Colonial Era: From Remnants to European Dominator

"Jinshan".

"Gold----mountain."

Under the tree, dozens of children with Turkic-style braids were gathered together, reciting the Chinese they were taught by their teacher, but their accents were really not flattering.

"Salt."

"Salt----"

Standing under the tree, Guo Wen smacked his chapped lips and listlessly recited the primers that ordinary children in Jinshan learned in private schools. Every time he read a word, the Turkic children around him would repeat it.

"Mr. Guo, dinner is ready."

The Turkic man wearing a sheep-horned hat spoke a half-baked Chinese language, and his mouth had a faint "muttony smell"—you didn't need to guess that he was eating mutton today.

As soon as he sat down, he saw a group of children staring at him expectantly. Guo Wen, holding a ceramic bowl, could only give each of them a small piece of mutton. By the time he ate, there was less than half of the mutton left in his bowl.

Upon seeing this scene, the Turkic man named Mora Achi first picked up a wooden stick to drive away the children who wanted to continue, and then brought half a bowl of mutton to Guo Wen.

Taking the mutton, Guo Wen looked at the somewhat frugal yet greedy face, thinking that the other person might have only secretly drunk some mutton soup. He shook his head, then gave some mutton to the other person before continuing to eat.

Chewing on the mutton in his mouth, Aqi didn't care about the grease on his hands. While licking his fingers, he said to Guo Wen, who was eating mutton elegantly beside him:

"Mr. Guo, I don't understand why the chief of Jinshan wants someone as learned as you to teach us to read. The only books I've ever seen in my life are the sheepskin maps from the tribe, which have many pictures on them, and also pictures of rivers—"

Listening to the nagging in his ears, Guo Wen half-heartedly agreed, but in his heart he was cursing. Ever since he came to the Mora tribe, his good days were over. In the morning he had to teach how to cultivate and plant crops, in the afternoon he had to teach, and in the evening he had to save seeds. They were simply treating him, Guo Wen, like a beast of burden.

Not to mention that apart from the mutton, almost nothing in this food was delicious, a far cry from the food he ate in Zuoxiang.

There were no steamed buns, no mantou (steamed bread), no rice, not even pickled vegetables. The first thing we ate in the morning was coarse flatbread made from wild vegetables. The bran on the flatbread was clearly visible, and if it hadn't been toasted until soft, it would have been hard to swallow!

Even so, they were envied by the shepherds, since they rarely had the chance to eat cakes mixed with wheat bran and wild vegetables. Most of the time, they ate a porridge made of tender grass roots and wild vegetables, along with worms dug up from who-knows-where, which was considered a decent amount of meat.

Even mutton is something that can only be eaten during festivals. Unlike Guo Wen, who can eat mutton every now and then, you have to know that on the grasslands, sheep are important assets. Even important figures in the tribe cannot eat them easily. The scenes of slaughtering sheep and eating roasted lamb legs in later films and television shows are actually fictional.

On a proper grassland, if you slaughter a sheep, you basically have to eat it within a few days. After all, the preservation technology at that time, coupled with the lack of salt on the grassland, meant that even making it into dried meat wouldn't work.

Therefore, eating sheep has always been a major event on the grasslands since ancient times.

If it weren't for the fact that Jinshan Prefecture hadn't sent some salt for free as a form of "aid," Chief Mora probably wouldn't have been so kind as to give them this mutton.

Of course, if we're talking about breeding, then he actually made a profit.

After all, Guo Wen, who was over six feet tall, was an extraordinary giant on the grassland where the average height was only a little over one and a half meters, or even less.

[The grassland is approximately 30 centimeters per foot.]

If we encountered such a "superhuman" who could improve cultural level, master farming techniques, and even improve genes, we would probably have kept Guo Wenqiang there long ago if it weren't for the deterrence of Jinshan Prefecture. Why would we need to worry about when he would leave every day?

After all, the so-called "registering households and equalizing the people" law was a worry in the eyes of those large tribes, but in the eyes of small and medium-sized tribes like Mora, it was a good thing!

After finishing the mutton, Guo Wen let out a burp with a strong muttony smell, drank a mouthful of hot soup with mutton tail fat floating on it, and stood up to walk towards the "public field".

It was still summer, and it was still possible to plant a crop of buckwheat before winter. Therefore, the public fields were full of buckwheat seedlings at this time.

The rice seedlings have grown much taller than before, which shows that the soil in this public field is quite fertile. It has grown so well after only a few applications of fertilizer. In Jinshan, it would be considered a top-quality field.

"Mr. Guo, what does buckwheat taste like? Is it better than wheat bran?"

Mora Archie gazed longingly at the lush green buckwheat seedlings in the field, trying his best to imagine what buckwheat would taste like. The grain he had eaten most in his life was wheat bran, and the best he had ever eaten was wheat bran. As for white flour, that was a delicacy for chiefs and priests, and had nothing to do with people like him.

A few years ago, a daring stable boy stole a piece of white flour naan bread. He was discovered and beaten all night. The next morning, he was found lifeless. Terrified, he rushed to inform the chief, only to receive the following reply:

"It's better that he's dead. It saves us food, so we don't end up as rats."

Guo Wen had only recently come to understand the hardships of the grasslands. Hearing the envious words around him, he suddenly felt an unprecedented "impulse" and turned to look at Aqi:

"Would you like to eat buckwheat steamed buns? They taste a hundred times better than wheat bran."

"I want to, but can someone like me even eat that?"

Archie swallowed hard, suppressing his expectations, and answered the questions in a flustered manner.

"Yes, as long as you learn from me properly, not only can you eat it, but all the children and all the people in the tribe can eat it too."

"The whole tribe can't eat it! Absolutely not! They'll be beaten to death!!"

Archie remembered the coachman's screams that night, and that dead face. He didn't want to die. Even if buckwheat was the most delicious thing in the world, he couldn't eat it. He wanted to live.

Guo Wen sighed inwardly, then whispered:

"Remember this: as long as the entire tribe grows buckwheat, you will all be able to eat it. Even if you can't eat it now, one day, even Jinshan will have to make sure you have it!!"

"Kingsoft----"

Archie's mind conjured up images of the city Guo Wen had described, along with its unimaginable delicacies and even the tiled houses only immortals could live in. The fantasy felt wonderful, but the thought of the leader's wolf-like face shattered his dream.

He could only lower his head and look at his tattered leather boots, padded with who knows how much dry grass. They were his coming-of-age gift. Before that, he didn't have any boots to wear; he would wear straw sandals or go barefoot.

The hardship on the grasslands was never simply a matter of productivity, but also a backward system of rationing where slaves remained slaves and masters remained masters.

Under the guise of a tribe, but in reality practicing slavery, Guo Wen realized that the real purpose of this trip was not simply to teach farming, nor to teach, nor to do something reluctantly in the evenings, but to bring about change.

He wanted to change all of this, to change the ancient rules that had governed this place, and the public field before him, and the rice seedlings within it, represented his hope.

When everyone can cultivate the land and everyone can be self-sufficient, what should the leader of Mora do? Should he go against the trend or follow it? Guo Wen didn't know, but he was certain that the policy of helping the people had succeeded from the moment the first buckwheat seedling sprouted.

The best strategies throughout history have always been upright and righteous schemes, never the schemes of petty people. Guo Wen understands this today, which is neither far off nor foolish.

The rice seedlings at my feet swayed in the wind, and it was getting dark on the grassland.