Han Cheng knew that Wu and his senior brother must be very confused about his actions. When they saw the two of them surrounding him, he led them towards the inner cave.

Before entering the cave, he told the others to continue their work and asked his lame spouse, who was cleaning the upside-down sheep intestines, to add some salt to the basin and scrub them again...

The decision to give away the tribal salt for free was actually made by Han Chengcai not long ago. Even so, it was a well-thought-out decision, or it was something he had been thinking about for a long time, and suddenly he found a solution.

The shortage of labor in the Qingque tribe was greatly alleviated with the joining of ten adults from the original Zhu tribe led by Shang, and the recovery of Ruhua, Zuobo and Youbo from their injuries.

However, as the cultivated areas of rapeseed and millet expand, labor will become scarce again.

And now, the herd has nine new members, and seven female deer are pregnant. It won't be long before a few more fawns will be born, and the size of the deer herd will exceed 35 in one fell swoop.

The rabbits are still as fertile as ever, especially after eight new wild rabbits were added to the group. They have become even more fertile, and now the size of the rabbit group has exceeded three hundred.

For this reason, Han Cheng had to spare some manpower a few days ago to expand the rabbit pen by nearly double.

Two broods of pheasants were also hatched in captivity, totaling 29 chicks, including big and small ones.

Oh, by the way, now we have to add three more lambs.

There are so many mouths to feed, and just getting grass for these guys requires a lot of manpower.

Not to mention anything else, the daily consumption of these more than 300 rabbits alone is astonishing enough. These straightforward guys eat and then poop, and poop and then eat. They are simply more than 300 non-stop grass crushers.

It took two people dedicated to harvesting grass for them to keep up with this terrifying consumption rate.

It is not winter yet, and Uncle Deer takes his tribe out to hunt in the wild every day. They do not need to be fed much. Once winter comes and snow falls, Uncle Deer will no longer be willing to go out, and the consumption of grass will become even more astonishing.

As early as two months ago, the number of people harvesting grass became four, and not long after, it became six.

After all, the Qingque tribe doesn't have much food, and these guys' winter rations all depend on the harvested and dried grass, so they cannot do without a lot of reserves.

As the saying goes, when you are full you will think about sex.

The people of the Green Bird Tribe now have no shortage of food and drink. In the past, large-scale unrest would usually only occur in the spring, but now that they have enough food, they basically don't care about the time of year.

If the seeds are sown frequently and the land is fertile rather than barren, the survival rate of the seeds will naturally be higher.

For example, one of the eldest brother’s spouses gave birth to a child in the spring when the flowers had not yet bloomed. Now, her belly has grown bigger again. It is estimated that she will give birth again after the heavy snow falls in winter.

The presence of a large number of pregnant women and mothers also greatly reduced the available manpower of the Qingque tribe.

Although pregnant women, postpartum women and children today are not as precious as they were in later generations, it definitely affects their labor.

After putting all of this into context, a problem once again emerged facing the Qingque tribe, and that was lack of manpower.

Han Cheng has always been thinking about the problem of insufficient labor in the tribe. With the previous experience of the Pig Tribe's integration, he would naturally turn his attention to the surrounding neighboring tribes.

However, the opportunity for the Pig Tribe to integrate into the group is rare and not easy to replicate.

The Tengshe tribe suffered a great loss here last year and lost a lot of manpower. It is estimated that they will not come to the vicinity to cause trouble in the short term.

Without such a powerful external enemy to threaten them, it would be difficult to integrate these tribes into one's own tribe like the Pig Tribe.

Han Cheng had thought about launching a war, attacking the surrounding tribes, killing a group of their adult men, killing all the children taller than the wheels, and then taking the rest of the people abducted to the Qingque tribe.

After thinking it over, I gave up.

After leaving the wall, the people of the Green Bird tribe could not form an absolute advantage against the surrounding tribes. In this situation, casualties among their own people were inevitable, and the number was not small.

People are emotional animals, and he is not a tyrant. Naturally, he does not want to see the death of someone he has been with for so long, so he can only temporarily put aside the idea of ​​launching a battle to annex other tribes and think about using gentle means.

Han Cheng had started preparing for these things as early as the happy party. Through a series of means, he tried hard to leave the seeds of the Qingque tribe's wealth and power in these people's hearts, making them yearn for the Qingque tribe.

Then, through transactions, the ties between several tribes and the Qingque tribe were strengthened, and their cognition was constantly reinforced. By using the method of boiling a frog in warm water, their hearts were won over and peaceful integration was slowly achieved.

However, such means were not mature enough, or not strong enough to make the leaders of these tribes abandon their tribes and lead their people to join the Qingque tribe.

Han Cheng had always been thinking about this problem, but he had no practical solution. Until today, when the leader of the Green Tribe gathered the Sheep Tribe they met on the road and returned with the exchanged pottery to discuss the issue, the problem was suddenly solved, giving Han Cheng a sense of sudden enlightenment.

Salt!

It's salt!

The delicious taste of salt is hard to resist once you have tasted it.

Throughout the thousands of years of recorded history, salt has left a strong mark in every dynasty. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, or even earlier in the Xia, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties, feudal states that made profits by boiling salt have always existed, and all of them were extremely wealthy.

Later, after the salt and iron monopoly, salt tax became an extremely stable source of national tax revenue.

It was not until later, under the bombardment of powerful ships and cannons, that the so-called civilized people began to do extremely barbaric things. The intoxicated people gradually woke up from the beautiful dream of the Celestial Empire, the corrupt dynasty was overthrown, salt was produced in large quantities, and the salt tax was gradually abolished...

Now the Qingque tribe is guarding the salt mountain, but in the era when Han Cheng lived before, salt had already become an extremely common and very cheap thing. Influenced by this concept, he has never realized the huge impact of salt in other aspects.

Now, he was awakened by the words of the Green Tribe leader, and he felt as if he had been enlightened.

Primitive tribes did not eat salt at the beginning, such as the Green Bird Tribe and the surrounding tribes, who could live without salt.

These tribes that had eaten salted food at the joy party were still able to resist the temptation of delicious food after returning, as evidenced by the fact that they came to exchange food several months later.

However, habits are developed slowly. Han Cheng now provides them with salt for free in order to make all these tribes develop the habit of eating salt.

It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality. Primitive people are also human beings, and they cannot escape this theorem.

Once their mouths, tongues, and stomachs get used to the taste of salt, they will feel extremely uncomfortable eating food without salt.

By that time, the generous Green Bird tribe, led by their kind and somewhat foolish son of God, will begin to show their fangs...

When Han Cheng thought of this, an extremely cunning smile appeared on his face.

After listening to Han Cheng's explanation, it took the witch and the two eldest brothers a long time to figure out the key points of the matter. They looked at their Son of God with an expression of awe.

The Son of God is worthy of being the Son of God. He can think of such twists and turns.

They just thought that giving away salt for free was a self-defeating and beneficial thing for others, but they didn't expect that the Son of God would use this to set such a big trap.

In this way, their Qingque tribe will surely grow and become the largest tribe in the vicinity!

Thinking of the grand scene after several tribes all joined the Qingque tribe, the witch couldn't help but tremble, and his old face became a little flushed because of excessive excitement.

The eldest brother was also extremely excited.

He carefully recalled the scene of drinking broth without salt every day, and his whole body was filled with rejection.

The Son of God’s plan will surely come true!

This is the two people’s most sincere expectation and also their faith in the Son of God.

When Han Cheng first arrived, there were only ten adult men in the Qingque tribe who were in their prime, including Lame, who had a disability.

Later, as Tietou and Heiwa grew up, six adult men from the Pig Tribe joined them, and the number of adult men exploded, reaching as many as eighteen.

There were twenty-eight adult women at the beginning. With the growth of Zhuang, the addition of three female prisoners, Ruhua, Zuoyoulao, and the integration of four female primitive people from the Pig Tribe, there are now thirty-six women.

The number of older primitive people did not increase, and there were still only three: Wu, Huo Yi, and Huo Er.

This is easy to understand. After all, this is a primitive age. For various reasons, it is not easy for people to live to an old age.

There were thirty-five children at the beginning. Last year, eight were born and one died, leaving seven. This year, fourteen have been born, two died, leaving twelve. Four are still in the womb, waiting to be born.

Excluding the three adults, Heiwa, Tietou and Zhuang, there are fifty-one minors in the Qingque tribe.

Among them, children aged zero to four who have no ability to work are the largest, accounting for almost half of all minors.

There are a total of fifty-four adults with strong working ability in the Qingque tribe.

The total number of elderly people and children is fifty-four, which is equivalent to one adult supporting one person. Compared with later generations, this ratio is not low.

Fortunately, at this time we only need to provide food, clothing and shelter, and the cost of raising children is far less than in later generations. Otherwise, the Qingque tribe and Han Cheng would suffer.

I don’t know if it is a coincidence, but as of now, there are a total of 108 people in the Qingque tribe, including adults and children, which coincides with the number of Tiangang and Disha in Water Margin.

Of course, this cannot be considered as Han acting as the Son of God.

The soul of an adult possesses the body of a minor. He doesn't know which category to classify himself as. After much thought, he can only list himself separately.

Except for a few children who died shortly after birth, no one died in the Qingque tribe during this period.

This may seem a little unreasonable, but if you think carefully about the tremendous changes in their food, clothing, housing, transportation, life and production methods after Han Cheng arrived, it will not seem unreasonable.

Such a force is already first-rate among the nearby tribes, and the only one that can rival it is the Bone Tribe.

Of course, if we only count the number of adults, the Bone Tribe is slightly superior to the Green Bird Tribe.

But since the time traveler Han Cheng showed up, the way to measure strength has changed.

The standard for measuring strength is no longer the number of people, but also the number of houses, weapons, food reserves, and cultural soft power...

In terms of comprehensive strength, even the Tengshe tribe, which has a large population, cannot compare to the Qingque tribe.

Of course, in terms of combat power alone, after leaving the wall, the Qingque tribe was no match for the Tengshe tribe.

This is the sequelae of rapid development. Because there are too many aspects that need to be improved, and there are too few available people, we can only do our best in one aspect at a time.

The foundation of the Qingque tribe has now been laid. In the future, while taking into account the development of other aspects, Han Cheng should also consider gradually shifting more strength towards combat power.

Otherwise, if the Qingque tribe followed the path of the Song Dynasty, it would be really frustrating.

He doesn't want to be a complete scumbag like Zhao Laoer.

This guy not only ruined the good cards left by Song Founder Zhao, but also led the Song Dynasty into a ditch. For hundreds of years, until it was destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty, the country did not recover.

Ultimately, the problem lies with the scoundrel Zhao Laoer.