Chapter 577 The Butterfly Effect on the Grassland (Please vote and subscribe)

There is a large lake in the east of the grassland, stretching thousands of miles from north to south, dividing the entire grassland and the world on the east bank of the lake into two. In the eyes of countless grassland tribes, because the sun always rises from the lake, the lake is also called the Sunrise Sea, and is considered to be the place where the sun is born. The thousands of miles of waterside of the lake is the summer pasture on which the grassland tribes depend for survival.

These nomadic tribes migrate to the lake every summer and autumn. There are lush grass and water here, and there is an abundance of fresh water. There are also many wild animals to hunt, which is their important habitat.

This process will continue until the end of autumn. Before entering winter completely, they will migrate to the valley west of the grassland to spend the cold winter, where there are forests for them to cut down, providing them with fuel for the winter and food for their livestock to survive.

But it is still early September, and it is still early for the cold winter, so the nomadic tribes will not leave the shores of the lake. Autumn is the harvest season for the farming tribes, and the nomadic tribes are actually the same. They will drive their herds to eat more grass and store a thick layer of fat on their bodies, so that they can survive the cold winter.

The Qianyang tribe is just an ordinary one among the many nomadic tribes on the grassland. They are stationed at the northernmost end of the west bank of the lake, which is considered the edge of the grassland. According to the geographical location, the strength of the Qianyang tribe can be inferred. It is just a tribe that cannot be ranked.

However, even this most marginal location has its own unique advantages, that is, it is very close to the mountains in the north. A few years ago, a caravan of more than a dozen carts came out of the mountains and planned to go to the grassland for business. The first tribe they met at that time was the Qianyang tribe located in the marginal area.

The Qianyang tribe was very happy to trade with the Han tribe merchants, exchanging worthless livestock for some white salt, their ceramic utensils, cloth and other items, and also exchanged blood by the way, which made their lives gradually better.

In the second year, the merchants from the Han tribe came again, and this time they brought ironware such as iron pots and scissors, which made their lives much more convenient. In order to reduce their livestock supply, the merchants from the Han tribe even took the initiative to propose that they could exchange sheep for wool instead of goods.

As the leader of the Qianyang tribe, Qianyang Yili liked such a good tribe very much. A few years ago, he used his wife to entertain the merchants from the Han tribe. Now the child is almost three years old, and he also regards him as his smartest child. The more distant the bloodline, the smarter the offspring. They have always believed so.

But this year, Qianyang Yili waited and waited but did not wait for the caravan from the Han tribe. At first, they thought that the Han tribe might have been delayed, so they did not come this year. But after waiting for half a year, the most suitable trading time was missed, and the caravan from the Han tribe was still nowhere to be seen. The Qianyang tribe began to lament.

Before the Han tribe sold salt, there was salt on the grassland. It was brought by the Xin tribe in the extreme south with horse teams. They didn't bring much, and it was very expensive. The most important thing was that the merchants of the Xin tribe would never go to the northernmost end of the grassland, because with their pitiful cargo capacity, the sea salt they brought would be sold out before they reached the northernmost end of the grassland. There was no point in continuing to run north, and they would just turn around and go home.

Therefore, the Qianyang tribe had always been in a state of difficulty in getting salt. Before the Han tribe came to trade, they could only not eat it, and rely on drinking livestock blood to supplement a little salt, or pay a high price to exchange some second-hand salt from the big tribes in the south who exchanged salt. They were always exploited by the middlemen, which was simply miserable.

This year was even worse. The Han tribe did not come in the first half of the year, and the Qianyang tribe lived without salt again. But strangely, the Xin tribe stopped selling salt and exchanged all the salt to a nomadic leader named Maodun in the southern part of the grassland. Then this guy spread the news that if you want salt, you have to bring livestock to him to exchange. The price you ask is higher than that of the Xin tribe and the Han tribe. Not only do you want livestock, but you also have to submit to him indirectly. For example, if Maodun ordered them to do something, they could not object, otherwise their supply of white salt would be cut off.

When this situation came out, naturally many tribes disagreed. I will do whatever you tell me to do? I am not your subordinate, why should I listen to you? Since you don’t sell me salt, I just won’t buy it. I will just go and rob it.

So the fight started on the grassland. At first, the tribes that refused to surrender really got some of the goods, but soon the situation turned around. Maodun's tribe got a batch of bronze stirrups from somewhere. With these bronze stirrups, Maodun formed a cavalry team wearing heavy armor, which was invincible and hard to beat.

Last year, the Han tribe caravan and the original merchant elders of the Xin tribe had a conflict. They annihilated most of the Xin tribe caravan and looted countless grains, sea salt and livestock, which aroused great hatred from the original merchant elders. Later, they used a strategy to induce the Snow Wolf tribe on the southwest plateau of the grassland to rob the Han tribe caravan. Unexpectedly, they encountered the car array of the Han tribe caravan during the night attack and were repeatedly attacked by the caravan's heavy cavalry. In the end, not only did they not get anything, but they suffered heavy losses. The Han tribe also built a Jingguan on the grassland with the corpses of the enemies, and the banner of "Those who offend the powerful Han will be punished even if they are far away" is still flying.

After this battle, the name of the Han tribe was so powerful that it shook the grasslands. Most nomadic tribes could only tremble in fear, and no one dared to attack the Han tribe. However, there were also very few powerful tribes that saw something different from it, such as the bridle, stirrups, high-bridge saddles, heavy armor, and long swords of the Han tribe. These things improved the combat effectiveness. Maodun was one of them.

He imitated the heavy cavalry of the Han tribe's merchant caravan and imitated a similar team. After negotiating with the new merchant elder "Niuwei", he obtained bronze stirrups from the Xin tribe. Although there was no high-bridge saddle, the stirrups alone made his warriors have a qualitative leap.

The stirrups gave the rider a support point on the bumpy horse's back, allowing the rider to make more tactical moves, wear heavier armor, and hold heavier weapons. This was the case with Maodun's cavalry.

They didn't have the grass lacquer of the Han tribe, and couldn't make the cowhide armor of the Han tribe, but they could use clothes made of ordinary raw cowhide as armor. If one layer was not enough, they would use two layers. He even learned the helmets and masks of the heavy cavalry of the Han tribe, and used raw cowhide to sew barrel-shaped helmets to equip his cavalry, with only two eyes exposed from head to toe. The heavy cavalry all abandoned bows and arrows, and used spears and javelins as weapons.

Such defensive capabilities were simply abnormal for other tribes on the grassland. Since the nomadic tribes on the grassland were not good at smelting metals, the arrows they used were all made of bones and stones. Such arrows were useless to Maodun's heavy armored cavalry. Two layers of raw cowhide plate armor were enough to resist such arrow attacks, but the javelins and spears thrown by the heavy cavalry were not something they could resist.

Of course, Maodun didn't have many such heavy armored cavalry, with a maximum of only 500 people, who were regarded as the elite among the elite, but even with such a small number of heavy cavalry, one round of charge could often kill the enemy and make them defeated.

Maodun rose rapidly on the grassland by relying on his policy of heavy cavalry on one hand and white salt on the other. He recruited a group of tribes willing to submit to him as his subordinates and used large amounts of white salt to win them over. When fighting, he used these light cavalry as cannon fodder. When the battle was almost over, he sent out his heavy cavalry to crush the enemy. In the end, he divided all the livestock and people he had captured among his younger brothers, who then became even more loyal to Maodun.

In just half a year, the population of Maodun reached 120,000, and 18,000 people were holding bows, becoming the hegemon of the southeastern grassland.

But there were also bold people who ignored Maodun, such as the tribe of Su Ritu in the central grassland, which had a good relationship with the Han tribe. When Youfu led the heavy cavalry to kill the snow wolves, they asked Su Ritu's tribe to help them guard the caravan.

Although Su Ritu did not have Maodun's bronze stirrups, he took a different approach and made his own stirrups with bones, bamboo and other materials. For example, he inserted a hemp rope into a bamboo tube and hung it on both sides of the horse's back as a stirrup. Although such stirrups were easy to break and were not banned, they were easy to make and cheap, so he could afford to use them even if he threw them away after using them once.

In addition, this guy had bought some horse carriages from the Han tribe before, and he also learned to play a defensive battle by imitating the Han tribe's chariot formation. Of course, these carriages were definitely not enough, but Maodun had lost the hearts of the people on the grassland. Many of the remnants of the tribe that he had plundered defected to Su Ritu, and some tribes that had no confidence in being able to stop Maodun's attack also followed suit and joined Su Ritu's camp.

They gathered the vehicles bought from the Han tribe and used them, and used deer horns and wooden fences to build fortifications. They also made some simple stirrups according to Su Ritu's method and formed a "heavy cavalry" team of hundreds of people. However, the quality was still a certain distance from Maodun, but they still blocked Maodun's fortifications and blocked Maodun's progress in the northern expedition to unify the grassland in the central part of the grassland.

However, Su Ritu's side was a tribal alliance, and everyone was just afraid of Maodun, so they found Su Ritu to unite to resist Maodun and made him the leader of the alliance, but they did not pledge allegiance to Maodun, so Su Ritu could only defend and could not attack. It was okay for such a mob with different thoughts to gather together for defense, because everyone was afraid of death and no one dared not to contribute, but if they took the initiative to attack, let alone whether they dared to do so, even if they sent troops, they would scatter and flee at the slightest setback.

The two major forces on the grassland temporarily formed a strange stable situation, but Maodun had salt in his hands, so he held the initiative and was not afraid of Su Ritu's stubborn resistance. In his eyes, it was just a meaningless struggle.

His subordinates were loyal to him, and he also controlled the distribution of white salt. He was on the offensive side, and he could share the benefits of the looting with his subordinates. To put it bluntly, he controlled the actual interests. He had everything he wanted, and it wouldn't take long for this alliance with no interests to collapse on its own. He didn't have to fight, he just had to wait.

The remaining grassland tribes either took their own sides or stayed away from the two forces. No one participated and avoided them. However, the Qianyang tribe was relatively stable. It was not adjacent to either side. It was just a small tribe in the marginal area. No one cared about it. Qianyang Yili was more comfortable. It was just that life without salt was boring.

Qianyang Yili looked at the mountains in the north with eager eyes, hoping that the caravan of the Han tribe could return to the grassland again and resolve the war caused by white salt. Not only him, but also the alliance of Su Ritu, the price of their resistance to Maodun was the cut off supply of white salt. Now the Xin tribe could not be relied on, and they did not know what conspiracy agreement they had reached with Maodun, but they actually supported Maodun one-sidedly, so the alliance could only hope that the Han tribe, which even the Xin tribe and Maodun did not dare to provoke, would appear again.

More than half a year had passed, and Qianyang Yili had not even found the shadow of the Han tribe. When he was about to give up, a strange team appeared. This team that came out of the mountains in the north actually carried the banners of the two forces of the Han tribe and the Xin tribe. What kind of a weird combination is this? ! Didn't they fight to the death last year? Why did they come together this year?

After contacting each other, Qianyang Yili learned that it was the Xin tribe that sent people to the Han tribe to ask for peace, and the Han tribe agreed, so this time the Han tribe would send an envoy to visit the Xin tribe, so they came together.

However, he didn't care about these. He just wanted to buy some white salt from the Han tribe. However, after making this request, the delegation led by Shouya did not agree directly. They didn't bring much salt in the first place, and this time they were not going to trade on the grassland. They had a caravan with them just to provide logistical support for the delegation and settle accounts with the Xin tribe.

However, under Qianyang Yili's pleading, Shouya still agreed that before winter, when the caravan returned, if there was any extra white salt, they would sell it to them. However, this was not a definite promise, and Shouya himself was not sure.

When the delegation continued to travel south, Su Ritu's alliance also expressed the willingness to trade white salt. Shouya still said the same thing, "We are not here for business this time, but for other tasks. We don't bring much. If there is any surplus, we will sell it to you when we come back.

" Su Ritu and his people had no other choice but to continue waiting. They couldn't understand why the two major salt sellers, the Xin tribe and the Han tribe, came together.

The caravan of the Han tribe continued to move southward. As autumn passed day by day, the caravan showed no intention of returning. The winter migration was imminent. If they could not exchange enough white salt before the migration, they would have a hard time in the next six months.

But at this time, the alliance of Su Ritu suddenly saw the colorful flag of the Han tribe again, but it was not from the caravan following the delegation, but from the lake behind them. The grassland people who saw the sailboat for the first time were once again shocked by the powerful manufacturing ability of the Han tribe. The Han tribe actually floated over from the sunrise sea.

"Uncle, look, we are going to the grassland. There are so many sheep there, and there are so many people, all looking at us and waving at us." You Zhi once again cheered on the second deck above the cabin.

"Yes, I saw it. Come on, pass on my order. Lower the sail to half, and send the hydrographic reconnaissance boat to the shore for reconnaissance. We have never been to this lake before, so make sure it is not too shallow. We will strand our boat here." You Fu also looked at the western shore of the lake and gave orders.

(End of this chapter)