf Tribe. The Tiger Tribe has diverted most of the attention of the 'hidden enemies'. It is a good time for us to seize the time to develop ourselves. This is our Snow Wolf Tribe's opportunity." Xiao Yun smiled and looked at the seven tribe leaders. "Next, I would like to ask all the tribe leaders to work together to help. Our Snow Wolf Tribe will work together to build homes, cultivate fertile fields, and store more food so that more tribe members will have houses to live in and food to eat when they arrive. It is not enough to rely on the efforts of only some of us. We need everyone to work together."
The tribe leaders all nodded, and Tribe Leader Feng, who was an old acquaintance of the Fire Tribe, said, "We are also the Snow Wolf Tribe, and we must also contribute to the future of the Snow Wolf Tribe. I suggest that the warriors of each tribe train together, so that if anything happens in the future, we will also be able to have the power to stop the enemy."
Xiao Yun's eyes lit up. This Feng clan leader was obviously a reliable clan leader. He immediately smiled and said, "Before, we were short of manpower and did not have the conditions to let the soldiers take time off for training. Now that there are so many more people, we are also able to do this."
The other tribe leaders also had something to say about this. The tribe leaders of the Snow Wolf tribe adopted the elder system, but most of the warriors were able to live longer and have enough prestige. The tribe leaders present, including the Fire Tribe leader who was working hard in the cement factory, were all warriors in the tribe when they were young (before the age of 60). The tribe leaders knew how ordinary warriors could become elite warriors.
They exchanged information about the number of elite warriors each tribe had. At the collective meeting in the evening, Xiao Yun formally proposed to the twenty-one Snow Wolf tribe leaders that the warriors be laid off.
The silly and cute ones like Huoyan naturally kept their mouths shut and didn't cause any trouble. The tribe leaders with ideas, such as Caogen, Feng, and Li, discussed it out loud and determined the new warrior team structure and future development direction:
There were a total of fifty-two elite warriors from the twenty-one tribes, divided into two teams, one led by Yu and the other led by Xiaohua.
One hundred and thirty-six ordinary soldiers were divided into two teams to participate in training and patrol. After three years of full-time training, those who could enter the ranks of elite soldiers would stay, and those who could not would retire and participate in work, and other tribesmen would be selected to join the warrior team.
The Snow Wolf Tribe, as a natural fighting race, has a common understanding that quality is more important than quantity. After all, five ordinary warriors are no match for an elite warrior in a real fight. However, due to the difficult living conditions of the tribes, even the most talented warriors had to participate in hunting and even herding, and their talents could not be better utilized, so the number of elite warriors was naturally extremely scarce...
Hongye is a talented person. She had no energy to train before Xiao Yun came here, and even less after coming here. Now the tribe has the conditions to let Hongye leave her job, but Xiao Yun privately suggested to her that she lead the development and construction of the new hilly area, which made Hongye deeply entangled...
Xiao Yun didn't intend to waste Hongye's talent by charging into battle, so he decided on two warrior teams without giving her a chance to think about it. To be honest, Uncle Ashan also had a talent for warriors, but he was locked up in the brick factory.
Moreover, this off-duty soldier is only relative... It is not practical to have 188 people in a tribe with a total population of only 1,700+ to be completely off-duty. During the busy farming season, even elite soldiers have to work in the fields, not to mention that the soldiers will have to rush to the central part of the country when the snow melts in the spring next year. To put it bluntly, it is just to let the soldiers get rid of the daily tedious work. It is impossible to really not work at all.
Several days passed after the warrior team was finalized and the first snow fell, and Yu, Xiaohua, Sai'er and others drove large herds of cattle and sheep back to the tribe.
The Snow Wolf warriors' tense nerves finally relaxed when they entered the familiar tribe. After the snow began to fall, large numbers of sheep froze to death or suffered frostbite. More than a hundred sheep died in just two days. Yu and Xiaohua were so worried that they kept scratching their heads, but now they can finally put their hearts back in their chests.
The centaur warriors were different. They looked around blankly at the Snow Wolf Tribe, which was even more magnificent than the Tiger Tribe’s royal court. Their mouths were wide open in horror, and their already ugly horse faces became even uglier...
After scrubbing and thoroughly removing the bugs from this group of people who had difficulty taking a bath in the newly built spacious conference room, Hongye, who had completely shed his identity as a soldier and switched to "administrative" work, wiped the sweat off his face and took Saier and the others to the stable converted from a shed (...)... uh, the Centaur dormitory.
After the wooden door was opened, the light that filtered in through the newly opened windows allowed the Centaurs, who did not have night vision, to see their new home clearly: the room was extremely spacious and airy, with a newly paved cement floor. Half of the space was covered with dry straw and carpets as their sleeping place; the other half was furnished with some high tables similar to bar counters, which served as dining tables for the Centaurs when they ate indoors. Considering the height of the Centaurs, the height of the dining table alone was two meters and two; the remaining space was left with a passage for the Centaurs with large tonnage (the average weight is eight hundred to one thousand kilograms; I will correct the tonnage in the previous chapter if it was wrong) to move freely. At the end of the room, several rows of clothes hangers were installed on the wall, and a tall double-door cabinet was placed for the Centaurs to place their personal belongings.
Although it was a temporary room converted from a greenhouse, it was much more upscale than the cramped tents where the centaurs had to either sleep outdoors or squeeze in uncomfortably... Even Seer couldn't help being moved and looked at Hongye with gratitude.
"Well... the heating in the house here is different from where we live. It is collectively heated by underground fire channels, and there is no independent kang. You don't have to worry about the temperature, you won't feel cold, but it's not very warm... uh... you can't light a fire to eat, so every day at mealtime I need you to send someone out to the cafeteria to get it..." Hongye introduced embarrassedly. It was a bit embarrassing for Hongye to convert the greenhouse for them to live in, because the Centaurs couldn't live in the ready-made dormitories!
"It's good to be warm like this. We are not afraid of the cold. It's very warm in here and we don't feel cold. We are very satisfied." Sail said hurriedly.
The delighted Centaurs nodded repeatedly.
"As long as you are satisfied." Hongyesong said, "Then you can take a rest for two days and take it easy before talking about other things. Sai'er, arrange two people to go to the cafeteria with me to get food."
"I'll go with you." Sayre waved to the tribesmen to stay in the new house to rest, and called a young man out to go with him to the place where they would get food to familiarize themselves with the way.
The greenhouse area is relatively close to the living area, the closest one being Thrall's mushroom shed. The Centaur dormitory is only separated from Thrall's mushroom shed by the woolen bean sprout shed. After walking a few steps out of the door, Sayle was shocked to see a human coming out of a large house similar to their new home.
"Ah!!" When Thrall saw the centaur with obvious inhuman features and as ugly as a goblin, he couldn't help but scream and took a few steps back in fear, sticking to the wall.
"This is Thrall, a human who lives with our Snow Wolf tribe." Hongye introduced, "Thrall, this is the new centaur."
Sal felt much more relieved when he saw Hongye, but he didn't dare to get close to her. He forced a greeting smile and nervously retreated into the mushroom house.
Sayre & the Centaur Boy: “???”
Hongye was not surprised and led the two to continue walking forward: "Sal is a little timid, but you will get used to him in the future. He is a very nice person. By the way, his two mushroom houses are more important. The things planted in them cannot be exposed to light or cold, so try not to get close to them."
"Okay, I'll tell my tribesmen." Sail nodded, secretly pulled the young man who kept looking back, and glared at him fiercely.
Hongye smiled again: "But I guess you won't have much time to be curious about Thrall's mushroom house in the future. There is not much work to do in our tribe in winter, but there are a lot of things to learn."
"What do you mean?" Sail asked curiously .
"Learn arithmetic and writing." Hongye said, "Don't worry, it won't be too hard for you in your first year at Ayun. This winter you only need to learn simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and recognize the most basic words."
"..." Sai Er struggled to understand for a long time and finally understood Hongye's meaning. He was shocked. "Arithmetic? Words??"
"Yes, knowing how to count makes everything easier. For example, how much food do you need for a meal? How much of each kind of food does each person consume? How much food is needed for everyone to eat together? You need to know how to count these things." Hongye said patiently. "Knowing how to write is also for the convenience of doing work. For some more complicated tasks, it is easy to miscommunicate if you just speak. If you write the work content on bark paper, you won't make mistakes."
Hongye took out a piece of bark paper from her waist bag and handed it to Saier. "Look, this is the work arrangement for renovating your dormitory. Prepare how many blankets, how high your dining table should be, and the cabinets and nail hangers for hanging clothes. Write all these down on paper and pass them down so that we won't miss anything when we do the specific work."
Saier took the bark paper and felt dizzy after just one look. He hurriedly returned it to Hongye: "Is this something I have to learn?"
Hongye laughed: "Yes, everyone needs to learn it. Don't be nervous, it's actually not difficult to learn..."
Saier felt much more at ease. He was a little worried that if his tribe members couldn't learn it, they would be disliked by the Snow Wolf Tribe. But when he thought about it, the Snow Wolf Tribe said it was not difficult, so it shouldn't be a problem for the Centaurs to learn it either.
With this in mind, the three of them entered the living area. The houses here were much shorter than those in the greenhouse area, which had an average height of more than five meters. This made Sayer feel a little relieved... The houses that the Snow Wolf tribe gave them were very large, which clearly showed that they valued them very much! No doubt, he did whatever he was asked to do!
But at this moment, a painful cry of giving up on treatment rang out: "Why can't I understand it? Aa ...
The two centaurs looked in the direction of the sound in horror, and saw a female forest elf running out from the aisle between the two rows of houses. She rushed past them with her head in her hands and ran towards the far side of the square where the snow had not been cleared...
"This?!" Saier looked at Hongye in shock.
"She is our Ayun's new disciple, the forest elf Evelyn." Hongye's expression did not change at all, as she was used to big occasions. "She came here before the snow fell, and followed Ayun to learn knowledge. Don't worry, what she learns is different from what we learn..."
"..." Saier's expression changed a little. He suddenly felt that he seemed to be a little too optimistic...
Deep inside the living area, Balk stood at the gate, one hand on his waist, the other on the pergola, watching the female elf running away. He returned to the house with a gloating look until she disappeared from view: "Ayun, Ayun, that idiot gave up~ He ran away~ He became a deserter~"
"How dare you call her a fool..." Xiao Yun raised his head and looked at her with a helpless look. "Didn't I tell her to first let her understand the mathematical logic of our calculations? How free are you to interrupt her and lead her astray?"
"She's stupid if she can't tell which of my words are meant to tease her!" Balk said proudly.
"..." Xiao Yun silently got off the kang, grabbed Balk's collar and pushed him out, "Go away and have fun by yourself, don't come here to cause trouble."
"You still say you don't dislike me! You weren't like this before!" Balke couldn't stand it anymore and shouted while grabbing the door frame.
Xiao Yun was shocked again: "I told you to be careful with your words... Watch your words, idiot!"
"Well, you called me an idiot!"
"Okay, get out of here and have fun!"
"I won't leave, I'll stay here!"
Inside the house, the residents of dormitories 7-9 were sitting at the end of the kang eating, looking at the two people pushing and shoving at the door with expressionless faces.
"Daha, every time Ayun comes over, Balke follows. It's so noisy." The lynx munched on the meat patty with a crunchy sound.
"Does Balke like to pester Ayun so much? I never noticed it before." The golden cat asked curiously while tearing the toasted wheat cakes into small pieces and soaking them in the soup.
"Because before, Ayun only taught Balke the math that we couldn't understand. Now that Evelyn is here, Balke will feel that Ayun doesn't value him." Dahe said sourly, looking like an experienced person. "I've been through this before. Ayun was very nice to me before and thought about me in everything. Later, he only paid attention to Lan Guo and the others and ignored me."
"How dare you say that!!" Xiao Yun turned around and glared.
The centaurs rested for two days to relieve their fatigue. Sayre regained his spirits and was just feeling embarrassed to eat for free when Qingcao, Dashui and Qingyan came to visit him...
"Looking closely, he is indeed very strong!" Dashui caught Sai Er and touched his body from the human body to the horse's body, with a look of surprise on his face, "If he is so strong, he basically doesn't need to be picky about work, he can do anything."
"Yes, the legs are so thick that if I use the capstan and millstone to squeeze the soybean oil, I'm sure it will be squeezed very well." Qingyan was very satisfied.
"Wait, Qingyan, you have so many recruits, there's no need to compete with our work team for them, right?" Qingcao looked at him sharply.
"But we do need stronger people. As you know, the river is frozen and the water power can't be used. We still have a lot of soybeans that we haven't had time to squeeze out." Qingyan argued.
Qingcao and Dashui looked at each other and thought that this made sense... so they nodded reluctantly: "Then we'll give you two, and the others will be ours."
"Okay." Qingyan thought it was good to have two, and pointed to Sai Er and the other strongest centaur, "Then these two will be mine."
"That's fine." Qingcao nodded readily, then turned to Dashui and said, "I still have hundreds of thousands of kilograms of wheat waiting to be ground, and Ayun wants our team to quickly make soy sauce jars, so the lion's share must go to me. What do you think, Dashui?"
"Okay." Dashui said with a smile, "In that case, you will have to arrange people for their study group. Our group needs to quickly catch the fish in the canal and process them. If we are late, the fish will freeze to death and we won't be able to spare too many people."
"no problem!"
"Then quickly divide the people, otherwise it will take a long time to fight again when Balk reacts ."
"Hahaha……"
Sai Er watched in bewilderment as his people were divided up by these three people, and he himself was dragged away by the black cat tribe who called themselves Qingyan...
In a relatively warm room, pulling the capstan that made the heavy stone mill rotate and press down was a piece of cake for the Centaurs whose pulling strength was comparable to that of a crested ox. The black-skinned cats were afraid that they would get bored while pulling the oil, so they arranged for a cat cub to sit next to them with bark paper and tell them novel and interesting human stories. Although they were sweaty after a day's work, they did not find it hard to endure.
In between cleaning out the bean dregs, the cubs of the Snow Wolf tribe brought them delicious "tofu brain" to replenish their salt and water. After the work was done, the Black Cat tribe gave them five exquisite and small copper coins each, and took them to the Welfare Department to tell them that they could exchange the copper coins for extra snacks... Saier glanced at the shelves of the Welfare Department filled with various items. Although he didn't know what he could get in exchange, he felt that this trip was right just because the Snow Wolf tribe treated them so fairly for their efforts.
But at night, after a few Snow Wolves carrying bark paper came to the Centaur dormitory and started studying with them, Sayre no longer thought so - no wonder their dormitory was so considerate to prepare tables of suitable height for them, it turned out that in addition to using them as dining tables, they were also required to do writing and arithmetic!
