Volume of Changning Kingdom: Section 36 Jianwen Lost Track (1)
"We've arrived at Taojia Village!" At four o'clock in the afternoon, a village appeared at the corner of a river bend ahead. Surrounded by large areas of paddy fields and dry land, it looked prosperous.
"It's getting late, we'll settle here tonight." Huang Shidong said.
After the boatman docked the boat, everyone abandoned the boat and landed. They moved their bodies and limbs. It was very frustrating to stay in the small awning boat all day.
This is a small village. A wooden fence surrounds the whole village. There are thirty or forty households in the village. Although it is in a wilderness, the houses here are all made of stone and are very solid.
As soon as the Huang family's boat arrived, more than a dozen people gathered on the shore to wait for the boat. As soon as Huang Shidong stepped onto the river bank, a middle-aged man at the head bowed forward, crossed his hands and said, "I've seen Mr. Huang!"
"Is Tao Bo's health okay?"
"Thanks to the Commander-in-Chief, it's all good! Second Master, please come to the village to talk to some distinguished guests." Tao Bo said the Hakka dialect commonly used here.
There is a big house in the center of the village, which is the ancestral hall of the Tao family. Because the Tao family is a common surname here, most of the village affairs are handled here on weekdays. It also serves as a private school, warehouse and other purposes in the village. At this time, it also serves as a
Be a post station to entertain distinguished guests.
The common surname here is the Tao family. Their ancestors were originally slaves in the General Military Mansion. When Tao's grandfather was a generation old, the head of the Huang family rewarded Tao's grandfather with this land because he had served for many years and had great achievements.
The whole family came here to build a village and reclaim wasteland.
After establishing a foothold, they spread their branches here. Later, new immigrants and local natives captured during the expedition were gradually brought in. Taojia Village gradually grew and reached its current scale.
Wu Tingwei looked around the village and unexpectedly discovered that there were also some indigenous people working here. It seemed that the relationship between the local Chinese and the local indigenous tribes was really good. It is understandable that the Huang family tried their best to protect the Dayak people.
After a while, Tao Bo's son came out to report that the rice had been cooked, but there was no meat here, and someone had to go out to catch some fish for extra meals.
Because dusk was approaching, it was not safe outside the village, so more men were needed, and fishing had to be approved by Tao Bo.
"Go in person and bring back a few more young men. Come back with more fish and shrimps."
Cui Yunhong thought to herself that there were more than 20 people in her group, and they had to carry more than ten kilograms of rice just to eat. This was not a small burden. She felt very sorry and tried to dissuade her: "It's enough if you have food to eat and vegetables.
, there is no need to prepare special dishes.”
Huang Shidong smiled and said: "It doesn't matter, just let them get it. The rice here is not valuable. Let alone one meal, it won't matter if we eat it for several months. Don't you think so, Tao Bo?"
"The second master is right! Although the food here is crude, it is really hard to have enough food. The people who came from Tangshan felt like starving ghosts reincarnated here. They said they didn't expect that they could eat here.
!" Tao Bo sighed, "What a pity! The plague here is so fierce that you can catch the disease after just a few full meals and die! Alas!"
"Whatever you plant grows here, and it grows very well. Rice, sweet potatoes, pumpkins... you can get a good harvest without drought. It is really a good place for farming. But there is no fertilizer." Huang Shidong said, "If you need fertilizer, you need it.
There are people, but people here have the hardest time living..."
Cui Yunhong asked: "Besides people, since you have a lot of sweet potatoes and food here, why don't you raise more livestock? If you raise more pigs, cows, sheep and chickens, you can fatten them up?"
"I have raised some, but the weather here is hot and there is a lot of rain, so it is difficult to raise non-local animals." Mr. Tao said, "They also like to get sick."
The most common species raised here are the local buffalo used for farming. The buffalo itself is a native animal of Southeast Asia and has adapted very well here.
Huang Shidong seemed to have suddenly remembered something and asked, "Uncle Tao, is there any news about your Xiaoliu?"
"There's no news at all." Tao Bo shook his head and said, "It's been almost five years since he left. I'm afraid..."
"It's better to think of the best in everything. There is nothing wrong with a six-year-old who wants to go out and see the world. He has been smart and capable since he was a child, and he will naturally come back if he can't survive."
A few people were chatting, and after a while, Tao Bo's son brought back a basket of fish and shrimps in a straw basket. Cui Yunhong came immediately when he saw that there were some local fish he knew, such as "forgettable" and "skinned fish".
I was interested and expressed that I wanted to show off my cooking skills.
Cui Yunhong borrowed the kitchen of the ancestral hall, first filled a large pot with water and boiled it. Then he asked the villagers to get some coconut oil. The key seasoning was Tianchu Doubanjiang that he brought with him.
This is Southeast Asia, spices are the most common condiments, and the hot weather in Australia also requires a variety of spices to mask the smell of ingredients and appetize, so the kitchen has everything. Cui Yunhong sauteed the bean paste and added various spices, along with the fish
Pour it into a stone pot and stew it. After some manipulation, a strong aroma gradually fills the air.
"It smells so good." Huang Shidong couldn't help but admired, "Brother Cui, what is this? It has such a strange fragrance..."
"This is bean paste, which is pickled with beans and chili peppers..."
Huang Shiwen didn't expect that Australians also had chili peppers. Chili peppers were introduced by the red-haired people and spread quickly in Nanyang, but almost no one cared about them in the Ming Dynasty. He didn't expect that Australians would also eat them.
Finally, fresh coconut juice was poured on it. A large pot of stewed fish came out of the pot fragrantly. The village steamed dried game and cooked some vegetables. The servants of the Huang family took out the "road vegetables" they brought with them.
Three large tables were set up for dinner.
Everyone at the main table couldn't help but want to taste it first. Anna made the first move and took out half of the fish and put it on the plate. She was burned as soon as she took a bite. Then she said it was delicious and delicious, and then she hurriedly
I was looking for water to drink, it was so spicy that I couldn’t speak.
Everyone had a hearty meal. After the meal, Tao Bo ordered his family to bring many tropical fruits for everyone to quench their tiredness and thirst.
After a busy meal, everyone was getting ready to take a rest. Anna came to Cui Yunhong and asked him what the name of this dish was.
"Let's call it stewed fish in coconut milk..."
Thus, the famous Australian delicacy "Changning Mountain Coconut Milk Stewed Fish" was born.
The next day there was just a hint of morning light in the sky. The treasure hunting team got up early. Tao Bo had already arranged for someone to cook a big pot of rice porridge. After breakfast, they boarded the ship and set off.
After passing Taojia Village, the land gradually became barren. At first, they could still see scattered fields and villages, but after they passed the last village, it was basically a primitive wilderness.
In this barren land, you can occasionally see traces of the original reclamation: fields were gradually occupied by jungles, collapsed houses, and roads that were gradually covered with weeds. It can be seen that there was colonization here, but
Later they were all abandoned.
At this time, we have reached the upper reaches of the river. The beach is shallow and difficult to sail. Along the way, the expedition team arrived at the foot of Changning Mountain before dark. There is also an abandoned small village here, with more than a dozen houses that have been destroyed.
The vine plants were completely covered and submerged. There were no tall trees in this area, and it was obviously a place that had been reclaimed by humans. However, powerful tropical plants took over again after humans left, wiping away all traces of human life.
.
"This is Wufeng Village. There was a great epidemic four years ago. This village and two nearby villages suffered heavy casualties. Those who survived all fled to Shanba Port. In just four years, the situation has become like this, hey...
..." Huang Shidong still has lingering fears about the great miasma four years ago, and laments the power of the barbaric mountains to sweep away everything.
"Are we here?" Cui Yunhong asked Zhu Shunshen.
"Not yet, we still have to walk two miles up the mountain from our ancestral land."
"It's not easy to walk the two miles on this mountain... It's getting dark again..." Cui Yunhong was thinking, and there was a dragster like Anna. Although Xiao Nizi couldn't bear to say it, she could tell.
She was very tired.
Now everyone started to build a camp. There were many abandoned houses in the village, but two of them were relatively intact. The servants then cleared away the vines covering them and cleaned the house, which was used as a camping site for today.
.Cui Yunhong asked to light a bonfire at the door.
There were a lot of mosquitoes here. Cui Yunhong immediately distributed small bottles of pyrethrin mosquito repellent to everyone, saying that it was a miracle medicine to avoid miasma. This made Huang Shidong so happy that he immediately put away the miracle medicine.
"You don't need to hide it, just use it quickly." Cui Yunhong said with a smile, "There will be more of this thing when it is promoted and cultivated in the future. You don't need to be careful about getting malaria."
"People in our Huang family rarely get malaria," Huang Shidong said. "Most of the people who can survive here are people who are not prone to malaria."
Cui Yunhong knows that the so-called "not easy to get malaria" are likely to be carriers of thalassemia. Mild symptoms of this disease will not attack even if you are infected with malaria. It can be said to be a naturally anti-malarial group. In fact, scientists have been
It is suspected that thalassemia may be able to resist malaria, so the related genes have been spread in some areas for a long time.
The whole night was speechless. In the early morning, the top of the sacred mountain was the first to receive the rising sun. The huge mountain was covered with a golden layer by the sunlight, shrouding it with a holy light. The water vapor from the rainforest rose to the halfway up the sacred mountain, forming a thick mountain fog when it encountered cold.
, no wonder this place used to be called Wufeng Village.
Standing here, I can see that the sacred mountain is more steep and steep. Cui Yunhong recalled that if it were not for the infrastructure construction of later generations, it would be much more difficult to climb the sacred mountain by herself.
The treasure hunting team headed towards Changning Mountain under the leadership of Zhu Shunshen. They didn't go far before they came to an ancestral temple. It was said to be a "temple", but the actual scale was very small. It was roughly the same size as the old earth temple, which was as small as the mountain temple.
There are statues of gods in the building. There are also traces of scented wax.
Huang Shidong said: This is the original ancestral temple. It was first built here by his ancestors. Although the ancestral temple has now been moved to Shanbagang, this is the "root" of the entire Changning ancestral faith.
"Tao Bo is the temple worshiper here. He comes here to burn incense and offer sacrifices on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month, as well as every grandma's birthday and the day of enlightenment."