"Shuanghe Sword has changed hands." Xiao Qianqiu said suddenly.
When he said this, Hualin was inspecting another Yi village. Along the way, they did not go straight towards the Black Mountain. Instead, they followed the path that Chief Pai Gang had taken before, from one Yi village to the other. Another barbarian village. Chief Pai Gang left like this because he wanted to sell the salt he was carrying. Hualin had no salt to sell, but the intelligence he wanted to collect, that is, the signs that the people's beliefs in this area were affected, had to be obtained from these Not found in settlements.
This was an extremely tedious job, and they saw the same scene everywhere: barbarian warriors lurking behind trees, eager to rob, and at the same time deeply afraid of being robbed, slaves who just wanted to be lazy, A barbarian priest praying to the Guru in front of the fire. Occasionally, they would see a burned village. This was the natural fate of the losers in the Yi people's civil war. The victors often did not have enough manpower to ensure the safety of the newly occupied land. It was better to abandon it completely and capture the captured people. Slaves and livestock were transported back to their lands. On the one hand, the civil war among the Yi people caused them to continuously move into the depths of the Yi Mountains, and in two hundred years they expanded into an area as large as the Hundred Eyes Kingdom. On the other hand, it also caused them to constantly give up the land they had cultivated under the pressure of their neighbors. Land, leaving those lands unused.
Hualin originally observed only the statues of gods enshrined in various villages and the rituals of prayer and worship. Gradually, he noticed that there were inconsistencies in Yi people's society that he had not yet understood.
Every Yi people is extremely enthusiastic about catching slaves. In their minds, slaves can be exchanged for everything. For this reason, they do not hesitate to offend all their neighbors and relatives, and live in fear that they may be caught all day long. among. But, they captured so many slaves, who kept accepting them? It is true that there are some slaves in each village that they captured or exchanged for other slaves, but most of the captives were undoubtedly sold to slave traders in exchange for various things they needed.
It is impossible for these Yi slaves to be sold outside the mountains. A girl outside the mountains who can cook and weave is only equivalent to the price of a pig. And no matter how cheap the slaves in the Yi mountains are, the slave traders will transport them out of the mountains. The price of a mountain is probably much greater than that of a pig, not to mention that they can't weave, and their cooking is - in short, they won't be able to find buyers. Sell it deeper into the mountains? Chieftain Paigang believed so. After Hualin walked through it himself, he felt that the truth was probably the opposite.
No matter where he goes, the productivity level of the barbarians is the same pathetic. If their slaves are inherited, captured, or exchanged for captured slaves, then the slave master is sending them to do what they want. They can still earn some money by working, but if they are bought, they will have to resort to simple and crude agriculture and simple and crude slave management. The slave owners will not be able to make back their capital in a hundred years! Because even if it doesn’t cost a penny to capture slaves from the mountains, the slave traders have to drive them a long way. Along the way, they have to travel through mountains and rivers, provide food and drink, and hire bodyguards to guard against robberies along the way. The slave traders themselves still have to make money. The price is definitely not as cheap as Shanwai, it only requires one pig!
What's more, the new settlements in the mountains are all tribes who fled into the mountains after defeat. They may not be able to pay a pig!
What exactly did they exchange for the slaves from the slave traders? Or did they never exchange at all?
"Maybe it's the mineral deposits in the mountains," Xiao Qianqiu said: "Silver mines or others, which require manpower and can also pay the price required by slave traders."
This seemed like a very reasonable answer, but Hualin believed that other possibilities could not be ignored. He recalled the battle between Xiao Ruyun and the Yiren High Priest. The power used by the opponent now seemed quite There was something fishy, no, the whole team was acting strangely. They didn't look like they were marching and fighting in a serious way - now that he had experienced that kind of existence personally, he could tell eight or nine points - it looked more like... A huge sacrifice.
Priests and believers use collective death to open the door to another world.
It's just that the guy who came was not who they thought he was.
But - just as he was meditating on that "but", Xiao Qianqiu suddenly said this. He nodded to indicate that he understood, and then continued to think about that question, causing Xiao Qianqiu to ask another question: "You don't want to know what happened?" What happened?"
"If what happened in Heishan cannot be solved, Shuanghe County may not exist in this world," Hualin replied: "Maybe this world will also cease to exist. Then, the current, past, and future owners of Shuanghe Sword will happen. What, is it even worth asking?
. m.
