New Shun 1730

Dashun's attitude towards France is somewhat distorted.

Although they are allies, they have always been on guard against France. While on guard, sometimes they do lament that the French may really have a good life. After so many years of immigration, the population is still insufficient, which seriously hinders Dashun's post-war concept of "Europeanization of North America and balance of great powers".

If the estuary along the river is occupied by the French, then Dashun does not have to care. As long as the French block the estuary, based on the traffic conditions of the time, Dashun knows clearly that the biggest obstacle to Dashun's immigration to the Songhua River Basin in Heilongjiang is the Songliao watershed. The river is the best means of transportation for immigration, reclamation, enclosure, occupation and warfare in this era.

If it is really occupied by the French, it will be easy to say.

As for the indigenous tribes on these prairie, Dashun had mainly contacted tribes west of the Rocky Mountains before, and was not familiar with these tribes on the prairie.

The reason is very simple. For the Whale Sea Company, the valuable furs are still sea dragon skins and sable skins. There is not much meaning in crossing the Rocky Mountains to the grasslands, because the profit margins of cowhide and deer skin hunted by the grassland tribes are not very high.

Take North America as an example. North America has leather shoes and leather hats. These ordinary ruminant furs are profitable given that the Atlantic Ocean is not too wide.

For Dashun, the profit margins of cowhide and deer skin are not too high. The main market for deerskin in East Asia is Japan, because samurai need to use deerskin to make things like knife wipes, and the sales of deerskin in Dashun are just average.

It is impossible to find high-end furs such as sea otters on the prairie, because they are not found at all.

Therefore, this journey is still a bit dangerous and unknown.

However, since someone here has volunteered and the captain has made up his mind, this kind of danger and unknown is nothing.

Although Dashun only caught the tail of the Age of Exploration, many people died in these years, and many of them had the ambitions of Zhang Bowang and Ban Dingyuan. After many deaths, people get used to it. As the saying goes, wealth and honor are sought in danger. If you don't die, you can stand out.

It's still the same problem. Although the practical school is regarded as "marginal people" by the mainstream imperial examination school of Dashun, they even ridicule themselves and say that they are not scholars.

But in fact, they ridicule themselves precisely because they think they are scholars.

And the mentality of this kind of scholar at this time is very interesting - to be a superior person.

The word "superior person" is infinitely wonderful. This kind of happiness of "winning over others" is not comparable to a comfortable life, and it is also a "spiritual satisfaction" that the high-tax average society of later civil society cannot provide.

It's nothing more than the imperial examination has its own track, and thousands of troops cross the single-plank bridge; and the practical school has its own track, which can also be regarded as thousands of troops crossing the single-plank bridge.

Hanging the head on the beam, piercing the thigh with a needle, and reading thousands of books are the ways of the imperial examination track.

On this side, it is to lie on ice and snow, drink salt water, and travel thousands of miles. This is the way of the track here.

Of course, there is a "world" sentiment and the ideal of "a family of five with a hundred acres of land", but of course it is impossible to lack the self-realization of wanting to become famous and famous in geography books.

There is no contradiction.

Dashun does not believe in Dongzheng or Catholicism, so there is no holy foolish thought of devoting all hardship to spiritual satisfaction, or self-sacrifice is necessarily opposed to egoism, which is derived from the "Christian Society" or the Carbonari Utopian Society.

Since the end of the Qin Dynasty, the mainstream thought here has been quite repulsive to the heresy of "taking suffering as pleasure". The heresy of respecting the spirit of Dayu and continuing the heresy of taking suffering as pleasure was basically integrated after the end of the Qin Dynasty. Including the Yanli School, which was evaluated by later generations as "taking suffering as pleasure, close to Mo but not Confucianism", it only splashed a small wave of temporary fame in history.

On the contrary, due to the moral reflux in the late Ming Dynasty, Liu Yu's school of practical learning adhered to the attitude of "not making moral demands on people, such as you should love each other, don't be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they clearly know that both egoism and self-sacrifice are necessary forms of personal self-realization under certain conditions."

Under this "certain condition" at this time, Dashun's external expansion was actually driven by a group of people who pursued self-realization, most of whom were egoists.

This "certain condition" refers to the fact that Dashun entered an era that seemed to be prosperous, the imperial power seemed to be extremely stable, and everyone knew that this would be the best class leap since the founding of Dashun. Therefore, strict military discipline, not drinking soldiers' blood, developing production, building ships and fighting, and exploring and discovering are all manifestations of pursuing personal interests and self-realization under this specific condition.

It is a standard model of unconsciously promoting historical progress, because Dashun absolutely did not have a strong, efficient organization with a clear purpose and the purpose was to progress at this time, and most of the progress was driven by this unconscious historical progress.

Just as Illich's What Is to Be Done is about what the pioneers of the 20th century should do; Hamilton's The Federalist Papers is about what should be done in the 19th century to create a bourgeois republic on virgin land; at this time, the practical school of Dashun was pursuing how the primitive accumulation and expansion of an imperial imperial examination system state at the peak of feudal autocracy in the 18th century should be completed.

This kind of "what to do with the primitive accumulation and expansion of the imperial state in the 18th century" and this kind of "conscious primitive accumulation and modern standard formal system scientific colonial theory" in "unconscious" indoctrination also gave birth to a large number of talents in the Dashun School of Realism.

Whether it is the army, navigation, surveying and mapping, or exploration, they all show a vibrant trend.

Dare to gamble, dare to do things, and dare to take risks.

If you win and stand out, not to mention the future of benefiting the world, at least you can win fame and fortune for yourself in the class-crossing mobility period that will come again after the founding of the Dashun.

So, five young people from the surveying and mapping major of Dashun and two guides from the Blackfoot Alliance followed the route provided by the Blackfoot people and found a river winding on the grassland, flowing eastward, and not knowing whether it leads to the Great Lake or the sea more than a hundred miles away.

This river, called "a very fast-flowing river" by the Blackfoot people, is still very convenient to walk.

It is unlikely to ride a horse in such a place. You can ride a horse on the grassland, but riding a horse on both sides of the river is a dream.

With the help of simple boats, canoes, bark boats, and even the simplest method of burning a big tree to hollow it out, the seven people quickly arrived at the lower reaches of the river.

When approaching the lower reaches, there were more and more canoes on the river, and many canoes were filled with furs.

It was very easy to communicate with these indigenous people who transported furs, because they liked strong liquor very much, and a few bottles of strong liquor could get along well with them.

It may be that the ancestors of human beings used to eat fruits, and it was really hard to resist alcohol.

But this biological principle was not a truth that the Dashun people at that time could know.

On the contrary, because of some strange legends or strange theories, some people in Dashun believed that the people in these places were actually the descendants of the Shang Dynasty who migrated away that year.

The reason was related to "wine".

You know, the difficult "Book of Shang" originally had not many words.

Although there are not many words in this, there is a special "Jiu Gao" that discusses that one of the reasons for the demise of the Shang Dynasty was King Zhou's alcoholism, which can be regarded as a "ban on alcohol" three thousand years ago.

As the saying goes, I am in the west, and the king of the state is still able to follow the teachings of King Wen and not be ashamed of drinking. Therefore, I have been able to accept the order of the Shang Dynasty until now.

... In the future, the successor king will be drunk and live his life, not showing his respect to the people, and will not be easy to protect the resentment of Yue. He is so unrestrained and indulges in non-traditional things, and uses banquets to lose his dignity, and the people are all sad. He is so indulgent in wine, not only resting himself but also relaxing, his heart is very sick, and he is not afraid of death. The blame is in Shang City, and Yue Yin State is destroyed without suffering. Not only is the virtue fragrant and fragrant sacrifice, but it is known to the heaven; it is so unrestrained that the people complain, and the masses drink wine, and the smell is in the upper. Therefore, the heaven sent a disaster to the Yin Dynasty, and did not love the Yin Dynasty, but was ashamed. The heaven is not cruel, but the people are quick to blame.

Perhaps, as long as people are human and food production is sufficient, there will inevitably be a process of alcoholism. This process takes hundreds or even thousands of years to form a cultural trend of prohibition and awareness of not drinking alcohol.

Obviously, the indigenous people here have not completed the historical process that humans must go through at this time.

The people on the Dashun side naturally made up stories based on the "Book of Shang·Jiu Gao", saying that most of these groups are descendants of the Shang Dynasty - damn, 2,800 years have passed, why are you still drinking excessively?

The hieroglyphs of the Mirmaq and other ethnic groups have added some evidence to this kind of fabrication.

Whether it is or not, this is a scientific question, but also a political question.

Nowadays, in history, the Russians buried stone slabs with inscriptions everywhere on the North American coast, and the French insisted that the North American Mandans with slightly lighter skin color had relatives with France. It is normal for the Dashun side to say that these people are descendants of the Shang Dynasty.

Through the communication after drinking and looking at the muskets in the hands of these Indians, the people of the Dashun expedition finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Looking at the muskets, they are similar to those of Dashun, and they are basically like the same mother. They are obviously the French standard muskets of the navy, which means that the downstream is basically controlled by the French.

The new generation of young people in the surveying and mapping department basically cannot speak French, because the previous generation still needed the help of French instructors, but they no longer need it.

However, although they can no longer speak French, they can still understand the iconic French words "stupid pig" and "stupid donkey" from the mouths of these indigenous people who sell furs.

The members of the Dashun expedition team breathed a sigh of relief and thought that at least the downstream is in the hands of the French. It seems that there is no need to worry about someone going upstream to reclaim the wasteland for the time being.

Soon, at the lake in the lower reaches of the river, they and the Indians who came to trade came to a trading post established by the French. In fact, it can also be called a "Ji Mi Di Wei Suo", which is really similar to a Ji Mi Wei Suo, because the French here are discussing the recruitment of soldiers with the indigenous chiefs.

The Dashun expedition team members greeted the French guards here, and in return, the French officers responded to the greetings in Chinese, which was not very fluent but certainly understandable.

"My father is in the fur and ginseng business. You sent some ginseng pickers here before, but that was many years ago. There are many Chinese in our trading post."

The French officer spoke good Chinese. His name was de la Vérendrye.

Although in the later game "Assassin's Creed: Renegade", he was the villain boss and a member of the Assassin Brotherhood.

But in reality at this time, he was a middle-aged man in his early forties, who spoke decent Chinese, and impatiently asked the Dashun expedition some questions that he was very concerned about.

In other words, this is an issue that the French have been paying close attention to since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713:

Mer du couchant, is it real?

mer du couchant, sunset sea, sunset bay, that is, the bays and river estuaries of the North American continent facing the Pacific Ocean.

This is something the French have wanted to know since France was dry-blasted and ceded the estuary fur station in Hudson Bay to the British after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Mer du couchant, like ancient India, Treasure Island, the Northwest Passage, and even the more ancient Western Qin land passage, etc., is a special word produced in a specific era during the exploration period. Because, in the North American continent, the sunset sets in the Pacific Ocean.

De La Villandry and his father have been exploring the legendary "Sunset Bay" and "Sunset Sea" on and off for more than 40 years.

Although, with Dashun joining the war and the main force of the British navy being trapped in the strait, "Sunset Bay" no longer meant much to the French.

But De La Villandry is still eager to know the answer to this question that has troubled their father and son for more than forty years.

An answer that no longer makes practical and economic sense for France at this time.