Seeing the villagers' impassioned response, Gu Qingcheng struck while the iron was hot and said,
"Fellow villagers, in the future, our Phoenix Village will surely live days of eating rice and meat every day.
But as you all know the situation down the mountain now, refugees are still pouring in. Among them are ordinary villagers as kind and diligent as you all, but also some lazy, idle, and even heinous criminals.
With so many people, none of us knowing each other's background, we have no way to discern. Moreover, our village is on the mountain. If attacked, the authorities would be too late to help. To protect our current beautiful lives, the village must establish a village guard.
With the hunting team members as the core, all adult men in the village between the ages of 15 and 50 must join the village guard.
These men will spend half an hour each day training with the village guard, and everyone must learn to shoot arrows and basic combat techniques.
When an external enemy attacks, all members of the village guard must be able to wield weapons and protect Taoyuan Village from invasion."
"Good, I agree!"
Dai Fa, as the village chief, was the first to clap his hands in approval.
"Young Master Gu's consideration is thorough. Without a village guard, if bandits and robbers target us, we will be at their mercy."
For a moment, no one objected.
The villagers' sense of belonging to Phoenix Village had begun to take root. Here, they had enough to eat and wear, and even meat. Who wouldn't want to live such a good life?
After fleeing famine, everyone had seen the dangers of the current times. Only swords and arrows could preserve the good life they had today.
Gu Qingcheng had announced this decision suddenly, but it received unanimous approval.
It had to be said that Gu Qingcheng was definitely a master at setting the mood.
When the atmosphere was right, she seized the opportunity to speak, and matters were settled smoothly.
Everyone was eating heartily, gnawing on meat brought back by the hunting team. At this moment, to speak of joining the village guard, even if someone hesitated, they found it difficult to object. After all, the meat they were eating was also hard-earned by the hunting team.
They couldn't pick up their chopsticks to eat meat and then curse their benefactor when they put them down, could they?
So, they had no choice but to agree!
The villagers of Phoenix Village came from all corners of the country. If she had laid out all the matters to be done beforehand and let everyone discuss and decide, it would have been impossible to achieve anything.
Everyone had their own selfish thoughts. Some would say they needed to rest on weekends, and training would deprive them of their rest.
Some would say they had injuries that prevented them from training.
Others would say their wives were about to give birth. In short, there would be all sorts of excuses.
Therefore, she made arbitrary decisions and assigned tasks. The squad leaders would then pick people for training.
Gu Qingcheng then instructed the squad leaders to report the list of villagers to be rotated for training to her that night, and then returned to her own residence.
She had just eaten and had no intention of napping, so she strolled to the backyard.
Under the shade of a tree in the backyard sat a bamboo recliner, specially made for her by the village carpenter.
Her backyard faced a large expanse of undulating valley below. At a glance, one half was covered in white snow, and the other revealed hints of new green, presenting a pleasant sight.
She plopped down on the bamboo recliner, enjoying the blissful moment of having food in her belly and beautiful scenery before her eyes.
This was her favorite private relaxation spot since moving into the new house.
"Golden Finger, how many 'satisfaction points' do I have now?"
Gu Qingcheng asked, lounging comfortably on the bamboo chair and communicating with the system in her mind.
"Host, you currently have a total of 350,000 satisfaction points."
It seemed that a trip down the mountain could earn a lot of satisfaction points!
However, Phoenix Village had no grain production at the moment, which made Gu Qingcheng feel insecure. Therefore, whenever she had satisfaction points, she would buy large quantities of rice, flour, oil, and other goods to stockpile.
Recently, Gu Qingcheng had hired artisans to build a granary next to her residence. On the surface, it was to store the rice, flour, and oil purchased from down the mountain.
In secret, of course, it was where she could secretly put the grain she had stockpiled earlier when needed, preparing for a large-scale distribution of grain in the future.
The advantage of doing this was that with a granary, the daily necessities she took out had a source.
Everyone saw Gu Qingcheng carrying baskets of grain up the mountain, but no one knew how much grain she had actually stockpiled.
In fact, many times, the baskets brought down from the mountain did not contain rice. It was just that Mi Guo hired people down the mountain to carry empty baskets and make a trip up the mountain for nothing.
With so much rice in the Mountain Cat Supermarket, it was not cost-effective for Gu Qingcheng to buy rice from others, especially since the current grain prices were so high, with a pound of rice costing at least three times more than what the Mountain Cat Supermarket sold it for.
Distributing rice to all the villagers every 20 days was not difficult for Gu Qingcheng, but she definitely couldn't bear the entire burden alone forever.
The most important thing was how to enable the villagers here to support themselves.
Currently, Gu Qingcheng managed Phoenix Village using a system similar to primitive slave ownership. She provided for all their food, clothing, shelter, and sanitation, and also paid a tael of silver as labor wages. In addition, all produce was contributed to the collective.
At present, the villagers had no other thoughts; they were just grateful to have found a good employer who provided for their food and lodging.
However, this system could not last. After all, people could not go against the tide of history. Everyone else had evolved to feudal society, so she couldn't let them live a primitive life, could she?
Once the villagers could support themselves, Gu Qingcheng planned to change the current system.
"Host, with 350,000 satisfaction points, aren't you going to buy more yachts?"
The Golden Finger tempted her again.
"Buying one more would be acceptable, but it's difficult to find the iron for upgrades. Never mind, I'll think about it later."
As Gu Qingcheng said this, she suddenly remembered that southern regions definitely produced iron ore, regardless of the quantity.
However, Gu Qingcheng did not need iron ore for large-scale mining; she only needed the iron ore for yacht upgrades.
Once the basic living conditions in the village were in place, she could arrange for Dai Fa to go out and search for iron ore.
Gu Qingcheng then spent 150,000 satisfaction points to buy large quantities of rice, flour, salt, and meat. Anyway, if she had satisfaction points, she would hoard them.
Just as she thought of Dai Fa, he appeared.
Dai Fa was very familiar with Gu Qingcheng and knew that if she wasn't in the front yard, she was enjoying a moment of leisure in the backyard at this hour. So, he came to the backyard to find her and indeed found her.
Gu Qingcheng got up from the bamboo chair and smiled at Dai Fa, saying,
"Uncle Dai, you've come at the right time. I was just about to look for you."
Dai Fa clearly also had something to discuss with Gu Qingcheng, but he patiently waited for her to speak first.
Gu Qingcheng said, "I was wondering if you could spare some time recently to take some people out to search nearby for iron ore. The iron content doesn't need to be very rich; it just needs to be enough to smelt a certain amount of iron."
"That's no problem. In fact, I've been wanting to suggest to you that we should send out people to look for surrounding resources, such as iron ore, limestone, etc. These are resources we urgently need."
"That's a good suggestion. Then I'll send out more groups. I'll have to trouble you to personally lead the search for iron ore then."