"Don't worry about it for now," Qiao Yu said. "If they attack you, fight back. If they just run away, don't chase them. Just let them go."

"I see they have a very hard life. If we meet them, should we persuade them to join our tribe?" Cang said.

The current Dragon Tribe is completely different from the previous Valley Tribe. The reasons for such a big change are, on the one hand, the various things invented by Qiao Yu, and on the other hand, the continuous annexation of other tribes.

Before the God Tribe and the Sun Tribe joined, the people of the Dragon Tribe were afraid of war; but now that there are more people and they have experienced several overwhelming victories, the people of the Dragon Tribe are now inflated and even hope that more people will come to attack them.

Now there is someone ready to pick up, and Cang feels excited just thinking about it.

"How can you persuade them when we don't speak the same language? They're about to chop you with a knife before they even understand what you mean." Qiao Yu shook his head. "Let it be, don't force it."

"Also, our tribe now has a large population, but limited food. We have to hold out until next spring, and the situation is not optimistic. It's best not to bring outsiders into the tribe."

For a place as large as the Dragon Tribe, Qiao Yu felt that the current population was just right, perhaps even a bit too much. If more people came, not only would the living quarters become overcrowded, but resource allocation would also be insufficient.

She had calculated that with the amount of food currently available in the tribe, it would barely be enough to feed more than two thousand people until next spring.

Now that she has a certain amount of game to catch every day and a variety of wild vegetables, and it's still the season to work, she feeds everyone until they are 70% to 80% full. If there is little rain throughout the spring and summer, then they can only eat 40% to 50% full.

If there are more people, everyone will have to change from eating until they are 40% or 50% full to eating only 20% or 30% full.

Being only two or three times full can lead to starvation problems. Not to mention the frail elderly and children, men with high energy consumption are the least susceptible to hunger and can easily starve to death. During the snowy season, when she sent these strong men and women out to work, she would give them an extra meal, and they were not allowed to take anything home; they had to eat it themselves.

These people are the main labor force and fighting force of the tribe. Once they are starved to death, the entire tribe will be on the verge of destruction.

Even in bad years, the top priority is to ensure the quality of life of the existing people in the tribe, rather than greedily recruiting more people into the tribe.

Speaking of food, Cang and Chen, who were overly excited, immediately came to their senses.

Really? His own people had nothing to eat, yet he wanted to bring people into the tribe to share the food. Was he out of his mind?

"Okay, we got it." Both of them were a little frustrated.

"If we can communicate with them, we can exchange some food for information and ask which tribe they are from. If they are from the Sifang Tribe, we can ask them about the situation in the Sifang Tribe." Qiao Yu said, "It's best to find out more about this so that we can follow them if necessary."

"Okay." Cang and Chen accepted the task and became excited again.

Seeing that Qiao Yu had no other instructions, the two followed Qiang out. As they walked, the three of them discussed how to find out about the group.

After annexing the God Tribe and the Sun Tribe, Qiao Yu divided the tribe into eight boundaries based on direction, with each brigade responsible for one direction. They could extend their forces further, but could not exceed the boundaries on either side.

The collection team composed of women and children in this brigade was also limited to this area together with the men.

Normally, the men would hunt, and the gathering team would collect edible plants within that area. To ensure the safety of their families, the hunting team would try to clear out dangerous animals, snakes, and insects in the suburbs; if there was no prey, they would move further afield.

Such management avoids disputes and chaos caused by teams competing for resources, avoids waste of manpower, and enables more detailed and in-depth development of various resources in this area.

Since the group had been discovered within their brigade's jurisdiction, it was naturally their responsibility to resolve the issue. If they could gain something, their brigade would be recognized as a meritorious service, and Qiao Yu would reward them with material rewards.

So after discussing for a while, Cang and Chen left happily.

Now that their weapons were more powerful and the number of people in a battalion was greater, everyone was very bold and wanted to find out where the group came from. They then extended their reach outwards, walking a distance of five or six days to search for the group's whereabouts.

Ten days later, they brought new news.

"Yu, there are two to three hundred of them, living at the foot of a mountain four days' journey from our tribe. They are all escaped slaves from the Sifang tribe, and they all have branding on their faces. Not far from them, there are another two to three hundred people, ordinary people who escaped from the Sifang tribe."

Qiao Yu raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, "How did you find out?"

These guys don't speak the same language as the people from the four tribes. How do they communicate?

"Hehe, after we found out where they lived, we didn't alarm them. We came back and asked Shuiyue to talk to them. Shuiyue found out all this."

"That's great." Qiao Yu gave a thumbs up, feeling very pleased.

The people under her command are finally no longer the naive group of people from the valley tribe, and they are becoming more and more capable and powerful.

But the surprises didn't stop there. Cang continued, "There are a few people there from the Water Tribe, and Shuiyue is very familiar with them. When they asked, she introduced them to our Dragon Tribe, saying that there are no slaves in the Dragon Tribe and that everyone lives a very good life."

He scratched his head. "We all kept your words in mind and had no intention of bringing them back to the tribe. But they kept asking, and Shuiyue couldn't lie, so she told them the truth. As a result, they expressed their desire to live in our tribe."

He didn't dare to tell the specific situation.

In fact, those people's lives are really miserable.

Originally a slave, they had no weapons in the tribes, so it was hard for them to hunt with their bare hands after escaping.

They could only hunt small animals and eat grass roots and leaves to fill their stomachs. When they escaped, there were 348 people, but now there are only 282 left. The rest either died of injuries while fighting with prey or died of starvation and disease.

If the year was good, they still had hope, but since the spring hadn't rained much, if there was a disaster later, it would be all over for them.

Shuiyue is the daughter of the Water Tribe elder. She is beautiful, capable, and extremely proud, and disdains lying. Furthermore, she risked her life to save her fellow tribesmen, and her character is unquestionable.

So the people of the Water Tribe believed everything she said, and the beautiful life she described in the Dragon Tribe brought them a ray of hope in their desperate situation.

So they repeatedly and earnestly requested Shuiyue, Cang and others to return to the Dragon Tribe and plead on their behalf, asking the leader to agree to take them in.