Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1406 Migration Road ([-])
Soon, the delineated migrants reluctantly accepted the imperial court's organization and started a migration journey across what the locals called Dashi Mountain.

From a broader, national, or human perspective, this migration is undoubtedly romantic.

A group of people crossed the vast ocean and came to the west coast of the New World. With the technical experience exchanged by World Island for thousands of years, they embarked on the journey of the New World. A backup of human civilization.

From the perspective of everyone at this moment, this migration is a romance with only a little bit of cultural characteristics.

But the mainstream is destined to be a difficult heresy journey.

The Big Rock Mountains, later known as the Rocky Mountains, are the watershed of the North American continent.

Cross-domain watershed has never been a simple matter.

Water transportation is almost impossible to use, and the most difficult part of the journey across the watershed must be done by feet and animal power.

This point, Dashun has already experienced in the process of emigrating in the Northeast.

More than 600 young and strong laborers took their families as "hostages" and settled in Fenglinwan.

There is no "burden", especially the "burden" in the process of repairing fortresses and cultivating fields in the early stage.Even the cooks are men, not a single woman.It might be possible to reunite with the family three years from now, but definitely not now.

Although it is dark, the fact is that there are more than 600 young and strong laborers. If they work in the barrenness for two or three years, the women who follow them may at least cause dozens of murders or vendettas.

More than 600 people are all men.

As for the livestock carrying grain and tools, fortunately, the Fenglin Bay area was used as a supply base for the gold rush in Haida Gwaii and other places before, and there were always livestock carrying seeds and farm tools.

Each person carries thirty catties of dried meat, sugar, and fried rice.A musket, 90 lead bullets, and a suit of clothes.

The food carried by the accompanying livestock is intended to be used as seeds, which cannot be eaten and are absolutely not allowed to be eaten.

A truth known to all agricultural civilizations is that it takes time for seeds to be harvested after they are planted in the ground, and people still have to eat before harvesting.

Dashun even has a special vocabulary here, which is called "green and yellow".

As for what these people eat, as mentioned earlier, under the influence of cultural factors, only the Chinese can experience the "romantic".

The prairies, of course, were abundant with bison, which were hunted by a large number of native tribes.

Hunting is not just a "romantic" that only Chinese people can understand.

The accompanying aboriginal guide told the migrating team the fact that the aborigines in the valley area of ​​the Rocky Mountains would gather a kind of food.

This kind of food is of course very familiar to the Chinese.Although it is impossible for the local aborigines to call this plant according to the name of the Chinese, those who have read the book know exactly what it is.

wild rice.

"Romantic" is one of Zhou Tianzi's "six valleys".

Europeans definitely don't eat this thing, and it is estimated that they may have never seen it.

But the Chinese, and they have eaten it for a long time, can be on the table of the emperor.It was not until the great development of rice technology in the Song Dynasty that this thing gradually faded out of the category of grain.

"Zhou Ritual" said: "For all meals, cows should be suitable for rice, sheep should be suitable for millet, pigs should be suitable for millet, dogs should be suitable for beams, geese should be suitable for wheat, fish should be suitable for wild rice... For the king's gift, eat six grains.The six grains are rice, millet, millet, beam, wheat, and wild rice.

"Book of Rites" also said: snails and wild rice eat pheasant soup.

This thing was later infected by fungi and used as a vegetable, called Zizania.And the place where this thing can be grown can basically grow rice after the Song Dynasty, and it can't be blamed that this thing has faded out of the ranks of the staple food and was removed from the six grains.

Accompanying as a guide and a member of the surveying team who traveled back from the east coast in the early stage, he said that there are a lot of wild rice in river valleys and lake areas.

In addition to hunting, the local aborigines also gather wild rice in large quantities as food.And they already had pottery as a container for storing wild rice, and they could also pound rice. Looking at them, it seemed that they had indeed seen the life of people before the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

This is what Europeans can't understand. People who have studied in Dashun for several years feel when they see the local aborigines eating wild rice.

Cooperating with the stories of "descendants of Yin and Shang" made up indiscriminately, there will always be an illusion of interlaced time and space, as if in the era of "Zhou Li", at least in terms of wild rice, the style here is actually closer than that of the local.Especially the aborigines here are indeed "fish suitable for wild rice".

There is so much wild rice that it will grow in large areas as long as there is water. As long as it lasts until autumn, there will definitely be no shortage of food this winter.

In spring and summer, a large number of bison and other animals will run in groups on the grassland. More than 600 people should not be hungry.

There are countless fish in the water, because no one has ever caught them on a large scale, so it is probably not bad to use a ladle to scoop fish here.

That being said, it is almost always true.But in fact, this does not mean that life is easy, but that it may not starve to death, but life must be difficult and the workload must be huge.

Because it is not only necessary to build castles and cultivate fields, but also to complete all these under the huge psychological pressure of having no food at all. Just think about the hardships involved.

The most important thing is that the main labor force of these migrations are all people from the Central Plains.

The ecological collapse and population explosion in the Central Plains for many years have made their consciousness fixed: if they have no food in their hands, they will definitely starve to death.

They can no longer imagine how much there is to eat in the vast grasslands and valleys and lakes that have not been fished for millions of years.

This is not a place where you can kill and plunder for the leaves of an elm tree in a calamity year.Because elm leaves are more delicious than willow leaves, at least they are not bitter. They are enough "materials" to break out bloody conflicts between the elm trees and the outsiders who climbed trees to pick leaves.

After all, social consciousness lags behind material reality.

These Central Plains people who have remembered too many memories of disaster years, panic about the lack of food, and do not understand that more than 600 people who are so rich in products that they do not actually farm the land are really hungry, so that the team leader must face this cognition and awareness. Demonstrate strong leadership.

There must be no panic of any kind. Once there is panic, someone will inevitably raise their arms and return to Fenglin Bay.

This kind of panic may be eaten by wild animals, it may be out of food, it may be a natural disaster or a storm.

Thirty catties of dried meat, sugar and other high-calorie foods are not enough to support the entire migration journey. Therefore, from the very beginning, the test of fishing and hunting while walking, and ensuring the daily speed of travel, has already begun.

Fortunately, the surveying and mapping team sent by Dashun to search for gold mines and mountain passes across the mountains has completed very critical exploration and surveying—they found the mountain passes beyond the mountains, the real mountain passes that can be controlled by one man and cannot be opened by one man. If you want to build roads or build post stations in the future, you must go through the mountain pass.

At night, about a month after the departure, after the camp was set up, the leader of the migration team and the guides of the surveying and mapping team unfolded the crude map again under the light of the oil lamp.

A member of the surveying and mapping team pointed to a river channel: "Walk along this river and walk for another ten days, and you will reach the mountain pass. After passing the mountain pass, there will be a river very close down."

"The local people eat wild rice from the river valley and use reeds from the river valley to make bows and arrows, so they call it the Bow River. This does not mean that the river meanders and looks like a bow, which is similar to the understanding of bow steps."

"From the Bow River down, there is a big bend, which the locals call 'The Elbow'. The land is fertile, and I saw aspens growing thick and straight in number. I cut down a few trees and looked at the growth rings, and it seemed that there was no early frost. Frost disaster. If there are any, most of the trees have boils, and the growth rings are weird. Since the poplar is growing, it must be no problem to grow wheat."

"Moreover, you can see snow-capped mountains from there. It has the meaning of 'the window contains the snow for thousands of years in the Xiling Mountains, and the gate is anchored by a boat thousands of miles away from Dongwu'. To the east, you can reach the east coast all the way down the river; to the west, stand on the river You can see the snow-capped mountains on the side; the northwest is the mountain pass comparable to Jiange that must be passed through in the future for road construction. If it really becomes a city in the future, it can be called a new Yizhou."

"As long as you pass the mountain pass, everything is easy. There are a lot of fish in the river, and you can go down the river and cut down trees to make a boat. It's much easier and less tiring."

"The most difficult thing is the ten days. As long as you cross the mountain pass, everything is easy to talk about."

The staff of the surveying and mapping team pointed at the biggest "achievement" of the surveying and mapping team this time. The mountain pass across the mountains is regarded as the only place to pass through for road construction in the future.

At this time, the snow-capped mountains in the distance can be clearly seen here, and the snow-capped scene can be clearly seen even if it is more than a hundred miles away.

This has caused some panic among the migrants. After all, they have lived in the plains all their lives and have never seen snow-capped mountains. It is hard to imagine what it would be like to cross snow-capped mountains.

Even if it is said that this time there is no need to climb the snow mountain, just pass the mountain pass, but the panic has spread.

The leader of the migration team had never seen a snow-capped mountain when he was a child, and he was also a commoner in North China.But when he was young, he followed Liu Yu to the Western Regions and crossed the pass of the Altai Mountains, so he was not panicked by this.

It's just that these migrants are not the Qingzhou Army who trained harshly.

Yi himself is quite resentful about the fact that the court lied to them and took their wives and children as "hostages".

If it is not handled well, something may happen.

The team leader looked at the map and said helplessly: "Anyway, hunting and fishing these days doesn't consume much food and dried meat. If you want to cross the mountain pass, you have to speed up, the sooner you pass the better. Once you pass the mountain, you will suddenly see , Seeing the grassland, everything will be fine."

"Give me a solid background. After passing the mountain pass, can the food be guaranteed? If it can be guaranteed, in the next few days, we must speed up, eat the stored food, and cross the mountain pass as soon as possible."

The guide of the surveying and mapping team solemnly said: "Dare to issue a military order. As long as you pass the mountain pass, everything will be fine. Even if you are extremely unlucky, and you don't meet local people who carry dried meat to hunt for prey, the prey there and the fish in the river will be fine." Guaranteeing the food and drink for these 600 people will not be a problem."

(End of this chapter)