The sun rises from the mountains and forests in the east, and the dawn pushes away the darkness, releasing brilliant golden color. The morning dew sparkles among the grass and trees, and the birds wake up, with sweet cries everywhere.
Hulot was facing the rising sun, with his upper body bare and the most convenient white crotch cloth tied around his waist. In front of him was a vat of cold water and a clay pot. Bertard stood quietly in front, looking at his face.
He scooped up a basin of cold water and poured it from the top of his head. The water flowed like a waterfall, flowing through his body. He was instantly cold in the morning breeze, and his body was covered with goosebumps, but his expression remained unchanged. According to the requirements of the samurai, he must always remain perseverant.
There should be no fear or hesitation.
After a while, when the water drops were slightly dry, he poured another basin of cold water, and repeated this process until the entire jar of water was poured out. Only then did Bertard smile.
"Yes, Shulot, you already have some warrior spirit. It is already April, the weather is starting to get warmer, and the cold-resistant will training will soon stop. Then we will change to agility training in the morning, and wait until October, when the warm weather
The rainy season has passed and things will be back to normal again.”
Shulot nodded resolutely, his face was frozen and he could not speak for the time being.
At this time, a red bird was attracted by Shulot, flying around the boy and calling. The bird had an obvious crown on its head, and its face was black. It flew very fast, and its call was high-pitched and cheerful, with different timbres.
From time to time, he would come over and peck the water at his feet. He seemed familiar to Shulot.
"Hey, the birds singing happily are blessings from the fertility goddess Tonakasihuatl. This is a good sign. It seems that the season for the reproduction of all things has arrived. Shulot, you have to suppress your desires. Of course, try it once.
It is also necessary to complete the transformation from boy to man." Seeing the good omen, Bertard was in a good mood and made a rare manly joke.
Shulot rolled his eyes, and his face could finally move. "Bertard, you have been led astray by Avitt. You don't need to show your theological knowledge in front of the priest. Tonacasihuatl is also a good harvest
God, seeing the cardinals singing happily proves that the spring plowing season has arrived."
This beautiful little bird is the North American cardinal, which is widely distributed in the mountain forests of Central and North America. April is their courtship and mating season, and they will have particularly beautiful songs. Shulot is more familiar with its other well-known name.
,"angry Birds".
While they were talking, the two of them saw a thick smoke gradually rising in the eastern sky in the distance. The smoke pillars were scattered in the sky, not too dense. After a while, another thick smoke slowly rose. Bertard
After looking at the direction of the smoke column, he nodded with relief: "It's all in the direction of the village. This is Milpa's preparation. The forest is set on fire and spring plowing is about to begin."
Xiulote nodded. There are two types of agriculture in Mexico: Chinampa and Milpa. The former is a high-yield floating field in the river and lake terrain. It is also the foundation of the strong Mexica city-state. One hectare of Chinampa garden can support at least
Twenty people are equivalent to one and a half people per acre. Xiulote recalled the Ming Dynasty classics he had read, "With Guo's rich fields, the harvest is no less than five or six stones per acre." Chinampa is equivalent to the highest grade in the south of the Yangtze River in the Celestial Dynasty.
of paddy fields.
In the capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan, the city in the lake, has more than 9,000 hectares of Chinampa garden, supporting a magnificent city with more than 200,000 people. The city has a population greater than any other city in Western Europe at this era.
, similar to Kaifeng and Hangzhou of the Celestial Dynasty. In this expedition, the three cities of the capital plus the villages in the lake area, with a population of 1.5 million, directly provided five Hikipili and 40,000 warriors directly under the royal family.
Hulot once followed his father and visited the family's chinampa garden. This fertile floating field is the core of every noble family. But he was not familiar with milpa, the most extensive farming method in Mesoamerica.
Agriculture is the foundation of an empire, and population is the cornerstone of civilization. Only a civilization with a large core population can truly grow into an empire. Shulot thought of hundreds of millions of cores in the Celestial Empire, tens of millions of Ottoman cores, and tens of millions of French cores...except, of course, the South Asian subcontinent.
.
With this in mind, Shulot decided to take a look at Milpa's farming in person. Warriors never delay their actions. He discussed it with Bertard, who nodded and went to summon a hundred warrior followers.
Then, Xiulote went to find Totec again and told the commander-in-chief that he wanted to go to the Otomi village occupied by the east to "hold a sacrificial ceremony for spring plowing." Totec frowned and said harshly.
He said, "Be careful of Otomi hyena attacks," and gave him an escort of a hundred warriors.
In this way, Shulot put on the coyote priest's clothes, took two hundred warriors, carried ten days' food on his back, and headed for the mountain village in the east.
At this time, the siege had been going on for half a year, and the Mexican army had already launched under the city of Otopan. The siege was not about tens of thousands of troops piling up under the city, but about fully setting up camps, deploying troops, and controlling surrounding key points.
Cut off the city's food routes and water sources.
Now that all the villages within two days of the mountain city have been cleared, the nearest village to Shulot is two and a half days away to the east. The warrior team then meandered eastward along the grain road.
As Shulot marched, he encountered a grain transport team. Hundreds of civilians carried tall grain bags on their backs. The heavy grain bent their backs and they were walking hard on the mountain paths. They were surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed soldiers.
warriors and militiamen. Shulot shook his head. This kind of food transportation efficiency must consume at least half of it on the road.
After marching in the mountains and forests for two days, I did not see the attacking Otomi warriors. Instead, I encountered the Otomi mountain people who came out of the mountains and surrendered. Now, the nearby villages are under the control of the Mexica warriors, and spring plowing is about to begin.
.Without spring plowing, there will be no harvest in a year, and death will be inevitable next. The mountain people had no choice but to give up and hide in the mountains.
As for the villages that can be controlled, the legion treats them as their own wealth, leaving enough mercy.
When Shulot came to the nearest mountain village of Otomi, he saw extinguished green smoke in front of him. The forest outside the village had burned out, and the farmers took out stone grass, a simple digging tool, from the mud walls of their huts.
Soil sticks and corn seeds are being prepared for spring plowing.
Seeing the large group of Mexican warriors and the leading coyote priest approaching, the mountain people of Otomi immediately bowed to the ground and bowed, burying their heads deeply to hide the fear and fire in their eyes. This was completely different from the enthusiasm of farmers in the Valley of Mexico.
Different. The leader of the Mexican militia stationed there also hurried over and saluted Xilot.
Shulot saw everything: the empire's rule here was very weak, and obedience was maintained only by force. He didn't say much, but just informed the militia leader that the purpose of the team was to conduct a "sacrificial ceremony for spring plowing." The militiamen
The leader then shouted a few words loudly, and the Otomi people who were lying on the ground raised their heads after hearing the words, finally showing expressions of awe and joy.
The divine authority of the priests is powerful. The power of divine authority lies in being rooted in the human heart, occupying every aspect of life, and maintaining it through different rituals.
Shulot came to the center of the village and built a small altar. He first placed a round stone and sprinkled soil on it to symbolize the earth. Then he placed corn, beans, pumpkin, cocoa and
Chili peppers, which are the food given by God, symbolize the upcoming planting. Then green grass is placed around it, symbolizing growth. Finally, green branches are placed around the outside, symbolizing the final harvest.
This is a sacrificial ceremony to pray for a good harvest. It is the simplest and most people-friendly and is widely spread in the villages of Central America.
Then the young priest ascended the altar, and the audience immediately fell into solemn silence. Everyone fell to the ground to wait, and the priest danced and sang.
"I sleep beneath the earth,
I dreamed that there were seven snakes surrounding me.
They feasted on my old flesh and blood,
Hissingly calling me home.
That's Tonacasihuatl,
The goddess of fertility and harvest.
"
"The goddess chose me in a flowery garden,
Sunflowers and corn are my ignorant childhood,
Beans and squash are my comfortable youth,
Coco is my bitter middle age,
Red chili peppers are my mature old age.
Then the flowers bloom and rip my throat out,
Then the fruit will be abundant and solidify my flesh and blood.
"
"The goddess dyed the fruit of me,
Put an old skin on me,
The life left me,
Come and eat my flesh and blood sacrifice.
I will take root again in the middle of the earth,
sown deeply,
Have a long sleep.
"
"I am the goddess's grain,
Seeds buried in the soil.
sprout after planting,
grow after germination,
mature after growth,
sacrifice after maturity,
return after sacrifice,
Become a seed again.
"
"This is an endless circle,
I will always spring for the goddess.
She guards me with the sun,
She kissed me with rain and dew,
Bringing a good harvest to the earth,
And I will never be alone.
That is the great goddess,
Tonakasihuatl!
"
Afterwards, the warriors performed solemn etiquette and neatly shouted the name of the god "Tonakasihuatl", while the mountain people lay directly on the ground and kissed the earth beneath them.
In Shulot's view, this sacrificial poem is very straightforward and treats crops as human beings, which initially sounds very strange.
And after listening to it several times, you will understand that this is actually an easy-to-understand agricultural poem, which is used to guide agricultural production.
The first paragraph is nonsense.
In the second paragraph, the planting order of crops according to time is sunflower, corn, beans, pumpkin, cocoa and red pepper.
In the third and fourth paragraphs, the growth sequence of crops is: after planting the seeds, wait for a period of time before they sprout. When the seeds grow up, they will bloom. After blooming, they will bear fruit. Eat them as soon as they bear fruit. Remember to plant them after eating.
In the last paragraph, the conditions for crop growth are sunlight and water.
After the sacrifice was over, the attitude of the Otomi people toward Xiulote had undergone a change that was visible to the naked eye. The young boy was surrounded by hundreds of villagers helplessly, and every corner of the priest's uniform was kissed passionately until
He was rescued from the crowd by bodyguard Bertard.
After completing the sacrifice, the next step was to sow the seeds. Shulot followed and walked forward to watch carefully.
The villagers dug a finger-deep hole in the burned land, put a few corn seeds into it, gathered plant ash fertilizer around the hole, and buried the planting holes. The planting holes were spaced about half a meter horizontally and vertically.
, cannot be planted as densely as later generations of agriculture, the main reason is that the soil fertility is not enough.
This is the eldest sister among the three sisters of staple food in America, corn.
The subsequent planting process relied on the village elders to talk and gesture, while Shulot listened and asked questions.
After a few weeks, when the corn grows to more than ten centimeters, you can plant beans. This is the second sister among the three sisters. The beans must be planted next to the corn, with several beans surrounding one corn.
Then in another week, you can plant pumpkins. This is the younger sister of the three sisters. Plant one every two or three meters because the pumpkins will spread on the ground.
Schulot thought carefully, while recalling past common sense. In this process, the corn stretched straight upward, providing a stalk for the soybeans to climb on. The beans surrounded the corn, fixing nitrogen and making up for the soil fertility. The pumpkins were spread out between the corn and beans, eliminating the field.
Weeds.
The three formed a perfect symbiotic and mutual-helping relationship, which did not require too much human management. It also dealt with the current situation of Mesoamerica, which only had rudimentary stone tools at this time.
It is April now. Corn takes five months to mature and is harvested in September. Beans planted later also take four months to mature and are harvested in September. Pumpkins only take more than two months and are harvested in July. They will be harvested in July.
Finally, depending on the situation, I will plant another season of beans at the end of the year, not for yield, but to replenish soil fertility.
In terms of nutrition, corn is carbohydrates, beans are protein, and pumpkins are all available, which are just enough to maintain the daily survival of common people. As for sunflowers, cocoa, and peppers, the village elders said that these are things that people in the city-state like and have no use in the village.
Xiulote calculated, that is, sowing in April and May, and harvesting in July, August, and September. Each city-state has difficulty mobilizing militia from April to September and will not easily fight. And the Mexica city-state has enough chinampas.
The alliance can mobilize at this time to catch the enemy off guard and destroy the opponent's agricultural production.
In general, Milpa started by setting fire to the forest, planted corn, beans, and pumpkins in sequence, and then ended with a fallow period of one to three years. The yield ranged from one-fifth to one-seventh of that of Chinampa.
.
Xiulote did some calculations. Depending on the difference in water and fertilizer, each hectare of milpa can feed three to five people, that is, three to five acres of land can feed one person. It is slightly lower than the yield of the dry fields in the north of the Ming Dynasty at this time. There is no advanced Chinese technology here.
Agricultural technology relies solely on the high yields of corn and pumpkins. In barren mountainous areas, mountain people will also grow sweet potatoes as supplementary food.
Looking at the Otomi villagers busy in the fields and pondering the data they had just calculated, Shulot suddenly realized that the total population of Central America might far exceed his expectations.
Even if two years of fallow are calculated, based on the food supply, the density of most population centers in Central America will not be less than one-third of the population density of northern China in this era. And with countless chinampa, there is no need
The population density of the fallow Valley of Mexico will be close to that of Jiangnan in the Chinese Empire, which is the "South Zhili" of Central America.
Agriculture determines the population, and population determines the potential of the country. This is why the Mexican states can mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops to fight.
Throughout Mexico, from the Chichimecs in the north to the Zapotecs in the south, from the Texcans in the west to the Nahuas in the east, and the Mexica people in the center,
This is a civilized area that is believed to have a population of at least 15 million by later generations, and Shulot believes that it has a population of more than 20 million. It has the highest yield of corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and, increasingly, potatoes in the world.
Shulot looked at the fields in the distance. There was golden hope in the fields. He looked at the seeds that had not yet sprouted, which were the gestating civilization.
"What does it mean to have a population of tens of millions in the Stone Age?" Shulot thought, and then he smiled.
"This will be another Celestial Empire, with a core population of tens of millions!"
