Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 1363: Chapter 441: Three Surprises, Four Feudal Class Structures, Lesson 1_2

Xia Hong shook his head slightly. It wasn’t that he regretted it; where there is gain, there must be loss. Back when he decided in Evergreen Valley to fabricate a grand background and powerful backing for himself, he had already anticipated all this. After all, no matter how important intelligence gathering was, it could not compare to his own personal safety.

Although he couldn’t ask directly, he could still infer some things about Cai Qiu from side details—such as the prices of Dan Medicine—using a glimpse to see the whole picture.

“Washing Marrow Pill, I bought a total of 10 pills, unit price 250,000 taels; Bone Burning Pill, only 1 pill, unit price 490,000 taels; Top-grade Bone Shedding Pill, 20 pills, unit price 200,000 taels. Just from the prices of these three types of Dan Medicine, one can infer that Cai Qiu’s price level is, with high probability, on roughly the same level as Great Xia, not too far apart. Now that is interesting…”

Great Xia currently has a total territory of more than 23,000 square kilometers, with a population of 2.8 million;

Whereas Cai Qiu, according to what Xia Hong has managed to find out so far, has a total territory of 150,000 square kilometers. Let’s underestimate it a bit; that’s about 6.5 times Great Xia’s. Its population is more than 18 million, which happens to be not far from 6.5 times as well.

If you calculate it like this, the two sides having comparable price levels seems justifiable.

But on closer thought, you immediately know that’s completely not the case.

Xia Hong lived in Evergreen Valley for more than four months. During this period, he not only went hunting, but also took time to observe the situation of many village-level camps. Without exaggeration, in terms of conditions, Evergreen Valley placed over in Nine Towns’ side would definitely rank in the upper-middle tier.

If you don’t factor in population quality, Xia Hong even feels that, aside from Great Xia, the other Eight Towns’ conditions are all inferior to Evergreen Valley.

And Evergreen Valley is only the region Cai Qiu is most unwilling to bother with.

From this it can be inferred that Cai Qiu’s resource endowment far surpasses that of Great Xia—6.5 times is definitely an underestimate.

Secondly, resource endowment is only one aspect. More importantly, it’s the ability to obtain resources, and this ability is directly proportional to the population size.

The larger the population, the more resources can of course be obtained. At the same time, because the population base is large enough, more powerhouses will be spawned, and the high-level and even top-tier resources they can secure will naturally be more as well. This is easy enough to understand.

So this gives rise to a key question: a Cai Qiu Feudal Town with better resource endowment, larger population, and higher average cultivation—its overall price level actually ends up on the same level as Great Xia?

“This Six-class System must have gone badly wrong. With high probability, the population proportions among the six classes are extremely imbalanced, causing unfair resource distribution, the promotion channels of the bottom completely blocked, and massive waste of manpower and material resources, …”

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Recalling what he had seen and heard in Evergreen Valley over four months, and adding what he had roughly observed after entering the city, Xia Hong immediately saw where Cai Qiu’s maladies lay.

Leaving other things aside for the moment, using Cold Resistance Level cultivators as rickshaw pullers is something simply unimaginable in Nine Towns Territory.

That carriage Miss Mengya was riding in was actually equipped with as many as 30 Cold Resistance Level porters. Even if all 30 were merely ordinary Cold Resistance Level, that was still an extremely terrifying waste of human potential.

In Evergreen Valley’s population of more than one million, those who could enter Civilian Status or above as proper people numbered actually fewer than six thousand. From what the Hu Brothers said, the remaining Cold Resistance Level people were either of lowly status or Slave Status, or else people without any registration at all, who simply weren’t counted within Cai Qiu’s statistics.

“Only those who have entered the registration rolls are officially incorporated into Cai Qiu’s governance system. The problem is that the last two ranks among this Six-class System can only barely still be considered human.

Those with Civilian Status can go hunting and gathering everywhere at will, and only need to hand over thirty percent of all gains; the rest belong entirely to themselves, to sell or barter as they wish. One level up, Military Status is even more comfortable, needing to hand over only twenty percent.

Those who enter Slave Status cannot go hunting and gathering alone; they must go together with their master household, and all gains belong to the master household. However, according to normal unwritten rules, the master household will usually give them thirty percent.

Those of lowly status are even more miserable. Only when they are hired by others are they allowed to go hunting and gathering. If they hunt or gather privately, it’s fine if they aren’t discovered, but once they are, it’s a serious crime: not only must all materials be confiscated, there is also prison time.

Even so, there are still people who choose to enter lowly status and Slave Status. This proves that if one doesn’t enter any status at all, the oppression they suffer will be even harsher.

As for the core methods Cai Qiu uses to govern, there are two in total:

First is the high degree of commodification of silver. Silver trade in Cai Qiu is extremely developed. Everything from Cultivation Resources to labor hiring, down to food, clothing, housing, and transport, is all priced in silver. It can be said that without silver one can hardly move an inch. Meanwhile, the Feudal Town controls all Silver Mines in its territory, and any private mining is a capital crime of exterminating one’s entire clan.

Second is absolute control over Cultivation Resources. Any resource related to Cultivation that can be used by Cold Resistance Level and above—Dan Medicine, Spiritual Wine, and so forth—can only be purchased in the Treasure Pavilion of each city. The Spirit Plants used to refine these Dan Medicine are not even allowed to circulate on the market. Once private refining is caught, it is also a capital crime of clan extermination, let alone selling to outsiders…”

The Ice Abyss has always been predicated on might making right. This fundamental tone had long determined that any camp would inevitably have the strong exploiting the weak. Great Xia is no exception.

Cai Qiu’s adoption of the Six-class System is not especially outrageous in itself. Take Slave Status as an example: back when Great Xia first adopted the Household Registration System, Xia Hong had already considered such a category and had almost implemented it.

The most critical aspect of this Six-class System is that the population proportions of each stratum must be controlled. The ideal state is, of course, an ellipsoidal structure: the numbers at the very top and the very bottom are both small and equal, while maintaining a massive middle population of Military Status and Civilian Status, since these two are the fundamental base.