"Haha! God bless you! Spicy and fragrant barbecue, this is the delicacy of warriors and priests! If you add vanilla, cocoa, pineapple and tomat, it will be the real taste of hometown!..."
"What? The leader of the ship, you said that such expensive spices are a pity for barbecue? Should they be used to cook porridge? Drinking delicious porridge, is that the taste of hometown?..."
The night is dark and the bonfire is blazing. The venison was roasting on the fire, and the venison was sprinkled with a lot of fragrant powder. It was a very rare and expensive spice in Japan, which is located in the temperate zone.
The monk warrior Watanabe Masumi swallowed uncontrollably, ate the shriveled pickled radish and drank the light mixed vegetable soup, enjoying the alluring aroma, just like a real eminent monk from Tang Dynasty. Zuwaro next to him was eating big chunks of barbecue, drinking rice wine, and chatting with Watanabe from time to time about the hometown delicacies of the Kingdom in the Lake.
However, the herbs, cocoa, pineapples and tomatoes of Central America are naturally unimaginable to the peoples of the Old World in this era. For Watanabe the monk, the only delicacies he knew were rice, pickles, fish, and various porridges with vegetables and meat. After drinking two bowls of light vegetable soup, he finally couldn't help it and boldly proposed the idea of eating porridge. Even if it was just a bowl of thin millet porridge, it was still a delicacy from his hometown!
"The weather is cold and the ground is freezing, and people are exhausted... Since your Majesty eats meat and drinks wine, can you let us have some porridge? Just one bowl..."
"Huh? Porridge? What does porridge mean? Oh! Look at this glyph, does it mean boiling rice in soup?... No! I want to send those rice and millet back to the Lake Kingdom as a witness to the... main god of the seeds! What do you mean? What?! These rice can’t be grown anymore?… Why? It’s been mortared and the shells have been removed?!… Damn it!…”
Seeing the leader of the Jiao Ren who was suddenly excited and had murderous intent on his face, the monk soldier Watanabe Masumi trembled in his heart and looked confused. He didn't know why the other party cared so much about whether rice could be grown. Could it be that in the hometown of Donghai Jiao people, there is not even rice? …
"Watanabe-kun, this leader of the Jiaoman is so fierce, what are you yelling about?..."
"Murakami-kun, he said that he wanted to take the rice back to his hometown, grow it there, and feed it to their great wizard...I said that the rice has lost its shell and cannot be grown anymore..."
"Ah? Buddha's blessing! So it's for this?... Ha! Watanabe-kun, at first glance, you seem to have never farmed before and don't know the details of the field..."
Hearing the conversation between the two, the ship leader Murakami Jidong grinned. Although he was beaten with a bruised nose and face, and his ship was taken away from him, he felt a little better after hearing that these barbarians would not kill them, but would only kidnap them to the south. As a human being, as long as you can live, there is still hope. The samurai in Ezo are more like villagers struggling to survive, but they do not have as strong a samurai culture as the samurai in the Kanto Plain. They care about some mysterious "Tao" and pursue some mysterious "fame".
"My Buddha has mercy! Except for a few bags of Yueguo rice shipped from Kyoto, the rest of the rice we brought was all brown rice with bran. And the millet shipped by Shengshankan was also bran-free!… As long as the rice contains bran, it can be planted. It’s just a matter of few buds and too many buds!…”
In this era of Japan, even ordinary samurai usually ate millet with bran. And if you get a salary during the New Year Festival and can eat a meal of rice with bran, you are already a well-off family. This kind of brown rice with bran is slightly black in the white, and Kazuto gave it a nice name, "genmai". Samurai were able to eat polished rice on a large scale because the foot-operated "Tang mortar" introduced in the Tang Dynasty in the middle Edo period was gradually replaced by the "water mortar" that used water power.
Before the emergence of the water mortar, pounding and shelling rice was a very laborious task for the villagers, and it also greatly reduced the already insufficient grain. What, you said bran is fed to chickens and pigs? Sorry, the country worships Buddhism and does not allow chickens and pigs to be raised. The chaff is originally for farmers to eat. The peasants can eat chaffy grass instead of eating grass roots and leaves, and they don't have to starve to death in the fields. This is already a mercy of the lord! You cannot use the dietary standards of the farmers of the Celestial and Li Dynasties to measure the farmers of the He Kingdom. It’s almost the same by the standards of the untouchables of the Li Dynasty…
In short, most of what was carried on the Heguo Zhaoyang ships was brown rice and millet with bran. Although the germination rate of these rice is slightly lower, it can still be planted.
After listening to the story of Murakami, a land-farming samurai, Watanabe sincerely realized. He pursed his lips, then lowered his head and wrote a line of words under Zuvalo's gaze, trying his best to appease the leader of the Jiao people who had the power of life and death.
"Don't worry, dear sir! There is brown rice on the ship, which has a lot of bran, so it can germinate. The same goes for millet, which has a lot of bran, so it can be planted!..."
"Huh? God bless you! This big captain who is negotiating with me is actually a farmer? Tsk tsk, this is what the kingdom needs too!..."
Exploration captain Zuvaro touched his chin and looked at Murakami Jidong, who stood straight and held his head high. The two looked at each other for a moment. Zuvaro narrowed his eyes and held the copper ax at his waist. Murakami was shuddered and lowered his head. Seeing the other person lowering his head, Zuvalo smiled slightly, wrote on the snow, and asked the other big boatman for the first time.
"Witness the Lord God! You, the leader of the big ship, come from the northernmost He tribe? What is your status in the tribe? Are you the tribe's warrior chief? Or a senior warrior?...Huh? None of them? It turns out that you have nothing in the tribe. Status? That’s fine, then submit to the kingdom!…”
"Buddha's Dharma eyes are solemn, watching over you! I am the ship leader of the Uyizaki family! You and others took the family master's ship and killed our samurai... If the family master knew about it, hundreds of samurai would definitely gather together and attack on the temple's big ship. Come here and kill every one of you, including your dogs and men!... However, I am compassionate, if you can let us go and let us leave by boat... I can make the decision and save the iron tools, wine, horses, and whatever else is left. I’ll leave all the food for you!… Just… let us take away the furs and ginseng…”
The captain of the boat, Murakami Jitong, opened his eyes wide and pretended to be fierce, intimidating the leader of the gang. It's just that people are like knives, and I'm like fish and meat. He said it forcefully to the end, but still accidentally showed his timidity. And what he said, after being slightly polished by translator Watanabe, suddenly became literate, polite and modest.
"Your Majesty! Your Lord God has the power of thunder and fire, but also the kindness of gods and Buddhas!... The Uyizaki clan and the temple sent a caravan northward, neither spying on the land in the far north, nor having any intention of invading the tribe. The Uyizaki clan Although it is small, there are still thousands of warriors. Even though the temple is far away, it can still gather dozens of large ships. It is not to be insulted!... And we have brought wealth here, and we have always valued peace, so that we can exchange for the excess and useless furs of your department. , complete what your envoy needs and seeks..."
"God is kind enough to turn conflicts into friendship! If we both agree on a good terms and become brothers, let us leave by boat! Regardless of iron tools, wine, horses, or food, you can take whatever you like...and if you let me wait, Take away the furs and ginseng, and explain it to your family. Then when I come back next year, I will bring enough wine and property to sing and drink with you. Wouldn’t it be fun!…”
"Haha! Witness the Lord God! He is a talker, but you are a writer... To put it bluntly, one is a badger pretending to be fierce, and the other is a coyote pretending to be stupid. Together, they treat me like a rabbit and a mouse. Deceit... what is this called? According to His Majesty, this is... it is... Oh! Complicity!..."
Zuwaro laughed with great interest, looking at Murakami Yoshitsuki who was trying to straighten his chest and showing a fierce expression, and then looked at Masumi Watanabe who was writing carefully and showing respect. However, he knew in his heart that the two men had just been captured and surrendered. He couldn't believe a word of what they said! ...A moment later, after he finished reading this densely packed vertical text, he shook his head leisurely, and a sincere and simple smile appeared on his face.
"Witness the Lord God! Do the He tribes in the north only have a few thousand warriors?... Our kingdom in the lake has a hundred thousand warriors, millions of people!... And my team of 100 people is just the vanguard of the kingdom from the west! There are many more to come. warriors, many ships, thousands of them!…”
"You can't imagine the wealth of the kingdom in the lake and the respect of the status of warriors! The kingdom's military merits are awarded, and one level is promoted according to merit. As long as you convert to the Lord God and serve the kingdom, you can become a military noble and own large fields and serfs. ! And as long as you make great achievements and find the products of the West Sea that His Majesty needs, you can even lead hundreds or even thousands of warriors to become lords and nobles with fiefdoms!..."
"What? You don't believe it? You actually doubt the strength of the kingdom?..."
Seeing the hard-to-conceal expressions on their faces, Zuvalo raised the corners of his mouth and shook his head confidently. He tore the leftover chili roasted venison in half and handed it to Murakami and Watanabe. Then, he randomly took out two golden amulets from his arms, slowly tied them with straw rope ties, and put them on the surprised and confused two people.
After doing all this, Zuvalo clapped his hands and wrote the last few words of the night on the snow. But these few words were deeply engraved in their hearts, making them toss and turn, sleepless at night, and even unable to imagine!
"Witness the Lord God! The power of the Kingdom and the richness of the Kingdom are beyond your imagination! I have five hundred pieces of such a pound of gold talisman, which I can use at will. As long as you surrender to the Lord God and serve the Kingdom, you can One piece per person!…”
"The Kingdom's fleet across the sea also has gold charms worth fifteen hundred yuan per catty and silver charms worth ten thousand yuan per catty! And there are dozens of golden mountains occupied by the kingdom, stretching for hundreds of miles. It is inexhaustible and inexhaustible, even if a thousand kilograms of gold are shipped every year, it will not be a problem at all!…”
"God bless you! Before the Kingdom's support arrives, I won't let any of you go south! But I will let you open your eyes and see what Jinshan looks like... and when the Kingdom's support arrives, I will release a few Envoy, let’s have a good discussion with your Ezo tribes, temples and shrines! In this far north, at the kingdom’s port in the extreme northern snowfield, let’s discuss a truly big business that will be passed down to future generations. !…”
