Chapter 558 Barbarian Tribe on the Other Side (Please vote and subscribe)
Does the Han tribe need a dedicated arsenal? Of course they do. Previously, some small amounts of weapons and equipment were processed in a scattered manner. The main reason is that the only unit that can currently carry out large-scale iron processing is the metallurgical workshop in Hanyang City.
Hey, although the city is not big and there are not many people, it is still the first city of the Han tribe. The development and perfection of it is unmatched by any other city.
In addition, if the coking plant is built, it will definitely boost the steel production of the Han tribe. After all, charcoal was used before, and it took at least two months to open a furnace. With coke, it will be different. As long as the supply of coke is continuous, a furnace can produce several tons of pig iron a day. Combined with the open-hearth top blowing technology for steelmaking, the Han tribe will no longer worry about the output of steel.
At that time, it will not be a matter of where to get iron, but what to do with the iron.
In the foreseeable future, with the increase in steel production in the Han tribe, steel products will enter thousands of households. Iron pots are already available. Iron carbon stoves, iron teapots, iron plates and iron basins will not be far behind. Especially large teapots, this thing is absolutely necessary for nomadic people, even more important than pots. You must know that they like to drink milk, goat milk, cow milk, and horse milk in their eating habits. It is very convenient to use a teapot to heat milk.
In terms of military use, it is mainly weapons and protective gear. The Han tribe is still using leather armor at present, because the metal production is small and there is no ability to equip a large number of metal armors. But it will be different after the steel is sufficient. The Han tribe is fully capable of equipping all soldiers with metal armor. When the stamping machine is turned on, small steel sheets will be produced one by one. If it is made into a mountain pattern armor, even the time of weaving armor plates can be saved. It can be directly clamped together with snaps, and the risk of worrying about the ropes of weaving armor plates being worn off can be eliminated.
There are also helmets and masks, which can be directly stamped into shape in one piece, and batch equipment is no longer a dream.
Luo Chong was fantasizing about life with a lot of steel, while at the Deer Tribe downstream of the Liuyang River, Yu Mao and Jing Yan were not idle either.
Jing Yan used the things he brought to build a dock with the tribesmen of the Deer Tribe, and also began to set up a logistics camp for the exploration team. Yu Mao was not idle either. He led a team of dozens of people, led by the guide of the Deer Tribe, to search for that kind of black light stone in the mountains and woods northeast of the Deer Tribe.
It was another evening, and the group began to set up tents and camp. They had walked a long way and could not continue to live in the camp by the river. Otherwise, they would have to walk another day to get here the next day, wasting time on the road.
This was a newly discovered mining site at the foot of the mountain. The guide said that he had seen that kind of black stone here, so Yu Mao brought people here. After trying to dig here for a day, they felt that this mining site was very valuable, mainly because the terrain was easier to walk, which was conducive to the transportation of mined ore, which was a very important point.
At night, a group of people set up a stove and started to cook. After using flint and steel to make a fire, they first burned some dry firewood they picked up, and then threw a few pieces of coal that they had just dug out today into the fire while the fire was still strong. Soon, the coals caught fire, and there was no unpleasant smell or thick smoke. They were still relatively good anthracite, unlike the ones they had mined in another place before. When they were thrown into the fire, they would smoke and smell so bad that people wanted to vomit.
"Captain, the stones here are really easy to burn. They are much better than firewood, and they are not like the ones we dug a few days ago. They burn with a lot of smoke."
"It doesn't matter if there is a lot of smoke. Anyway, they are all used for iron smelting. I'm not asking you to burn them at home. What are you afraid of?" Feather scolded the team member nonchalantly.
"Hehe, I've been wondering, when will the people in our Han tribe be able to burn such stones, so that we don't have to go out to chop firewood, and we can just store some of these stones at home, so as to avoid the tiredness of chopping firewood frequently."
"Hey, I say, are you stupid, it doesn't matter what you burn, if you don't go to chop firewood, you will come here to dig coal, anyway, you have to work, in my opinion, mining is not as easy as chopping firewood, if the leader hadn't said that this thing burns at a high temperature and will make ironmaking easier, then I would be the first to oppose running so far to dig this coal.
Moreover, ironmaking originally consumes so much, and you still want to give it to all the tribesmen, isn't this nonsense, the leader doesn't dare to think so, no matter how many people there are in our Han tribe, we can't say that the coal dug will be enough for everyone to burn."
The team members squatted on the ground with big bowls in their hands, eating and chatting during the rare meal time.
"Oh, that's not necessarily true. Don't forget who our leader is. If the coal we dig can really produce more iron, maybe the leader will use iron to make some new tools. If the new tools are very powerful, maybe one day everyone in the tribe can really burn coal." Feather also held a big bowl and said while eating rice.
"Captain, I heard that you and our leader were originally from the same tribe. Tell us about the leader."
"Yes, yes, captain, I heard that our Han tribe didn't even have a hundred people at first. It was the leader who built it to such a large size today. How did he do it? Tell us about the Han tribe in the past."
When several team members heard Feather talking, they hurriedly asked him to tell the legendary stories of the leader and the early Han tribe. For those who joined the Han tribe later, they had never heard of it. They only knew that the leader was very powerful and many things were invented by the leader, but there were not many stories about the early development of the Han tribe, so the team members pricked up their ears and were full of curiosity about these old stories.
"Okay, then I'll tell you about it. When our leader was still a minor, there were less than a hundred people in our Han tribe, including adults and children. We all lived in the old cave north of Hanyang City. We couldn't even get one animal skin per person, and we only had one meal every two or three days to get through the winter.
It wasn't until one day when our leader went out and brought back the Tree Tribe and rice seeds that we started to grow rice." Feather kept talking about this, but the team members listened with gusto. They didn't expect that the conditions of the Han tribe were so poor in the early years, even worse than their own tribe. Many people who joined later thought so.
The coal mining exploration team was reviewing the arduous entrepreneurial history of the Han tribe in the camp, and in the south, further downstream, Youye and his crew also parked their sailboats not far from the shore, and came to the shore with several landing craft. While eating dinner with the crew, they looked at the barbarian tribe on the other side hunting and dividing meat. The bonfire was burning, and a whole roasted deer was on it. The barbarians brought up the captives from a tribe they defeated today, and then sent warriors to duel with the captives in public. This basically became their daily entertainment.
"Captain, what should we do if the barbarians on the other side don't let us go ashore, and there are so many of them, we don't seem to be able to beat them?"
This is the third day since the fleet arrived here. When they first arrived here, they found a large plain on the shore, with only sparse trees and mostly grassland. Such a place, close to the river, is very convenient for irrigating farmland and water transportation. It is also very convenient. There are large plains and forests around it. It can be said that it is a very suitable place to build a city and settle down.
But this place has been occupied by a large tribe, and the people of this tribe are very barbaric, fierce and aggressive. They occupy this plain with many prey. Whenever other tribes cross the border when chasing prey, they will be expelled by this tribe at the least, or the hunting team will be captured directly. They don't kill them directly.
Instead, they treat them as captives, or as sandbags, for the men who have just reached adulthood in the tribe to practice fighting. Every day at the dinner bonfire party, they will pull up a few captives, and then let the young men who have just reached adulthood fight with the captives. If the captives beat the teenagers of their own tribe, they can be sent home. If they can't beat them, they will be beaten again the next day. Although they are barbaric and aggressive, they are not bloodthirsty. However, there have been captives who were accidentally beaten to death.
When You Fu and his companions arrived two days ago, they saw a group of barbarians capturing people from other tribes as prisoners. Moreover, the adult males in this barbarian tribe were conservatively estimated to be around 700 to 800, which was a very large number. Together with the women and underage children, the total population was at least over 2,000, which was almost as many as a newly built small county town of the Han tribe.
You Fu began to try to contact them. He first sent a trusted subordinate with several guards and gifts to land, hoping to establish communication with this group of people. As a result, the gift-giver was robbed by the other party after he went up.
The other party first accepted the gifts from the Han tribe, and then looked back and forth at the Han tribe members with wide eyes. It seemed that they thought their clothes, shoes, and swords were very good, so they surrounded several people and touched them all over, while they were excitedly discussing something, and then began to force them to hand over their things.
How could the Han tribe agree to this? They have given you gifts, but you still think it is not enough, and you even want to keep their clothes and pants. How can this be allowed?
But the other side had many people, and suddenly they attacked and immediately pounced on the two people from the Han tribe, and pulled off their pants and cloth boots, and wanted to continue to strip the two people's shirts. The other guards were anxious and drew their swords on the spot to rescue them. The other side grabbed the people and refused to let go. There was a guard named Jing from the Han tribe. Seeing that the other side grabbed his brother's legs and dragged him backwards, he immediately became angry and rushed forward to cut off the other side's arm with a knife, cursing loudly, "I told you not to let go, I told you not to let go."
The knife flashed, and the two arms fell directly to the ground. The blood in the artery spurted more than two meters away. The two people whose arms were cut off rolled on the ground in pain, and lay on the ground motionless for dozens of seconds.
The people from the other tribe were dumbfounded. They had never seen such a weapon and such a brutal killing method. People who were used to using spears could not imagine the tragic scene of dismembering people directly. Usually hunting was just poking a few holes.
The other members of the Han tribe also took the opportunity to snatch the two companions back, and then began to form a circle and break out to the shore. The enemy also reacted at this time. Seeing that their tribesmen were killed by these people coming from the water, they were even more furious and chased them to the shore on the spot.
The enemy used spears, stone axes, javelins, and stone throwing attacks. The Han tribe only had waist knives. They broke through the siege and killed and injured many people, but they also suffered casualties. Fortunately, when they rushed to the river bank, they finally got the fire support of the fleet. The only crossbow on the head ship of Youfu opened fire on the pursuers on the shore. Because the enemy had a large number of people and stood very densely, the crossbow aimed at the crowd and shot, and the three of the enemy were pierced into meat skewers on the spot. The enemy was dumbfounded again. Those Han tribe members who had finally run to the shore also climbed into the landing craft and quickly slid the oars to move closer to the big ship.
The enemy still wanted to swim in the water to chase, but after being warned by the second crossbow shot in front of them, they finally did not dare to chase.
In fact, it was not a warning, it just missed.
After this short two-minute battle, both sides counted their casualties. Six people from the Han tribe came ashore, one died on the spot (his head was split open by a stone axe), two were seriously injured, and the thigh was pierced by the opponent's spear, and one was stabbed in the back. It is estimated that these two people will not survive. The remaining three were injured all over their bodies, but they were all minor injuries. They were hit by stones by the opponent.
The gifts brought, cloth, ceramic utensils, a can of white salt, and a small box of brown sugar cubes were all lost.
The weapons were lost, two goose feather steel knives were lost, and two large crossbow arrows (iron arrowheads) were consumed.
Fortunately, all six people got on the boat and were finally taken to the big ship. No matter whether they were dead or alive, at least they were not left behind, otherwise they would not know how they would be insulted and tortured by the opponent.
The barbarian tribe on the shore did not gain any advantage. Two people whose arms were chopped off died on the spot. Three people who were shot by the crossbows could not survive. In the pursuit and interception of the six people from the Han tribe, they were directly hacked to death by them. Given the medical technology of the time, it was still late summer and the weather was very hot. Those who were hacked by knives could also be declared dead. Even if they were only slightly injured, the infection in the later stage could still kill them. Moreover, they might not even be able to stop the bleeding. They might die of shock due to excessive blood loss that night.
However, although more than 20 people were killed and injured, the spoils were not few. The other side seized the gifts from the Han tribe, and also snatched two fine steel goose feather knives, one with a scabbard and the other without anything, as well as two iron spears left by the Han tribe, which were large crossbow arrows fired by the crossbows.
In addition, there were two pairs of linen short boots, two pairs of linen trousers, half a top short robe, and three sleeves, all of which were forcibly torn off.
Just to grab these pieces of cloth, they paid the price of several casualties.
The leader of the barbarian tribe on the shore, with the two steel knives in his hands, looked at the captured items in front of him and fell into deep thought amid the wailing of his wounded men.
He tasted the sugar and it was sweet and delicious.
He also tasted the salt and it was salty, which was what they needed.
The ceramic utensils were also very exquisite and looked like they should be used for eating.
A large roll of linen seemed to be made of the same material as the clothes they had robbed.
So, those people just now should not be bad people, but came to give them gifts. If they had communicated well, they might have been able to exchange some things. However,
his own tribesmen attacked them and wanted to rob them of their things, but more than 20 people were killed and injured by those who gave gifts. Moreover, the weapons of the other party were so powerful. In
this way, it was impossible for both parties to reconcile. His own men were crying for revenge, and it was estimated that the other party would not let his tribe go.
What should they do?
(End of this chapter)
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