Everyone walked along the long white stone bridge and entered the magnificent capital city in the lake.
At Xiulote's suggestion, neatly planted pines and cypresses in the water have been planted on the earth embankments on both sides of the long bridge for beauty and reinforcement. Along the way, pedestrians retreated to the embankment and knelt under the trees to salute. The breeze blows from the lakeside, and the young Avevit trees sway in the wind, exuding the fragrance of pine and cypress.
Shulot looked around and saw pines and cypresses lined up on both sides of the water, extending for several miles. The tree body is beautiful and slender, with green branches hanging down slantingly and new buds dripping green. Between Pinghu Lake and White Bridge, in front of temples and palaces, accompanied by the sunshine and breeze, they are swaying with flowing vitality. They are beautiful and refined, leaving people disappointed.
The young man thought about the magnificent scenery of pines and cypresses, and missed the small bridges in the water town of his hometown. Suddenly, he thought of the name of the Avivet tree again, and his mind drifted away.
"Entering the divine capital, inheriting the throne, the new king Yazheng."
Thinking of this, he smiled slightly and continued to move forward.
Tenochtitlan has wide streets, crisscrossed waterways, and neat and orderly houses. The city in the lake is strictly managed and attaches great importance to hygiene. Those who pollute the lake water will be severely punished and even executed. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the island in the middle of the lake, but it was not as messy as the European cities of the same period. It was more rationally laid out like an ancient Roman city.
The capital has special water diversion channels, drainage channels, and public toilets.
Two special aqueducts are more than a hundred miles long, diverting water directly from the western plateau, passing through the center of the city, separating the northern city and the main city, and then flowing into different areas. This is a dedicated drinking water route. Next to the houses and streets, there are special drainage channels that guide urban sewage to the nearest floating field in the water, Chinampa. Near each community and main road, there are special public toilets used to collect fertilizer and replenish the nutrient consumption of the floating fields.
The purification of lake water relies on soil filtration and floating fields in the water. In Lake Texcoco around the capital, there are nine thousand hectares of chinampa spread out in layers. Crops grown all year round absorb nutrients from the water, decompose accumulated fertilizers, and continuously purify the water quality. Between Chinampa, there are also schools of farmed fish, large and small, that eat organic particles in the floating fields and water. The continuous floating fields and the huge capital city are interdependent, forming a clean and efficient giant ecological agriculture.
Shulot stopped. His eyes rested on the shade outside the public toilet hut, where there was slightly moist purple-red soil.
The young man pondered for a moment and recalled a lot yesterday. This should be another important source of nitrate, fecal nitrate and urine nitrate. But in his memory, it was very difficult to extract nitrate from feces and urine, and the products were mixed and impure, requiring more delicate processing. Obviously, he had never memorized the specific steps, so he could only fumble slowly.
Shulot secretly made a note and assigned everyone here: Guard Elvi took the temple guards to the priest temple to report back to his grandfather. The old carpenter Kuaud returned to the craftsmanship center and stepped up to make long bows. Another guard led Moreno, the leader of the salt workers, to the high priest's mansion to store the saltpeter soil and continue research on making saltpeter.
The young man thought for a while, asked Bertard to bring the dried soil salt, and then went directly to the administrative palace in the south of the palace area.
The Administrative Palace is located on the south side of the central square of the capital and covers a large area. There are more than 100 houses with white stone and red roofs, surrounded by blooming gardens and gurgling water.
On the east side of the administrative palace is the sacred and lofty Ancestor Memorial Square, where many ancient stone pillars and simple statues with carved graphics are erected.
Shulot stopped for a moment and saw that the place was being renovated, and it seemed that more ancestral pillars and statues were being built. The young man thought for a moment and then remembered that this was also one of the reform plans. The original genealogy of Mexica's ancestors, which was more than a hundred years old, is constantly being added forward, until it is perfectly connected to the myths and legends of the Olmec civilization three thousand years ago.
"This is how the lineage of eternity, passed down from generation to generation, comes about."
Shulot laughed to himself and continued moving forward.
On the west side of the Executive Palace is the Capital Court, with white walls and black lines, and a base several meters high. It is responsible for adjudicating civil conflicts in the Texcoco Lake District. The young man looked from a distance and saw a high-ranking priest with a feather crown and deep robe standing on a high platform, reading something loudly. Under the high platform, there were many big businessmen in gorgeous clothes, with servant warriors, bowing or kneeling.
The big businessmen were talking incessantly, and the faint noise floated from afar. The high-ranking priest waved indifferently, and hundreds of temple guards took a few steps forward, tapping their shields with war clubs and letting out the threatening howls of hyenas. The distant voice suddenly disappeared. After a while, a huge wooden sign was erected in front of the court, and the big businessmen walked out dejectedly, hurriedly leaving with the urgent bad news.
Xiuluo nodded, the commercial law was being promulgated and implemented. The government will control prices, strictly control strategic materials, restrict the use of luxury goods, impose heavy taxes, ban sacred cigarettes on a large scale, and step up the unification of weights and measures. Even if the means are flexible, the profits of big businessmen will still be significantly reduced, especially foreign businessmen.
However, even if the big businessmen are dissatisfied, it has nothing to do with the overall situation. From the young man's point of view, neither commercial law nor civil law would have much trouble. The most important key to the new law is to implement the aristocratic law and compete for village management rights!
Shulot walked into the Administrative Palace. In the center was the King's Palace of the Alliance, a rare two-story building.
The upper level of the Royal Palace is the throne room of the three kings of Tenotictlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, and it is also the most important hall. At first, the three kings were at the top, and then Texcoco and Tlacopan were at the bottom. At this time, the young man looked in from the open window and saw only the Supreme Throne.
The lower level of the King's Palace is divided into different side halls, the most important of which are the Government Affairs Hall and the Military Affairs Hall. When the young man entered the King's Palace, he saw dozens or hundreds of nobles waiting in the vast outer hall. They are gathered into different groups based on region and level, with vague and changing affiliations with each other. Or more accurately, there are internal tribal alliances.
Shulot observed carefully. These nobles were all warriors, strong in body, and wearing colorful battle clothes. They gestured with bare hands, quarreled with each other from time to time, and competed with each other fiercely with fists and kicks, judging right and wrong based on winning or losing. There was a lot of discussion in the outer hall and it was noisy.
Seeing Shulot's solemn entry, the nobles were slightly startled, and then swarmed over. They either hugged passionately, bowed their heads respectfully, or watched silently with cold eyes. Their postures were different, and their intentions were unpredictable.
In general, the Mexica Federation is still in the late tribal era with rough governance. The administrative system is simple and independent, much like the tribal alliances in the Eurasian steppes, or the Duoyin Group of the Shang Dynasty.
The king is at the top of the league. Next is the "female snake" commander-in-chief and four ministers, usually from the royal family and nobles with close blood ties. All important military and political affairs of the alliance are decided by the king and the five-member political council. This is the absolute political core.
Further down, there is the Alliance Parliament composed of powerful nobles at all levels, which has both military and administrative functions. With the third-level honorable nobles as the core, the large and small nobles gathered together according to rank, region and proximity, forming a small group that was stable yet divided.
The great nobles control a varying number of private soldiers, have the taxation power of the fiefdom, hold different official positions at the same time, and are responsible for the specific affairs of the alliance. Broken down, these positions can be divided into central officials, local officials and clan officials.
The position of central officer comes from the appointment of the king. Common responsibilities include taxation, construction, reclamation, mining, salt mining, training, armaments, patrols, diplomacy, deterrence... and the most important responsibility is to accompany the army in battle and ensure logistics. . The alliance has been fighting for more than thirty years. War has become the daily instinct of the kingdom. Only strong warriors can be recognized by everyone.
Local officials are the enfeoffments of various places, usually hereditary. Non-hereditary military nobles are controlled by the central government, and their titles and lands cannot be passed down completely. Mines in various places sometimes belong to the central government and sometimes belong to local areas, depending on the distance and the degree of treasure of the minerals. For example, important obsidian mines are all managed by central officials, while common gold and silver mines are mostly left to local officials to make their own decisions.
Clan officials were actually the lower-level officials of the dynasty. Village settlements in various places gather together to elect local village leaders, and then form grassroots management groups with the participation of priests and warriors. In the one hundred communities in the capital city in the lake, tribal officials and central officials were mixed. Important communities of craftsmen and warriors were directly controlled by central officials, while ordinary civilian communities still elected tribal officials.
The alliance's affairs officers are intertwined with three types of official positions, including the capital court, local tax officers, agricultural officers, warehouse officers and military academy instructors. The proportion of central officials depends on the central government's control over the local area. Outside the Texcoco Lake area, all are autonomous local officials and tribal officials.
Thinking of this, Xiulote shook his head slightly. The road to centralization was still long. The first thing to do is to control more troops, enhance the military strength of the center, and carry out effective military reforms!
Under the protection of Bertard, the young man squeezed out with difficulty from the enthusiastic nobles. He adjusted his black priest's robes, put on his solemn feather crown, and solemnly opened the door of the Government Affairs Hall.
Avit stood majestically on the throne, and the king's clothes were crimson and deep, just like the deep gaze he cast. Gillim sat cross-legged at the bottom seriously, smiling silently at the young man. Stanley's burly body sat upright, like a giant bear restraining its wild nature, and nodded friendly to the young man. On the left and right, two equally strong middle-aged nobles heard the sound, one with a smile on his face and the other with indifferent eyes.
On the table in front of everyone, the cocoa drink in the pottery cup glowed bright red, like standing holy blood, and shimmered with a faint cold light.
Under the king's calm and profound gaze, Shulot knelt down respectfully. The young man had a serious face and paid homage solemnly. Behind him, Bertard bowed and retreated, leaving only a simple earthenware pot filled with crystal clear saltpeter.
