Chapter 1,254: The crop that determines the fate of North Asia, you came just in time!
"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, like
We worship corn as well. He also recited an interesting poem to me: "The little rice fields leading to the mountains, the silted seedling water. Now the relationship between the two is no longer the same, and they have not heard from each other for many days."
,It’s so 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 the rice fields be irrigated.
Rice cannot grow. This shows that the rice god of Kazuto does not like the cold..."
"Well! The white rice and yellow rice they grow, which is what the captives call 'rice' and 'millet', cannot 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 are snowfalls in October. The coast is even colder than inland! And the Thousand Islands Islands next to the south, Mausili Island, must not be 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 pure white. Long grass, moss and shrubs are all covered with snow, hiding life underground. On the hills to the west of Shennan Mountain Port, there is a particularly smooth snowfield.
The potato fields cultivated at the port. And this is the most precious and important thing brought by the kingdom's fleet. It is 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. The pale white flowers are the pregnant belly of the female bird. And the roots hidden underground are as big as eggs.
It is the gift left by the hummingbird in the world, life that can be eaten..."
The exploration captain Zuvarro held the girl in his arms, stared at the potato fields under the white snow, and recited the inherited mythical 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 are different from the large yellow-skinned potatoes that were common in later generations and developed in modern times. Instead, they have colorful skins and each one is only the size of a bird egg, which is closer to the original domesticated wild potatoes. And this kind of potatoes came from the Andes.
The cold-resistant crops coming down from the cold mountains 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. In the mountains of the peninsula, the deer and tents have no crops, so they can only migrate with their herds...and then
What about to the west? What about the Nvzhi tribes and the Mongolian tribe alliance predicted by His Majesty? What can they plant? How can they live on?... Even beyond these tribes, go further west? Further west!...
"
Zuvalo let go of the girl in his arms and suddenly looked to the west. His eyes seemed to cross the snow-capped mountains, see through the end of the vast land, see the vast East Siberia, Western Siberia, thousands of miles away!
At the end of the fifteenth century, as we continued to enter the Little Ice Age, there were no crops that could withstand extreme cold in the entire Old World! Rye, domesticated from Central Asia, could only be cultivated along the warm Baltic Sea coast.
It is impossible to cross the Ural Mountains to the east, nor to conquer the colder White Sea to the north. It will take another two hundred years of domestication before they can cultivate cold-resistant rye adapted to the North Sea coast from generation to generation, let alone the extremely vast and cold East and West Siberia.
!
In fact, before potatoes were introduced, "going to Siberia to plant potatoes" was just a cold and heartless fantasy. No matter how hard the Russian serfs could endure the extreme cold, they would never be able to build settled villages on the lands of the nomadic tribes.
If you want to survive, you can only live like the nomadic tribes and be assimilated by each other...
The rice from the south, even if it has been domesticated by Koreans and Japanese people into cold-resistant varieties, still has its crop limits, which is far from the cold-resistant ability cultivated by later generations. At 42 degrees north latitude, it snows in May.
The big island of Mausili 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 and give up the increasingly cold weather, and it was impossible for military households to cultivate the self-sufficient north.
Jisi. The Nuergandusi along the Heilongjiang River has been abandoned for more than half a century. The Nvzhi tribes in Jisi in the northeast also withdrew to the south of the Ming Dynasty and gradually fell out of control. They began to be irrelevant and unattractive at first.
The attention-grabbing chaos, annexation and fighting...
As for the crops themselves, whether they are rice from the East or rye from the West, they are both fruit-eating grasses. Even if the crops can be grown successfully, if the temperature is too low and the temperature drops sharply, no fruit will be produced and no harvest will be achieved.
Very common. Potatoes are from the Solanaceae family that eat underground tubers. They are domesticated by the aboriginal people and are one of the greatest crops. They are naturally more adaptable to severe cold than grass crops! As long as it can be planted alive, there will be tubers produced.
It’s just a matter of charging more and charging 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, and they would always be at odds with the nomadic, fishing and hunting tribes on the dividing line. Even in warm centuries, people who migrated behind the dividing line
The farmers joined in and farming villages were established for a time, just like the great warm period of the Tang Dynasty... These villages and farmers will eventually be assimilated by the local nomads, fishermen and hunters as the temperature drops, and then enter the Hu again from summer!
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 that could not make ends meet, the Russians could only block the west side of the Ural Mountains, and the Koreans could only stop at the Tumen River, and the people
They can only be trapped 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, it is the dividing line between the farming peoples of the East and the West, and all Asian nomads and hunters! And behind this dividing line, farming life
The method cannot be fixed at all, and it has no advantages at all 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, there is no sound
The first changed, 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 walked down from the Andes Mountains,
But it was destined by fate, the real great god of North Asia!…
"Phew! The rice god of Kazuto is blocked by the guardian spirits of the Ainu tribes, so rice and millet cannot be cultivated on the large island of Moshiri... But the potatoes we brought can be cultivated further north and colder in the Ainu land.
What can be 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 main god's power, will far exceed your imagination! The so-called Ainu land is just a branch of the main god's hummingbird.
No hair, and the real land of the Lord 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 birds
…”
On the edge of the ice and snow port, Zuvalo's eyes were full of changes, 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 ears of the girl Qiandao Shell.
Joining the big family of "Jiao Ren", she was 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 in her eyes,
It also showed emotional anticipation. Until...
"Ouch! Ouch!"
The Samoyed, who was always vigilant, started barking wildly again. And the fast-running sled also appeared from the end of the snowfield. More and more wise big dogs came over excitedly, until the hostess scolded her and swung her whip in the air.
After beating, he suddenly and obediently stopped.
"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 deerskin boots, puffed out her high chest, and walked quickly to her ancestors.
Varro's side. When she saw the short and frightened Shimabe girl in the other man'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 Shell in one hand and spread his other arm, allowing the huntress Msona to lean into his arms. He just hugged her like this.
The two tribe wives 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 took a sip 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 warrior with two hundred leather armors.
The chief of the tribe! What made her uneasy was also the identity of the other party. The 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, her husband
She already has the qualifications and possibility to challenge the old grandmother! But all these changes have only happened 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 grandmother. He was driven away on guard at the newly built Lutai River spring camp.
The deer tribe who has left cannot go south easily... There is only one chief in the tribe, and there is only one shaman. The old grandmother 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, 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 that was 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, the warrior chief Tamicao who stayed in the camp asked 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 full respect for his grandmother and hopes to consolidate the sacred alliance with Yamabe..."
"After him, if another fleet arrives next year, he will also follow the usual practice and ask the respected grandmother for a marriage of noble girls!..."
"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!..."