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

Chapter 178 Are hairy people also "talented individuals"?!

At first, you could see scattered groups of people from the Great Lakes tribe along the way, all of them using deer to pull the corpses of the hairy people.

After walking for a while, all that remained were scattered, hairy corpses, some of which had become gigantic from being submerged in the lake.

Xia Minghao immediately frowned. Fortunately, the number of hairy people here has decreased significantly, otherwise the possibility of a plague would be greatly increased.

It seems we need to get a few deer carts for this area, otherwise it's too far away and there's no way we can transport them in time.

After walking for a long time, and as the sun rose high in the sky, Xia Minghao finally saw a figure by the campfire.

At first glance, the person lying by the fire looks like he's dead, but he's actually just asleep.

Hearing the clatter of deer hooves, they all awoke with a start and looked up.

When they saw that it was actually the chief, everyone was surprised.

"You did a great job, here you go."

This is still the principle that Xia Minghao understands best: rewarding someone is the only real reward; saying it a lot is meaningless.

He pulled a large string of crocodile meat and dried blackfish from the deer's pouch and tossed it to Hua Lian.

"Chief, it's us."

"Eat first, then we'll talk."

Xia Minghao interrupted them when he saw that these meritorious officials seemed to want to report to him.

Upon hearing this, the deer riders were stunned for a moment. After they came to their senses, they immediately began to divide and eat the food without saying a word.

Seeing everyone wolfing down their food, Xia Minghao smiled faintly.

After everyone finished eating, they began to ask questions.

During this period, the deer riders practically swept through the nearby hairy people's settlements, and these gorillas also showed a very obvious trend of gathering near human settlements.

But it's not cannibalism.

As for this situation of gathering with humans, it is quite strange. After listening, Xia Minghao thought about it for a while and guessed that it might be because the gathering of humans led to the production of feces, which made the soil fertile and thus made the vegetation more lush than in other places.

This environmental change caused by human habitation attracted more wild animals, and it was these wild animals that attracted the Mao people.

After inquiring, Xia Minghao obtained confirmation from the group of native deer riders.

After the hairy people were wiped out, the difficulty and efficiency of hunting increased significantly, presumably because it was these hairy people who were doing all the hunting before.

Perhaps for this reason, these hairy people thought that human settlements were good places, which is why they wanted to drive all the humans away or kill them.

It sounds simple, but it can actually be summarized as subspecies competition, which is an inevitable antagonism within the same ecological niche. "Competitors are the real enemies."

"Are there still hairy people now?"

Xia Minghao spoke again, asking the crowd a question.

After discussing it for a while, everyone came up with a common answer.

Yes, but very few.

Upon hearing this answer, Xia Minghao glanced at the group of people a few more times.

Surprisingly, they even developed a "good habit" of discussing things with each other. It seems that their long-term collaboration has taught them to progress from the individual to the collective.

He then began to rethink his strategy for dealing with the hairy people, that is, the group of gorillas.

There's no need to continue this indiscriminate killing, since the scattered hairy people no longer pose a threat to humanity.

Since there's no longer such a rush and the Mao people are no longer a threat, we have more time to deal with them.

For example, the extremely time-consuming slaughter of hairy people.

The flesh of the hairy people is inedible, but their ashes are useful.

In addition, there is gorilla skin.

Actually, its warmth retention is much worse, and it's a subspecies of human, so wearing it feels a bit awkward.

But this was primitive times; autumn was almost over, and the harsh winter was approaching. Who cared about that now?

The Xia tribe is currently experiencing a shortage of fur, and obtaining orangutan pelts in bulk could effectively alleviate this problem.

This matter still needs to be considered, since bronze tools are needed to handle it; otherwise, a large amount of manpower would be required to slaughter the animals using stone and bone tools.

Bronze is now nearly scarce, and manpower is also insufficient. We need to think carefully before trying to acquire it in large quantities.

After a moment's thought, Xia Minghao stopped thinking about it. He still wanted to see the agricultural ruins of the Zhi tribe ahead, hoping to make some discoveries.

As they continued on their way, their speed slowed down.

Unlike the areas ahead where there are hardly any hairy people left, the areas ahead are still un-cleared.

Even though the situation has changed now, under Xia Minghao's orders, people should avoid killing if possible.

But eventually, a few suicidal bastards came to block the road, and we couldn't just ignore them.

After fighting their way for a while, Xia Minghao saw several deer riders take out a stone and start polishing their bronze halberds.

To say it was just rubbing is a bit of an oversimplification; a more accurate description would be a combination of grinding and rubbing.

The tip of the halberd is sharpened, while the blade is ground.

Sharpening knives, especially with a stone, was something Xia Minghao hadn't taught them.

Having prior experience polishing stone tools, they naturally began polishing bronze tools as well.

Moreover, the polishing was done quite skillfully, indicating that he had done a lot of work.

Indeed, after killing so many hairy people, how could bronze tools not become dull?

It just so happened that Xia Minghao had these deer cavalrymen who were with him in Guhedao Village also go and learn from them.

Listening to the group of deer riders speaking so eloquently, Xia Minghao nodded in approval.

Indeed, practice is the source of knowledge. Listening to this experience in polishing bronze artifacts, there were some details that even Xia Minghao could not have thought of all at once.

Now that this group of deer riders has summarized it, it will be passed down.

"Chief! Look at this!"

At this moment, Xia Minghao suddenly heard a voice and saw a young deer rider raise his hand, holding a small, dark creature in his hand.

This is a baby gorilla.

The cub, which had been nestled in the arms of the dead gorilla, was now being discovered by a deer rider who hadn't been cleaning up the hairy creatures around, and seemed quite curious about it.

He had never seen the young of the hairy people. These young were all in the rear, and the people of the Great Lakes tribe, who had previously been in a standoff with the hairy people, would naturally not have seen them.

The other deer cavalry who remained there, constantly clearing out the hairy people, showed no sign of anything amiss.

It seems I've not only seen this before, but many times, so it's not surprising anymore.

Xia Minghao didn't find it novel; instead, more thoughts flashed through his mind, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

"Can we keep hairy people as pets?"

Thinking of this, Xia Minghao immediately looked at the painted face. He wanted to ask a question, but stopped himself.

Asking was useless; these people had finally recovered from being under Mao's control, so how could they possibly answer that question?

It would be better to just ask a hairy person if human babies can be raised by hairy people; that would give you a more useful answer.

Whether it's possible to raise them or not is naturally difficult to draw a correct conclusion directly, but Xia Minghao guessed that if the Mu clan put in the effort, it might actually be feasible.

If it's really possible to raise it, and even if it grows up...

With the physical attributes of the Mao people, they are truly "talented individuals".

such as……

Extracting oil!

The current problem can be solved by having a gorilla operate the lever. Not only can this be achieved, but it also allows for the placement of larger, heavier stones, thereby increasing the efficiency of oil extraction. Moreover, with such strength, the gorilla can do much more than just that; it can also handle simple physical tasks such as moving heavy objects.

Without the Shepherd Clan, I really wouldn't dare to imagine it, since I've never heard of using gorillas as farming tools.

But now, we can certainly try to put it into practice, because practice is the sole criterion for testing truth!

“Take him back now and give him to Mu Tuo, let him see if he can make him as docile as a deer.”

At this moment, the young deer rider holding the baby gorilla was immediately startled upon hearing this.

They didn't have Xia Minghao's divergent thinking; they were just curious about seeing the hairy baby for the first time.

"Chief, chief, this is a hairy man, he can hurt people, he's terrifying."

Someone said worriedly, but Xia Minghao waved his hand.

"I know, I'll give it a try."

If a child is truly aggressive, there is a solution: castration will resolve the issue. Ultimately, it's due to hormones.

Hearing Xia Minghao say this, no one dared to say anything more and had no choice but to accept it.

After parting ways with the deer riders who were carrying the gorilla cubs, Xia Minghao continued on his way, his gaze fixed on the opposite side of the lake as he estimated their location.

The location on the mural is roughly at the eleven o'clock position, which corresponds to the five o'clock position when looking towards Yushan from the Zhi Tribe agricultural site.

After seeing that Yushan had reached this direction, Xia Minghao looked at the land beside the large lake in front of him.

There wasn't a single trace of it ever being cultivated...

It cannot be ruled out that we have come to the wrong place. Although we have not misremembered the orientation of the murals, no one can guarantee that this Zhi tribe mural is just a random drawing.

But Xia Minghao felt it was more likely that the traces of the Zhi tribe's past farming practices had been worn away by time.

How long can the traces left by humans in the world last, especially those of the Zhi tribe who relied on jade and stone tools for slash-and-burn agriculture?

It is even possible that the crops once cultivated by the Zhi tribe have already become extinct on the shores of the Great Lake.

Xia Minghao rode a giant deer along the lakeside, where there were still large palm trees and dense weeds.

I looked around but couldn't find any familiar crops.

Reaching the lakeside, Xia Minghao personally took out an entrenching tool and dug to see if it was a root crop like potatoes or taro, but still found nothing.

Have they really gone extinct?
After looking for a long time, I still couldn't find what I wanted, so I inevitably felt a little disheartened.

Just as they were about to move forward a little further to see if they could make any unexpected discoveries, they saw some large, indistinguishable patches of small, grayish-brown particles in the soil that had been shoveled out.

If it weren't for the obvious density of the soil, Xia Minghao would never have noticed it in his life, especially since it was nestled in the same grayish-brown mud on the shore.

At first glance, it looked like an insect egg, but after pinching a small piece with your fingers, the outer shell peeled off, revealing the light brown granules inside.

The more Xia Minghao looked at it, the more familiar it seemed. It looked just like a type of grain he had seen in supermarkets—brown rice!
As soon as the idea came to mind, I quickly looked up at the vegetation in the dense grain area.

This unidentified crop looked like thin, long grass, trembling in the autumn wind by the great lake.

Looking at the long awns in the upper middle part, Xia Minghao immediately began to recall.

He had never actually seen real rice before; he had only seen it on television because he lived in a rural area in northern China.

As the saying goes, rice grows in the south and wheat in the north. When I was a child, I had only ever seen wheat fields, and not many.

Later, for some reason, the village began to mainly grow corn.

Is this actually rice?

Hard to say……

It's definitely not the kind you see on TV; it might be wild rice that has almost never been domesticated.

If the intelligent tribe is indeed cultivating this crop, then it's clear that the tribe's existence was likely quite short-lived.

If they have been domesticated, the grains will not fall off automatically.

A crop's tendency to shatter is a typical manifestation of its "living for itself," while a crop's tendency to shatter is a manifestation of its "living for humans," and also a trace of human domestication of crops.

Regardless of whether it's rice or not, the most important question is whether it's edible.

The easiest way to verify this is to collect more materials and bring them back.

“Go and pick up all of these things. They are like this. Don’t make a mistake.”

Upon hearing the order, a group of deer riders dismounted and crouched down, crammed together, to look at what Xia Minghao was pointing to in the soil.

Some who understood began searching along the lake shore.

"By the way, don't damage the lakeside area."

Xia Minghao added another instruction.

If it really is rice, even if it's purely wild, it's better than nothing, and it's still better than only being able to grow foxtail grass.

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to eat the rice from my previous life in this lifetime. The domestication of crops takes thousands of years, and to think that one could domesticate modern rice on their own in a lifetime is absolutely a pipe dream under normal circumstances.

After collecting for a long time, Xia Minghao noticed that it was already afternoon and ordered everyone to head back.

Everyone was suffering from backaches and sore waists, getting a taste of the hardships of rice planting in advance.

There are enough people, and this crop, which is suspected to be rice, is distributed over a wide area, covering the entire lakeshore.

The total amount collected is about several handfuls. If most of the dirt is washed away, there will be about one or two handfuls of pure grains left. It's definitely enough to eat once and taste it.

"I hope it really is rice. If it can be domesticated a thousand years from now, it will be a trace I left in this other world."

Looking at the suspected wild rice in front of him, Xia Minghao suddenly felt a sense of emotion.

The fact that such a dense patch of what appears to be wild rice is a trace left by the Zhi tribe.

It's quite interesting to think about. I wonder what kind of traces would be left if humanity on Earth had disappeared tens of thousands of years ago.

……

……

……

As dusk approaches, weary birds return to their nests.

Leading the entire deer cavalry, they drew ever closer to the witch tribe.

Although everyone was still holding bronze halberds, their faces were now filled with relief.

Not only because the Mao people are not a threat, but also because we will never have to "expedition" against them again.

They would not disobey Xia Minghao's orders; in fact, they were eager to do their best.

During the few days they stayed in the tribe, they were all brainwashed by the shaman and wanted to "atone for their sins".

But their bodies are honest; exhaustion is exhaustion after all. Like a weary bird returning home, who wouldn't want to lie still, comfortably eating their fill?

Unlike the others, Xia Minghao did not look forward to the upcoming temporary relaxation.

Perhaps upon arriving in this world and taking charge of the Xia tribe, he was almost destined to never relax for a moment, his mind constantly occupied with plans to utilize the gorillas.

"what!"

Suddenly, a scream from afar interrupted Xia Minghao's thoughts.

It was precisely because of this change that the deer riders' muscle memory from their training was awakened, causing them to unite closely around Xia Minghao.

This exclamation sounded familiar, like the reaction of the people of the Great Lakes tribe when they first saw their own skin color.

Xia Minghao looked up and saw a man wrapped in animal skin screaming in surprise beside the shaman at the fire under the treehouse.

The man's animal skin was clearly red, and it was unclear what kind of animal it was, but it certainly wasn't the Great Lake Tribe that he knew so well and who was so eager to return to the Xia Tribe.

Judging from the man's expression, could he be from another tribe?!
(End of this chapter)