Aztec Eternals

Everyone walked along the long bridge of Baishi and entered the magnificent capital city in the lake.

Under Xiulot's suggestion, neat water pines and cypresses have been planted on the earth embankments on both sides of the long bridge for beauty and reinforcement. Along the way, pedestrians retreated to the embankment and knelt under the tree to salute. The breeze from the lake blows, and the young avivit trees sway with the wind, exuding the fragrance of pines and cypresses.

Shulot looked around and saw pines and cypresses lined up on both sides of the water, extending for several miles. The tree body is beautiful and slender, the green branches are slanting down, and the new buds are verdant. Between Pinghu Lake and Baiqiao, in front of temples and palaces, accompanied by sunshine and breeze, they sway with flowing vitality, so beautiful and refined, it makes people lose their minds.

The young man thinks about the magnificent scenery of pines and cypresses, and misses the small bridge in the water town of his hometown. Suddenly, he thought of the name of the Avivite tree again, and his mind drifted away.

"Occupy the capital of God, inherit the great rule, and the new king Yazheng."

Thinking of this, he smiled slightly and continued to move forward.

The streets of Tenochtitlan are wide, the waterways criss-cross, the houses neat and orderly. The city in the lake is strictly managed, and hygiene is extremely important. Those who pollute the lake will be severely punished, and even executed. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the island in the middle of the lake, but it was not as messy as the European cities at the same time. Instead, it looked like an ancient Roman city with a reasonable layout and cleanliness.

The capital has special diversion canals, drainage canals, and public toilets.

Two specialized aqueducts are more than 100 miles long, diverting water directly from the western plateau, passing through the center of the city, separating the northern city from the main city, and then dispersing into different urban areas. This is a dedicated drinking water route. Next to the houses and streets, there are special drainage channels to guide the urban sewage to the nearest water, Futian Chinanpa. Near each community and the main road, there are special public toilets, which are used to collect fertilizers and supplement the nutrient consumption of the floating fields.

The purification of the lake water relies on soil filtration and floating fields in the water. In Lake Texcoco around the capital city, there are 9,000 hectares of Chinanampa distributed layer by layer. The crops planted all year round absorb the nutrients in the water, decompose the accumulated fertilizer, and purify the water quality all the time. In Chinanampa, there are large and small schools of fishes that devour the floating fields and organic particles in the water. The continuous floating fields and the huge capital are interdependent, forming a clean and efficient giant ecological agriculture.

Shulot stopped. His gaze rested on the shade outside the public toilet hut, where there was slightly moist purple-red soil.

The young man thought for a while, thinking back a lot yesterday, this should be another important source of nitrate, dung nitrate and urine nitrate. In his memory, it is very difficult to extract feces and urine nitrate, and the product is heterogeneous and impure, requiring more delicate treatment. Obviously, he has never memorized the specific steps, so all this can only be slowly explored.

Shulot secretly made a note of it, and assigned everyone here: guard Elvi led the temple guards, and went to the priest's temple to report to his grandfather. The old carpenter Kuod returned to the crafting center and stepped up to make the longbow. Another guard led Moreno, the leader of the salt worker, to the high priest's mansion, where he stored nitrate and continued to study nitrate making.

The boy thought for a while, and asked Bertard to take the dried soil salt, and then went directly to the administrative center in the south of the palace area.

The administrative center is located on the south side of the central square of the capital, covering a rather large area. Among them, there are more than one hundred houses with white stone and red roof, surrounded by blooming gardens and gurgling water.

On the east side of the administrative center is the sacred and lofty Ancestor Memorial Square, where many vicissitudes of stone pillars and simple statues depicting graphics are erected.

Xiulot stopped for a while to check. It is being rebuilt here, and it seems that more ancestral pillars and statues are ready to be erected. After thinking for a moment, the young man remembered that this was also one of the reform plans. The pedigree of the Mexica ancestors, which was originally more than a hundred years old, is constantly being added until it is perfectly connected to the myths and legends of the Olmec civilization three thousand years ago.

"Inherited from generation to generation, the same line of life, that's how it came about."

Xiulot laughed at himself and continued on.

On the west side of the Executive Palace is the Capital Court, with white walls and black stripes, and a base several meters high, which is responsible for adjudicating civil conflicts in the Texcoco Lake District. The young man looked from a distance, and saw the senior priest in the feather crown and deep robe standing on the high platform, reading something aloud. And under the high platform, there are many big merchants who are dressed in gorgeous clothes, with servants and warriors, bowing or kneeling.

The big merchants were talking a lot, and the faint noise floated from afar. The high priest waved his hand indifferently, and hundreds of temple guards took a few steps forward, striking the shield with their batons, and howling coyotes intimidatingly. The distant voice suddenly disappeared. After a while, a huge wooden sign was erected in front of the court, and the big merchants walked out dejectedly, leaving in a hurry with important bad news.

Xiuluo nodded, the commercial law is being promulgated and implemented. The government will control prices, strictly control strategic materials, limit the use of luxury goods, impose heavy taxes, ban Shenyan on a large scale, and step up the unification of weights and measures. Even if the means are flexible and many restrictions can be circumvented, the profits of big businessmen will still be significantly reduced, especially for foreign businessmen.

However, even if the big businessmen are dissatisfied, it has nothing to do with the overall situation. From the young man's point of view, neither the commercial law nor the civilian law will have too many disturbances. The most important key to the new law is to implement the noble law and compete for the management rights of the village!

Shulot stepped into the administrative palace, and at the center was the King's Palace of the Alliance, a magnificent and rare two-story building.

The upper level of the Palace of the Kings is the throne of the three kings of Tenochtlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, and it is also the most noble main hall, which is used for large conferences. At first the three kings were at the top, and then Texcoco and Tracopan were at the bottom. But at this time, the boy looked in from the open window, and there was only the one and only Supreme Throne.

The lower floor of the King's Palace is divided into different side halls, the most important of which are the Government Affairs Hall and the Military Affairs Hall. When the boy stepped into the king's palace, he saw dozens of nobles waiting in the vast outer hall. They gather into different groups by region and rank, with vague and variable affiliations with each other. Or more accurately, there are internal tribal alliances.

Shulot observed carefully. These nobles were all warriors, with strong bodies and wearing colorful battle clothes. They gesticulated with bare hands, quarreled with each other with loud voices from time to time, and competed fiercely with fists and feet. There was a lot of discussion in the outer hall, it was noisy, orderly and brutal.

Seeing Xiulot walking in solemnly, the nobles were slightly taken aback, and then rushed over in a swarm. They either hugged enthusiastically, or bowed their heads respectfully, or watched silently with cold eyes. Their postures were different, and their intentions were secretive and unpredictable.

In general, the Mexica Alliance is still in the late tribal era with rough governance. The administrative system is simple and independent, much like the tribal alliance in the Eurasian grassland, or the Duoyin Group in the Shang Dynasty.

The king is at the top of the league. Next is the commander-in-chief of the "female snake" and four ministers of state affairs, usually from the royal family and aristocrats with close blood. The important military and political affairs of the alliance are all negotiated by the king and the five-member political group, which is the absolute core of politics.

Further down, there is an alliance parliament composed of powerful nobles at all levels, which has both military and administrative functions. With the third-level honorable nobles as the core, the big and small nobles get closer together according to level, region and degree of closeness, forming a small group that is stable and divided.

The great aristocrats have varying numbers of private soldiers, have the taxation power of fiefs, and hold different official positions at the same time, and are responsible for the specific affairs of the alliance. Divided in detail, these positions can be divided into central officials, local officials and clan officials.

The position of the central official comes from the appointment of the king. Common duties include tax collection, construction, reclamation, mining, salt mining, training, armament, patrol, diplomacy, deterrence. The most important duty is to accompany the army to fight and guarantee logistics. The alliance has been fighting for more than 30 years, and war has become the daily instinct of the kingdom. Only powerful warriors can be recognized by everyone.

Local officials are enfeoffments from various places, usually from hereditary. Non-hereditary military nobles are controlled by the central government, and their titles and lands cannot be completely inherited. The mines in various places sometimes belong to the central government and sometimes belong to the local area, depending on the distance and the degree of treasure of the minerals. For example, important obsidian mines are all managed by central officials, while gold and silver mines that can be seen everywhere are mostly left to local officials to decide on their own.

Clan officials are actually grass-roots officials of the dynasty. Village settlements in various places lived together as a group, elected local village leaders, and then formed a grassroots management group with the participation of priests and warriors. The 100 communities in the capital city in the middle of the lake are a mixture of clan officials and central officials, important craftsmen and warrior communities are directly controlled by the central officials, and ordinary civilian communities are still elected by clan officials.

The affairs officer of the alliance is interlaced with three kinds of official positions, including the capital court, local tax officials, agricultural officials, storage officers, and military academy instructors. The proportion of central officials depends on the central control over the local area. Outside the Texcoco Lake area, there are all autonomous local officials and clan officials.

Thinking of this, Xiulot shook his head slightly, the road to centralization is still very long. The first thing to do is to control more troops, enhance the military strength of the center, and carry out effective military reforms!

Under the guard of Bertard, the boy struggled to squeeze out from the enthusiastic nobles. He tidied up the black priestly uniform, put on the solemn feather crown, and solemnly pushed open the door of the Government Affairs Hall.

In the deep hall, Avitt looked majestic, high above the throne. The king's clothes were crimson and black, just like the deep gaze he cast. Gilliam sat cross-legged seriously, smiling silently at the boy. Stanley's burly body sat upright, like a wild bear restraining him, and nodded friendlyly at the boy. On the left and right, two equally strong middle-aged nobles heard the sound, one with a smile on his face and the other with a cold gaze.

On the table in front of everyone, the sacred cocoa drink was bright red in the pottery cups, like holy blood that had been left still, faintly flickering coldly.

Under the deep and calm eyes of the king, Shulot knelt down respectfully. The young man's face was solemn, his head touched the ground, and he bowed solemnly. Behind him, Berthard retreated with a salute, closed the door of the palace, there was silence everywhere, and a needle could be heard. On the cold ground, there was only a simple and unadorned clay pot, filled with crystal clear soil salt.