Qingzhi Town is located southwest of the current location. It is a town famous for its bambooware in the north.
It is named "Qingzhi" because of the lush bamboo forest surrounding it, which is always the first sight for travelers coming and going in midsummer. Just like the concept of "one leaf knows autumn" that is widely popular in the literary world of the Moon Country, it is named Qingzhi Town based on the meaning of "one knows the summer solstice because of the green bamboo".
Compared with the small village at the foot of an unknown mountain where everyone started, Qingzhi Town is many times larger.
Swamp Village is a low-lying spot in the plain at the foot of the northern mountains of Crescent Continent, but the farther south you go, the higher the terrain becomes. Lifting away from the water and providing solid soil, serious plants have replaced the long grass and reeds that are common near swamp villages.
Bamboo, which grows extremely fast, is a more convenient material than trees. Although they are generally less cold-tolerant, the climate allows bamboo to grow near the town of Qingzhi, barely considered the northernmost tip of the central region.
With such rich natural materials, people will gather here and gradually develop from handicrafts to industry and commerce, becoming a prosperous town. This is just a matter of course.
To go to Qingzhi Town from the small village, you have to climb two mountains. Because they were far away from the water, they had to go back to the river first if they wanted to take a boat down the river. And because the population nearby is not particularly large, there are not enough people doing ferry business on the river. It was not easy to find a boat willing to take people on board, and we had to go a long way to the west to reach the river.
This distance is basically about the same length as walking directly to Qingzhi Town on a mountain road, so if people nearby want to go there, most people still take a walk.
Many traveling merchants who came to participate in the seven-day festival came from Qingzhi Town. In the industrial and commercial towns that have developed to a large scale, there are still many small self-employed people who pass down their skills from generation to generation as a family unit. Most of them are unable to compete with those large and small chambers of commerce, so they can only rely on their hard-working hands and tenacious feet to travel to all possible places and earn money by selling the items they make.
After hundreds of thousands of years of walking and development, the nearby mountain trails are still flat and open even in the most difficult places.
There are no hotels or supply points within more than a day's journey. Although there is a temple on the top of the mountain in the middle section of the road, the monks there only occasionally help travelers in distress and do not have the spare capacity to receive passers-by every day.
So before heading there, necessary items such as rations and water must be prepared first along the way.
There aren't many other travelers traveling with us, but we still meet a few from time to time. Most of them were businessmen who had sold all their belongings in exchange for money and happily returned home. When these people saw the three Henrys who were obviously armed but did not look like serious warriors, they all He involuntarily quickened his pace.
But a few people noticed Soujiro following them around them, so they immediately dropped their guard and ran back to strike up a conversation.
The reputation of this Swamp Tiger is greater than Henry and Mira thought. Sakura, who has been staying in the Swamp Village, has also heard of his heroic deeds. However, according to the words of the Oiran himself: "covered all over the body" A sweaty and irritable wrestler and a geisha who sings and paints cannot stand together," so there was never any real intersection.
Soujiro is more informative than what he gives people's impression. Even though he looks tall and rough, this middle-aged man is very talkative and enthusiastic. He wanted to recruit Henry to join the gang and make a lot of money together, which naturally meant participating in more confrontational activities. With his reputation and reputation, he would indeed find a lot of people who were willing to fight, but the sage had no such intention when he came here. I rejected him directly that night.
But this man obviously had quite an obsession. Even after he saw their faces and understood that Henry and Mira were both foreigners, he became even more interested because of this, feeling that publicity such as "Oni of the Southern Barbarians" would Words will attract more people.
Oni has been called the Luoan girl many times from the beginning by Aya and the samurai. Kazuto seems to like to use this term to describe sages. She was naturally curious, but she had never had a suitable opportunity to ask before. This time it was a relatively leisurely trip, so she opened her mouth to ask.
But the answer to this question doesn’t seem to be easy to give.
"Tall, big, strong, loves to eat people, even though it happened in the past." Soujiro and Sakura gave detailed descriptions, after picking out the key points. The more Mira listened, the more confused she became. It seemed to be some kind of beast or monster, but their direct translation of the syllable "Oni", written in the square script of the Moon Country, corresponded to the Lamani word "ghost". A spiritual body.
Mira, who couldn't understand, finally had no choice but to turn to the sage for help.
"It's the Moon Kingdom version of the troll." The sage explained straightforwardly. Now Mira understood, but it was Sakura and Soujiro who became interested.
"Long horns, very tall, very big, very strong, and loves to eat people." The sage once again found out the key points. The pronunciation of trolls or ogres in Rigal is "Oga", which is consistent with the moon. The pronunciation of "Zhiguo" is similar, and there may have been some exchanges in history. After just a brief exchange, they learned a somewhat unexpected fact - the existence of "ghosts" in the Moon Country actually had a considerable degree of culture.
"The status is the same as that of barbarians." Mira immediately understood what Sakura said directly.
This is very different from the ogres in Rigar. Demihumans such as the ogres of Rigar are usually low-intelligence and beast-like existences. But in the Kingdom of the Moon, ghosts have their own culture, can speak, have armors and weapons, and exist as an ethnic minority equal to the barbarians.
The ghost tribe has even produced many famous warriors. They are considered a famous fighting nation in this country and a rare fighting elite.
And although their heights, which are generally over two meters regardless of gender, have shrunk a lot compared to the trolls in Rigar who are often over three meters tall, the decrease in physical ability seems to be due to an increase in intelligence.
Brainless beasts can be dealt with no matter how strong they are if they choose the right method, but they can wear armor and have superb fighting ability, and they have the ability to learn but still have excellent physical fitness. If not for the sparse population, the ghost tribe must be the one who rules the Kingdom of the Moon. .
All in all, because of the existence of this native species, even if the sage does not have horns, his tall stature makes the locals doubt whether he is from the ghost tribe.
The day-and-a-half journey was filled with casual chats. Mira’s Japanese language skills improved rapidly as she deepened her interactions with the locals. It is not particularly difficult to learn this language, which has a similar pronunciation to Lamani. What is really difficult is the strict wording and rhetoric of this country.
Before she really understood the language here, Mira noticed the details that although Lulu and Aya both spoke Kazuto's language, they sounded completely different.
Ms. Doctor, who comes from the upper class, always addresses others with honorifics, either "you" or "this one." Lulu, on the other hand, is often more straightforward, and sometimes even uses slightly offensive words such as "you guy".
The difference in the way you speak is closely related to social class. Although this is true in any country, if you have problems with your wording in Rigal's country, you will be ostracized and despised at most, but here you will be killed on the spot with a sword.
A commoner who collides with a samurai will die; a commoner who refuses to kneel down and give way to a samurai patrolling the streets will die; a lower-level samurai who contradicts his superior will die; a civilian who criticizes his lord privately will die.
Even Henry and Mira, as outsiders, must follow the strict and inhumane class and rules. Doing as the Romans do when you are in the country does not just mean changing clothes. It is also best to respect the local rules in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
Although it is true that sometimes you cannot give in blindly and you must stick to your bottom line, you cannot set the bottom line standard too high and do not intend to compromise at all. Taking cooperation as much as possible as the starting point is a choice with a greater chance of winning than blindly only knowing confrontation and conflict.
After all, even if Henry could fight one against a hundred, he could only turn around and run away with an army of several thousand in a Japanese city, let alone become the enemy of the entire country.
There is a limit to what one person can do with a sword, even if that person is Henry Meyer.
The fulfilling time always flies by quickly. After walking on the dirt road, stepping on the mountain path carved out of the limestone, and finally passing the wooden bridge built on the mountain stream that was shaky due to disrepair, Qingzhi Town, It was definitely known to everyone.
Although it is only early spring and has not yet reached the most lush and lush time of midsummer, and there are even yellow leaves from last autumn exposed after the winter snow melts on the ground, the dense bamboo forest with a height of 20 meters still inevitably makes people who walk into it intoxicated. In this green.
Because of the rapid growth of dense bamboo forests, even after thousands of years, they are not necessarily much smaller than they were originally. However, according to the words of the craftsman uncle who came with Soujiro after chatting with him, the bamboos here are specially cultivated and cared for.
"After all, we consume a lot every month. Just growing it naturally won't be enough." He said this directly to the curious Luoan girl. Even after seeing the foreign appearance of the two, this The uncle didn't seem to mind very much.
Although he did look at Mira a few more times and muttered a few words about Yuki-onna in a low voice, which made the Luoan girl a little unhappy, but in general, the harmonious relationship gave her some confidence to enter Kazuto's town.
However, when walking through the dense bamboo forest, she noticed some shadows around her that were about to move, and the white-haired girl more or less understood the reason why the uncle wanted to follow them closely.
The craftsmen of Qingzhi Town who participated in the festival would return happily after selling out all their stuff, and those who came back with the silver they earned would naturally become fat sheep to be slaughtered in the eyes of others.
Even in a unified and relatively peaceful country like the Moon Country, there are still many violent incidents.
There was no war to reduce the population, and the population was always increasing year after year. After the samurai lost their land for various reasons, only a few were able to engage in business and rise. Most people are just like combat professionals in other areas. After lacking the means of making a living through war, they choose to bully the weak and plunder others with violence to make a living.
Because of the high-level control of the Moon Kingdom over the circulation of armor, most of these bandit and bandit groups composed of exiled rogues do not have very high combat effectiveness, and they can only end up fleeing when faced with the regular army. But they still pose a great threat to powerless civilians.
It’s just that no one with eyesight would attack them.
The Sage's figure alone is enough to scare away most people with evil intentions, not to mention the fact that he is carrying Kramer on his back, which can be seen to be huge even if it is wrapped in cloth. Both Mira and Sakura also carry sabers. Although this group of people is not large in number, it looks like they are all tough. Therefore, at the last moment when they were about to enter the town, many businessmen who had distanced themselves from them before slowly slowed down or accelerated their pace to approach them, pretending that they were also members of this group.
People's hearts remain unchanged no matter where they are. Even if there are differences in language and culture, the calculations of these people are still the same as the guys who happened to meet during the mercenary mission in Rigar.
"Huh--" The last section of the mountain road goes downwards. After walking out of the bamboo forest, the plains suddenly open up and sparkle under the early spring sunshine.
"So big!" Mira couldn't help but sigh, and the sage lifted his bamboo hat and glanced at the clear sky.
The houses closest to the bamboo forest are surrounded by square walls and form a courtyard. This is the bamboo processing workshop of the large chamber of commerce. Workers cut down the bamboo and cleaned off the excess branches before stacking them in the sun to dry. Most of these are used to make lower-grade items. And some carefully selected ones were brought into the house to dry in the shade for a longer period of time.
The processed bamboo is pulled into the yard and processed in various ways, and there are hundreds of such processing workshops. It occupies a large area densely. Going beyond here, there are more residential buildings. In the center of Qingzhi Town, two spiers stand towering. The magnificent hall is located in the southeast corner of the town, while the wide Yongchuan River in the northwest The river's tributaries all looked sparkling from this angle.
Busy ferries were coming and going on it. Judging from the direction, it was obvious that as expected, the possibility of another group of people escaping by boat arriving here was extremely high.
"Let's go, let's go to the tavern downstairs for a meal first. I'll treat you to a meal, how about treating it as a check-in fee for my little brother?" Soujiro extended an olive branch again.
"You really don't want to give up." Sakura sighed again.
"I will not participate in your so-called competition."
"But rice."
"I want to eat." The sage said in a calm tone.
"Well--"
"Hahahahaha." The open-minded Swamp Tiger laughed again: "I like my little brother more and more. What, do you really not consider partnering with me to make a big fortune!"
"Not consider."
"Think about it, hahahaha." The two of them walked forward first.
"Idiot man." Sakura sighed again.
"I feel the same way." Mira agreed, reaching out and pulling the oiran to catch up with them.
