Chapter 87: Crow's Warning

According to Ma Shao's plan, Mianxiong City developed in an orderly manner, promoting writing, reclaiming farmland, building houses, training soldiers... and of course spreading the Spiritual Oracle religion.

Besides this, he has another important job recently - economy.

With the popularization of currency, Arabic numerals, and basic arithmetic, some commercial activities gradually emerged in the tribe, and people began to get used to using currency for various settlements.

Some people even know how to take advantage of information asymmetry, buy low and sell high, and make a small profit by trading extremely limited quantities of goods.

Ma Shao didn't care about them, because so far those who did this kind of thing were all drunkards. The money they earned would soon be spent in the drinking houses and into the pockets of the liquor and pharmacies, which was equivalent to voluntarily paying the "alcohol tax".

Sure enough, regardless of time and place, smokers and drinkers are full of dedication.

People's concept of wealth has also gradually changed, or from vague to concrete.

Ma Shao first created an Apache word "economy", and then established a new department called the "Ministry of Economics" to manage all matters related to the economy.

Of course, this department is almost an empty shell, because there are no economic talents and no complex economic problems in the tribe.

At present, there is probably only one economic issue that really requires Ma Shao to focus on, and that is to improve public ownership.

As an Indian clan in the Stone Age society, their economic system already had a large component of public ownership. After Ma Shao became the chief, he further strengthened this and took control of almost all production and distribution links.

However, previous distribution was directly distributed in the form of materials, such as beef, cowhide, etc.

Now that money is widely available, it is naturally no longer possible to distribute it entirely in this primitive way. Otherwise, it will not only be inefficient but also not conducive to centralization.

By using currency, Ma Shao will be able to conveniently concentrate surplus value like capitalists, which is naturally a concentration of power.

For example, when organizing a hunting trip, he could choose to first pay the tribe members two thousand dollars as a reward, and then sell the harvested beef to the tribe members for three thousand dollars, so that he would have one thousand dollars in his hands.

With this thousand dollars, he could use it to buy ironware, muskets, and even various products from the white world from the white people.

It can also be used to issue orders to the tribe members through economic means, such as purchasing the liquor from the tribe members, or using bonuses to encourage the Comanche to learn the Apache language.

Of course, if Ma Shao did this, the end result would only be an economic crisis, with some of the beef unsold, just like the milk that was poured out during the Great Depression.

Therefore, the price of beef he set was basically equal to the wages of the tribesmen, or even slightly lower, and by the way, he supplied currency to the tribesmen to avoid deflation.

However, the above does not include buffalo skins.

Most of the buffalo hides were bound to be exported to the white world, and this was almost the only product that the Indians could export.

These cowhides for export are the real surplus value that Ma Shao collects from the tribe.

With the current size of the tribe, the hides obtained from hunting each month can bring the tribe thousands of dollars in fiscal revenue.

Add to that the income from the town of Clark and the "alcohol tax" and so on... the tribe's monthly fiscal revenue is already close to 20,000 US dollars.

Specifically, the fiscal revenue for July was $19,260.81, which is undoubtedly a gratifying figure.

This morning.

Ma Shao is giving lectures to white children. Apart from math and science classes, this is his main teaching job now.

So far, there are only a few people in the tribe who can use English proficiently, and considering the particularity of educating white people, Ma Shao has always done it himself.

The effect is quite good. So far, most of the white children from Clark Town can have simple conversations in Apache, and they have long lost their resistance to the Apache tribe.

They even liked the horse whistle.

After all, they had never seen such a knowledgeable and interesting teacher, and in front of an excellent teacher from the 21st century, their performance was no different from that of Indian children.

"Okay, get out of class is over. That's all for today." Ma Shao put down the chalk and said, "Let's go play duel cards."

"Burn our boats!" The white children rushed out of the classroom excitedly.

Millie was the only one still sitting in her seat, and even with these white friends she was often alone like this.

Seeing her wandering eyes, Ma Shao asked, "What's wrong, Millie?"

"I heard..." Millie moved her lips, wanting to say something but stopping herself.

"What did you hear?"

Millie finally said, "I heard that you are a god...is that true?"

Ma Shao was embarrassed for a moment. This was of course referring to the Oracle Church. Now even Millie knew about it. And it seemed to be a distorted doctrine. After all, the Oracle Church only said that he had divinity, but did not directly say that he was God.

"Don't believe what they say," he said.

Millie almost interrupted him: "Yes!"

She stood up from her seat: "Even gods won't admit that they are gods, you really are a god!"

Ma Shao asked back: "So, Xiao Mili, do you admit that you are a god?"

Millie shook her head and looked at him firmly, "I'm not, but this is different. You're obviously not human!"

"..."Ma Shao broke out in a sweat.

Millie said hopefully, "Since you are a god, can you please grant me two wishes? We can be friends, right?"

"I'm really not a god, and even the shamans don't say so. They just say that I have divinity." Ma Shao really wanted to clarify.

Millie still had hope: "That's just one, it's just a small wish, it doesn't require you to be particularly powerful."

"I can't fulfill any of my wishes. Look at this scar on my arm. If I were a god, how could I not be able to remove even such a small scar?" Ma Shao shook his arms.

Millie looked at the scar for a moment, with disappointment in her eyes: "Okay, you're right."

Ma Shao was about to say something else.

Suddenly, there was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the classroom, and several people came rushing over.

"Great Chief."

Ma Shao turned around and saw that the visitors were several tribesmen and a outsider. Judging from the style of their clothing, the outsider seemed to be an Arapaho.

"Who is he?" He frowned slightly.

The Arapaho took the initiative to introduce himself, speaking Apache fluently: "Dear son of the sky, I am Toe, the messenger of the crow."

Ma Shao couldn't help but feel surprised: "Crow? What did he send you for? Could it be to declare war?"

"Of course not. After you released us, we have been trying to fulfill our promise and don't want to start a war again." Toes said, "But I did bring news of war this time. This is the warning from the crows."