Every year, after the cold winter passes and spring revives, the entire Kawa Great Forest becomes bustling with activity.

Hunters, prey, magic beasts, giant beasts, beastmen... one by one, the creatures come alive on the forest land, adding vibrant and lively colors to the Kawa Great Forest.

With the initial retreat of the cold winter, many beastmen in the Kawa Great Forest, due to tribal poverty, are forced to wander in search of food and vitality in the forest land.

This year, as the Dragon Nest Tribe expanded, its mighty reputation spread all around.

Thus, many wandering beastmen passing by the area flocked to seek refuge, with some small tribes facing difficulties even bringing their entire clans to join.

At the very least, through interactions over time, nearby beastman tribes all know that once you become a member of the Dragon Nest Tribe, it means you can eat your fill every day.

Having enough to eat, for beastmen still struggling on the brink of subsistence, remains an immense attraction.

Indeed, during these times, along with newborns from the tribe itself, the population of the Dragon Nest Tribe finally surpassed forty thousand, steadily progressing toward fifty thousand.

From initially having only seven and a half kobolds to now dominating a region with a population over forty thousand, it's only taken about four years.

This progress not only leaves the beastmen who joined initially feeling shocked, reminiscing about the past in their leisure as if it were just yesterday.

Even Austin feels that this change is like a dream.

It can only be said that this is the timing, this is the trend.

Beastmen struggling to survive in the Kawa Great Forest live too difficultly. Not only do tribal wars persist for years without end, but they often teeter on the brink of mere subsistence.

When Austin leveraged his own strength to open up this piece of pure land for the Beastman Race and taught them how to obtain more food from the land, thereby freeing them from the worry of famine, such a secure and sustaining life holds immense attraction for the beastmen in the wild.

Moreover, after the Clan Tribe grew strong, Austin did not stop the process of arming the beastmen.

The well-trained Dragon Nest Legion continually launched attacks, sweeping the surroundings, annexing one tribe after another, and assimilating large numbers of captives into the system of the Dragon Nest Tribe, providing invaluable contributions to the tribe's expansion.

It's precisely due to these reasons that the Dragon Nest Tribe, established by Austin, has rapidly expanded like a snowball in just a few short years to its current state.

However, the rapidly increasing population also brought a strong food pressure to the Dragon Nest Tribe.

In the past, there were several instances where the population surge led to insufficient grain to support the tribe's level of expansion. Fortunately, the food obtained from the wild forest was not insignificant, and supplemented by other means, they managed to barely survive one crisis after another.

Now, with the Dragon Nest Tribe's population surpassing forty thousand and the cold winter just departed, the food pressure looming over the Dragon Nest Tribe is also not insignificant.

Fortunately, with a certain foundation established, the Dragon Nest Tribe can alleviate and endure this pressure.

Moreover, this year, a type of food that could serve as beastmen's rations saw a significant increase.

That is bamboo shoots.

During the initial expansion phase of the Dragon Nest Tribe, there was once a food crisis where Austin led the beastmen to open up new food sources.

Among them, the two largest were tender shoots of ferns and bamboo shoots.

After boiling them, the bitter taste of the fern shoots and bamboo shoots can be removed, turning them into an invaluable delicacy that can also fill the beastmen's stomachs.

At that time, a special team was set up in the Dragon Nest Tribe to collect these items from the wild.

After developing a fondness for the taste of bamboo shoots, some beastmen continued to plant bamboo cuttings along the riverbank, hoping that in the future, they would grow and produce more bamboo shoots.

Now, after several years of growth, the areas where the beastmen planted cuttings have successfully grown into a large bamboo forest.

This year, as the ice and snow recede, bamboo shoots emerge from the soil, marking a time of bountiful harvests.

Now, bamboo shoots have become a part of the beastmen's daily diet. Although not the main sustenance, they significantly reduce the food pressure on the Dragon Nest Beastmen.

Facing the food pressure of early spring, the Dragon Nest Tribe already has a set plan and does not need to expend much extra energy.

For the entire tribe, the most important thing remains the first sowing of the new year.

After several years of wilderness reclamation, the fields encircling the entire Dragon Nest Tribe have already expanded to a vast area of over ten thousand acres, and this area continues to grow.

Moreover, compared to the early phase of the Dragon Nest Tribe's development, where most of the reclaimed fields were primarily planted with the single crop arrowroot, the crops planted this year are significantly more diverse.

Understanding the harm of monoculture before having sufficient means to manage pests and diseases, Austin already had plans for diversified agricultural planting.

Back then, Austin searched within the forest for other suitable crops to plant.

Wild rice, Otherworld yams, earth rice, thorn fruit... Austin tried to plant all kinds of grain crops on the newly opened fields. However, whether due to reasons of yield or seed availability, they couldn't be planted on a large scale and were only tested in some fields.

Initially, the grain crop with the most promise to compare in yield to arrowroot was this Otherworld yam.

Unfortunately, at the time, due to problems with yam seeds, large-scale planting was difficult.

Now, after several years of development, following territorial expansion, Austin has instructed the Dragon Nest Tribe to continue seeking new crops, and the Dragon Nest Beastmen have put Austin's instructions into practice during their campaigns against other tribes and the expansion of the Dragon Nest Territory.

During this time, they also discovered grain crops similar to wild wheat, and before the cold winter, when conquering a beastman tribe, they also found the growing area of Otherworld yams.

Thus, this year's ratio of cultivated grain crops changed.

The planting area occupied by arrowroot decreased, and in this year's agricultural planting, arrowroot accounts for 65% of the total area.

Although it still holds the main portion, this situation won't change soon; the high yield and short cycle production advantages of arrowroot are not easily replaced by other crops.

Wild rice, wild wheat, and yams together occupy 30% of the total cultivated area, serving as a supplement to arrowroot, in case the arrowroot crop suffers significantly from pests and diseases, potentially triggering a food crisis.

As for the remaining 5%, it's replaced by miscellaneous grains like earth rice and thorn fruit.

These grains, although low in output, are very nutritious and, compared to ordinary arrowroot, are far more delicious, making them just the right thing to earn the beastmen's labor points.

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