We made you the chief, and now you've become the world's chief?

Chapter 171 The Birth of a Merchant

"Which tribe can control stones?"

Many methods were demonstrated, but Wu ultimately shook his head and denied them all.

Xia Minghao also confirmed one thing: it was highly likely that he was directly controlling the stone, rather than using tools.

A tribe that can control stones?
But no matter how I think about it, something just doesn't feel right.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Xia Minghao, and he immediately asked.

What are their stones like?

"It's very hard, it can smash rocks, it's very shiny, and it's also very dark."

"Those are stones that God bestowed upon them!"

Now, Xia Minghao understood completely.

What kind of stone is this? It's clearly meteorite iron!
This group is indeed a totem tribe, and their totem power seems to be magnetic...

Good grief, Magneto is here too...

However, this is also a possible association, and it's hard to say for sure. Perhaps it can also control copper, or other metal objects.

In any case, this was a tribe that already possessed iron tools.

Moreover, it can control meteorite iron to penetrate a person's body.

It's like these people brought their own crossbows!

This posed a tremendous challenge for the Xia tribe, which had just entered the Bronze Age and whose bronze reserves were clearly insufficient.

"How many people? Which tribe?"

"There are more people than the Great Lakes tribe now."

“I mean someone who can control stones like that.”

Upon hearing this, the shaman paused for a moment before giving the same answer.

so many people?

The Great Lakes tribe has a population of nearly two thousand.

I originally thought it was just the Fire Tribe's situation, but the shaman included the tribe controlled by the Meteorite Tribe as well.

I never imagined that there was such a large population to begin with.

What does this mean?
agriculture!

Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people...

Yes, with meteorite iron as a material for making iron tools, the possibility of developing agriculture was already very high.

Xia Minghao later asked Wu about the location of the meteorite in his memory.

We have roughly figured out the distance and the surrounding terrain.

As expected, they were quite far apart, and Wu had escaped from the area around the Meteorite Tribe when he was young.

Fortunately, the distance is far enough that there will be no contact for the time being; otherwise, it would be a catastrophic disaster for the Xia tribe.

The surrounding terrain was almost exactly as Xia Minghao had estimated.

Located in the upper reaches of a major river, surrounded by canyons and mountains, this is undoubtedly good news, as it means that the population of the Meteorite Tribe will not expand significantly in recent years.

The reason is quite simple: although meteorite iron was found for cultivation, the amount of arable land was quite limited due to terrain constraints.

If Xia Minghao had relied on unrestrained agricultural development, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to establish Yucheng in the lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Another one...

Water Tribe, Fire Tribe, Meteorite Iron Tribe.

It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

We must not confront all three tribes at once. If that happens, Xia Minghao will definitely take his men back to Yanquan Mountain immediately.

This matter concerns the fate of the entire Xia tribe, and is closely related to one's own life; one cannot gamble with even a small amount.

It would be best to maintain the current situation where the enemy is in the open and we are in the dark, to develop slowly, and then take our time to make our move.

"Chief, the palm fruit courier will be arriving tomorrow. Who should go to the heart of the Great Lakes to deliver red salt?"

He had just been pondering for a moment when he heard the witch speak.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Xia Minghao looked at Wu and gave an answer that Wu had never expected.

“No one is going into the heartland. Tell the people who deliver the palm fruit to us tomorrow.”

Xia Minghao then explained all the solutions he had come up with over the past few days to Wu in detail, and after he finished, he made Wu repeat them.

Only after confirming it could I feel at ease.

Although the witch remembered it clearly, she was completely confused and didn't understand it.

Even so, the witch would still complete the task meticulously.

He understood his current predicament perfectly; he had only regained that status thanks to the yellow-skinned man in front of him.

Even before the arrival of the hairy people, his status in the tribe was even higher.

This status not only allows his wives and children to live a better life, but it may even be passed down to future generations...

The reason Xia Minghao specifically came up with a relatively complicated solution was naturally because he had considered more factors.

That is to conduct an experiment.

To this day, the Xia tribe has not produced any "true merchants" who are detached from production and whose purpose is profit.

However, with the impending rapid development of the Xia tribe, handicrafts separated from agriculture, creating a large number of "non-essential but exchangeable goods." Coupled with the differentiation of the social division of labor, the role of the merchant was bound to emerge.

This is the trend of history. If it is forcibly suppressed, it will be seen as "reactionary" and will generate strong resistance.

Merchants will inevitably emerge, and while promoting further social change, they will also bring about more problems.

For example, a large amount of wealth will accumulate in the hands of a small number of businessmen during the business process.

For example, hoarding may occur, leading to significant price fluctuations.

These are just the issues Xia Minghao can consider for now; there are still many problems he can't even begin to think about.

We can't wait until the emergence of merchants causes problems for the Xia tribe before we have to deal with them.

It's not that we were too late, but we were ultimately unprepared to deal with it.

Therefore, Xia Minghao decided to use the hinterland of the lake as a test site.

In this life-or-death era, forget about benevolence and morality. The truth is to leave the trouble to others and keep the convenience for yourself.

In this way, when the third major division of labor among humankind—the birth of the merchant class—arrived, it was not a matter of feeling one's way across the river, but rather of feeling one's way across the river through the great lake tribes!

……

……

……

At noon, in autumn, the sunlight was a bit dazzling, but there were still many places in the woods that were not illuminated, especially the area near the lake shore.

At the junction of a grove of palm trees and tall, sparse trees, a man with warts on his face jumped off the back of a giant deer.

They then removed some palm branches from each of the great deer and hid them behind the rocks.

Behind the rock was a deep pit, which looked like it had been dug out a long time ago.

The warty-faced man skillfully placed the palm branches into the pit and quickly covered them with soil. He was originally a man from a tribe called Moss by the Great Lake. After the arrival of the Hairy People, all the men of the Moss Tribe died, leaving only one woman, his sister.

He was able to enter the heart of the Great Lake without having to endure a miserable life on the outskirts and be careful not to be killed by the Mao people, all because of his sister, A-Xian.

Even though he remained in the heartland, Wartface could only do the lowest-level jobs because he didn't have a large enough tribe.

It involves transporting palm fruits to the surrounding areas.

This is the worst job because he can't go to the lake to catch fish, not even the Totes who can't get meat.

All he could do was waste his time on this, delivering palm fruits back and forth to the six outlying tribes.

The man with the warts always needed to fill his stomach, so a long time ago, during his fourth delivery of goods, he came up with this idea.

He never left behind many palm fruits, because no one in the hinterland ate them, so he only left enough for himself.

Because the amount secretly left behind was so small, it was never discovered.

After hiding enough food for himself, Wartface led the herd of bighorn deer back on the road.

It wasn't until the sun was setting that the wart-faced man arrived at the first location.

To his surprise, a man was waving at him instead of hurling insults as before.

No one treated Wartface kindly because the palm fruits he brought were so unpalatable that everyone directed their resentment towards the people in the interior onto Wartface.

No one ever greeted him warmly.

This made the wart-faced man somewhat flattered, and he raised his hand and waved it.

Once inside the cluster of treehouses, Wartface realized that everyone was staring at him, as if they were all waiting for him.

Did they fail to catch any prey?

This puzzled the wart-faced man. Unless he was starving, he couldn't imagine any other reason why he, carrying unpalatable palm fruits, would be so favored.

"Come up, yes, come up!"

Just then, a voice was heard coming from over there.

Upon seeing that it was a man waving, he indicated that he should go up to him.

In fact, by now, Wartface is almost done with his work and it's time for him to leave.

Then find a place near the lake, take a nap, and when you wake up you'll have to continue your journey.

He didn't understand why he had to go up there, but being used to obeying orders, he decided to do as instructed.

Once inside the treehouse, the warty-faced man noticed an old man watching him, seemingly waiting for him.

"what's your name?"

Upon seeing the wart-faced man, the witch asked aloud.

The witch didn't recognize the wart-faced man, even though she had sent him countless palm fruits.

The wart-faced man knew the witch before the hairy man arrived.

The treehouse was dark, making the wart-faced man feel very uncomfortable, especially with the musty smell of the wood.

"I have no idea."

The wart-faced man replied nonchalantly that he didn't know his own name because no one called him by it.

Wu didn't ask any more questions, but went straight to the point and took out what Xia Minghao had given him.

"Try this, take it to the heartland, and exchange it for palm fruit."

"One bottle can be exchanged for five hundred pills. But you can exchange for more."

"This is a good thing from a distant tribe. They only want 500 of them, but you can keep the extras if you want to trade them."

Based on his memory, Wu recited the words that Xia Minghao had taught him.

Taking the bottle, the wart-faced man tasted a little. The red, dry, earthy substance touched his tongue, and he instantly experienced a flavor he had never tasted before.

This smell was absolutely soul-crushing for someone with warts on their face.

After the shaman repeated it several times, the wart-faced man finally came to his senses and understood.

Should we exchange more?
He couldn't understand it, and neither could the witch, but after repeated chanting, it was recorded in the subconscious by the wart-faced man.

The man with the warts didn't speak, he just nodded.

Then, Wartface walked down from the treehouse and left as usual.

This time, however, he had a large jar next to him, which contained red salt from the Xia tribe.

As night fell, Xia Minghao returned with his men, their bronze halberds stained with the blood of the hairy men.

"Killing the hairy people brings no benefit whatsoever. Let's just treat it as practical training for our deer riders."

By the end of the day, the deer riders' combat skills had indeed improved considerably, as had their command abilities, which was the biggest gain.

Has the person delivering the palm fruit arrived yet?

“I’ve already told the chief when he arrived.”

Xia Minghao nodded, then continued to ask.

"You didn't tell him about my skin color, did you?"

Seeing Xia Minghao's serious tone, Wu quickly nodded.

Seeing that the shaman was so certain, Xia Minghao was worried that his skin color might spread and cause unnecessary trouble, or even alert the enemy.

Otherwise, not only would trade be out of control, but his "merchant experiment" would also be impossible to complete.

"Chief, these are the palm fruits that have been delivered."

"Oh, you guys eat, I only want what they brought back."

When Xia Minghao saw that Wu wanted to give him the palm fruit, he quickly refused.

They wouldn't be able to get much oil from this, and even if he got it for himself, he'd still have to be responsible for feeding and drinking this group of people. He's not stupid.

We still have to rely on the salt trade to get enough palm fruit, otherwise we'll suffer huge losses.

However, we can bring some back and do some experiments first.

Xia Minghao pondered for a moment, then gave Wu a bottle of red salt, deciding to exchange it for five hundred palm oil coins to go back and study how to extract palm oil.

Just then, the shaman suddenly spoke up.

"Chief, could you let us join the Xia tribe as well?"

Hearing the shaman's words, Xia Minghao laughed. It seemed that the old man wasn't stupid after all; he had probably heard the deer riders talk about the comfortable life of the Xia tribe.

This group of people naturally wanted to stay in the Xia tribe, since most of their families had deer riders. Only by controlling their families could they control their own cavalry army.

but not now……

"Wait a while, you'll be able to join the Deer Riders."

Currently, as a transit point for the red salt trade, and still in the early stages of trade, we naturally cannot act rashly.

Once trade dominance is established and dependence on red salt in the heart of the Great Lakes is achieved, such timidity will no longer be necessary.

It is estimated that by that time, the palm oil production line had already been established, which was also the period of large-scale development in Yucheng, a time when there was a shortage of manpower.

Joining at that time would have been just the right amount to supplement the Xia tribe's population productivity, neither too much nor too little.

He calculated the time in his mind and figured his supply team should arrive tomorrow. Then he would go kill another wave of the Maoren and head back home with his men.

(End of this chapter)