Chapter 444 Extra 2 (4) (Catching Insects)
Lu Meng hesitated for a moment, but still reached out and picked up the small ball in front of him.
With this close contact, he became more and more certain that the material used for this small ball to play with was indeed not any material he had ever seen before.
He was also keenly aware that this special elastic material could not be used only in children's toys.
"Don't be afraid..." Lu Meng spoke to the child.
But as soon as he said this, he suddenly realized that the place where he was now was a land that no one from the Central Plains had ever passed through. What he said, "Don't be afraid," would have no meaning to the other party.
Sure enough, the moment he opened his mouth, the child seemed to have seen something extremely terrifying. He even ran away without caring that his ball was still in Lu Meng's hand.
It was at the moment when he turned around and ran away that Lu Meng clearly saw something similar on his shoes.
In a flash, countless guesses flashed through Lu Meng's mind, causing him to chase after him while shouting "Catch him".
The child had never seen such a scene before, and he immediately ran wildly in the mountains.
But no matter how familiar he was with this mountain range which was his home, he had no chance of resistance against Lu Meng and his followers, as well as a small number of Shanyue followers. After running three or four miles, he was pinned to the ground.
Seeing that the child could not understand what they said, and even turned around and tried to bite his hand, Lu Meng did not hesitate to chop the child unconscious with his knife.
But now that the person has been caught, how to interrogate him has obviously become a big problem.
This doesn't seem like a very suitable opening for communication.
When Lu Meng brought the child back to the camp, preparing to offer him food as a friendly gesture after he woke up, he soon discovered that his camp was being spied on by a group of local natives.
Some soldiers even noticed that the weapons used by the enemy contained poison needles.
In order to prevent them from falling into a passive situation, Lu Meng acted decisively and took the initiative. He captured these people with the fishing nets they used to fish at sea.
But once one batch is dealt with, a second batch will appear...
In the early morning of the next day, Lü Meng sat down beside the fire in distress, scratched his hair with his hands, and asked the soldiers: "We are here to find new species in new territories, not to be human traffickers, right?"
Without waiting for the soldier to respond, he looked towards his own camp, saw a group of local people who were tied up and shouting, and couldn't help but hold his forehead.
In just over half a day, he almost turned the camp into a hunting trap in order to block those who rushed to attack.
In order to prevent the conflict with the other party from developing into an irreconcilable point, he did not even dare to kill these people. At most, he would just slash them and drag them into the camp to hand them over to the medical officer for treatment.
But this kind of attack always has to come to an end.
Otherwise, if this continues endlessly, sooner or later the two sides will end up fighting with real swords and guns.
At that time, don't even think about resolving it through negotiations!
After all, they have no way to negotiate.
If we can't even speak the same language, what is there to talk about?
Lu Meng's mind raced, and he suddenly signaled his soldiers to bring a spare set of armor. Then he picked up the armor and walked quickly towards the child he had tied up at the beginning.
The battle with these local natives just now was not in vain. At least he obtained a piece of information that was crucial to him!
These people have no iron tools!
Crude bronze and stone tools were the best weapons they could use, which meant that iron armor was something they had never heard of or seen before.
It was just like he had never seen those elastic balls and the shoes made of special materials before.
But even after realizing this fact, it was still a much more difficult communication for him than fighting.
When he used both his hands and feet, and even used interjections, to explain that he just wanted his ball and shoes, and knew where they were, and could exchange them for the armor, and that he had no intention of causing such a big conflict, the almost frightened child finally realized that his previous cry for help might have caused some unnecessary trouble, and then he explained the whole story to his fellow tribesmen.
Lu Meng finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Seeing that the local natives who were still shouting and cursing but could not understand what they meant finally quieted down one by one, he could be sure that he must have made the right choice.
The only problem was that he couldn't really make the other party think that they could exchange such a set of armor from him just for a toy ball and a pair of shoes.
He would have to come up with another bargaining chip.
Otherwise it would be difficult for him to get what he wanted from the local natives who were still hostile to him.
I don't know whether it is feasible to follow Your Majesty's words that gold, silver and silk are hard currency when they set out from Xuzhou.
——————
"Not only gold, silver and silk can be used as bargaining chips, but paper can as well!" When the two parties heading south and north reunited at their victory port, Gan Ning said with great pride when he heard Lu Meng talk about this.
In the several simple cities he passed through on his way north, especially the largest one, Gan Ning discovered that the papermaking technology here was not quite right. Even though it was made of the same tree bark, perhaps because of the species of tree, the paper was much thicker than the one used in Dayong.
This thickness does not mean that it is easier to preserve than bamboo paper. On the contrary, it not only does not have the advantage of being easy to carry, but it is also more similar to "bark board" in shape and can easily break after being bent.
When Gan Ning took out the unused naval manual on the ship and placed it in front of the other party, the locals regarded it as a treasure far more than iron weapons.
This embryonic civilization, which had writing, statues, and sacrificial culture, urgently needed an effective carrier to record its development.
Paper is it!
In comparison, although Lu Meng, who went south, saw the large-scale Chaweng Temple and various sculptures of gods, he did not see any text, and he really could not find such a transaction item like Gan Ning.
But fortunately, since people have formed tribal populations, it is inevitable that there will be distinctions between upper and lower classes.
The exquisite gold jewelry and silk, which was different from woven cloth, were favored by the tribal leaders almost immediately.
Lu Meng gave two gorgeous clothes as gifts on the pretext that the people of their tribe had been accidentally injured. Soon, the previous hostility no longer existed, and was replaced by courtesy towards distinguished guests.
"I gestured that we had sailed for more than a hundred days to get here, and convinced the leader that we came here from a mysterious and powerful overseas country. In short, whether it is paper or silk, as long as we can achieve our goal, the rest is not that important."
Gan Ning laughed and said, "What you said is a little inappropriate. Compared to this place, isn't the place we live in mysterious, powerful, and rich in history?"
They didn't just rely on a few items to pretend.
When they arrived at this undeveloped land, fully equipped with armor and weapons, it was hard not to have a clear and intuitive feeling -
If they wanted to destroy this still weak civilization, it would not be a difficult task to drive these natives who only knew how to slash-and-burn agriculture into their slaves.
But it is the long-standing civilization behind them that gives them enough confidence and grace, allowing them to choose to trade to get what they need.
After Gan Ning finished speaking, he couldn't help but mutter, "To be honest, it's rare for me to feel like a good person."
"That's not me," Lu Meng replied, "I took the kid's toy ball, and the armor I got in exchange was taken away by his elders for research."
Gan Ning and Lu Meng looked at each other and suddenly laughed.
"Alright, alright," Gan Ning waved his hand and said, "Tell me about your gains."
Lu Meng straightened his face and placed the pair of rubber shoes in front of Gan Ning. "Let's not talk about the other food, this glue is worth mentioning first. I originally thought that this was also glue extracted from some animal skin, but in fact, it is extracted from plants."
"The colloid that sheds out after the bark of this tree is cut is made into water containers, shoe soles, and rubber balls by the locals. Applying it on the surface of clothes has a much better waterproofing effect than oilcloth."
"What's more interesting is that there is a local crop whose rhizome is edible, just like yam, but shorter and... yes, that's the one in your hand."
Lü Meng pointed at the sweet potato in Gan Ning's hand and said, "There is a kind of this thing. The white juice of the vine is added to the gum tree juice to make it tougher and more elastic."
"If this thing is brought back to the hands of those people in the Ministry of Industry, it will definitely be of great use."
There was no need to even wait until he brought it back to Huang Yueying and the others, Lu Meng guessed the use of this thing.
This kind of tough and waterproof material will definitely be useful on ships.
The plasticity from liquid to solid determines that this material can be used for sealing.
The existence of this thing is simply breaking the original way of invention!
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to put it at the forefront of all plants.
Gan Ning carefully took the shoes from Lu Meng's hand.
Although he knew that it would be impossible to damage it due to its flexibility even if the movement was a little bigger, he still couldn't help but react like this the moment he realized the prospect of this thing.
With the existence of this item, they have a minimum guarantee when they return to Dayong to report to His Majesty.
What's more, they have much more to show off than just this one thing.
Lu Meng has continued to speak -
"These two kinds... let's call them both yam because of the yam. I see General Gan has them here too, so I won't say more."
Perhaps the only difference between Lu Meng and Gan Ning is that the settlement group in the south would use a special type of sweet potato juice to carry out the earliest vulcanization reaction of rubber. The rest of the planting and eating methods are almost the same.
Gan Ning nodded, and then saw Lu Meng took out the next item. "I originally thought that it was a miracle that we could get cotton from India through the reopened Silk Road."
If there were no cotton-padded clothes, countless people would have frozen to death during the cold winters of those years. Also, if there were no cotton-padded clothes, it would have been almost impossible for their soldiers to cross the Xuandu Mountain and win the battle against the Kushan Empire.
Think about last year’s battle of Suizhou, cotton also made a significant contribution to it.
"What do you think of cotton? It is needed most in cold regions, but it only grows in hot places like this."
It goes without saying how hot the climate of India is. The mountainous area explored by Lu Meng has loose soil and is slightly barren, but it is also a humid and hot place.
What surprised him even more was that Gan Ning opened the box he had taken from the side, and after opening it, he found that it was also filled with cotton.
But what’s interesting is that the two types of cotton do not look exactly the same. The cotton brought from the south has longer fibers and is obviously more suitable for weaving, while the cotton from the north has a more velvety texture. But when they compared the local production of the two types of cotton, they found that the yield of the cotton from the north was much higher.
No matter which type of cotton it is, it will last longer than the one they are currently growing in Dayong.
"Do you think these two kinds of cotton can adapt to the climate of Dayong? Or is it possible that there is other cotton that can combine the advantages of these two categories?" Gan Ning held a cotton flower in each hand and asked after comparing them.
But he shook his head as soon as he asked, and said, "Forget it. Every profession has its own expertise. We don't want to worry about such a headache. We just need to bring enough seeds and cotton back."
Can we still expect him to be like Jia Xu, who, in addition to being a strategist, could also learn farming?
Let’s just forget it.
Seeing that Gan Ning had no intention of asking further questions, Lu Meng picked up the next thing and said, "Then there's this melon."
It was a gourd-shaped pumpkin.
"The sandy soil of this mountain area really supports a lot of easy-to-feed things, such as this thing. Whether it produces or not is secondary. Few people active in this mountain area cannot see at night. I gestured to them and guessed, and they said it was probably because they ate this thing. I guess those in the medical school should like it very much."
After Lu Meng finished speaking, he looked towards Gan Ning and asked in confusion, "Why do you have that expression?"
Gan Ning laughed and took another box from his subordinate beside him. When he opened it, he saw two kinds of melons inside. Although they were different from the one he found in the south, they also had their similarities. Coincidentally, the melon that Lu Meng found seemed to be just a transitional variety among them.
"I haven't heard from the locals that this thing can prevent night blindness. Perhaps its respective uses can only be known after it is brought back to Dayong. Anyway, I am satisfied to have this thing to satisfy my cravings without having to deal with persimmon leaves."
"It's just that the cooking method of these people is really bad. They have to put a few red fruits full of spicy and pungent smell in it. It should be cooked in some other way. Let's talk about it after returning to the Central Plains."
Putting chili peppers in the melon was secondary. When Gan Ning thought about the potatoes mixed with clay that he had received from those people when he first met them, he felt a little uncomfortable in his stomach.
Not bad, potatoes.
Because its edible part grows in the soil and the grains are not large, as if they are just enlarged beans, Gan Ning gave it this name without hesitation.
Thinking about the fact that this thing had to be mixed with soil for some reason during cooking, he felt that the name couldn't be more appropriate.
But what Gan Ning never expected was that when he was wondering whether to take the potatoes back, he saw Lu Meng waving to his subordinates behind him and dragging up two sacks.
When the first sack was opened, what came out were clearly potatoes, but they were several times larger than the potatoes he had found.
As soon as Lu Meng opened his mouth, he said, "In terms of food gains, nothing can surpass this."
Gan Ning: “……?”
Lu Meng said: "The locals living on the mountains cannot change the environment here, so they can only adapt the crops they eat to the environment. There are quite a lot of species of this thing in the wild. Some are poisonous and must be eaten with clay. Some have low yields and are not suitable for farming. I don't know how long it has undergone changes to make it domesticated by these people."
When he thought about the yield of potatoes per mu here, according to what the natives said, it could reach a value of several hundred kilograms per mu. It was not like the yam recorded in the Leping Monthly Report, which required a strict planting process and careful care, Lu Meng couldn't help but show some joy.
If this creature can still maintain this adaptability after being moved back to Dayong, then there is no need to say more about his contribution to saving people's lives!
He said with some regret: "Unfortunately, this thing still has some limitations. For example, it is not easy to preserve. Once it takes root and sprouts, it will be poisonous. So in order to store it for a long time, the local people have to crush it, wash it, and then put it on the hillside to dry. In the end, it became like this."
At Lu Meng's instruction, the second bag was opened in front of Gan Ning, and inside were yellow and white dried dumplings, which were indeed in a dried state that was easy to store.
only……
Gan Ning raised his eyebrows: "Trampling?"
Lu Meng straightened his face and said, "He was wearing rubber shoes."
It would have been better if he hadn't said it, but the fact that he said it in such a serious tone and in such a defensive way really made Gan Ning subconsciously feel that something was wrong.
He waved his hands behind his back, signaling his subordinates to take the wild potatoes back and not embarrass themselves here. At the same time, he just listened to Lu Meng's explanation and there was no need for them to hurt each other over potatoes.
After all, if you have to compare, it’s hard to tell which of them is more miserable.
Anyway, after this thing is sent back, His Majesty, who has come up with all kinds of food, will definitely come up with a reasonable solution.
As for how to bring it back, although there is also the problem of storage, it can still be solved with the load of the seagoing ship.
Their meeting was actually much smoother than they had originally expected. Before it was even June of the fifth year of Yuan Zhao, they had already returned to their original starting points.
This means that as long as their journey westward and back is smooth enough, they may be able to catch the New Year's Festival in the sixth year of Yuan Zhao.
This allowed them to set up a grill directly after they had completely explained their respective harvests, and skewer the corn and mutton that Gan Ning had brought after the potato exchange just now.
Gan Ning cracked the sunflower seeds he brought with him and the peanuts brought by Lu Meng, and thought about how they should send the things back after they each had their own gains.
The fleet consumption on their way here, and even the casualties caused by storms at sea, may not change on their return journey because they have more sea sailing experience.
It was a blessing that both teams, heading north and south, were able to return safely. They could not expect not to be hit by nature during the voyage.
If any of these things were lost due to a setback when he already had them, Gan Ning would never forgive himself.
"Those guys in the north love this food very much and use it as their staple food. It's not a problem to exchange enough of it, and it's not too difficult to store it after drying it in the sun." Gan Ning said, pointing to the corn on the grill.
"And the same with the two kinds of yams. Add to that the anhook and sunflower seeds, and the melon, cotton, and gum seeds, and place a supply on every ship."
"It takes time for the rubber trees to grow. It is not enough to just bring the seeds back. We need to use the gold, silver, silk and silk on the ship to exchange for a few more barrels. There is no need to scatter them. Just put them on our ship. We can't let such a storm destroy both of our main ships."
The two main ships were both of the largest scale of Funan's large ships. Not to mention that they were designed to withstand voyages in tropical areas, under the strict inspection of the craftsmen from Xu and Yang states, all possible hidden dangers were completely repaired.
The load capacity of these two ships is much greater than that of other ships, which makes them very useful for carrying goods here.
So, the only things left are potatoes.
Since this thing can't survive a five-month voyage under normal conditions, it's better not to store it!
Gan Ning ordered decisively: "Convert several of the warehouses on the two ships into farmland and plant potatoes directly there."
Anyway, Lu Meng also said that after this thing was domesticated into its current form by the people living in the mountains, one of its biggest advantages is its durability. As long as they can ensure that the soil in the warehouse has enough light and water, they should be able to keep it alive and bring it to Your Majesty.
We can't just bring these dried potatoes to Your Majesty.
That's so rude.
The importance of potatoes and rubber deserves such careful treatment.
This transaction initiated against the two groups of New World people in the north and south soon got under the command of the commander-in-chief Gan Ning.
What made Gan Ning a little troubled was that the leader of the community on the northern peninsula said "go" to him in broken Chinese. He didn't want him to leave as soon as possible, but wanted people to leave with him to learn how to make paper.
Even though Gan Ning had made it very clear to the other party that their arrival was due to the blessing of His Majesty and there was no guarantee that the return journey would be as smooth, and that they might die in the sea voyage that lasted for more than a hundred days and nights, and it was even more unpredictable when they would arrive here next time, the other party still insisted on this idea.
Gan Ning really couldn't refuse the other party's action of not being a fortress man. Thinking that His Majesty might also be curious about the local characters, he simply asked the leader for a few stone slabs and bark boards, and required that the people who accompanied him on the ship must know their local characters.
Then, after they have learned the Central Plains characters, they will be able to decipher these foreign images and texts.
Looking at it this way, it doesn't seem like it's such a bad thing to bring a few more locals.
So after a month of material exchange, the ships were loaded with dry food and fresh water for the return trip, as well as those things that were vital to Dayong, and set sail again on a sunny afternoon.
Gan Ning, Lu Meng and others were eager to return home, and they wished they could appear in the coastal towns of Dayong the next moment.
The tribal leader, who should be called Mayan, remained slow in his movements.
He looked at the direction where the ships were sailing away, and only withdrew his gaze when they completely disappeared at the end of the sea.
"Outsider..."
The footprints of outsiders left on this bay will soon be completely wiped out with the rise and fall of the next tide.
But the iron swords, armor, paper, and friendship of overseas powers that these people left here will be engraved on their stone tablets.
Also not disappearing any time soon is a huge rock erected in the bay.
There is a line of words engraved on the stone:
In the spring of the fourth year of Yuan Zhao, Gan Ning, the general of the Great Yong Tower Ship, and Lu Meng, the commander of the Henghai Army, sailed here in compliance with the emperor’s order to establish friendship between the two sides of the strait. 】
The author has something to say:
The heyday of Mayan culture was from around 250-900 AD (some say 300-900). Now it is 200 AD, and Gan Ning is right to say that it is in its embryonic stage.
To sum up what we have gained this time -
Common to the North and South routes: sweet potatoes and cassava.
North Route: Pumpkin, zucchini, upland cotton, wild potatoes, corn, peppers, sunflowers.
South route: winter squash, sea island cotton, potato, rubber, and peanut planting.
A few additional notes:
① Corn also exists in South America, but it was not until the Inca culture period that it was developed on a large scale. In the early days, the Mayans were the most fond of it.
②The domestication of potatoes mainly took place in South America because the conditions in the Andes Mountains were relatively harsh and potato cultivation was needed to fill the food gap. Therefore, the size of potatoes around 200 AD was also larger in the south.
③Tomatoes are a crop that is far from being domesticated, so they are not available now.
④ Zucchini, pumpkin and winter squash are all from the genus Cucurbita of the Cucurbitaceae family. They have a variety of skin colors, so I won’t go into details. They are similar and not as different as you might imagine. For example, there is a variety of winter squash called golden pumpkin.
It’s not too late to deal with other crops when they come next time.
I used to wonder, if China had sailed to America first, would the Indian civilization have been preserved? But it's just a thought, and it's just something I wrote casually in a novel.
Overall, Qiao Qiao is going to have a great harvest. (Suddenly I feel a little happy about hoarding articles)
There are still 2 chapters left in the HNA section, so it won’t be too long.
See you tomorrow morning at 9:30.
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