Chen Jinnan sat in the chair, staring at the bowl of mushy paste that looked like dog poop, and fell into deep thought.
"Is this all you're feeding us?"
The Eternal Mother was somewhat incredulous. She had gone through countless hardships to convince these mountain people that the two of them were divine messengers sent down by the gods, and yet these people were offering her this thing as a tribute.
The mountain tribe's shaman, looking at the enraged divine messenger before him, knelt on the ground, trembling with fear.
“My Lord, this is the best delicacy of our Gaoshan people. It is made from wheat and is usually only served when we offer sacrifices to the heavens.”
As a shaman of a mountain tribe, he naturally did not believe that the two people in front of him were some kind of divine messengers.
But these two Han Chinese men, one who killed a tiger with a single punch and the other who shattered a rock with a single palm strike, possessed abilities that even a shaman would have to grit his teeth and admit, let alone a divine messenger, if they claimed to be immortals.
There was no other way. The entire Gaoshan tribe only had a little over 10,000 people. After deducting the old, weak, sick, and disabled, there were only 4,000 able-bodied men left. Even if all these people were combined, they wouldn't be enough for these two to kill.
While begging for mercy, Wu was also somewhat annoyed. "Your martial arts are so high, why don't you go to the Ming Dynasty to enjoy wealth and glory, or go to the Liao and Manchu countries to lord it over others? Why do you come to this godforsaken place like ours?"
"So what do you usually eat?"
Chen Jinnan looked at the shaman kneeling on the ground, trembling, and asked.
"Your Excellency, we'll eat this."
The shaman took out a mud cake from his bosom and held it up with both hands.
The Eternal Mother picked up the mud cake, broke off a small piece with her hand, examined it carefully, and then put it in her mouth.
A muddy taste instantly filled his mouth, and he forced himself to swallow the small piece of mud cake, despite the discomfort.
"Do you usually just eat mud?"
"It also contains sawdust and wheat husks, and is served with a herbal soup. Otherwise, you won't be able to poop if you eat it."
“Usually, we only make a small bowl of this food when we harvest wheat, to offer as a sacrifice to the heavens, and then the whole family shares it.”
Upon hearing this, Chen Jinnan paused for a moment, then picked up the bowl and scooped out a small spoonful of the paste.
The steaming hot porridge, with a hint of wheat aroma, drew the attention of the children kneeling on the ground. They all looked up, their eyes fixed intently on the spoonful of porridge.
Chen Jinnan beckoned a child over. The child was frightened, and his thin body began to tremble. The clothes he was wearing almost fell off.
Strictly speaking, the clothes the child was wearing could only be considered a tattered piece of cloth, with holes covering more than half of them.
It makes no difference whether he wears this tattered cloth or not; it neither keeps him warm nor covers his body. Through the holes in the clothes, you can see his ribs. It's just a symbolic garment, something he wears on his body.
Chen Jinnan looked at him and handed him the spoon: "Here, have some."
The child dared not open his mouth, but turned to look at the shaman of the tribe. When the shaman nodded, the child bit down on the spoon, a happy smile on his face, as if he were eating some kind of nectar.
Seeing the child's state, Chen Jinnan sighed and placed the bowl of porridge in the child's hand: "You children can share this."
Upon hearing this, the children's eyes lit up instantly, staring intently at the porridge in the bowl.
Seeing the children scrambling for the food, the Eternal Mother couldn't help but ask, "This mountain is so arid, and the land is so barren, why do you, the Gaoshan people, want to move here?"
"Why not go to the fertile Central Plains? Is it because you don't like it?"
"Is it because you are called the Gaoshan people that you must live in the mountains?"
The shaman of the Gaoshan tribe: ...
“My Lord, we were originally called the Sael tribe, not the Mountain tribe. We did not live on this mountain. We originally lived in the borderlands, where the land was fertile, the grass was lush and the birds were singing. It was a paradise on earth.”
“During the Tang Dynasty, when you Han people fought against the Turks, we Sai people were caught up in it and were taken by the Han people and the Turks in turn to be forced into labor.”
"We couldn't fight back, so we had no choice but to run away. We eventually fled to this deserted mountain and escaped the disaster. When we arrived here, our entire tribe had only a little over 600 people left. After so many years of recuperation, we have grown to more than 10,000 people."
"Later, when your Great Ming Emperor Taizu came here to fight, he discovered us and said that we lived in the high mountains. He must have liked us, so he named us the Gaoshan tribe."
As Wu spoke, tears streamed down her face: “We don’t like living here either, and we don’t want to be called the Gaoshan people. It was you Han people who drove us to these mountains and then said we like the mountains.”
"We don't like mountains at all. There's nothing here, no rivers, no land, and even grass roots are a delicacy."
The shaman wept uncontrollably, feeling that the two Han people before him were utterly despicable.
You drove us to the high mountains, named us the Gaoshan people, and said we like the mountains. This is too much of a bullying.
They even asked us why we didn't go to the fertile Central Plains. Let me ask you, which of the nomadic peoples on the grasslands wouldn't want to go to the fertile Central Plains? It's mainly you Han people who won't allow it.
"Alright, alright, it's alright, it's alright. You can go now. We'll communicate with God and see if we can find a way to improve your lives."
Looking at the mountain people crying their hearts out, the Eternal Mother couldn't help but feel a bit overwhelmed and waved for them to leave.
Watching them leave, Chen Jinnan turned around and asked, "What's going on? This place is so poor we can't even afford to eat. Expecting these people to go to war and develop their power is like asking for the moon."
Upon hearing this, the Eternal Mother scratched her head vigorously: "What can we do? The land here is so barren and water is so scarce that it's impossible to grow crops. I'm not a deity, I can't..."
At this point, he suddenly slapped his forehead: "Damn it, how could I be so stupid?"
“We are not gods, but that one is a real god.”
"His Pinduoduo general store doesn't sell a kind of grain seed. That stuff is supposed to yield 8,000 catties per mu, but it can only yield 3,000 catties per mu when planted on sandy land. No matter how harsh the environment is here, it's still much better than sandy land."
"Besides seeds, there's something called 'Golden Fertilizer,' which, when sprinkled on the soil, can make it fertile."
“If we spend some money to buy those two things, we can feed these 10,000 people. Once they’ve recovered, we can lead them down the mountain to seize territory.”
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