Volume 9: Home Chapter 270 Centralized Dormitory
Ted, the last remaining middle-ranking official of the tiger royal court, was stunned for several seconds with a pale face when he saw the cat farm for the first time.
In the spring, Ted Zhongzhang packed up all the gray dwarves in the mines and the cats in the royal court and exchanged them for food from the snow wolves who came to the door. After that, these snow wolves kept their promise and sent food to the royal court twice before summer.
This unexpected income made Ted Zhongzhang feel greatly relieved. The royal court, which only had eight accounts left, was already in chaos and exhausted just looking after the household, and had not arranged any staff to manage the grasslands and sow soybeans. With this batch of grain, it would be more than enough to sustain the family for another two or three years, let alone next year.
But Ted only felt relieved until the summer, and then he started to feel relieved again...the flood came.
The flood in the central region was not as terrible as that in the southwest, and it did not sweep away everything on the surface of the earth, but it washed away half of the cattle and sheep, destroyed the remaining grassland near the royal court, and flooded the royal court with half a meter of water for several days (the royal court was not low-lying but the underground drainage system was infinitely close to zero), which was enough to make Ted Zhongzhang's eyes go black...
Ted's middle tent seemed to have a burning fire in its heart. When the Snow Wolf Tribe came again and moved away most of the cat tribes in the central part at once, he gritted his teeth and followed with the remaining eight tents, despite the opposition...
Like the tiger tribe, there are dozens of central cat tribes that are on the verge of collapse after suffering only a relatively small-scale flood. There are more than 20,000 big cats, and the hundreds of tigers mixed in them can only cause a slightly bigger splash at best.
After several months of long journey, a large army of more than 20,000 people finally arrived at the southwestern border of the grassland before the snow fell.
It was a hassle to resettle such a large group of people. Fortunately, a certain demon cub managed to force out of the mountain a lazy guy who had wasted years just eating and waiting to die... So although the resettlement work was a bit hectic, it was generally quite smooth.
The Cat Clan No. 1 Farm, which was washed away by floods in the summer, is one of the resettlement sites.
The big cats from tribes like Sunny Day and Amber all had construction experience, and they rebuilt their own houses just two months after the disaster (they were all single-story buildings anyway, with shallow foundations, no need for horizontal and vertical beams, and no need to cast load-bearing walls, so they could be built quickly with building materials and manpower). After the fall, these big cats did not need to harvest, and with the support of building materials from the Fire Tribe, planning from Dahaha, and organization from Chief Arthur, they built more dormitories that could accommodate 5,000 people.
The flood "victims" from the central region were divided into four teams after entering the southwest region. The team that the Tiger Clan belonged to was taken to the No. 1 Farm resettlement site after Chief Arthur and Chief A Li completed the handover procedures.
After two more days of traveling day and night, the "disaster victims" from the central region, who were carrying large and small bags and bringing their families with them, saw... on the east side of the No. 1 Cat Farm, there were countless neatly arranged dormitories (in fact, there were only about 180 rooms... not as spectacular as the greenhouse area of the Fire Tribe).
Well... due to the tight construction schedule and limited building materials, this batch of dormitories used for centralized resettlement were built in a somewhat shoddy manner. The brick walls were directly exposed to the outside, without cement putty (not enough cement), and the top was directly covered with a thick reed roof held down by stones (there was no time to bake tiles).
In addition, in order to save space and bricks, the houses are built closer together, with two houses in a row sharing the same walls... To make a more vivid analogy, it is like a large work shed with too high a density... ahem!
Even such a makeshift shanty house was enough to shock these big cats from the central region.
Ted, who was standing in the front row, was stunned for a few seconds, and suddenly remembered the indifferent attitude of Yu, Xiaohua and other Snow Wolf warriors towards the royal court.
The Snow Wolf Clan has the manpower and resources to build a house that can accommodate thousands of people at a time, so it is natural that they would not covet the royal court that the Tiger Clan is so proud of.
Ted's tense shoulders slowly slumped, and he suddenly felt a little discouraged.
When the Snow Wolf warrior Yu confidently introduced himself to him in the royal court, Ted should have vaguely felt that... the grassland was already the grassland of the Snow Wolf Tribe.
He guarded the Tiger King's Court till the very end, but he just refused to admit it in his heart.
At the front of the crowd, Chief Arthur, who was leading the way, turned around and shouted to the shocked big cats in the central region who were speechless: "Please try to stand still and don't move. We will assign dormitories right away. Chiefs, please come to the front and line up to draw lots! If anyone has been separated from your tribe, please move quietly to find your family members. Don't make loud noises or bump into others!"
The team of big cats in the central region was very long. Chief Arthur and several local cats ran around and shouted for a while before they were all notified. Some of those who stayed together with their tribesmen simply sat down to rest, while those who were separated from their tribesmen during the journey also carefully searched for their tribesmen in the team.
Migrating with a group of more than 20,000 people is not an easy task. Not to mention the organization and arrangements along the way, the food supply alone is a big problem... The more than 100 people that Chief Ali brought out at the beginning were not enough to provide food for so many people on the road.
This problem did not stump Chief Ali. He directly spent money to buy cattle and sheep from the migrating tribes, killed them for meat along the way, and arranged for people to come back to deliver letters. He also asked the tribe to send a team of 50 people every two weeks to deliver vermicelli, salt, and sugar along the way to support the migrating team. This is how the migration process of more than three months was carried out without food shortages. (The Fire Tribe, which has been delivering supplies to the engineering team outside for a long time, has developed logistics skills)
During this migration process, which was neither long nor short, Chief Ali also taught these central big cats to develop certain habits of order - to stay together with people from the same tribe at any time and place, to receive and distribute food as a unit of the tribe, and to queue up in order when multiple people are doing the same thing.
Farm No. 1 was responsible for housing these big cats from a total of twelve tribes, plus a hundred or so tiger tribes; Chief Arthur gave the order, and the twelve chiefs walked out of the crowd one after another, and Ted also walked out of the tent silently.
"Usually, 20 people share one dormitory in our dormitory, but this year we have more people to be relocated at once and we just built the house , so we don't have much space. So we have to make allowances for everyone for now and allocate 30 people to one room." Chief Arthur looked calm and did not discriminate against the tiger tribe among the cat tribe chiefs. He introduced calmly, "If there are less than 30 people, we can share a room with the extra people from other tribes to make 30 people. Do you have any objection?"
The cat tribe leaders who came from afar naturally had no objection, and Ted Zhongzhang would not dare to take the lead... In the past forty years, the tiger tribe had offended the cat tribe many times, and the snow wolf tribe had also been provoked. Now it was lucky that the tiger tribe could still stand here. He didn't have the nerve to criticize.
Well... originally, Ted's Central Tent was not brave enough to lead the remaining eight tents to join the Snow Wolf Tribe. It was Chief Ali who pretended to accidentally reveal a fact to the big tiger - the Yale Tent that "betrayed" the Tiger King and ran to the border between the Western Continent and the Southern Continent also relied on our Fire Tribe for its survival - only then did Ted's Central Tent hold back his shame and go against all objections.
Seeing that these big cats from the central region were quite cooperative, Chief Arthur breathed a sigh of relief... Farm No. 1 had also accepted big cats from the central region before, and those guys didn't become obedient until after the flood.
The tribes that were willing to migrate here at the beginning of the year were all small tribes in the central part, with about 300 people in each tribe. However, those who left their homes because of the floods were all large tribes, with each of them having 400 to 500 people.
"This year's floods have really crushed the pride of countless people." This thought flashed through Chief Arthur's mind, and he organized the chiefs to start drawing lots.
Allocating dormitories by drawing lots seems fair but is actually a shady scheme. Why? Because the houses drawn by the clan leaders based on the population of their own tribes are not adjacent to each other but scattered around~!
Taking the tiger tribe as an example, the more than one hundred tribesmen brought by Ted Zhongzhang can be divided into three rooms according to the rules. The extra tribesmen will share one room with other cat tribesmen, but these three rooms are scattered and you can get any one of them!
Why do these big cats, who are used to living together with their fellow tribesmen, have such difficulty adapting to living here?
The reason is very simple. Be it Xiao Yun, Dahe, or Chief Arthur, none of them want these big cats to live in centralized dormitories forever!
After enduring this winter of constant friction and conflicts, these big cats who can’t stand “outsiders” will have enough motivation when they are organized to reclaim wasteland and allocate homesteads according to their tribes to build their own homes! (The empty centralized dormitories can be used as greenhouses after some modification, so there will be no waste)
They built houses with their own hands on the land "allocated to their own tribe" and moved in. Will these big cats be able to escape in the future?
This is just a very simple trick to win people’s hearts… It’s hard to let go of something you’ve put your heart and soul into, even if it’s a pile of compost~!
At this moment, none of the Central tribe leaders who were queuing up to draw lots under the organization of Chief Arthur could see this extremely hidden routine...
Ted was lucky in the middle tent and got three dormitories for his tribesmen that were not located outside and were not too far from each other.
Holding three wooden sticks with dormitory numbers written on them, Ted returned to the resting place of his family members. He looked around at everyone and picked out a dozen more stable members to wait to "share a room" with him. The others were evenly distributed among the three dormitories according to their age.
All cats don't like outsiders in their territory. It would be abnormal if there were no conflicts when living in the same house during the long winter... Ted Zhongzhang just wanted to survive with his people and didn't want to have any major disputes with other cats living in the same room, so he just kept watch by himself.
After drawing lots, the tiger tribe, led by two local cats, left the migrating crowd and entered the centralized dormitory area. As they walked into the narrow path, a young tiger exclaimed in surprise and turned his head to look at the houses on both sides of the path.
Although it hadn't snowed yet, the weather was already so cold that the hot air from the breath turned into white steam. There was actually warmth coming from the half-open door, which surprised the tiger tribe who had never lived in a room with a kang.
"We knew you were coming, so we've already heated up the kang in the house." The local cat who led them to the dormitory boasted, "You're lucky, the rooms we picked are in the middle, so the wind won't blow them when it snows. It's very warm with the kang heated up. Oh, by the way, do you know what a kang is?"
Ted glanced at the local cat with some displeasure, but the contempt hidden under the other's chuckle could not escape his sight.
"What is it?" The young tiger tribe did not notice that these local cats showed signs of "regional discrimination".
"Just sleeping on the fire, hahaha!" The two local cats laughed.
"Won't that burn people?" the young tiger was shocked.
"You won't get burned if you get used to it. It's just a little uncomfortable at first." The local cat said in a strange tone, "Compared to freezing to death, burns are nothing. Of course, if you are afraid, you can also go to the open space outside to make a tent. Chief Arthur and the others won't mind. The tents we used during the reconstruction after the flood are in the warehouse. It's easy to borrow them."
"Well……"
The young tiger wanted to say something, but Ted glared at him. He then realized something was wrong and shut his mouth.
Two local cats led the tiger tribe to the three rooms that they had been assigned by lottery, and pretended to remind them not to be too noisy, not to drink and fight with others, to pay attention to hygiene habits, to remember to go to the large bathroom on the left side of the dormitory in batches for disinfection and pest control, and to arrange for people to go to the cafeteria to get meals. After they finished their instructions, they left. Before they had gone far, impolite laughter rang out.
The young tiger who had almost blurted out "live in a tent" just now realized that he was being teased by the two local cats, and he was ready to rush out angrily.
Ted grabbed the boy in the tent and threw him inside: "Don't embarrass yourself, hurry up and pack your things."
"Middle tent!" the young soldier said unconvinced.
Ted Zhongzhang didn't intend to try to convince him, and pulled over a tiger cub who was less than ten years old: "Do you want to take good care of your brother, or go out and fight with those cats?"
The young warrior looked down at his brother, then silently walked aside and sorted out the fur he had carried from afar.
Ted glanced at the other tribesmen in the tent and said calmly: "In the past, our Tiger Tribe was strong, and others had to follow our rules. Now that the Snow Wolf Tribe is strong, we have to follow the Snow Wolf Tribe's rules. If you feel unwilling, then do better than the Snow Wolf Tribe within the Snow Wolf Tribe's rules. Then, the Snow Wolf Tribe will listen to us."
"Even if our tiger tribe is in decline for a while, we must not lose our ambition!"
After temporarily subduing the tribesmen, Ted turned around in the tent, but his brows were uncontrollably knitted in a knot.
The Snow Wolf Tribe spoke very nicely and liked act fairly and impartially. Plus, with the endorsement of the Minotaur (at the beginning of the year), Ted Zhongzhang believed that they would not discriminate against the Tiger Tribe.
The Tiger Tribe did do something unkind to the Snow Wolf Tribe, but... the Tiger King is dead, and those Tiger warriors have died on the front lines of the underground world battlefield. The Snow Wolf Tribe themselves have bluntly said "put aside historical conflicts and work together for development", so Ted Zhongzhang naturally wouldn't bother to care - for the current Tiger Tribe, the most important thing is to keep as many of their members alive as possible.
only……
Ted walked out of the warm room and looked to the east. On the path only two meters wide, a large group of cats were slowly walking in, looking around curiously as they walked.
Ted sighed silently in the tent - living together with so many cats is the most troublesome thing!
