Qin Official

"Your Majesty, those Yue shamans have all been killed!"

Heifu nodded. The shocking scene happened suddenly and unexpectedly. Fortunately, Sang Mu flew over and stretched out his hand to block it for him. Sang Mu was wearing thick armor, and the fangs of the little snake only penetrated the leather wrist guard on his hand. Later, he learned that this was a highly venomous snake. If he was bitten, he would die in one day, which made Hei Fu break out in a cold sweat.

Needless to say, this must be a vicious plot by the Fujian and Yue people. With a wave of Hei Fu's hand, the ten Yue shamans who sent Wu Zhu's head were all arrested and interrogated one by one.

"You will understand after you go to the snake cave in the palace." The old Yue Wu, whose teeth were knocked out and whose mouth was full of blood, said.

At this moment, Hei Fu is leading his army into the "Royal Palace" of Dongye City. After what happened just now, the short soldiers are extremely cautious. They send people wearing leather boots to step on every bush and beat them with knives, for fear that they will jump out again. Bring out a snake.

This place is called a palace, but it is actually just some short stilt-style buildings. However, it can be clearly seen that their layout is a circle. In the center of the circle is a large wood-carved snake. In front of the snake's head, there are several people with a length of ten meters and a width of ten. The deep pit was made of bricks and stones. Before I even got close, I smelled a fishy smell...

Taking a closer look, the situation inside is horrifying: there are countless snakes and insects at the bottom of the pit, either green anacondas as thick as a human waist, cobras as thick as a child's arms, and even more, colorful snakes as small as fingers. Poisonous snakes, such as kraits, bungar snakes, oriole snakes, and bamboo-leaf green snakes, were illuminated by the light of the torch and crawled to the corners one after another, leaving only the numerous bones in the middle exposed.

The fear of snakes in humans, at least in the Central Plains, is deeply ingrained in their genes. Seeing this, even the Dongmen Leopard, who is known as a brave general and can kill crocodiles, couldn't help but take a step back and cursed: "This Do Fujian people like playing with snakes so much?"

Heifu also felt panicked. He glanced at the giant snake statues and snake patterns on the buildings everywhere in the "palace" and said:

"The people of Fujian, Southeast Vietnam, are the species of snakes. The people of Fujian and Yue are originally a tribe that worships snakes, but I didn't expect that they would become so obsessed with them."

Heifu remembered that Mei Wei once told him that the Yue people in Lingnan had the same ancestors and were divided into "twelve kingdoms", each of which had its own beast gods to worship. One of the tribes who worshiped snakes was the Fujian people. This tribe moved into Fujian and became the dominant ethnic group in the area. Later, the descendants of King Goujian of Yue fled here and became the rulers of the Fujian people. However, they also inherited the local worship of snakes and regarded snakes as auspicious things.

Local aristocratic women often use snake-carved hairpins to decorate their hair, while men carve snake-shaped patterns on their faces. The two unique skills that Minyue shamans need to learn are chicken divination and snake raising, catching and playing with snakes...

Every seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the Central Plains, a huge "Wandering Snake God" is held in Dongye City. Fujian people, men, women, old and young, will catch a snake, either hold it in their hands, wrap it around their arms, or wrap it around their necks. , What's more, some actually kissed and danced with snakes. The scene was very strange. The King of Minyue would also wear a snake crown on his head and have people carry a huge wooden snake statue around the city.

According to the confessions of the group of Yue shamans, yesterday, when King Wu Zhu of Min Yue saw that he was defeated in the water battle and that he was about to be destroyed, he fled back to Dongye alone, pinning his hopes on the snake god he worshiped...

"Look at that giant anaconda."

Hei Fu pointed to a large python that was full and sleeping at the bottom of the pit and said: "The belly is very thick. It must have just eaten a person. I heard those Yue shamans say that in a moment of despair, Wu Zhu killed his wife, The three of them threw themselves into the pit, sacrificed it to the snake god, and asked Yue shamans to perform rituals, hoping to arouse the snake cultivators in the Minjiang River..."

Xiu Snake, this is the name of the snake god revered by the Fujian people. It is black in color and has a green head. It is said that it can swallow an elephant and digest it for three years before spitting out the bones.

In the legends of the Central Plains, this monster was shot by Hou Yi long ago, but in the myths of the Fujian people, the Xiu Snake meanders southeastward and climbs over the Wuyi Mountains, and the Min River is its incarnation. The descendants of Snake Cultivator also sleep at the bottom of the Min River. Once the King of Min Yue sacrifices human blood, it will wake up. With a flick of its tail, it can boil the Min Sea and open its big mouth to swallow thousands of troops. …

Wu Zhu threw his wife and children to feed the snakes, praying for the giant snake to appear from the Min River, destroy the Qin fleet in one fell swoop, and save Min Yue from danger.

It's a pity that this is the real plane. The Min River is calm and the Qin people cross it by boat in the early morning.

After waiting all night, Wu Zhu became even more desperate and immediately committed suicide. His body was thrown into a snake cave, and a poisonous snake was stuffed into his head by Yue Wu who used some method to make him unconscious. He tried to drag the commander of the Qin army to his back when he offered his head. .

"How vicious!"

Dongmen Leopard and others felt their hair stand on end when they heard this, so they shouted that they were going to throw down some firewood and burn the cave full of venomous snakes!

"It's a pity to burn it to ashes. It's better to make snake soup."

After being beaten seven times by the Dongmen Leopard, Mei Rong finally became honest and came over to suggest that others would find snakes creepy, but he would salivate.

"South Vietnamese people not only eat Minyue people, but also like to eat snakes. We make snake soup using this method and it tastes delicious!"

Seeing the disgust on everyone's faces, Mei Rong was very surprised: "Some people don't like eating snakes?"

Lujia, who was still Heifu's master, coughed lightly and told Mei Rong a story.

"During the time of King Wei of Chu, there was a man named Gao Gu who was a descendant of the Qi people. He deserted the country and entered Chu. He was convicted and was released to South Vietnam. After three dynasties, he reached Gao Gu and was no doubt associated with the Yue people. Later Gao Gu traveled north to Qi. The snake was made into bacon and used as dry food. After arriving at Qi, Master Qi treated him very generously, so Gao Gu took out a patterned viper jerky and gave it to the master as a reward. The master was so frightened that he turned around and left, but Gao Gu thought it was because the master disliked him. The gift was meager, so I ordered the officer to find the largest venomous snake to give to the owner..."

This is a story that makes people laugh and cry. The cultural differences between the north and the south are so huge. The heavy taste of the South Vietnamese people, let alone the Qi people, even Dongmen Bao and others in Nanjun cannot understand.

Therefore, Mei Rong's love for snake soup can only be appreciated by himself.

At this time, Xiaoli Cang came over and offered a plan.

"The princes and Zou Wuxie agreed that if all the queens were destroyed, the Qin would conquer Dongye, and the rest of the land would be conquered by Wuxie. However, the Fujian people in Dongye worship snakes, and there are many snake king temples in the city to worship them. If there is any witchcraft to incite it, I'm afraid, It’s not good for us.”

He suggested: "It is better to follow Ximen Bao's rule in Ye and throw all Yue shamans into snake caves. Then destroy the Snake King Temple in the city and issue a decree strictly prohibiting Fujian people from feeding snakes."

This involves the question of how the Qin army will govern Dongye City in the future. Li Cang studied laws and regulations, so his thinking is biased towards the legalism of ordinary Qin officials. If you don't like anything, just issue an order to ban it.

But as soon as Li Cang finished speaking, Lu Jia put forward a different opinion.

"The subordinates thought it inappropriate to abandon it suddenly."

Dongmen Leopard has always been xenophobic. When he saw Lu Jia, an outsider, coming in to make a suggestion, he frowned and said, "There's no room here for you, a little prisoner, to interrupt!"

But Heifu stopped Dongmen Bao's rudeness and looked at Lu Jia: "Tell me more."

Lu Jia bowed: "It is a good thing to change customs. The Fujian people worship snakes and build many temples for obscenity. It should be changed gradually. However, this custom has been spread in Fujian for a long time and is difficult to change. It is not suitable to forcefully change it by law. It should be noted that the law prohibits it for a while. , and education lasts forever. If you follow the law without educating first, you are abandoning the foundation and focusing on the end. The ancients said that if you are a good king, the barbarians will obey them, special customs, and strange habits, and you will be virtuous... I hope you will check it out."

Li Cang said: "Mr. Lu, don't you Confucian scholars often say that you only hear about using Xia to convert barbarians, but you never hear about converting barbarians to barbarians?"

Lu Jia smiled and said: "Those are what Mencius said. He said this to mock Xu Xing, a farmer from Chu State, who was a barbarian with a dove-tongued bird. Unfortunately, although I am a Confucian scholar, I am also a 'barbarian' from Chu. So I beg to differ.”

Mencius was indeed a regional black man. The Confucianism that Lu Jia studied was not the Qilu lineage, but the Lanling lineage that was deeply influenced by Xunzi. At the same time, they all had certain Huang-Lao thoughts, so even though they disliked these barbarian customs, they preferred them. As "cultivating one's teachings does not change one's customs", it is recommended to change gradually and gradually.

Xiao Tao, who had just finished setting up sentries in Dongye City, just came back. After hearing the argument between Li Cang and Lu Jia, he also said: "I think Lu... Lu Sheng is right."

Xiao Tao stammered and told Heifu about the local customs he had witnessed when he was in South Vietnam: Vietnamese people worship secular people, ghosts and gods, and are extremely superstitious. Sometimes, the Qin army killed its rulers and killed its tribesmen, but the Yue people did not resist much. But once they destroy their temples, altars, or even step on a frog or kill a crocodile, it will cause an uproar. During the first expedition against Vietnam, many local garrisons were besieged by the Vietnamese because of these inadvertent things.

But for Yue people, this is a great evil that violates taboos.

"Now the Fujian people are afraid of the armies of the kings and princes, so they will surrender and kill those who disobey. But...but if the Snake Temple is destroyed, the Fujian people will be resentful, and the remaining garrison will probably face endless resistance from the local people. "

"Xiao Tao's words make sense. A master who never forgets the past and the future must not make the same mistakes he made during the first expedition to Vietnam!"

Hei Fu nodded. Indeed, as Xiao Tao said, compared to being conquered and exposed to faith, these barbarians were more sensitive.

He then asked everyone three questions.

"What are we here for?"

"Are you here to change customs and make laws penetrate into every household in Fujian?"

Li Cang was stunned for a moment, then lowered his head.

"Are you here to promote enlightenment and turn Fujian into the coastal Central Plains, the home of Confucian scholars?"

Lu Jia was a little embarrassed and raised his arms to admit his mistake.

Heifu said: "No, we are just a lone army deep in a foreign land. We are going to use Dongye as a stronghold so that the Fujian people can surrender honestly, help the Qin army, and even serve as the vanguard to attack South Vietnam, that's all."

As a general, you should not only think about attack, but also consider politics. But what's worse is that you forget about your own duty!

Hei Fu spread his hands: "Therefore, changing customs, promoting enlightenment, and transforming Xia into barbarians is a matter for the local officials sent by the imperial court in the future and has nothing to do with us!"

Therefore, although he was almost bitten by a snake, he would not vent his anger on the local beliefs.

Heifu was even thinking about whether he could take advantage of the local custom of worshiping snakes.

Superstition is an obstacle that prevents local officials from governing the place, but for Heifu, the "conqueror", superstition can sometimes be his help!

Looking at the flag rising gradually at the top of Dongye City, Heifu had an idea...

…

On the third day after Dongye changed hands, all Yue shamans loyal to Wuzhu were secretly executed.

But Heifu prohibited the Qin soldiers from invading the snake temples inside and outside the city, and also asked Zou Wuxie to find a group of highly respected Yue wizards around Dongye...

The large and small Yue shamans gathered around the snake cave and were surprised to find that the snake cave here was not only intact, but had even been repaired. The generals of the Qin Dynasty even had pigs and cows thrown in to feed the hungry snakes.

"Everyone."

Heifu appeared, standing under the statue of Xiu Snake, pointing to the red dragon flag spread out on the ground, representing his status as a "lord", and said to the Yue shamans in a pleasant manner:

"Don't you know, I also admire snakes?"