1840Indian rebirth

Soon after, Mianxiong returned to its former peace. If it weren't for nearly a thousand prisoners working hard to open up wasteland every day, it would be as if the war had never happened.

Although Ma Shao's ultimate goal is to have all the captured Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Comanche surrender to Sleeping Bear and become Apaches, he does not intend to be too polite to these prisoners at the moment.

These prisoners currently have to work seven days a week and about fourteen hours a day. They can basically be described as "797", and their salary is also very low, only ten cents a day.

The reason why he does this is mainly to facilitate the application of favors and rewards.

For example, in order to encourage prisoners to learn the Apache language, he directly stipulated that those with a vocabulary of more than 100 Apaches could work two hours less per day, those with more than 300 words would have their wages doubled, and those with more than 500 words could take vacations per week.

One day, 996 work system is realized.

People with a vocabulary of more than a thousand can have their sentences reduced by one year, and people who can read the "Linghu" fluently can regain their freedom - this is basically impossible. The full text of "Linghu" has tens of thousands of words.

By squeezing the labor of prisoners, the rate of land reclamation in Mianxiong City has increased sharply like a rocket, with an average of nearly two hundred acres of farmland being reclaimed every day.

Ma Shao feels that the 797 work system is cruel enough.

But in fact, many prisoners find this to be quite lenient.

After all, in their psychological expectation, labor was slavery, and it was a kind of slavery similar to torture for pleasure. However, they did not expect that they would only be asked to work fourteen hours a day, and they would even get paid - even though they had no idea about U.S. dollars.

In fact, in terms of working hours alone, 797 is just an ordinary job in the capital world at this time, and it is really nothing to a group of prisoners.

In the days after the war, reinforcements from several Apache tribes arrived at Sleeping Bear.

There were not many of them, the support time was even less timely, and the sincerity of the support seemed questionable, but the horse whistle still received them warmly.

Including the Chiricahua tribe, these reinforcements from other tribes stayed at Sleeping Bear for a while and then prepared to go back.

On the occasion of parting, Mashao held a bonfire ceremony, entertained them with food, songs and dances, and frankly expressed his thoughts.

His idea, of course, is to hope that all tribes can join Mian Xiong, or at least live in Mian Xiong.

"...Everyone, you should know my thoughts to some extent. I hope to form an 'Apache tribe' to unite all the Apaches to form a single tribe. Then, with the Apaches as the core, all aboriginal tribes will be unified.

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"In my opinion, the conflict between the Apaches and the Arapaho or any two indigenous tribes is not worth mentioning at all. The United States is the enemy that needs to be dealt with with all our strength."

Hearing this, Oak pondered for a moment: "The United States is indeed much stronger than the Arapaho, but if it is said that all the indigenous people need to unite to cope... I think it is a bit exaggerated."

"This is by no means an exaggeration." Mashao emphasized, "The United States has approximately 20 million people, which is almost a thousand times that of the Apaches and forty or fifty times that of all indigenous peoples, and it is still growing rapidly."

This is the first time many people have heard such a specific number, or even such a specific order of magnitude, and they can't help but ask: "Twenty million, still growing rapidly? Where did you know that?"

Ma Shao: "Newspapers, books."

He added: "Europe, the homeland of white people, is facing a great famine. Because of this great famine, more and more white people are moving to the United States, injecting fresh blood into this country."

Of course he was talking about the Great Famine in Ireland.

Just a few months ago, the Irish potato harvest failed due to the emergence of Phytophthora infestans, triggering the Great Famine.

The Great Famine would eventually cause Ireland's population to drop by a quarter in a few years, part of it due to starvation and part to emigration. Most of the emigrated population would enter the United States, an emerging immigrant country.

This disaster is both a natural disaster and a man-made disaster.

Needless to say, natural disasters are caused by fungi; but during the famine, Irish landowners still exported grain and watched as a large number of civilians starved to death.

The British Empire, which was at its peak, did not lend a helping hand. Instead, it continued to transport food from Ireland to England.

Not only that, the British even blocked other people's aid. For example, when the Sultan of Ottoman Turkey announced that he would donate 10,000 pounds to Irish farmers, Queen Victoria asked him to donate 1,000 pounds instead - because she only donated 2,000 pounds.

For the British at this time, Ireland was essentially just one of many colonies and did not deserve too much attention from them.

"The population of the United States will continue to grow, while the population of indigenous peoples will continue to shrink." Ma Shao continued, "In a few decades, the population of the United States will reach more than a hundred times that of all indigenous peoples... What will ten people do?

Defeat a thousand people?"

"Tecumseh once organized thousands of people to fight against the United States, but ultimately failed. For the United States, this was not a major war at all. Look at their war of independence seventy years ago. There were dozens of

Thousands of people went to war."

Ma Shao: "We must unite as soon as possible and build several aboriginal cities with tens of thousands of people in the Midwest while there are not many white people yet."

"...Even if we don't talk about the future, several tribes unite in Sleeping Bear City, which will provide us with unprecedented security. We will have an elite army of a thousand people, and no tribe will dare to invade. The United States

The federal government will not provoke it easily."

Oak thought for a while: "Maybe you are right, Ma Shao, but I need to think about it for a while, and I also need to ask my tribe for their opinions."

Ma Shao nodded: "Of course, I can understand. In fact, Sleeping Bear City cannot accommodate so many people for the time being. Even if you want to move in, you will have to wait until at least next year."

"Because of the food?" Oak asked.

Ma Shao: "Yes. Although we currently have enough food, I dare not further expand the population size of Mianxiong City until the development of agriculture matures."

Not to mention all the Apache tribes, even just one Chiricahua tribe has a combined population of three to four thousand.

Coupled with the captives and their families and relatives who returned soon after the captives returned, the population of Sleeping Bear City may even reach 10,000 within a few months.

With the current level of agriculture in Mianxiong City, such a population cannot be self-sufficient anyway, and must purchase large quantities of food from the outside world.

Ma Shao was not sure whether the Great Famine in Ireland would affect the American grain market. But even if it did not, he would not dare to expand the population of Sleeping Bear City in the short term.