Time is always playing hide and seek with people. It travels through the day like the wind and blooms in the night like a flower. Searching and searching, it passes in the blink of an eye.
The next seven days were fast and slow.
Whenever Shulot was alone, it was a long and difficult night. In the dim candlelight, he thought repeatedly about the murals in the snake house. The four walls are filled with descriptions of Quetzalcoatl, both human and snake-bodied. He wanders through villages and towns and is worshiped by mortals.
On the roof is the farewell of Quetzalcoatl, who was framed by the original sun Tezcatlipoca and expelled himself. It’s just that the place of the mythical original sun was replaced by the newly depicted patron saint. Also not far above, the patron saint's prayer room where Avitt is located was also the prayer room of the original sun. The changes in the patron saint are clear at a glance.
Thinking of the murals in the palace corridor and the message from his grandfather, Shulot understood the unfinished meaning of the elder. He began to think long and hard about how to formulate a code of law.
At this time, the little green snake will crawl out of the underground waterway wet, and then wring its body dry on the straw. Then it roamed freely on the boy's body, looking for a comfortable place to sleep. Usually a warm chest, sometimes a smooth back, occasionally wrapped around a strong arm or thigh, depending on its mood.
The young man's original intention is peaceful and kind, just like when the moon falls in the fourth house, he lets the little green snake move around randomly. He just refused the gift that the little green snake brought back: a beautiful Mexican butterfly fish that was bitten to death and not poisonous.
Whenever an elder arrives, it means the beginning of day, and the accompanying captain of the guard will also leave a new candle. The little green snake will escape in advance and go to the underground water to hunt for food. Shulot then took a wooden board with pictograms and Chinese characters and explained it word for word to the elder. The principles here are the pictograms, referents, meanings and pictographs in the Six Books.
"A single character is a text, and a combination is a character." The first words are all pictographic single characters, which are used to represent all things in the world and can usually be observed with the naked eye. These words should actually be called "wen" alone. Oracle and Mexica graphic texts are at this stage.
For example, it is "mountains, rocks, fields and soil, flowers, birds, fish and insects, sun, moon, fire and rivers, human eyes, limbs..." and so on. These already have corresponding references in the original graphic writing of the Mexicans, and there are not many obstacles to simplifying them into more concise pictographic single-character characters.
The elder understood the pictographic single-character characters very quickly. These concepts had long been ingrained in his mind, and now they were just transformed into more concise forms.
Of course, the understanding of some words will differ depending on culture. For example, the symbol of "husband" is an adult man with a hairpin, and in the Mexica understanding, it is an adult warrior with feathers. The pictogram of "female" is a woman kneeling with bent legs, which represents the subordinate status of women. In the Mexica culture, where women generally have the right to inherit and even serve as tribal leaders, this has abandoned subordination and transformed it into the meaning of home.
And some pictographic things that have not appeared, such as "oxen, horses, sheep and carts", cannot be explained for the time being. Shulot can only be generally described as a large four-legged animal that can be domesticated, and a vehicle pulled by a quadruped. The elder was quite interested in the fast-running chariots and horses described by Shulot.
In the eyes of the rulers of the empire, communication efficiency is the biggest limitation of the empire's territory. The time of distance is the most important factor restricting the expansion of classical military empires, not just spatial distance. The efficiency of communication from the ruling center to the frontiers determines the popular support of local residents and the stability of frontier rule.
The Mexica often captured hostile city-states. In the farthest south, we even conquered nearly a thousand kilometers and came to the border of the Yucatan Rainforest. However, due to long communication times and extremely low transportation capabilities, these surrendered city-states had to give up direct control of Mexica, and instead became disloyal vassals with repeated rebellions.
In every distant expedition, the number of troops that can be deployed is very limited, because the food transportation capacity of the manpower is too low. The Otomi people's war failed because of this.
Before the invention of railway technology, the most efficient communication methods were water transport and maritime transport. Therefore, the Roman Empire controlled the Mediterranean Sea for rapid communication, while the Chinese Empire was obsessed with building canals for efficient transportation.
"My child. In the boundless grassland in the far north, there is a huge four-legged beast that is running fast. These are its horns. Do you think we can tame it?"
The elder looked at Shulot calmly. The sculptured warrior behind him handed over a curved horn. Shulot identified it carefully and blew a low "woo" sound. This should be a North American bison.
"It's worth a try. But it should take several generations and decades." Shulot pondered slightly, but hesitated to speak.
If you want to tame the North American bison, you will always succeed as long as you capture enough cubs. But taming only gets the bison used to living with people. Domestication allows North American bison to be used to pull carts or plow fields, allowing wild animals to get used to working for humans. This step requires extremely high time and labor costs.
Thirty years later Spanish colonists would bring European cattle to Cuba for the first time. And if he wants to tame the North American bison within thirty years, Shulot feels that he is not very sure.
The elder nodded slightly. Soon, a messenger was summoned. The elder gave a few brief instructions, and the messenger left in a hurry. Starting from this year, the northern Huastec people’s tributes will include “huge horned four-legged beast cubs”, numbering forty, and the feathered clothing tribute will be exempted.
"You can see it by looking at it, and you can see it by observing it." After the pictographic single character, there is the word referring to things. Referring to things is the first step in developing from pictograms to ideographic meanings. It expresses some local or relative concept by adding abstract symbols to the corresponding parts of the pictographic characters to indicate the local range represented.
From pictograms to ideograms, it usually takes thousands of years to develop. The original graphics of Mexica only stood on the edge of ideograms.
The characters that refer to things can be simply understood as single abstract symbolic characters, the most representative of which are the three characters "upper", "middle" and "lower". Up, one horizontal line at the bottom and then up. It is a high place, it is also a vertical movement, and it also means noble. Down, the top is horizontal and then down. And in the middle, it means being impartial and impartial.
Other referring characters include "Ben, Zhu, Mo", that is, adding referring symbols to the root, trunk and top of the "wood". "曰" is marked with a short horizontal mark on the mouth, which represents the sound of speech coming out of the mouth. It is worth mentioning that the meaning of the King of Mexica is "big talker", and its symbol is similar to it, which is a gust of wind or cloud painted near the character's mouth.
Hearing this, the elder nodded slightly. "曰" can be used as an iconic symbol on the king's clothing and a symbol of authority.
Next, there is the most important ideographic character, which is composed of two or more single characters to express a comprehensive meaning. Ideological characters can express many abstract meanings and have a strong character-making function. The ideographic characters integrate the concepts of Chinese culture and are a unique understanding of the essence of things.
Shulot first told the elder the word "god". On the left is "Shi", which represents the altar, and on the right is "Shen", which represents guidance. The spirit descends the original energy, interacts with all things, and then guides all things. "Shen" can also mean thunder and lightning. The altar is connected to the natural force, which is the spirit that communicates between heaven and earth.
This is the meaning of the Chinese gods. The gods are just some kind of existence that guides all things and possesses natural power. All things co-exist with God, without distinction between each other. The gods in Europe are Gods who created all things, and even the world was created by Gods.
The elder was thinking silently, appreciating the culture in Chinese characters, and considering the future direction.
Shulot tentatively asked the elders for their opinions. What did "god" mean?
The elder glanced at the young man lightly, and said simply and clearly: "All things obey God, and God gives all things to the Mexica people."
Shulot nodded silently, convinced.
Then, Shulot talked about "martial arts", from fighting to stopping. The foot is the foot and the weapon is the weapon, that is, a person walks with a weapon to conquer and show off. The elder nodded slightly, "Martial arts" is the foundation of Mexica society. The warrior holding weapons is the symbol of the Mexica people.
"My child, what kind of weapon is this?" the elder asked, pointing to "Ge".
Shulot thought for a moment: "This is a simplified war stick. When we have enough copper ore, we can make a unified copper weapon. It is not easy to wear, so only a sharp copper blade is needed to attack, and It’s not like a battle stick that has many obsidian sharp blades that are easy to wear.”
The elder pondered quietly. Copper weapons replaced stone weapons as a general trend, and the Tarascans were also on the eve of military changes.
Then there is the word "shoot" for bow and arrow, the arrow fired from a bow. Cun is the adaptation of arrow. "cutting", a person who chops down trees with an axe. "Rong" refers to a person who carries weapons and guards the border.
The elder looked at "Rong" for a moment. From now on, the battle uniforms of Jaguar and Eagle warriors can be engraved with the word "Rong". These noble warriors will be responsible for collecting tributes from vassal city-states in various places.
Then there is "Two trees grow side by side to form a forest, three people gather together to form a crowd, and a bird falling by the river is a red bird. Two people follow each other to follow each other, and when they separate things with their hands, they break them apart, and the sunlight shines to form a swaying one. The small ones on the top and the large ones on the bottom are pointed, eight The knife cuts each other into parts, the valleys in the mountains become valleys. The sun and the moon shine together to become bright, the rich colors become brilliant, and the beneficial insects in the world become silkworms..."
"My child, what are silkworms?" the elder asked thoughtfully, but with his knowledge, he had no impression at all.
"Silkworms are leaf-eating insects from the far west that spin silk cocoons. The silk can be spun into light silk that is as valuable as gold, nay, as valuable as the rarest quetzal bird feathers."
Shulot explained. In Mexico, which is rich in gold and silver, exquisite feathers are much more precious and are regarded as gifts from the gods, while cheap gold is just the excretion of the gods.
Far West. The elder looked at Shulot deeply and said nothing.
These ideographic Chinese characters are the most difficult for Shulot's warriors to master and understand, because their concepts are simple and their thinking has not yet risen to this level. The elder is the fastest person Shulot has ever seen who learns Chinese characters, and Chinese characters with meanings do not bother him at all.
Finally, there are the most numerous pictophonetic characters. Pictophonetic characters are produced on the basis of pictograms, meanings, and meanings. Chinese characters start from here, moving from meaning to phonetic meaning. More than 80% of Chinese characters are pictophonetic characters, which actually have unlimited space for expansion.
The phonetic characters can be left-shaped and right-voiced, which means money and material are melted; right-shaped and left-voiced, it means to cut the neck of a duck; upper-shaped and lower-voiced, which means an empty room; lower-shaped and upper-voiced, which means firewood, sauce basin and urn; inner shape and outer voice, which means hearing Ask about Fujian; the appearance and the sound inside are to ward off the bandits and make them solid.
If you want to understand the pictophonetic characters, you have to study and use them for a long time. After mastering the commonly used rules, you can take the initiative to create phonetic characters. It is conceivable that on different inheritance soils, Mexicans will definitely create unique new phonetic Chinese characters in the future.
The elder finally stopped here. He looked at Shulot quietly, his eyes softened for a moment, and then returned to indifference.
"My child, rest well. Tomorrow is Avit's enthronement ceremony. I will take you to see the great sacrifice and tribute. After that, there will be your answer."
The elder turned around and left without stopping. Like the cold current in the Arctic Circle, he moves forward without stopping, only with solemnity and loneliness.
On the last night of the seventh day, there was no candle, and Shulot spent a quiet night without light. The little green snake coiled quietly on his chest, preparing to say goodbye tomorrow. That night, Shulot had a dream about making words. When he wrote the divine words, they turned into the sun and blood.
Early the next morning, melodious and joyful songs floated in the lake capital, like the chants of gods, announcing the replacement of kings on earth. Shulot woke up from singing. He shook his head laboriously and vaguely saw the bright and bloody capital city.
