Chapter 334 The Source of the Upstream (Please vote and subscribe)
After getting the footballs, Luo Chong first distributed 30 of them to the children. One ball was enough for a group of people to play with. These 30 balls were enough to make hundreds of children happy.
The remaining ten or so footballs were distributed by Luo Chong to the cavalry and caravans who were training in Hanyang City. With a rope and a ruler, they measured a modern football field on the grass outside the west gate, and asked them to build two goals with wood, and then cover the goals with a large net made by the weaving tribe.
Flags were planted in the four corners of the field, and all the sidelines were drawn with white lime. In this way, a modern field was completed.
Luo Chong often played football in the army in his previous life, and he remembered the field data and rules by heart. Although he was not a standard fan, he still knew what he should know.
As for the ancient Cuju, when it developed to the point where there was a goal, it was still a frame made of two bamboo poles, and then a very small goal was made at a height of more than one person, about the size of an iron pot. Both teams kicked the ball into the same goal at the same time. Not only was the field small, but it was also quite difficult. It was far less fun than the current football rules, and it was not as suitable as modern football for training the running ability of the kickers. It was more like a group of people playing basketball.
After the court was built, Luo Chong immediately began to teach them how to play football. The soldiers took off their black armor and only wore red short robes,
while the caravan wore dark blue short robes. It was easy to distinguish the two teams. Each team had 11 people, a goalkeeper, and ten players. Luo Chong was the referee himself. The rules were also explained to them. Fighting, pulling, and touching the ball with hands were not allowed. Then, kicking the ball into the opponent's goal was counted as one point, and the victory or defeat of both sides was judged by the score.
The soldiers and the caravan members all thought this game was very new. To be exact, they had never played any games since they were born, and they had always been fighting against nature to fill their stomachs. Now that they had this opportunity, they naturally participated actively.
After Luo Chong struck a gong, the red and blue teams started the game. The two teams chased each other and competed for the ball. The scene was very intense, and it also attracted the children who were herding sheep not far away. In an instant, sheep, sheepdogs, and shepherds all rushed onto the court.
Sheep chased the ball, dogs chased sheep, and people chased dogs. The court was suddenly in chaos.
Luo Chong had no choice but to strike the gong to suspend the game, and then began to clean up the court. He also asked the soldiers and caravan members who were not on the court to stand on the sidelines to guard, and only allowed the children to watch outside.
After playing a game, the children in the city heard the news from somewhere and ran out to watch. They stood outside the court and watched the soldiers and caravan members take turns on the court, and they also shouted and cheered.
Although playing football is good for physical exercise, serious military training is also required. In the afternoon, the adults were busy with their own affairs, and the court was occupied by the children.
Dozens of children were running on the court playing football. There were four or five people standing in each goal. Although there were no rules, they knew to kick the ball into the goal. However, they didn't know whether it was their own goal or not, and they didn't care whether it was an own goal. In short, they just had fun.
Luo Chong was also very happy to watch the children playing football. It made him feel like he had traveled back in time again. However, before he could say a few words, a letter from an eagle was delivered to his hands.
The letter was sent by Youye's surveying and reconnaissance team. Although they were tasked with surveying and mapping, their main purpose of going out this time was to scout the movements of the cannibals and find their lair.
The letter said that they each had two horses and could move very quickly. The new weapons they were equipped with were also very useful, especially the crossbow. The same person could shoot more arrows using a crossbow than using a bow and arrow.
This was of course certain. How many arrows a person could shoot depended entirely on how many times he could draw the bow. After all, arm strength was limited. Drawing the bow directly also consumed a lot of arm strength, but drawing the crossbow used the whole body's strength.
Even more critical was aiming. When aiming directly, you had to keep drawing the bow with all your strength, but with a crossbow, as long as you hung the string, you could completely relax. Then you just had to hold the crossbow and aim. It could be said that more than half of your physical strength was saved.
After reporting the experience of the new weapon, the next thing was the result of the reconnaissance. They started from the back mountain north of Hanyang City, passed through the valley where they had captured the zebra, crossed the hilly grassland, and finally followed the traces of the cannibals' activities to the river close to the iron ore area in the east, which was the upper reaches of the river beside Hanyang City.
It seemed that the cannibals were also looking for directions along the river. Perhaps the tribes along the upper reaches of the river had already been killed by them.
Sure enough, the letter then described the situation of Youye and his team's reconnaissance. No tribes were found in the areas near the two sides of the river, but they did find some abandoned settlements of the tribes, but they were all destroyed.
They continued to move northward, and the terrain became higher and higher, with many mountains appearing. However, this was normal, as water flows to lower places. Now they were going upstream along the river, so of course they were getting higher and higher.
The mountains were impossible to measure, so they rushed forward quickly. After riding for almost three days in the mountains, they finally saw the plains again. There were large tracts of sparse forests, as well as grasslands covered with weeds and shrubs. They also saw herds of alpacas, big-horned deer, long-haired cattle, and an animal that looked like a horse but was smaller than a horse, with longer ears and a very unpleasant cry. Luo Chong directly inferred that it might be a plateau wild donkey.
When they arrived there, they had lost the traces left by the cannibal army, but there were still no tribes around. Youye sent Flying Eagle to scout, but did not see any signs of cannibal activity, so he decided to continue searching upstream along the river.
The entire reconnaissance team walked for almost another day, and they actually found the source of the river. It turned out that the small river outside Hanyang City was just a branch of a large river, and the width of the large river upstream was at least 50 meters, but the water was not deep, and there were many stones exposed in the river. They could wade across the river on horseback.
Moreover, they finally met humans living around at the junction of the river branch. They were not cannibals, but those humans knew the cannibal totem warriors they mentioned, and seemed to be very familiar with them and knew a lot about cannibals.
Now their whole team is resting in that tribe. Youye provided them with some white salt, and the people in that tribe were also very warm to them. After all, for the sake of white salt, they were not, and it was not good to be too unfamiliar.
(End of this chapter)
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