Chapter 170 A Difficult Reward
"Zhao Geng meets the leader!"
Zhao Geng was smelling of sweat at the moment, and it smelled even worse in this weather which was far from cool.
But Zhou Xu obviously didn't care about this.
"How's the harvest lately?"
Autumn is the harvest season. Even outside the village, Zhou Xu had already seen farmers busy in the fields.
Faced with this question, Zhao Geng showed a simple smile on his face.
"The harvest is very good. Although it has not been harvested yet, according to my estimation, there will be no problem getting through this winter."
Zhao Geng and his colleagues have never studied mathematics and currently have no idea of the weights and measures, so they are unable to give him a more detailed report.
However, as the Minister of Agriculture, Zhao Geng is very good at estimating grain production and consumption.
He said it's okay, so it's definitely okay.
And Zhou Xu summoned Zhao Geng during this busiest time, definitely not for this matter. He just asked casually, and the main thing was still to come.
"Zhao Geng, I plan to expand the size of the farmland and increase grain production."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Geng frowned slightly, obviously not optimistic about this proposal.
"Chief, let me be frank. Our current grain production is more than enough. Continuing to expand the scale of the fields and increase grain production is just a waste of labor and grain, unless..."
Having said that, Zhao Geng stopped talking and just looked at Zhou Xu calmly, as if waiting for an answer.
Many people may not understand what Zhao Geng said at all. Only those who truly live in this era can understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he said.
Because in this era, the storage conditions were very poor, and the extra food was difficult to preserve for a long time. If it was not eaten in time, it would soon go bad.
When Zhao Geng was in the tribe before, he was responsible for growing crops, so he had a deep understanding of this matter.
This practice ultimately just wastes labor and food.
Of course, there is one exception...
"It's just what you think."
Looking at Zhao Geng's expression, Zhou Xu smiled.
"After the beginning of next spring, I will mobilize troops to recruit people and increase the labor force in the tribe."
This itself was not a secret, and Zhou Xu didn't mind telling Zhao Geng.
Zhao Geng was not unfamiliar with this matter. After all, their original tribe did not have such a large population at the beginning.
"Okay, I understand. How much will it increase?"
"The food supply is based on an increase of 200 people, but the scale of the cultivated land is based on an increase of 500 people!"
Zhou Xu already had an idea about this matter in his mind, and now that Zhao Geng asked about it, he quickly gave an answer.
By the beginning of next spring, when he is fully equipped and officially moves his troops towards the camp in the barren mountains, it will not be just a matter of taking down a few small tribes.
If nothing unexpected happens, he plans to wipe out the entire tribe, including the Barbarian Stone Tribe, within a year at the latest.
By that time, the population of their tribe will surely increase exponentially, and the current grain production will definitely not be able to keep up.
In order to avoid being caught in a crisis due to food problems, we must start working in advance.
After the task was handed down, the task that fell on Zhao Geng's shoulders was undoubtedly an arduous one.
After all, at this moment, Zhou Xu was directly increasing their workload but had no way to add more staff.
The main reason is that the tribe really has no manpower to spare.
Although there are many people in the Ministry of Agriculture, a lot of manpower has been taken up by animal husbandry and fisheries, leaving not much for farming.
It is the autumn harvest season now. The farming team already has a heavy workload, and now there is new work.
However, Zhao Geng still appeared to be relatively calm.
After all, formal farming does not begin until the spring, and their main work now, apart from the autumn harvest, is to prepare for after the spring.
In this way, after the spring, they can start sowing and farming directly, so that the entire spring farming work will not be delayed and work efficiency can be improved accordingly.
Although Zhou Xu was worried about the situation at the grassland camp, the various tasks in Black Moon Village forced him to stay here for a while.
The next morning, the construction team returned from Salt Lake Village on a ox cart.
With the domestication of the second and third batches of bison at the grassland camp, the number of ox carts within their tribe is now increasing, and they have long since overcome the initial difficulties.
The ox carts of the transport team from Black Moon Village were carrying supplies to Salt Lake Village. When the people from the engineering team saw it, they rode the ox carts back.
As soon as they returned to Black Moon Village and learned that their leader had returned, the engineering team leader Wang Dashi did not dare to delay and hurried over to report on the work progress.
After listening to the report, Zhou Xu smiled and praised Wang Dashi a few words, and rewarded them with a batch of meat rabbits.
"Thank you, Chief!"
Then, looking at Wang Dashi's retreating figure, Zhou Xu fell into deep thought.
[Recently, the reward issue has become increasingly difficult to handle. 】
In the early days, no one in the tribe had enough food to eat. If a tribe member did a good job, he would just reward him with some food, which would make people ecstatic and grateful.
But now, their tribe has two meals a day, and they can have a full meal every time. The tribal members don’t have to worry about food. Gradually, everyone’s desire for food began to decrease.
The effect of simply rewarding food is getting worse and worse.
But apart from food, what else could he reward under the current circumstances?
At this moment Zhou Xu clearly realized that his current situation was somewhat similar to that of some ancient emperors facing those great heroes who had no rewards or titles to offer.
In the beginning, their motivation for working was to have enough food to eat and to survive!
But what about now? Having enough food and staying alive are no longer a problem, so the corresponding rewards naturally cannot play the role they should have.
As the leader of the tribe, from Zhou Xu's perspective, this may not be a good thing. Over time, it may even bring him some trouble.
He needed to give the tribe members some new motivation.
【Maybe it's time to mint currency.】
The minting of currency represents the beginning of the era of trade. The era of unified distribution of food resources has come to an end. Tribal members need to earn currency through work and then use it to buy everything, including food.
The most practical benefit of starting to mint currency and launch trade operations now is that it can solve Zhou Xu's "reward" problem. Under this model, he can just reward money directly.
At the same time, he no longer needs to worry about the basic lives of the tribal members.
Going further, after the spring, their tribe will inevitably increase its population through incorporation. Once the population increases, it will be difficult to popularize the currency and trade system.
On the contrary, if the population is small, the difficulty of popularization will be lower.
We should take advantage of the time now to popularize it. When new people come in, they will naturally adapt to local customs and follow their system, which will bring them a lot of convenience.
(End of this chapter)
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