Zhengpanlam was still a small village, with most of the residents crowding into the existing huts, as many buildings remained to be constructed. Only a few fields had been planted, and it would be clear to any visitor that more would be needed should the village hope to provide for itself long-term. By all accounts the village was unfinished, and not suitable for long-term habitation.

At least not yet. In reality, the village had been established less that two months prior, and its relatively few inhabitants were still working their hardest to get fully established. Zhengpanlam was actually the second village established by a group from Zultanlam in only a few short years. With the fish brought in by the now common trawling boats rapidly inflating the population, Zultanlam was able to send new settlers south with an incredible frequency. It wasn't the only village to do so either, as many villages from other home villages had cropped up along the coast of the southern bend in the last 5 generations.

However, the people of Zhengpanlam considered themselves part of the rightful inhabitants of the southern bend. In the stories of their elders, many generations ago Zahrh-Panlu, the then Watum of Zultanlam, had been the first Abanye to round the southern bend and return, bringing tell of a new civilized people in the east. Since that point, new villages settled by migrants from Zultanlam had always been settled on and around the bend, each further east than the last. Zhengpanlam was only the most recent in a host of settlements originating from Zultanlam.

However, there were other reasons for villages to pop up on the southern bend. To the northeast, Abanye had been expanding into the grassy hills of the uplands. This was surely a terrible decision, as these hills clearly lacked the trees to build sturdy ships, but the western Abanye had no power over the decisions of those in the east. In fact, the indiscretion of the east was proving to be a boon for the west, which had begun to trade their strong timber eastward, either in the form of bare lumber or in the form of completed boats. Many migrants, departing from either the western Abanye lands or the eastern, began to settle the southern bend.

The demand for lumber, the legacy of Zahrh-Panlu, and the desire to forge your destiny in new lands. All of these things drove the Abanye to round the southern bend, settling there for good. For the people of Zhengpanlam, the unfinished and cramped state of their settlement was only temporary. They were determined to become one of the greatest Abanye villages of the south. There was a fortune to be made in the timber trade, and it would be theirs!

Abanye expand further south along the peninsula, driven by rising populations and a high demand for timber.

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