Chapter 1241 North, North Again
"May the Lord bless us! Light the kiln!"
"May the great spirit of firestone bless us! Light the kiln!"
The sacrifice in Leijin Town begins at sunrise and ends at noon. Next, it is the ignition ceremony of the brick kiln! A row of eight three-meter-high brick kilns are filled with thousands of red clay bricks, black coal balls with holes, and firewood for starting the fire. And with the order of the chief priest of the song bird, the eight priest apprentices all have a sacred look on their faces and light the fuel at the ignition port!
"Whoosh...Boom!..."
Eight flames slowly rise, and they burn bigger and bigger. Light green smoke emerges from the kiln mouth, and it becomes thicker and thicker. Many tribesmen are full of piety, bowing their heads in awe to the magical kiln room that can turn mud into stone. Not far away, the kiln room for firing pottery is also smoking, and the workshop for smelting bronze is full of smoke and fire, day and night.
From a distance, the entire Leijin Town is like a huge volcano, not only diffused with light smoke and dust, but also surging with the power of magma! And the source of this power lies in the rich metal deposits on the northwest coast, from the flint coal belt that stretches for hundreds of miles, and from the flame power guided by the Lord God!
In the eyes of the ignorant tribes around, although the Leijin tribe has "thunder and gold and copper", what is more feared and yearning is the "God-given skills" of manipulating fire and making bricks and metals! And it is with this God-given skill that the tall pyramid temples rose from the ground, and the two or three-meter-high walls gradually surrounded them. Even the middle and upper classes of the tribe lived in warm, solid and waterproof brick houses!
As for the baskets and boats of bronze tools and weapons, as the most sought-after and valuable goods on the northern continent, they were traded from Leijin Town to all directions in exchange for a steady stream of coal, copper, grain, salt, cloth and fur. Thousands of kilograms of smelted gold and silver can only be used in the construction of temples to make the statues of the main gods shine. In fact, this stretch of thousands of miles of wilderness and mountains is the border between the Pacific and North American plates. The continuous Eastern Mountains were raised due to geological activities at the plate boundary, and there are many large and small gold and silver mines in it. The surrounding tribes are accustomed to it and never regard this common yellow and white stone as valuable goods... "May the Lord bless you! May your flames and light cover the northern continent!..." The temple flashed with golden light, and the singing of the songbird priests also drifted to the farther north. Five or six hundred miles to the north, the Yome tribe and the Guayma tribe both added wooden statues of the "Great Southern Thunder and Fire Spirit" to the tribal sacrificial sites. And with the spread of faith and trade, the Opata Alliance, 1,400 miles away, also possessed the amulet of the main god of the hummingbird sun. These woodcarvings, stone carvings, gold and silver carvings of amulets, even through the looting of the northern Apache Alliance and the war with the Navajo Alliance, eventually flowed into the upper reaches of the Colorado River. And Huitzilopo, as a tribal god in the far south, was first known to the tribes of the Great Basin three thousand miles away.
From the smelting center of Regin Town, sailing five or six hundred miles southwest, is the increasingly prosperous guano stone production area, Nanguanshi Village. This kingdom village port in the southernmost part of the Lower California Peninsula has a population of nine hundred. Most of the young men in the village port are miners who mine guano. Hundreds of tons of guano were transported away by cargo paddle boats and canoes, and transported thousands of miles to the south. According to the inspection of the Divine Revelation Institute, 1 ton of guano stone applied to 60-80 acres of land can steadily increase grain production by 4 tons that year, and in the next two years, it will increase production by about 1 ton.
In other words, for every ton of guano that is transported, as long as it is properly fertilized, the fields can accumulate 6 tons of additional income! This gray-white stone fertilizer has become a sacred object for increasing production that everyone in the Lake Kingdom, the civilian flag team, the land grant warriors, and the feudal nobles, all strongly desire! Every shipload of guano is a potential ton of food! …
From Nanniaoshi Village, bypassing the peninsula and going more than a thousand miles north, is Beiniaoshi Village, which also produces guano. At present, this village has a population of 400, most of whom are converted Kochimi people, and a small number of Chumash tribesmen. This place is too far away, and the geographical location is far worse than that of Nanniaoshi Village. The guano produced is mostly for nearby supply to the western coast ports further north.
The priest Sha Hongshu of Beiniaoshi Village is of Tekos origin, which is very unique among the seafaring factions dominated by Purpecha people in the north, so of course he was arranged to this "good place for birds to shit all day long". He racked his brains and used the barren dry land outside the village to plant many sweet potato fields, but the yield was just so-so. The places that can produce guano are all severely drought-stricken and water-deficient, and naturally there is no fertile soil for farming. He also built some canoes and personally took the tribesmen fishing, which was barely enough to make a living in the village.
In this barren and desolate place, the only thing that people can hope for is the "salt drying field" that Sha Hongshu is studying. The sunshine here is extremely sufficient, and there is no rain, so it is very easy to dry out a large amount of bitter salt. However, this "bitter salt" has too many impurities, and eating too much will cause headaches and stomachaches. It is necessary to study and ponder carefully to find ways to filter and purify it.
However, the efforts of Sha Hongshu priests are just a tossing under a reluctance to ambition, and in fact, it is destined to not make too many splashes. Because, 1,500 miles north of Bei Niaoshi Village, there are the Kumeya people who have converted to the main god, and the Ipa tribe with the main god priest Kuimu! The Kuimu priests stationed here only do three things: one is to spread the faith in the main god, one is to teach the tribesmen to grow sweet potatoes and potatoes, and the last one is to transport salt!
Yes, the tribes of Kumeya control the natural Great Salt Lake. The Great Salt Lake stretches for more than a hundred miles, with endless piles of natural salt. The salt lake tribe here produces endless amounts of salt, supplying salt for the southwestern tribes throughout the North American continent. The Salt Lake Tribe is only about four hundred miles away from the Yipa Tribe, and half of it is by water. Through the transshipment trade of the Ipa tribe, dozens of bronze axes can be exchanged for one ton of lake salt, which is then loaded into the kingdom's galleys and transported to the west coast of the entire northern continent.
This salt will be unloaded at various kingdom strongholds, not only to provide daily consumption, but also to be used in large quantities to marinate fish and meat, and to store food for the winter. As for the remaining half, it will eventually arrive at the whale port and be used in the huge consumption of whaling and cured meat.
The huge amount of marinated whale meat was the most important food source when the kingdom was exploring the Far North. In the bitterly cold Far North, these shelf-stable marinated whale meats have a sharply increased trade value, and can even be directly exchanged for a healthy population of men and women, allowing the kingdom to expand rapidly...
Five or six hundred miles north from the large salt-producing Ipa tribe is the kingdom's Sanshan Port. This port surrounded by three mountains has rapidly grown to a population of 1,600 people, the vast majority of whom are converted Chumash tribesmen. Thousands of acres of corn, pumpkin, and potato fields have been cultivated in the valley where the port is located. And small stone shrines are everywhere in the valley with a radius of a hundred miles. Many altars are crowded, and there are even three worship services a day. Although the Chumash people are ignorant and are considered semi-savages on the North American continent, their beliefs after conversion are extremely devout. Perhaps, it is precisely because of their ignorance that they are so pious and become the first batch of Jiao people to be completely assimilated!
Four to five hundred miles north from Sanshan Port, at the mouth of a river full of oak trees, the Oak Tree Tribe of the Salinan Tribe, which once numbered nearly a thousand people, has disappeared, or has been completely annexed. And where the oak tree used to be the totem, a wooden carving of the main god Sun Hummingbird was erected, as well as an ancient black snake flag!