Aztec Eternals

Chapter 1553: Wait a moment! I'll go dig up my grandpa's grave right now…

“? ? What kind of ‘beef bar’ are you talking about? I don’t understand… This bowl was originally my father’s big bowl. He died not two years after I had memories, and this became my big bowl! How did he die? Hunting, and encountering another tribe, he was smashed to death with a hammer. At least he left a corpse, and wasn’t taken away and eaten… After that, I’ve always used this big bowl to eat, I can eat two bowls in one meal! But eating two bowls is also impossible, because there’s not that much to eat in the tribe…”

“Eat what? Usually in spring it’s a little more than half a bowl of thin gruel, in summer it’s a bowl of dry food, and in winter it’s only half a bowl of thin gruel. The best time is autumn, there’s more game, easier to catch, plus acorns and barnyard millet, you can eat two bowls of dry food… Now it’s summer, and we haven’t caught any game this time, if you hadn’t brought food, we’d only be able to eat half a bowl of thin gruel today…”

The Tulu Ting Mountain Guard is a garrison that can house a thousand men, so the mountain fort is very large. Even if half of the buildings have collapsed, housing five hundred men is no problem at all. But right now, inside the fort, counting the 150-man horse-buying team and the hundred-plus tribesmen, there are only about three hundred people in total, which makes the寨子 feel empty.

The Ming army’s kitchen is still in good condition, mainly because the roof is sturdy and doesn’t leak when it rains, so a lot of dry firewood collected by the Duo’er tribe is stored there. However, the tribe doesn’t usually cook in the kitchen, they prefer to burn in the fire pit outside the kitchen. Well, everyone watches the food go into the pot, and watches the food being distributed, so they feel at ease.

As for stealing food? Stealing food is impossible, it’s impossible to steal food in this lifetime. If a tribesman steals food, steals a lot of food, once discovered, they will basically be beaten to death, and directly start their next life. Hungry? Being hungry can’t be helped, who isn’t hungry? Even the chief Wuduwen skips five meals every three days. Well, six meals every three days, two meals a day. What good family eats three meals a day? In the tribe, especially winter is the hardest to get through, it’s truly a time of utter poverty, with ice and snow covering everything, and everyone is starving. Which winter hasn’t someone starved to death? But no matter how hungry you are, you can’t steal food! The grain must be reserved for the men who can hunt, and the pregnant women, otherwise the tribe won’t be able to continue.

“Stored grain? Where can we store grain? From the long winter to spring, everyone starves the same, starving like bears with green eyes! I am the most capable, the best hunter, of the chief, so of course I eat the most, but I still can’t eat my fill. If it’s women and children, they can only eat a little bit… Hunting? How is it possible to catch big game every day? It’s not possible even in autumn, there aren’t that many deer and wolves in the forest! Usually it’s all kinds of ‘crunchy-crunchy’, ‘sour-crunchy’, ‘snap-crunchy’, and then boil them together in water to eat… It must be boiled to eat, otherwise it can’t be pulled out! As for ‘toothy-crunchy’ and ‘poking-mouth-crunchy’, those are okay, very fragrant, and easy to pull out after eating, just a little less…”

Under the gaze of the three leaders, Duo’er tribe chief Wuduwen held the “helmet bowl” while scooping up mouthfuls of rice with his hand, not idle for a moment. He spoke unclearly, and Ali didn’t quite understand, but Maha Agudda had led the tribe south before, and had truly lived a life of drinking blood and sleeping in the snow, enduring hunger and cold. As soon as he heard Wuxiong’s description, he immediately understood, and said with a smile.

“祖! That’s how the tribes in the forest put it… ‘Crunchy-crunchy’ is wild vegetables! In spring it’s ferns, shepherd’s purse, and aralia sprouts, in summer it’s lamb's quarters, patrinia, daylilies, wild garlic, and water celery, and in autumn there’s only the lilyturf root in the soil… Yes! They all taste bitter, only daylilies are slightly sweeter. Well, they’re not very filling, ferns and lilyturf roots are slightly better, but far worse than barnyard millet…”

“‘Sour-crunchy’ is wild fruit! Only available in summer and autumn, you have to dry them and try to store them for the winter. Cowberries, wild grapes, bird cherries, hawthorns, and black chokeberries are all sour and astringent, no animals come to compete for them, easy to find… Sand pears are tastier, a little sweet, easily pecked by birds, and gnawed by deer, so there are fewer. Of course, the best are pine nuts, hazelnuts, and acorns in autumn! These are really filling, eating them doesn’t fool the stomach, they’re good things to fill you up!… When hunting in the autumn, everyone follows the squirrels, usually just to find the squirrel’s nest, and dig out the nuts it’s stored. As for the squirrel meat, although it’s fragrant and tender, it’s less than a palmful, gone in two bites…”

“‘Snap-crunchy’, that’s talking about bugs! What bugs can you eat? Grasshoppers, silkworm pupae, scarab beetle larvae, stick insect larvae, tree beetle larvae… Soft and delicious, all roasted or boiled, crunchy with shells! The most delicious? That must be wasp and bee larvae! They taste a little sweet, soft and tender, and still moving in your mouth… Yes! You can eat them raw! Then dig out the honey from the honeycomb, that’s a real good thing, you can put it on wounds… How to dig it out? Smear a layer of mud on your body, then smoke it with smoke. Be careful not to set the honeycomb on fire, and leave the queen bee, don’t hurt it. That way, in a few months, you can dig it out again…”

“As for ‘toothy-crunchy’, that’s barnyard millet, it’s still toothy after boiling, just like eating sand, not as good as this slippery clay. You say you can grind it? Haven’t tried it, too much trouble, and there are no tools, at most mash it after boiling… Haha! ‘Poking-mouth-crunchy’, that’s fish! Our Maha tribe is named after fish, we’re the best at catching chum salmon! Fish can’t be eaten raw, the lake god will be unhappy, it will cause bloating and death. But after it’s frozen, it’s okay to eat it raw, and it’s the most important food for the winter… May the main god witness! Our Maha tribe’s main camp in the future must be set up by the side of the sea where fish are produced, only then can we raise cattle and horses and catch fish!…”

Speaking of these unforgettable tribal pasts, Agudda, who came from the wild Jurchen people, was very excited, and a look of emotion appeared on his weathered tiger face. Before meeting his brother-in-law Azu, wasn’t this how his Maha tribe had lived? Sometimes when they were extremely hungry, and couldn’t catch anything to eat, then they had to… eat themselves…

Therefore, in the wild tribes who were suffering from hunger and cold, and forced south by the cold wave, where would there be any old people? Look at the lives of us wild Jurchen people, and then look at the lives of those domesticated Jurchen tribes in the south! How could this not make them go crazy, desperately kill, desperately rob, and desperately eat?! Even if what they’re eating is people…

“Agudda, have you ever eaten the mushrooms in these mountains? Are there any particularly strange ones that can communicate with the gods, like psilocybin mushrooms?…”

“You mean mushrooms? Well… ordinary tribesmen don’t eat that stuff. What it looks like going down, it looks like coming out, not filling at all! Mushrooms are easy to be poisonous if you don’t boil them, and a waste of firewood if you boil them! Only those tribal shamans with traditions will use strange mushrooms to invite gods or heal… But when I migrated before, I rarely encountered shamans. After all, shamans are usually old, can’t move during migration, and most of them probably died on the road!…”

Maha Agudai shook his head, still holding great respect for the tribe's shamans and priests. The Tungusic tribes had always been in a harsh and difficult environment, and their reverence for nature came from the heart. A shaman with a lineage not only represented the will of the spirits of nature, but also knew a lot of experience and knowledge. Therefore, tribes with shamans tend to survive and grow!

But likewise, the Tungusic tribes' stubborn shamanic traditions, in harmony with their natural environment, also became a tribal symbol of resistance against the Sinicization of the Great Ming. When they went south from the territory of the Wild Jurchens to the territory of the Haixi and Jianzhou, those civilized Jurchen tribes, there were even more tribal shamans. An old shaman in the tribe often had the power to rival the chieftain, and their status was very high!

"Oh, Lord! Truly barbaric and impoverished are the Wild Jurchen tribes... If the kingdom's priests bring potatoes and completely change their lives, allowing their tribes to continue and grow... then surely the faith of the Lord will truly take root in the hearts of these fierce, beast-like tribes!..."

Zu Walo listened to these forest tribes' experiences of survival, looking at those dirty tribal women and children, and the wild vegetable mush in their wooden bowls, his mood was indeed somewhat fluctuating. Their team was going west to buy horses, and they had to carry a lot of salt goods for trading, and the dry food they carried was limited, so they had to use it sparingly and hunt along the way to replenish it. He couldn't even let everyone in the hundred-plus-person Dore tribe eat a meal of mashed potatoes, and the tribe's rules wouldn't allow it. In fact, only the thirty or forty strong warriors capable of hunting and fighting were qualified to share this "delicious meal"!

"Aiya! It smells so good! Where was this white mud dug up from? I'll take some people to dig some too, and bring it back to eat... It feels much better than barnyard grass and acorns!"

"May the Lord protect us! U Xiong, this 'white mud' isn't dug up, it's planted! Well, plant it in the spring, and dig it up again in the fall, and it will multiply... Next spring, I will send a shaman over to help you plant 'white mud', so that your tribe can have enough to eat!"

"Ah! A shaman is coming? And we can have enough to eat!... Good! Good! Niu Ba is so good!..."

Hearing this, Udu Wen was overjoyed, and threw down the empty, unbreakable "big bowl". He was both enthusiastic and excited, patting Zu Walo's shoulder with his fan-like palm, causing Azu to stagger. Tiger Slave glared at him, pushed him away, and he wasn't angry, just laughing like a bear.

"Hahaha! Enough to eat! Eat white mud! Just thinking about it makes me so happy!"

"..."

Ali, who was next to him, finally found an opportunity, bent down and picked up the iron-forged "helmet bowl". He looked at it over and over, knocked on it hard, couldn't help but frown, and muttered to himself in a low voice.

"It is indeed the helmet of the commander, made of fine iron. Even if it's rusted, and doesn't know how many years have passed, it's still quite strong... The Tulu Ting Mountain Guard was a large guard post with a thousand people, and it used to be a top-ranked large tribe! There is such a solid guard post fortress here, and there is also the commander's helmet, there should be tokens left behind, right? How come the Jurchen tribe in this guard post is only a hundred-plus people left, and they don't look like Sinicized civilized Jurchens at all, but completely like wild men?..."

"Oh, Lord of the Eastern Sea! There must be something left here! Especially iron, copper... Right! Most importantly, the official seal copper plaque of the Tulu Ting Mountain Guard, conferred by Emperor Taizong, which allowed them to pay tribute southward!... Where did the official seal of this guard post go?"

After pondering for a moment, Ali turned to look at Udu Wen. He tried to squeeze out a smile and asked this simple bear.

"U Xiong, I ask you... Have you ever seen a square, shiny copper seal? About this big, with a pointed copper handle on one end, and many words on the other... Well, many square patterns?..."

"? I don't understand. What are you asking again? Are you, again, trying to steal my things? My things are mine, not yours! When there's no one around later, watch me smash you to death with a hammer... Uh!"

Udu Wen glared with his bear eyes, looking fiercely at Ali, and uttering harsh words. Ali opened his mouth, subconsciously taking half a step back. Agudai raised his eyebrows, stepped forward, and slapped U Xiong's head heavily. With U Xiong's tall stature, only Agudai could reach him among the people present. Like Zu Walo, even if he tiptoed, he would still be slightly strained.

"You silly bear, what nonsense are you talking about?! Answer what you're asked! Did you hear that?!"

"Uh!."

"Did you hear that?!"

"Ah! Listen... listen to you, Ezhen."

Udu Wen shrank his head, and the fierceness on his face was directly knocked away by this roar and slap. Like him, a Jurchen chieftain who only recognized force, only Agudai could suppress him, Ali and Zu Walo couldn't. He looked at Agudai with some fear, muttering something in his mouth. Agudai glared at him with his tiger eyes, thought about it, and gave him a sweet date after the slap.

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"You search carefully! That thing is very important! It can be exchanged for good things in the south... If you find it, I'll reward you with two more bags of white mud potatoes! And a bag of pickled fish meat!..."

"Ah! Two bags of white mud, a bag of pickled fish meat!"

"Ah? Where I live? There's definitely nothing there. Where Ama lived? Isn't that where I live? I even collected his body... Where my Mafa lived? He died a long time ago, my Ama doesn't even remember him, who knows where he lived before he died?... Shiny thing? Mafa grandfather... Eh! I seem to have a bit of an impression, I really have a bit of an impression!..."

Udu Wen blinked his bear-like eyes, and a pureness that had not been contaminated appeared in his eyes. His world was only a little bit big, his head was very clean, all his memories were very fresh, just like his twenty-something age... After a moment, he suddenly slapped his bear leg and turned to run out of the mountain fort.

"Ah ha! Shiny thing, Mafa's thing... I remembered! I remembered where I saw it!..."

"Ah?! U Xiong, what did you remember? Where are you running to?!..."

"I'm going to the forest on the opposite mountain, the place where my Mafa lives now!... You wait a moment! I'll be back soon... I'm going to dig up my Mafa grandfather's grave!..."

"? ? ?"

"! ! !"

Note: The Easter egg chapter is a map of the Northeast situation, as well as the horse buying route.