Aztec Eternals

"Kazuto's rice god is blocked? Well, it seems that the four-fingered translator Watanabe once told me? 'There are seven gods in a grain of rice'... Yes! Kazuto worships rice very much, just like We worship corn as well. He also recited an interesting poem to me: "The little rice fields leading to the mountains are blocked by the seedling water. Now the relationship between the two is no longer there, and they have not heard from each other for many days." , it’s really sad’…”

"I heard from the captive Kazuto that in the southern Kazuto village, farmers must build long canals to allow the mountain springs to flow slowly and become warmer before irrigating the rice fields. Otherwise, the rice god will be angry and let Rice cannot grow. This shows that the rice god of Kazuto does not like the cold..."

"Hmm! The white rice and yellow rice they grow, the 'rice' and 'millet' that the captives talked about, can't be grown on the island of Mausili?...So, is it because the climate is colder? Yes, extremely The northern peninsula only thaws in May, and there is snow in October. The coast is even colder than inland! And the Thousand Islands and Mausili Island next to it in the south are definitely not much warmer..."

"The same is true for the nomads here on the peninsula. They have never grown crops, and they all rely on deer, fishing and hunting. The sweet potatoes, corn, and pumpkins we brought cannot be grown at all. Only the most cold-resistant pigeon egg small potatoes can grow. ! ...And even the most cold-resistant small potatoes can only be planted once and harvested three times, and they grow very slowly..."

Covered with ice and snow, the spring on the peninsula is still clean and white. Long grass, moss and shrubs are all covered with snow, hiding life underground. On the hills to the west of Shennanshan Port, there is a particularly smooth snowfield, which is the potato field cultivated by the port. And this is the most precious and important thing brought by the kingdom's fleet, far more valuable than the two thousand kilograms of gold in the cellar!

"Potatoes are a gift from southern hummingbirds... Its colorful skin is the feathers on the male bird's head. And the pale white flowers are the pregnant belly of the female bird. And the roots hidden underground are as big as a bird's egg. It is the gift left by the hummingbird in the world, life that can be eaten..."

Exploration captain Zuvalo held the girl in his arms, stared at the potato fields under the white snow, and recited the inherited mythological poems in a low voice. At this moment, he suddenly realized the specialness of potatoes and truly realized the importance of this cold-resistant crop! However, the true importance of this "hummingbird gift", this extremely cold-tolerant crop, far exceeded his wildest imagination at the moment...

The potatoes grown in the kingdom were different from the large yellow-skinned potatoes that were common in later generations and developed in modern times. Instead, they had colorful skins and each one was only the size of a bird egg, closer to the original domesticated wild potatoes. And this cold-resistant crop coming down from the cold mountains of the Andes will completely change the land under his feet, and will also change the fate of all tribes in Northeast Asia!

"The rice seeds of the Japanese cannot survive, so their settlements can only stay on the south side of the large island of Mausili. There are no crops in the mountains, deer and tents of the peninsula, so they can only migrate with their deer herds...and then What about the Nüzhi tribes and the Mongolian tribes in His Majesty’s predictions? What can they live on? … Even beyond these tribes, further west? "

Zuvalo let go of the girl in his arms and suddenly looked to the west. His eyes seemed to go beyond the snow-capped mountains, see through the end of the vast land, see the vast East Siberia, West Siberia, thousands of miles away!

At the end of the fifteenth century, in this era that continues to enter the Little Ice Age, there are no crops that can withstand extreme cold in the entire Old World! Rye, domesticated from Central Asia, can only be cultivated along the warm Baltic Sea coast. It cannot cross the Ural Mountains to the east, nor conquer the colder White Sea to the north. It would take another two hundred years for them to be domesticated before they could cultivate cold-resistant rye adapted to the North Sea coast from generation to generation, not to mention the extremely vast and cold East and West Siberia!

In fact, before potatoes were introduced, "going to Siberia to grow potatoes" was just a cold and heartless fantasy. No matter how much Russian serfs could endure the extreme cold, they would never be able to establish settled villages on the lands of the nomadic tribes. If they want to survive, they can only live like the nomadic tribes and be assimilated by each other...

The rice from the south, even though it has been domesticated by the Koreans and Japanese into cold-resistant varieties, still has its crop limits, which is far from the cold-resistant ability developed by later generations. At 42 degrees north latitude, the large island of Mausili with snow falling in May, and the white mountains and black waters at the same latitude, are the limits of their extension!

At the beginning of the Little Ice Age, the crop base of the Northeast did not exist outside of agricultural development. On the contrary, as the climate became colder and colder, the Ming Dynasty continued to shrink, giving up the increasingly cold and cold northern lands that could no longer be cultivated by military households for self-sufficiency. Nuergandusi along the Heilongjiang River has been abandoned for more than half a century. The Nvzhi tribes in the northeastern region also withdrew to the south during the Ming Dynasty, and gradually fell out of control, and began chaos, annexation and fighting that were initially insignificant and unobtrusive...

In terms of the crops themselves, whether it is rice in the East or rye in the West, they are both fruit-eating grasses. Even if the crops can be grown successfully, if the temperature is too low or the temperature drops sharply, it is common for the crops to not bear fruit and the harvest to be lost. Potatoes are from the Solanaceae family that eat underground tubers. They are one of the greatest crops domesticated by the aboriginal people. They are naturally more adaptable to severe cold than grass crops! As long as it can grow, there will be tubers produced, it’s just a matter of harvesting more and harvesting less!

Therefore, when the farming tribes of the Old World did not have potatoes and crops that could withstand extreme cold, they could only stop at the limit of farming, forever struggling back and forth with the dividing nomadic, fishing and hunting tribes. Even in warm centuries, farmers moved in after the dividing line and established farming villages for a time, just like the Great Warm Period of the Tang Dynasty... These villages and farmers will eventually be replaced by local nomads and farmers as the temperature drops. The fishermen and hunters were assimilated, and then entered the Hu from Xia!

Therefore, before potatoes were introduced, and before more cold-resistant crops were cultivated from generation to generation, the Ming Dynasty could only give up the Outer Northeast, which could not make ends meet, the Russians could only block the west side of the Ural Mountains, the Koreans could only stop at the Tumen River, and the people We can only be stuck on the south coast of Hokkaido! ...It’s not that they don’t want to go further, they have also made efforts and attempts, but the crops have not been harvested, farming cannot survive, and Jisi’s conquest will eventually collapse!

At this moment, from the Ural Mountains to Hokkaido, from the 400 mm precipitation line to the low temperature line that crops can tolerate, this is the dividing line between the farming peoples of the East and the West and all the nomads and hunters in Asia! After this dividing line, the farming lifestyle cannot be fixed at all, and it has no advantages for local nomads and hunting!

But all of this, this determines the ancient division between farming and nomadic pastoralism, the traditions and destiny that have not changed for thousands of years on the cold land of tens of millions of square kilometers in North Asia... At this moment, with the arrival of potatoes from the New World, silently The first altered, edible tuber was buried!

Even though this tuber is only the size of a bird's egg, it will inevitably extend in the long river of time until it covers the entire vast land of North Asia, until it completely changes everything that is ancient and unchanged! The God of Potatoes, even though He came down from the Andes Mountains, he is the destined and true North Asian God! …

"Phew! The rice god of Kazuto is blocked by the guardian spirits of the Ainu tribes, so rice millet cannot be cultivated on the island of Moshiri... But the potatoes we brought can be cultivated further north and colder in the Ainu land. What is grown on the peninsula can also be grown on the large island of Mausili. Potatoes are a gift from the divine hummingbird, a gift from the Lord God! ... Shells, do you know what this means?”

"Ah? Um...zu?...What...does this mean?"

"Haha! This shows that the main god of our Jiao people is a more powerful god than the Kazumi god! ... The main god is the god of the Ainu people! That's why he was not resisted by the guardian spirits of the three tribes... "

"Ah! Is that so? Yes...that's true!... Zu, it turns out that you are also the guardian tribe on the eastern island? Are you a branch of the Ainu tribes?..."

"No, Shell. You don't know the vastness of the world...the vastness and complexity of the Jiaoren tribe, the envelopment and immortality of the Lord God's power, will far exceed your imagination! The so-called Ainu land is just a branch of the Lord God Hummingbird. Hair, and the real land of the main god will be as big as countless Ainu lands! As for you Ainu people, you are a branch of the Jiao people, our first separated brothers..."

"Ah? We are a branch of the Jiao people... separated brothers?... Zu! You are wrong, I am a woman. We... we are husband and wife! Zu, let's go to the tent, I want to... fly with you like a bird …”

By the ice and snow port, Zuvalo's eyes were full of vicissitudes, and he told the simple and touching myth of the main god in an affectionate tone. And this missionary myth sounded like some kind of promise to the young girl Qiandao Shell.

Join the "Jiao Ren" family and be blessed by a powerful god. The future of the Ainu people, the future of their tribe, the future of her children... Unknowingly, Qiandao Shell blushed, and her eyes showed emotional anticipation. until…

"Ouch! Ouch!"

The ever-vigilant Samoyed started barking again. And the fast-running sled also appeared from the end of the snowfield. More and more big and wise dogs came over excitedly, and they suddenly stopped obediently until they were slapped in the air by the mistress' scolding whip.

"Ouch...wu...wu..."

"Pah! Pah!..."

The master of mountain dog training, the huntress Msona, waved her whip vigorously and jumped down from the suddenly stopped sled. She stepped on high moccasin boots, puffed out her high chest, and walked quickly to Zuvarro's side. When she saw the short and fearful Shimabe girl in the other's arms, who could hit him with one hand, she curled her lips in disdain, looked down at her husband, and muttered angrily.

"Zu! It seems that I came at the wrong time!..."

"No, you came just in time!..."

Zuvalo raised his head and raised a handsome, confident smile. Then, he held the Thousand Island Seashell in one hand and spread his other arm, allowing the huntress Musona to lean into his arms. He just hugged the two tribal wives and asked with a gentle smile.

"Sona, what did grandma say?"

"The old grandmother asked me to send a message. She wants to see you again, before the spring thaws and the tribe moves north..."

Huntress Msona sipped her lips and leaned into the man's not-so-tall arms, feeling both relieved and uneasy. What reassured her was the identity of the other party, her powerful husband, a tribal chief who controlled two hundred leather-armored warriors! What made her uneasy was also the identity of the other party. Two ships of reinforcements from the Haibu really arrived in long boats last year... Now, as two hundred strong warriors and the chief of nearly a thousand northern tribes, my husband already has the qualifications and possibility to challenge the old grandmother! But all these changes only occurred in two or three years, and she even just gave birth to a child...

"Zu, will you go to see grandma?..."

"Oh? Sona, do you want me to go?..."

"I, I... Zu! You are the chief of the tribe, the alpha wolf appointed by the gods. Your decisions cannot be influenced by women, and you should not listen to me! You must consider the tribe and be as fierce as a wolf at all times. keen!…"

"Hmm...a wolf-like chief who makes his own decisions?..."

Upon hearing this answer, Zuvalo raised his eyebrows and hugged the tall huntress tighter. He lowered his voice and asked in a low voice.

"How is grandma doing?"

"She has the protection of the shaman and she can live for a few more years."

"Where is your father Mu Quan? I heard that he was officially designated as the successor chief by the old grandmother?..."

"Yes! My father was determined to be the successor chief... But because of this, he also led hundreds of tribesmen to the north under the order of his old grandmother. He was driven away at the newly built Lutai River spring camp. The Deer tribe cannot go south easily... There is only one chief in the tribe, and there is only one shaman. She never makes mistakes and is unshakable!

"Um…"

Zuvalo narrowed his eyes, pondered for a long time, and then nodded slowly.

"God bless you! In early May, I will go north in person to visit my revered old grandmother! I will also make a blood oath with my old grandmother to formally determine the boundaries between the two pastures and the camp, so that everyone can feel at ease..."

"Ah! Zu, you?...How many people are you planning to bring?..."

"Haha! The old grandmother is your grandmother and also my kind elder. There is no need to bring anyone else with me. It's just me, plus two hunters from the mountain tribe, and my wife, you!"

"The sacred mountain of ancestral spirits! Zu, my husband! You...you have so many warriors, why don't you bring more people? Just like last time..."

"Haha! Sona, when I only had one ship of warriors, I wanted to take them all with me and let my grandmother see them. But now that I have three ships of warriors, I can't take them with me, and I can't let my grandmother see them. Seeing uneasiness…”

Zuvalo smiled slightly and said something like a tongue twister. Then, he continued to smile in the clear eyes of Sona who was thinking hard.

"In addition, when I go north this time, I want to ask my grandmother... to support the captain of the fleet and the warrior chief Tamicao who stayed in the camp to ask for a marriage with a noble girl from the tribe! According to the laws of the kingdom, he is after me. The successor chief. He has great respect for his grandmother and hopes to consolidate the sacred alliance with Yamabe..."

"And after him, if another fleet arrives next year, he will also follow the custom and ask the respected grandmother for a marriage between your noble daughter!..."

"The supreme Lord God witnesses! The mountains and the sea have been married to each other and supported each other from generation to generation, just like the white mountains and seas of the peninsula, existing side by side in the sacred snow!..."