First Year of the Great Xia, April 20th
It has been exactly one month since Xia Hong integrated the Six Ministries.
Seventeen days have passed since that barter meeting.
The Great Xia Station Valley has undergone earth-shattering changes.
After nightfall, people poured out of the two temporary wooden huts. There were fully armed Hunting Teams, adults organizing groups to go out for logging, women carrying buckets of snow, boys practicing boxing in groups in the courtyard outside the wooden house, and children under the age of six coming out to play together...
Anyone who paid attention would notice many new faces in the valley, representing almost every age group, and the overall population involved in valley activities was significantly more than before.
After everyone left the wooden huts, they would instinctively look back at the wooden building under construction, with a strong look of longing on their faces.
"That wooden building should be almost done, ordinary laborers are no longer needed. These days, it’s just the more than a hundred people from the Craftsmen Workshop busy inside."
"Definitely, it’s already in the finishing stage. I heard they’re setting up the third-floor rooms. Yesterday, I saw a lot of good furniture moved in. Tsk, tsk, it was all wrapped in Beast Fur, probably placed in the leader’s room."
"I saw it too last night. Just a chair, with the back and seat all covered in Beast Fur, even the chair legs were carved from Beast Bone, with a Frost Wolf Head carved on each armrest. Tsk, tsk, it was so beautiful."
"I saw it too, that chair is really beautiful. I asked a friend from the Craftsmen Department, and guess how many Contribution Points it would take to exchange for that chair?"
"Tsk, tsk, 70 points, that’s enough for a day of training at the Martial Arts Hall."
"And there’s still 20 points left over."
"A whole set of clothes is just 155 points, and this chair is worth half a set of clothes."
"Also, only the leader can probably afford to use it, right?"
"Not necessarily, I heard Hunting Team members have also ordered it, and the Craftsmen Department has accumulated quite a few orders."
"It’s just an ordinary chair, but the wooden bed, lampstand, and fire basin... everything used in the leader’s room is of the highest standard. Yesterday I also saw a throne intricately carved with over a dozen Cold Beast patterns and luxuriously gilded, which I heard is made from the gold powder of the Golden Frost Tree, it must be for the leader."
"There’s no need to say it, in our Great Xia, who else but the leader deserves to sit on it!"
"The wooden building has been closed for days, not letting anyone in."
"They must be waiting for it to be completed. I wonder if we newcomers will be able to get a room."
"I inquired with the Great Xia people, and everyone will get one, but it depends on your marital status. Married ones can get a family unit, while unmarried ones will stay in shared rooms of ten, separated by gender."
"Wow, that’s so great, I better find a wife quickly."
"Hahaha, a wife is not something you can find just because you want to!"
The hottest topic of discussion in the camp right now is the wooden building.
The reason is simple. Ever since the night of April 3rd, when over five thousand people from the camps of Xiao He, Tongling, and Sanhu were incorporated at once, it hasn’t stopped. Every two or three days, a new camp joins, and thus the population of Great Xia has seen a dramatic, almost exaggerated surge.
With so many people, the two wooden huts are completely inadequate.
If it weren’t for the high temperature within the valley and the southern mine accommodating a large number of people, many would have nowhere to sleep.
So, new housing has become everyone’s most concerning issue.
This applies to both the original Great Xia people and those who joined later.
As everyone filed out of the wooden huts, a large group also gathered in the main hall of the left wooden house. Besides the empty main seat, more than twenty people were seated to the left and right below it.
Xia Chuan stood next to the main seat, listening to Yue Feng’s report below.
Yue Feng held a Beast Skin Book in his hand, full of small characters written in coal pencil, reading out the camp’s population growth with an enthusiastic expression:
"First Year of the Great Xia, April 3rd, 5219 people from the camps of Xiao He, Sanhu, and Tongling have been incorporated."
"First Year of the Great Xia, April 6th, 1821 people from Xifeng and Anping have been incorporated."
"First Year of the Great Xia, April 8th, 2521 people from Jiuhou and Gukou have been incorporated."
"First Year of the Great Xia, April 11th, 2712 people from Qujiang, Pingdong, and Yingkou have been incorporated."
As each statistic was reported, everyone present, just like Yue Feng, became increasingly excited.
However, Xia Chuan, who was the leader, remained calm, just nodding continuously.
After all, for more than half a month, he was responsible for allocating personnel to help the people from these camps migrate over, so he had almost heard these numbers all before.
After that barter meeting, apart from Xiao He and Tongling, the remaining nine medium-sized camps in Five Ape Mountain sent people to visit Great Xia the next day.
The effect of the visits was similar to the situation with the Xiao He camp.
The camps on that side of Five Ape Mountain were indeed far inferior to the conditions in Great Xia.
As long as they weren’t stupid, they basically wouldn’t refuse to join.
The subsequent development of events confirmed this point.
These camps not only agreed to join but also actively helped Great Xia locate a few remaining small camps, bringing them along and merging them one after another.
Of course, the process wasn’t simple, during this period Yuwen Dao and the entire Hunting Department were not idle. Almost every night they had to scout the routes and after confirming the time, they would escort the people from those camps all the way to the Great Xia Valley.