Chapter 6

Just before noon, Dasha Village finally completed the construction of two low-level thatched cottages. Including the one provided by the system and the house of the village council center, there were now enough accommodations for 20 people! Each thatched cottage consumed 5 units of wood, and the two cottages together used up 10 units of wood.

Yang Rui was busy, but his mind was also coordinating the allocation of resources and labor.

Currently, the top priority for Dasha Village was undoubtedly food production, which required the greatest effort. The system-provided food was only 100 units, and with each person consuming 1 unit of food per day, the food would only last for about 4 days as the population grew!

In the early stages of the game, the production cycle for food was 4 days! This meant that even if they started planting crops now, it would take 4 days for them to mature, and there was a high possibility of a food shortage during this period!

If there was a food shortage, there were a few methods to consider for remediation. One was to find wild fruits to supplement food consumption, which was the most practical approach. Another was to buy food from the system city with money. Lastly, they could consider whether fishing in the Black Dragon Pond was feasible, which would require consulting Wang Hai.

The second issue Yang Rui needed to consider was housing. The number of cottages had to meet the daily influx of new villagers to prevent any from leaving due to lack of housing! Each house required 5 units of wood, and a logging camp needed to be established as soon as possible to ensure a steady supply of wood; otherwise, they would have to buy it with money!

Of course, logging was one of the key focuses in Yang Rui's early planning, not just to meet the current building needs. Due to some revenue-generating actions by the court, the price of wood skyrocketed in the years leading up to the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and Yang Rui was well aware of this and intended to take full advantage of it!

"Master Lieryang, as of now, 9 new villagers have appeared in Dasha Village and have been successfully registered. The population of Dasha Village has reached 13. Please give your instructions," Wang Hai reported, bringing two newly registered villagers to Yang Rui.

Wang Hai had been helping Yang Rui and the other villagers build the thatched cottages, but his old age made him less efficient. Therefore, Yang Rui assigned him to specifically welcome new villagers and search for wild fruits.

After changing to this task, Wang Hai did quite well. He not only brought back all the new villagers but also discovered a large patch of wild fruits, which could supplement the villagers' food supply for two to three days!

"Oh? There are already 13 villagers?" Yang Rui thought for a moment and said, "The current number of cottages is enough for today's needs. For the rest of the day, all villagers will follow me to clear the land and prepare for farming!"

Yang Rui had just calculated that the existing wood supply was sufficient for building houses for the next three to four days, but food was an urgent matter. Therefore, he decided to allocate all the villagers to food production.

"My plan is to divide all the villagers into two groups. One group will be responsible for clearing and preparing the land, while the other will follow to plant seeds. For every acre of land cleared, we will immediately plant sweet potatoes!

This method may not be the most efficient, but it is crucial to ensure timely harvests of food! The earlier we plant, the earlier we can harvest, and the more likely we are to avoid a food shortage!

Do you have any objections? If not, let's get started!"

The dozen or so gathered villagers were taken aback by Yang Rui's question! Did the village chief need to seek their opinions? This was something they had never experienced before, so they hurriedly responded, "We will follow the lord's (Village Chief Lieryang's) arrangements!"

Yang Rui, along with 11 other villagers excluding Wang Hai, went to the northern part of the village to start clearing the land. Wang Hai was sent to continue searching for wild food resources and to welcome new villagers.

The area north of the council hall was temporarily designated as farmland, while the residential area was built on the southeast side of the council hall. A small forest about two to three kilometers northwest could serve as the initial logging site.

The main reason the land in the inner valley was barren was due to the abundance of small pebbles, but clearing it was not too labor-intensive. Soon, one acre of land was cleared, and Yang Rui estimated the work speed, immediately assigning three people to plant sweet potato seedlings. The rest continued clearing the land.

This division of labor worked well, and the two groups spent roughly the same amount of time. Often, as soon as one acre of land was cleared, the planting team would quickly catch up.

During the work, Yang Rui took a break to prepare lunch. The two teams were led by the level 10 brothers, Chen Ping and Chen Li, so there was no need to worry about any issues.

This time, Xiao Hui was still online, but the breakfast Yang Rui had prepared for her was gone, indicating she had logged out once! Knowing how engrossed Xiao Hui was in the game, Yang Rui prepared lunch for her without disturbing her.

When he logged back in, the cleared land had already reached three to four acres, and the planting of sweet potato seedlings was nearly complete. Three more people had joined the work team, all new villagers gathered by Wang Hai while Yang Rui was offline!

"It's only noon, and we're already seeing a 'surge' in new villagers?" Yang Rui thought, "If this continues, it's a great start, but we need to build another thatched cottage to avoid losing new villagers due to lack of housing."

With this in mind, Yang Rui continued to have Chen Ping and Chen Li lead the teams in clearing and planting, while he assigned two villagers to build another cottage.

The term "surge" was a popular phrase from the forums in his previous life. Generally, a territory refreshing 11 to 12 new villagers per day was considered normal, and anything over 15 was called a "surge."

New villagers were the workforce of the territory, so a "surge" was highly welcomed. However, the frequency of "surges" was low, with one occurring about once a month, and sometimes not even that often!

What Yang Rui did not expect was that on the first day, there was indeed a "surge," and it was a significant one! After noon, Wang Hai continued to bring back one or two new villagers at a time, and by evening, he had brought back a total of 10 more! Adding the 12 new villagers from the morning, a total of 22 new villagers appeared that day!

The village population reached 25! If not for Yang Rui's foresight in starting to build the thatched cottages, the excess new villagers would have been wasted! Even so, the four thatched cottages and the council hall were just enough to accommodate 25 people.

After a day of hard work, the cleared land reached 7 acres, and all 700 sweet potato seedlings were planted.

The planting progress was a bit slow, but Yang Rui calculated that with the increasing number of villagers, they could plant all 3,000 sweet potato seedlings within three days, ensuring no waste!

After the "surge" of new villagers, Yang Rui needed to adjust his plans. The surplus labor could be used to build a logging camp earlier. With sufficient wood, they could consider building a shipyard, fishing boats, and a militia camp, which also required a lot of wood.

Thinking of the militia camp, Yang Rui felt a sense of urgency!

New player villages had a half-month protection period during which the system would not actively attack the village. However, after the protection period, if not handled promptly, there was a high risk of a monster attack.

Yang Rui knew that around each new territory, there were usually three to four monster spawn points. These could be wild animals like tigers and wolves or human NPC camps. Regardless, when the number of monsters at these spawn points reached a certain level, they would launch a large-scale attack on the village, potentially causing significant damage or even destroying the new territory!

"We need to train the militia as soon as the food supply is secured!" Yang Rui muttered to himself.

After evening, the NPC villagers rested, but players could continue playing and leveling up. However, Yang Rui had been busy all day, working almost 24 hours straight, and was extremely tired. After giving brief instructions to Chen Ping, Chen Li, and Wang Hai, Yang Rui chose to log out.

A full-time online game pod would not be available for another six months and would be very expensive, almost as much as a luxury villa in real life, making it unaffordable for most people!