The sound of whips is loud and the sound of hoofs is rumbling.
It is the crisp autumn season in the Dahe Basin, and even the air seems particularly fresh. On the grassland that has turned golden, small yurts suddenly appeared one after another, and they were surrounded by large carriages. Sheep like white clouds and docile grassland cattle flow on the golden grassland, driven by "Mongolians" on horseback wearing leather robes. This scene doesn't look like it's in the New World, but rather like it's in the Mongolian grassland.
Niu Laoliu also felt as if he had returned to his hometown of Jining, which he always dreamed of. When he herded horses and cattle for Li Baihu's family, it was almost like this! I really miss that time...
Of course, there is still a slight difference.
When he was herding cattle and horses in Jining, the cattle and horses belonged to other people, so he just let them go. And now, he has a herd of his own... thirty or forty sheep, ten cows, and seven horses. The size of the herd is not large, but it is the property of Niu Laoliu and his family.
Niu Laoliu, who has been poor for more than 20 years, certainly cherishes the cattle, sheep and horses assigned to him. He takes care of each of them as his own children, not to mention slaughtering them for meat, and even milking them for some milk. All cautiously.
Another difference is that when Jiningwei was working for Li Baihu's family, he didn't even have enough to eat. Now he eats meat until he vomits... He has lived for more than 20 years and never He didn't have this strange feeling - every time it was meal time, he saw his wife serving a large bowl of meat, but he had no appetite!
What's going on here? Why can't I eat meat? Could it be that he is sick? But people who know him say that he is now radiant and looks younger, and he doesn't look like he can't afford to be sick!
His wife, Yang Erniang, had a good appetite. She ate and drank so much for several months that her "secondary growth" was achieved. She looked moist and made people drool. She was also pregnant with "sixth child" and her belly was swollen. Woke up.
Although his appetite is a bit poor, in the opinion of the superiors above, Niu Laoliu has passed the "meat-eating test" and has almost given up "eating"!
After successfully realizing "quitting food and eating meat", the second level Niu Laoliu had to pass was the nomadic level... He had been nomadic when he was in Jiningwei, but he had never been nomadic.
Nomadic herding is different from herding. The former lives in groups and is constantly moving. It is called living by water and grass, which means that after eating the grass in one place, you will continue to eat in another place. The latter settled in scattered areas, divided the pastures, and ran the pastures like a farm. Life was much more comfortable then.
In the current territory of the United States of New Zealand, there are many settled ranches, mainly distributed near the Gulf of America and in the Great River Basin. Most of the cattle, sheep, horses and cured meat currently supplied to "trainee nomads" like Niu Laoliu are produced on these ranches.
However, Niu Laoliu and the others cannot disperse the Dingmu, because the nomadic households can only be strong enough when they gather together. Once they are too scattered, such as a group of dozens of households, it is okay if there is no strong enemy. If they encounter a larger number of enemies, they will only be beaten.
The reason why the grassland nomads were so powerful in history is also related to their nomadic lifestyle. If they are too scattered, no matter how good their skills are on horseback, they will just become a group of horse thieves.
Therefore, from the beginning of autumn, thousands of Huaiwang households where Niu Laoliu lived entered the river basin in groups and began to live nomadically in the basin chasing water and grass.
Of course, the nomadic route was planned in advance by the General's Office of the United States. It must avoid the military households' farms in the river basin to avoid taking away the pastures of those settled military households or destroying their farms.
According to the plan of the General's Office, King Huai Wanhu and Dewang Wanhu will have to nomadically live in the Great River Basin until next autumn.
The reason why he has been nomadic for so long, in addition to learning various nomadic skills and horseback tactics, is to allow nomadic military households like Niu Laoliu to expand their herds.
They could live off supplies from the United States Department of War in the Great River Basin, but once they moved to the Great Plains as nomads, they had to be self-reliant... Although the number of bison on the Great Plains was extremely large, it was impossible to rely on 20,000 Chinese households. Destroy them.
But the Great Plains is extremely vast, and the distribution of bison is relatively scattered. There are more than 100,000 people in 20,000 households. If they are to be concentrated together, how big a herd will they need to feed them? And two ten thousand households is just the beginning. In the future, there will definitely be newly formed nomadic households migrating nomadically on the North New Zealand prairie.
Therefore, bison cannot become the main food source, but can only be an important supplement...and their most reliable, and long-term stable food source, can only be their own herds!
Looking at the ewes and cows among his own herd of cattle, the belly of which has gradually swelled, Niu Laoliu looked like he was only 30 years old at most (he is 26 years old this year, and when he left Jining, he looked as if he was 40 years old). Years old (now down to 30 years old) finally showed a happy smile on his face.
If this trend continues, by next autumn, the total number of his herds will probably exceed one hundred, right?
That's all the livestock that Li Baihu's family has, right? It makes me happy just thinking about it!
"Woooo..."
The melodious trumpet sound suddenly sounded in Niu Laoliu's ears.
This is the rallying bugle. When he hears this bugle, he must immediately drive his cattle and sheep back to his camp of the third thousand households of King Huai. The current ten thousand households of King Huai are scattered across the river in units of one thousand. Nomadic on the grasslands of the west coast. As for Dewang Wanhu, he was nomadic on the grasslands on the east bank of the river.
After hearing the bugle, Niu Laoliu didn't dare to neglect, and hurriedly drove his cattle and sheep to the camp. After driving for more than an hour, he arrived at a camp surrounded by an unknown number of four-wheeled carriages. outside.
This kind of large four-wheeled carriage with a canvas canopy was also distributed by the United States Department of War to nomadic military households. In principle, one vehicle was provided to each household. When migrating, women and children would ride in the car, and the entire family would be loaded into the car. The hostess or older daughter of the military family would be responsible for driving. The male owner of a military household had to ride a horse to drive the livestock, and was also responsible for guarding or other military duties assigned by the superiors.
When setting up camp, these four-wheeled caravans would be connected end to end to form a huge Gulieyan. The yurt, that is, the tent, is pitched inside Gulieyan.
Outside Gulieyan, there are livestock pens tied with spears and ropes. Ten households share two livestock stalls, one for cattle and one for sheep. Each family's cattle and sheep are tagged, and there are dedicated people to look after them (ten people are sent in turn).
Just as Niu Laoliu was driving the cattle and sheep into the pen, the sound of horse hooves came from far and near. Lao Niu turned his head and looked over, and saw a burst of dust flying, and there were a dozen knights in black, rushing towards him. When they arrived at the gate of Qianhu Camp where Niu Lao Liu was, he reined in the reins, and there was a thin neighing of war horses. After that, the knights on horseback shouted in unison: "The Great Khan has arrived, all the soldiers come out to meet him!"
It turns out that the freshly minted Great Plains Khan is here to inspect!
The Great Khan of Xinzhou is of course Zhu Hehao. The reason he gave himself the title of Khan is of course not for fun, but to highlight the "nomadic nature" of two nomadic households.
In his opinion, if you want to gain a foothold in the Great Plains, you must persist in nomadicism for a long time...at least for decades, and wait until the population of the United States of New Zealand reaches a few levels before it can transform into a stable one. Pastoral or farming.
It is not easy to persist in nomadic life in the Great Plains, because the land in the Great Plains is too rich and there is no shortage of water. It is a perfect farming land!
It is much more comfortable to settle down and farm there than to nomadically chase water and grass, and people... always like ease and comfort!
But once the nomadic households turn into settled households, how much territory can the 10,000 military households control? At that time, I am afraid that I will have to shrink back to the valley at the eastern foot of the Dashi Mountains and live a comfortable life.
Therefore, Zhu Hehao had to work hard to maintain the nomadic ability of Huaizhou Wanhu and Dezhou Wanhu, saying that the Great Plains Khan was just one of many means to maintain nomadism.
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