He knew the beastmen were straightforward, or perhaps just lacking in brains.
But he hadn’t realized they were even more outrageous than he’d imagined.
To actually march in with troops, slaughter any who resisted, and absorb those who surrendered, damn it, was this rebuilding a tribe? This was nothing less than looting and extermination.
Standing to the side, Stanley’s expression was also somewhat peculiar.
Inwardly, he sighed with emotion. Truly worthy of being beastmen, developing their power with such unbridled savagery, and acting as if it were perfectly ordinary.
Only in the Barren Plains could something like this happen.
“Craig, there are many ways to recruit people.”
Li De looked at this Level 16 Temple Warrior under his command and, for the first time, felt that trying to reason with his subordinate was giving him a bit of a headache.
“When you do things this way, not only is it inefficient, but it also easily breeds resentment among your subordinates. This isn’t conducive to building up the tribe.”
Craig looked at Li De with a somewhat blank expression. “My lord, on the Barren Plains, this has always been how tribes are annexed. Whoever has the greater strength possesses the most clansmen and the widest lands.
The Lionmane Tribe only grew to an army of over ten thousand because of Chief Kap’s absolute power.”
For a moment, Li De didn’t know how to reply. Primitive and barbaric as this method was, it was the survival mode of the Barren Plains.
He couldn’t simply dismiss it as right or wrong. After all, the harsh environment had forged the rule of the survival of the fittest. A strong leader was indeed better able to keep the tribe alive.
But since he had come here, naturally he wouldn’t let Craig continue with this clumsy, brutal, and utterly inefficient approach.
“No, Craig, there are plenty of other methods.”
Li De looked into Craig’s puzzled eyes and slowly began to speak.
“What is the thing most lacking in the Barren Plains? What do the beastmen desire most?”
Craig’s eyes brightened. “The thing most lacking is food. What they desire most is food and armor!”
Li De nodded. At least this fellow wasn’t stupid.
“That’s right. This year, food is especially scarce, isn’t it?”
“Yes. If food hadn’t become so extremely scarce this year, Chief Kap wouldn’t have easily ordered the attack on the dwarven clan.”
Craig nodded repeatedly, and with that enormous wolf head of his, he looked strangely silly for some reason.
“So now, if you have 2,000 sets of armor and weapons, plus enough food for 5,000 people to eat for half a year, what can you do?”
“My lord, I-” Craig was stunned, then looked at Li De a bit bewildered.
If you had food, of course you’d store it. If you had weapons and armor, you’d naturally equip your own people.
But he sensed that his idea wasn’t what Li De wanted to hear, so he stammered for a long while and still didn’t dare to speak.
Seeing this, Li De couldn’t help but shake his head, half amused, half exasperated. He stopped keeping him in suspense and explained directly.
“You can pick out some of your more clever subordinates and have them spread word among the surrounding tribes that the Lionmane Tribe is recruiting.
As long as they pass the Lionmane Tribe’s trials, the entire tribe can merge into the Lionmane Tribe, and every warrior will receive a set of armor.
The Lionmane Tribe has enough abundant food to survive this winter. Any beastman who joins us will be guaranteed food supplies and no one will starve to death.
Also, the Lionmane Tribe is only recruiting 5,000 beastmen. We’ve already filled 2,000 spots, and once the quota is full, there will be no more recruitment this year.”
Compared to such primitive and violent methods of coercion, Li De far preferred high-efficiency approaches.
How much time would it waste to conquer one tribe after another? How much strength would be lost in the process? It simply wasn’t worth it.
Craig had already reported this year’s food shortages to him. Even a powerful force like the Lionmane Tribe was lacking food, how must those small tribes be faring?
Most likely, most beastmen were already in despair over the coming Months of Deep Winter.
After all, not every beastman could cross the border into human territory to plunder food when winter came. Most beastmen still relied on their own reserves to survive the bitter cold.
And now, in this moment of despair, if a powerful tribe was willing to accept them, offering not only food but also armor, would these small tribes be tempted?
In the hundreds of miles surrounding the Dwarven Valley alone, at least 200,000 beastmen lived. Even if only a small fraction came, it would be more than enough.
Li De didn’t need that many, just a few thousand would be enough to restart the Dwarven Valley.
And once the word spread, if any beastmen decided to try to seize the food by force, that would suit him perfectly.
The Level 18 bone dragon, the Level 16 bronze cyclops Kosso, and the Level 15 King of Dawn Bats Castro, all three of these terrifying behemoths were currently stationed in the Dwarven Valley.
They could have a chance to experience firsthand how beastmen conducted expansion through brute force.
As long as a powerful Beastman King like Kap didn’t appear, Li De wouldn’t be concerned in the slightest.
And according to Craig’s information, within a radius of a hundred kilometers of the Dwarven Valley, all the territory belonged to the Lionmane Tribe. There were no other large tribes here.
So he had nothing to worry about.
Hearing Li De’s words, Craig finally caught on, his expression lighting up with delight as he nodded. “My lord, your wisdom rivals that of the Creator himself!”
That giant wolf head, at this moment, made Li De inexplicably feel it looked quite comical, rather like a husky???
This Level 16 wolfman was straightforward in temperament, but not stupid. It was only that the Barren Plains’ way of doing things had never left room for such ideas to occur to him.
Here, a clenched fist was the only language.
“Have your men start making preparations. Also, be sure to emphasize that we have very few spots to fill and they’re almost all taken, make it feel urgent.
And…”
Li De patiently explained to Craig exactly how to spread the message. In the end, the wolfman happily summoned his subordinates and passed on Li De’s instructions.
After that, more than a hundred beastmen departed from the Dwarven Valley carrying Craig’s orders.