Volume 9: Home Chapter 272: The Scheming Clan Leaders
Cat Farm No. 1.
In a meeting room that was rebuilt after the disaster and was smaller than the Fire Department, more than thirty cat tribe leaders gathered together, some squatting alone, or whispering with friendly tribe leaders.
Among the group of big cats, Ted Zhongzhang from the tiger tribe stood out particularly... He was even bigger than the snow wolves and seemed out of place in this place. No one took the initiative to talk to him. He squatted alone against the wall, staring at his paws with his eyes downcast, and no one knew what he was thinking.
"Sorry, I'm late." Chief Arthur walked in with a smile, holding a thick leather folder and walked to the middle. He turned sideways to introduce to the chiefs in the room, "This is Qingyan, who is in charge of the resettlement site of Farm No. 3, Xia, who is in charge of the resettlement site of Farm No. 2, and Qiu... Qiu, who is in charge of the resettlement site of the Fire Tribe."
Qiu's mouth twitched, and he looked silently at Chief Arthur.
The tribe leaders' eyes swept across the powerful black panther and the smiling spotted leopard, and when they fell on the caracal, many of them were stunned.
Well... the tribe leaders present are all large cats, and a small one like this mixed in is indeed quite eye-catching... Even Ted Zhongzhang couldn't help but look at Qiu a few more times.
Qiu acted calm about the special attention he received.
The cat tribe, which is made up of the vast majority of large cats, does not pay much attention to small cats. Even warriors are not valued, let alone letting small cats take on important tasks. Qiu used to be extremely indignant , even angry and inferior, but now... Qiu has become indifferent to it. Even if someone questioned him in person, Qiu would not care, let alone just a strange look in the eyes.
The four resettlement site leaders sat down in a row in front of the crowd. Chief Arthur spoke first: "We have previously announced the arrangements for winter study. After discussion at the Fire Department's work meeting, the proposed winter study plan for the cats in each farm and the four resettlement sites is as follows..."
Qingtian, Amber and other tribe leaders have been baptized by winter learning for two years, so they are very calm. The gray dwarf snake tribe studies all year round, just like the snow wolf tribe. The cat tribe is only starting winter for the time being. The big cats who came at the beginning of the year and after winter were a little confused. What's going on? Don't we just stay in the house and eat and sleep in winter? What's the point of a study plan? !
How could Chief Arthur not know what these guys were thinking? After briefly introducing the learning policy of 50 people in a group and the farm providing teachers, he said with a smile : "You may not agree with the organization of learning, but I have to tell you that it is very necessary. These days, friends from the central region must have heard the local cats mention the farm contracting system of our Fire Department. We want to start learning in order to better cope with the needs of work in the spring of next year..."
With Chief Arthur's patient explanation, the new big cats gradually showed signs of enlightenment, especially the group that came at the beginning of the year, who were the most deeply impressed - they couldn't count, so they couldn't even calculate how many acres of land they had, how much was produced per acre, how much the Fire Tribe took away, and how much they kept.
Well... although they worked in vain this year and failed to experience the joy of a good harvest, and have been eating "advance food" until now, and are still waiting to pay it back slowly after the harvest next year - but at least they have seen the lush fields before they were destroyed by water, and before the flood came, they also calculated how much they could get.
"Learn arithmetic well and calculate your own accounts, then you won't be at a disadvantage easily." Chief Arthur smiled. "There are so many people in Farm No. 1. We don't have much free time to check the accounts during the autumn harvest. If others make a mistake in calculating the accounts when dividing the grain or exchanging grain for supplies with the Fire Tribe, and you don't know how to check the accounts, then you will suffer a loss in vain, right? So this is very important. Please tell your tribesmen to study arithmetic carefully."
After hearing this, the clan leaders nodded repeatedly... The cat tribe does not have the racial characteristics of liking to suffer losses!
Chief Arthur turned over the thick leather wallet in his hand and spread it out to everyone: "As for the importance of literacy, it goes without saying. Most of the communication between our farm and the Fire Department, and between the farms contracted by you and the Fire Department is in the form of text documents. If you are illiterate, then the written communication between you and the Fire Department can only be relayed by others..."
Chief Arthur paused deliberately and said meaningfully: "If the middleman who communicates for you has ulterior motives and maliciously tampers with the information you submit to the Fire Department, or fabricates or even forges the opinions of the Fire Department in your communication, then the loss will be incalculable."
The new clan leaders were startled at first, and then many of them gradually looked strange...
Ted stared at Chief Arthur in the tent for several seconds, then silently looked at Xia, Qingyan and Qiu who were standing side by side with Chief Arthur.
The three of them were very calm, as if there was nothing wrong with what Patriarch Arthur said, and it was completely natural and reasonable.
New clan leaders & Ted in the middle tent: "..."
The new cats at the resettlement site must have contacted the Fire Department through these people. Chief Arthur directly said that the middleman might cheat and deceive. Isn't this directly pointing at the noses of the three of you (including Chief Arthur himself)? Why are you so calm? ?
Big cats who like to play some tricks when they have nothing to do are really not used to this open and open style and feel it is too awkward!
Well... although it was awkward, it also made these clan leaders deeply understand how bad it would be if their own family members were illiterate. Including Ted Zhongzhang, they all secretly cheered themselves up and silently figured out how to force the clan members they valued to work hard to learn...
So, "fighting cats with cats" is so easy. Chief Arthur knows too well what these scheming chiefs are focusing on, and his first move is a killing move...
"Next, let's talk about the issue of personnel transfers between resettlement sites." After persuading people to study, Chief Arthur continued to preside over the meeting with a smile, "After the heads of our four resettlement sites met, we found that some people in all four resettlement sites were unable to get along harmoniously with others. We came here from thousands of miles away to live a good life, not to fight with anyone. If this continues for a long time, conflicts will intensify, which will be detrimental to our work..."
After talking about the disadvantages of aggressive behavior, Chief Arthur was very considerate and said, "So we discussed it and decided to open a channel for personnel exchange between resettlement sites. If a tribe really can't get along with its fellow tribesmen in the original resettlement site, we can arrange for it to be transferred to another resettlement site."
This is a very considerate policy that seems to take the new cats into consideration in every way.
But after hearing this, all the cat clan leaders looked as if they had been constipated for at least ten days...
There are two reasons. First, Chief Arthur skipped over the key point of how to determine which tribe would not be integrated into the original resettlement site. In other words, which tribe would fail to the point of being unable to stand in the original resettlement site and would be kicked out was decided by these "powerful" leaders.
Secondly, after spending half a month to adapt to the new living environment, they have to move again, which is very unfriendly to the cat family!
Cats are a race with a strong sense of territory. What's the difference between moving frequently and forcing them to death!
Chief Arthur seemed to be unable to see the constipated faces of the chiefs present, and said kindly: "Our leaders are all here now. If you need to change the resettlement site, you can contact us in time and everything can be discussed."
New clan leaders: "..."
You've been so thoughtful, thank you for your hard work, eh?!
Chief Sunny Day was particularly bitter and resentful. As Chief Arthur's top troublemaker, he knew that Chief Arthur had been unhappy with him for a long time... Would this snow leopard take the opportunity to kick him away? This question made Chief Sunny Day worried instantly...
Chief Arthur was not surprised at all by the reaction of these chiefs. She herself was a cat, and she didn't know what kind of people the cats were. Fighting was fighting, but unless they really couldn't survive, it was impossible to force the cats to move away~!
In this wave of "confrontation", Chief Arthur made the judgment method quite vague. It can be understood that the person in charge has the right to arrange the transfer of any tribe and keep everyone tight; but it can also be understood that the persons in charge do not need these cat tribes to be really friendly and united like a family, they just need to do a good job on the surface and appear to be acceptable... ahem!
The first two meeting topics were settled without any trouble and "no controversy". Chief Arthur looked calm and smiled as he mentioned the third matter: "Next is the issue of centralized management of the small cat tribe."
In most cat tribes, small cats are like invisible people. No one may care if they are injured or disabled. When a dispute occurs, whether the small cats will be affected will not be taken seriously by the big cats.
For example, Qiu, the leader of the wool textile industry in the grassland, was separated from the Xia tribe after being beaten... Manuls are relatively good fighters among small cats, and Qiu is also a relatively good manul warrior, but even so, he did not win the attention of many tribesmen. (Generally speaking, the number of warriors in a tribe is very important)
These small cats, who are of little use to the cat clan, are first-rate labor in the Fire Tribe. A ten-year-old caracal cub can match the productivity of an adult female human worker, and the smallest black-footed cat among adult small cats can replace two female workers!
Now they are only processing natural wool, rabbit hair, chicken, duck, goose down, snow wolf hair and cat hair, and the woolen mill is already very short-staffed, with a large amount of raw materials piled up and warehouses seriously occupied. When Evelyn's magic application team finds synthetic fibers that are cheaper and better quality, the demand for textile workers will inevitably double. How can we not preserve (hold on to) these small cats?
Of course... Chief Arthur would never say directly how much the Fire Tribe needs and values small cats, so what she said in front of the other chiefs must be some extremely standard official rhetoric, such as no race can be left out in the great unity and development of the grassland people, and that small cats are also the same race as the cat tribe, and their right to survival and labor rights should be guaranteed... and so on.
After hearing all this official talk that would bore even the Earthlings, even the clan leader who tried to correct his attitude and listen carefully would feel overwhelmed...not to mention those who were impatient to listen to such worthless formalities.
Ted only had the Tiger Tribe under his command. He didn't really listen to what he said, but he felt his head buzzing...
After getting tired of everyone talking, Chief Arthur mentioned that in order to ensure that the legitimate rights and interests of the small cats are not violated and that they should be given more attention, the small cats should be separated and managed separately. At the same time, he frantically hinted to everyone to take this opportunity to treat the small cats that are of no use in farming as troubles and get rid of them... So even the most difficult Chief Sunny Sky did not raise any questions and readily transferred more than 20 small cats from his own tribe.
The new tribe leaders were not without doubts, but seeing the straightforward attitude of the tribe leader Qingtian, they could easily guess that small cats were of little use in the "farm contracting" and followed the crowd...
Chief Arthur only spent half a cup of tea to snatch more than 600 small cats from these scheming chiefs.
Note that this is not an ordinary contract employment model. How much can Chief Arthur understand Xiao Yun's spirit of "eliminating the internal autonomy of backward tribes"? She has no intention of giving these scheming chiefs the opportunity to take back the small cats they have separated from their families - these small cats will no longer be under the jurisdiction of any tribe, but will form a new mutual aid union model group and enter the woolen mill to work in the name of the autonomous union!
Simply put, it is to use a system to bind all the small cats together, forcing these weaker small cats to advance and retreat together, and form a force that can fight against the big cats divided by tribes.
All small cats will become Xiao Yun’s test field for trying out the “mutual aid union for vulnerable groups”!
If the operation can be successful, Xiao Yun also plans to add goblins and centaurs into it~!
In a complex social form like the grassland where multiple ethnic groups coexist, slogans like "equality for all" can't even whitewash the situation (on a planet inhabited by upright apes, this has always been just a slogan) - under the basic principle of distribution according to work , you let goblins and snow wolves receive the same salary. This is not the pursuit of equality at all. This is a severe paranoid, brain-dead, and literary youth disease that must be hospitalized immediately.
But racial discrimination is also very detrimental to development. A healthy society should be inclusive and allow different races to seek development and coexist under the same system. The simplest and most brutal way is to let the weak races stick together because of their weakness.
The policy that the Fire Ministry came up with after two days of meetings was not perfect, and could even be said to be fraught with hidden dangers. However, it was not a big problem. Anyway, since the Snow Wolf Clan was in control of the situation, Xiao Yun had the capital to trial and error!
After the one-hour meeting, Chief Arthur took Xia, Qingyan and Qiu to the resettlement area to receive the small cats from each tribe. They counted the heads and registered them on the spot, and packed them up and took them away quickly, without leaving them overnight... ahem!
There were no small cats among the tiger tribe to share. Ted Zhongzhang and several other tent owners stood aside silently, watching the cats struggle.
"I always feel like something is not right..." Ted Zhongzhang silently went over in his mind what he could remember Chief Arthur saying. Although he couldn't tell what was wrong, he always had an inexplicable sense of peacemaking about the matter of each cat tribe separating their people.
It is true that the small cats in the cat tribe do not perform very well in fighting and hunting, and in some cases they will become a burden to the tribe. However... dividing the tribe members and reducing the population of the tribe, this is not right at all~!
Just when Ted Zhongzhang was instinctively guessing the intentions of the Fire Department, two local cats came over and asked Ted Zhongzhang to draw lots to assign a literacy teacher... So Ted Zhongzhang didn't bother to think about things that had nothing to do with him, and rushed over in a hurry.
That night, in the entire No. 1 Farm resettlement area, all the big cats from the central region, whether they were clan leaders, warriors, or cubs, all stared blankly at the strange symbols written in chalk on the small blackboard...
In the tiger dormitory, the literacy teacher that Ted had picked pointed his chubby finger at the chalk words on the blackboard: "Read after me, one, two, three..."
"Today we will first learn two-digit addition and subtraction. Suppose you have fifteen fruits in your hand and you give three to your good friend. How many fruits do you have left?"
"You caught twenty grasshoppers. Your mother asked you to take six. Your brother saw this and gave you eight. How many grasshoppers do you have now?"
"you……"
That night, at Farm No. 1, there were nearly 5,000 new cats and more than 2,000 old cats (including local cats and cats from other places) from central China, and not a single fight occurred.
The big cats in the central region who were stumped by two-digit addition and subtraction finally finished their lesson and staggered out to cool down in the wind. They were provoked by the bored and law-breaking local cats, but none of them said anything back. The local cats' arithmetic lessons were so difficult for them to understand. Knowing how terrible "winter learning" was, the foreign cats were very afraid that these local cats would embarrass them with math problems. If that happened, they would just lie down and be laughed at...
The small cats that were lured from various tribes were concentrated to live in the employee dormitories of the newly built woolen mill in the former industrial zone of the Fire Tribe.
When the group of cats from Farm No. 1 entered the staff dormitory, the small cats in the resettlement area directly under the Fire Department were already living there. A few days later, the small cats from Farm No. 3 and Farm No. 4 were also sent in batches.
A total of more than 3,000 small cats (including local, foreign, and cubs) waited anxiously or worriedly for two days. Qiu finally got all the procedures done and organized this group of people to hold a collective meeting in the open space in the original industrial zone.
There was no werewolf or large cat at the scene. Small cats, whose heights were similar to those of dwarves, were arranged to sit down according to their heights. Looking around, I felt relieved...
The people in charge of guiding them were all human women, some of whom were taller than small cats. However, the slender arms and legs of the human women workers made it difficult for people to feel uneasy... ahem!
After everyone was seated, Qiu walked up to the podium in high spirits, holding a sound shell of the Sea Clan in his hand (which Xiao Yun got in exchange for Yu's autographed portrait, free of charge), and began his speech in high spirits:
"My name is Qiu, and those close to me call me Qiuqiu. I am a manul warrior. Like everyone else, I am also a small cat. When I was a cub, my mother repeatedly warned me not to argue with big cats, and to stay away from big cats when they are fighting."
"At that time, I didn't quite understand my mother's painstaking efforts. It wasn't until I was six years old that I gradually lost to Qingyan, the black panther who grew up with me. Then I realized that although we were both from the same cat family and were good friends who grew up together, there was an inherent inequality between us. There was a distance between me and my black panther friend that could not be bridged."
"As I grew up and became a warrior, I was proud of my ability to hunt strong bucks, but my black panther friend was already able to deal with stronger and more terrifying wild boars on his own."
"I tried my best to become stronger, but I could never win the trust and expectations of my people, or even... at least the same respect they gave me as they did to other warriors."
"I was not born a black panther or any other big cat. I was born a caracal. Is that my fault?"
When Qiu finished speaking, the scene became eerily quiet.
The most direct difference brought about by body size is force, and force is a factor that will have a profound impact on ordinary people at the bottom of society in any civilized society.
To give the simplest example, when a man on Earth wants to vent his anger or desire, he is much more likely to attack an elderly person, a child, or a woman who is weaker than him in terms of physical strength and force than he is to attack a member of the same sex who is as strong as him.
This is still a civilized world where the cost of survival is low and there is no need to use individual force to guarantee the most basic right to survival...
In this magical world where civilization is still in its infancy, the difference in physical fitness and force has a more direct impact. It is no exaggeration to say that people of the same race but different levels of force face completely different destinies.
Some of the small cat warriors at the scene felt the same way as Qiu did, and they were already in tears without realizing it...
The natural difference in body size and physical fitness cannot be made up by acquired efforts. The harder people have tried, the more frustrated and desperate they will feel when they realize that the gap cannot be narrowed.
There was a suppressed sobbing sound coming from nowhere, and then it quickly disappeared. Although they are small cats, they are also dignified and face-saving.
Qiu on the rostrum did not look lost or depressed. He still held his head high, with confidence on his face and a smile on his lips.
"I used to be very envious of my good friend Black Panther. I felt sorry for my fate. I always fantasized that if I could be born as Black Panther, I would definitely live a better life than now."
After a pause, Qiu emphasized, "Later, I realized that I was wrong. Being born a black panther does not mean you can live a good life. Black panthers are not the strongest... Leopard Xia, who is a few years older than me and my black panther friend, is the strongest warrior in the tribe."
"So, can Xia, the strongest leopard, live well? No. The Snow Wolf Clan and the Tiger Clan are both stronger than the leopard. The Lion Clan, the Bear Clan, the Elves, and the Dragon Clan are all stronger than the Snow Wolf Clan and the Tiger Clan."
"Are the strongest dragons the easiest race? Not really. Groups of enemies can also hurt them, or even... kill them."
"It wasn't until I came to the Fire Department that I finally understood..." Qiu took a deep breath and said in a deep voice: "Whether you can live well or not, being strong enough is only one of the factors, but it is by no means the absolute factor."
"Being born small and weak in combat power does not mean that one is not qualified to live a good life. Even the weakest race has its own unique racial talent. Goblins are good at mining, and gray dwarves are good at smelting and forging. These are abilities that other races cannot catch up with. They cannot live a good life only because they have not been given the opportunity to display their talents."
Qiu smiled and said in a sonorous voice: "In the Fire and Flame Tribe where we are, we don't require everyone to be a strong warrior. What we hope is that every race can give full play to their own strengths and create value for the grassland society composed of all grassland races. As a caracal who is not strong enough, everything I have achieved in the Fire and Flame Tribe is based on my ability to do what I can do better than others within my ability."
"In the words of our Snow Wolf friends, 'The grassland does not belong to a single race, but is the common home of all races living in this world. If a multi-racial grassland causes less naturally strong races to be discriminated against due to force majeure, and their talents and specialties are obscured, then this is not the fault of these races, but the fault of the grassland!'"
"'Giving all races room to develop, allowing all grassland tribes to contribute to building a better grassland and our common home, this is what we should do!'"
Xiao Yun, who was squatting in a warehouse near the meeting venue and eavesdropping, nodded with satisfaction when he heard this.
Qiuqiu, this cute little man, can be a good instigator if he can persuade (brainwash) people well... uh, mobilize the masses~
