From Chief to Ball

This feeling is very mysterious, at least now it seems that this young man is positive, without too many stains, tenacious, unyielding, eager for meritorious service, and ambitious, in short, measured by the moral standards of slave owners in the early days of slavery A perfect young man.

Chen Jian had just prepared for him a painful death and the possibility of extinct heirs the day before, but today they talked and laughed together. The filth of politicians is like the ashes on the snow, which cannot be removed no matter what.

Chapter 24 Vision for a new city

After shooting a few prey at random, Su Tang took Chen Jian to the vicinity of the river bank, and heard the sound of rumbling water a few miles away.

Although the snow has fallen, the ice has not yet frozen. This is not the first time Chen Jian has seen a big river. He rode a horse and walked around the river bank. Many man-made traces have been left on the river bank. This big river has nurtured this ethnic group. At the same time, this group will also spend thousands of years fighting against floods.

Su Tang thought that Chen Jian was just here to see, especially when Chen Jian saw Dahe, he was filled with emotion, and told a few stories about He Bo's pride in Qiushui Shi, so that Su Tang was immersed in it, and he didn't think much about it.

Looking at the rushing river, Chen Jian took a look at the surrounding situation. The river here is straight. Even so, the floods left behind are still indelible.

Large and small puddles are full of reeds and rushes, and in winter they are covered with clubs, all of which are left by the summer floods.

The silt in the puddles is rich in nutrients, but it is difficult to reclaim, and there is no need to reclaim these troublesome places when there are few people and a lot of land.

The villages are sparsely located farther from the river bank starting from Sucheng. There are not many villages in those places where reeds are overgrown, and a few smoke from cooking can be seen in the distance.

This is already the middle and lower reaches of the big river, and the channel of the big river will change every few decades due to frequent breaches. While the fertile land is left behind, there are also many saline-alkali lands, swamps, and lakes, which will be left to future generations. Good land, but at this time due to the constraints of productivity and tools, it is difficult to reclaim it.

Looking into the distance for a while, Chen Jian asked about the terrain around Sutang.

"Three hundred miles to the east, there are two cities. After passing those two cities, the Dongyi clan haunts. To the west, it is called Daye. When our ancestors walked out of the mountains and forests, they saw the boundless wild land. Incomparable, so it has this name. There is a big lake in the wild, connected with the big river, and it is hundreds of miles wide, so it is called Dayeze."

"There are many cities and towns around Onozawa. There are many fish and shrimps in the lake, and there are many water chestnuts, water chestnuts, and lotus roots. Someone is going."

"It's just that most of the slaves who escaped from the surrounding cities ran there, relying on the water potential and mire, making it difficult to hunt down. They also learned methods of planting from here, and made a living by collecting and planting inside."

"A hundred miles north of Onozawa is the salt pond in Sucheng, which originally belonged to Hwaseong, but after the death of the leader of Hwaseong 20 years ago, Hwaseong fell and fell apart. My father also has half of Hwaseong's blood, so he took Hwaseong to keep it. , Wait until the various clans in Hwaseong rebuild the city before handing them back to them."

"To the east of Yanchi, and to the northwest of Sucheng, there is a big mountain called Yue. That's where my father's name came from, not the name of the mountain. The mountain is thousands of steps high, and the sea of ​​clouds rises. It's a dangerous place. Ji If Xia has time, I can take you to see it."

Chen Jian thanked him with a smile, jumped off the horse, and drew a few strokes of the rough terrain with a wooden stick in the snow. They were all simple lines. But when Su Tang saw this, he knew that Chen Jian was not just here to see Dahe is so simple.

Pointing to one of the long lines and a small circle on it, he said, "Is this a big river? Is this Sucheng? Ji Xia managed to draw thousands of miles of rivers and mountains in his eyes with a wooden stick. What Ji Xia wants to see is not The mighty river, but this river drawn on the snow like hemp rope."

Chen Jian said with a smile: "The big river in the eyes is the big river, isn't the big river that the eyes can't see?"

As a perfunctory sentence, after calculating the terrain of mountains and rivers, the location of Sucheng is very good, about the east of the center of the entire cultural circle, adjacent to Dahe Ono, with vast fields and salt ponds. It is not too strange to achieve today's strength.

But the location of Xia City is quite bad, it is thousands of miles away in the northwest, so it is difficult to integrate quickly.But moving away is not enough. It can stop the grassland tribes and Xirong. This is Chen Jian's bottom line.Besides, being in the northwest also has the advantage of being in the northwest. The area to the west is a vacuum of civilization, which can quickly spread culture to assimilate and expand the population.

Between gains and losses, Chen Jian thought for a while, and his eyes were fixed on the circle representing Onozawa on the snow map painting.

If you want to gain the recognition of the clans, you must contribute to the entire clan, and at the same time, let the clan recognize and be familiar with it. It takes a month or two to go back and forth in the northwest, which is not acceptable.

It is even more impossible for the whole clan to move away, not to mention that these clans would not agree to a clan with gunpowder, bronze and other technologies to be their neighbors, even the land wealth and prestige accumulated in Xiacheng for three years cannot be moved away.

After pondering for a while, he had some calculations in his mind, lifted his foot to erase the traces of the painting, and decided to fight for a foothold on both sides of the river for Xia City in this alliance.

Today, there is no clear dividing line between cities and clans. Unlike the countries of later generations, most cities only control the range of tens to hundreds of miles around them.

There are a lot of escaped slaves in the Great Yeze, and it is not suitable for other clans to cultivate. This is a good enclave.

Geographically located in the center of the cultural circle, close to the middle and lower reaches of the wide river, it is suitable for boats to sail, and the water transportation is convenient. It is a good choice as a trade transfer station and a trade city.

Wait until the hydrology and geography are clearer, and then improve the sailboat. It only takes more than ten days from Onozawa to Caohe, which is completely within the controllable range.

There is no need to reclaim too much land, just make it a city with developed handicraft industry and trade, accumulate wealth and become the economic center of the entire cultural circle.

It is more convenient to be a shit-stirring stick if it is close, and it can be combined vertically and horizontally more conveniently.

Xiacheng's homeland is in the northwest, and it is upstream. The water transportation in the rest of the cities is not developed enough, the wheel technology has not expanded rapidly, and there are almost no roads.

Xiacheng can use ships to intervene in city disputes, but it is difficult for other cities to take revenge on Xiacheng.

Don't show hostility to any city in the early stage, treat them equally, quickly establish the important position of this enclave with handicraft industry, and then slowly interfere in the internal affairs of other cities.

This was not his sudden idea, but after talking with Su Yue yesterday, he realized a very important issue: Even if two ethnic groups with different worldviews and customs form an alliance because of interests, there will be a great separation in the end mood.

There are so many sayings about the way of sacrifice, let alone other aspects.

A single person cannot create a civilization, because civilization is not just copper and iron guns, but more cultural customs are believed by all the people of the entire ethnic group. Xiacheng must gain a foothold here and get rid of this geographical The habit gap brought about by the location will do.

It's like making clay figurines, two pieces of clay are smashed and re-kneaded, there is me in you, and you in me, instead of one accusing one party of not knowing how to sacrifice and having no rules, and the other accusing the other party of not knowing how to use hands to change the world, even if the same skin and hair With the same clothes and crown, it will be difficult to come together without gaps in the future.

It's just... what reason or excuse do you need to use to get the nearby clans to agree to Xia Cheng's establishment of a new city in Onozawa?

Chapter 25 Turning the Sanctity of the League into a Dirty Deal

On the way back, Chen Jian's mood was like trampled snow, through the thin snow, he could always see some green hope.

Several people ran forward in a hurry in the snow. After seeing Chen Jian and others, they moved away from them and shouted loudly, as if there was something urgent.

When I got closer, I found some people from Sucheng, wearing rough clothes, they were exhausted from the tens of miles of travel, and they were bent over with their hands on their knees.

When they took a breath and raised their heads, they looked at these people with horror in their eyes. They couldn't believe that the misty blue smoke in the fairyland on the stage a few days ago would cause such damage.

"Jixia... something happened. Your house... exploded!"

……

The delayed gunpowder explosion occurred when the people of Sucheng were eating lunch. In winter, most people had two meals a day, except for the chief.

In addition, the brass utensils that Chen Jian gave to Suyue made Suyue very fond of them. The food he was used to eating seemed to be more delicious in brighter dishes. In order to display these utensils, Suyue also invited the leaders of several other clans. , to discuss some things by the way.

Halfway through the meal, there was a sudden burst of strong explosions outside. There was no thunder in winter, and there was no story about cooking wine to talk about heroes, but the knives, forks and chopsticks in many people's hands were still scared away.

Without waiting for the outsiders to report back, the leaders rushed out of the room, looked at the house where the Xiacheng people lived, and saw the second explosion.

The priests wrote down the scene they saw at that time in short words: purple smoke pierced through the house, the sound was like thunder, and the building collapsed.

The leaders were shocked, and immediately thought of the weapons used by Xiacheng people that people often heard about. After seeing it with their own eyes, they realized that those rumors were not all false.

This is not the acropolis where Chen Jian can show off his power and deliberately use gunpowder to kill the slaves, so he has no chance to show the value of the weapons in his hands and Xia City, so he can only use this sudden accident.

Ever since he came to Sucheng, Chen Jian has never displayed these weapons. One is that if he shows it, it will trigger the disgust of others, which means dancing with relatives. The third is that the power of the gunpowder jar is limited by the shell and the charge, and the effect is not too amazing, which is far less effective than a jar that is too big to be thrown.

And... At the time of the Caohe League, Chen Jian had already agreed to exchange gunpowder as goods with the cities participating in the Caohe League. The relationship between Yi is something that Chen Jian must maintain.

This "accidental" flame quickly ignited the thatch on the roof. People were worried that the thunderous explosion would happen again, and no one dared to approach it. The flames then gradually extinguished.

Careful people smelled the smell in the air, which was the same as the smell of misty smoke and dust in the moon palace created by the drama on the stage a few days ago, except that the scent of the woman singing in the moon palace was missing.

The taste is the same, but one illusion is like a dream, but this one is shaking, much more shocking than that day.

The leaders looked at each other in blank dismay, but several clans along the Caohe River had seen it before, and they were not too shocked, they just shook their heads slightly when they smelled the smell in the air.