Chapter 148 A pot of wine outside the rivers and lakes
In fact, comparing the grassland with Dachu, the grassland is actually much smaller, but there are very few trees on the grassland, and there are almost flat plains in all directions, so it makes people feel that it is vast at a glance.
However, if we really want to measure the area of the grassland, it is estimated that it is only the size of the five states of Dachu at most. But on this small grassland, it relies on the abundant water and grass to support millions of animals.
Herders who make a living by raising cattle and sheep.
Although this winter is so cold that it makes people shiver, as long as it survives the coming year, the water plants will be particularly lush. Although the elegant sentences like "auspicious snow heralds a good harvest" were uttered from the mouths of the literati in Dachu, in fact, for the whole world
This is all true!
Now on this grassland, all tribes must rely on the Twelve Wolf Kings and the Grassland Royal Court to survive. Those large tribes with tens of thousands of people are better off. Generally speaking, the Twelve Wolf Kings will not be unreasonable.
to provoke them.
The leaders or chiefs of these large tribes usually have thousands of cavalry in their hands. Although the Twelve Wolf Kings are not afraid of them, they will not do stupid things that push them to other wolf kings, so these large tribes
You only need to pay some cattle, sheep and horses as annual contributions and you will be stable.
But such tribes with tens of thousands of people are in the minority after all. Life for some small tribes is actually very difficult. In addition to heavy annual payments, they also have to send few young men in the tribe to the Twelve Wolves.
The king's men served as soldiers. Although the military pay was very generous, many of them never returned.
Those wolf kings are not fools. They are reluctant to send their own soldiers into battle to kill some minor frictions with Da Chu. Most of them send those little people with no background to the battlefield and leave them to fend for themselves.
But this has also caused more and more small tribes to abandon those areas with rich water and grass, and began to go to some remote places, gradually moving away from the center of the grassland.
After all, if you can't offend, you can always hide! The grassland is so big, so it's not easy to find a tribe with only a few hundred or thousands of people, especially! When a tribe deliberately wants to avoid you.
Jiang Ergou has been running northward on the grassland for who knows how long these days. He just thought that the further north he went, the deeper he would reach the grassland. Little did he know that the grassland also pays attention to the depth from east to west.
If someone only goes northward, they will slowly reach the edge of the grassland, the weather will become colder, and then they will enter the unknown place of the extreme northern cold land.
Fortunately, he met Tao Liang here, otherwise, with Jiang Ergou's stubborn temper, he would definitely not give up as he said, and would definitely run northward with all his heart.
The reason why Taoliang's tribe appears here is probably because they can't stand the oppression of other grassland owners. If there is really no way to survive, who would want to make a living in a place where these birds don't poop.
Their tribe was not big. When Jiang Ergou followed Tao Liang back, he could see all of their tribe at a glance. He estimated that there were only a thousand people in the tribe at most.
On the way, Jiang Ergou learned that everyone in their tribe was named Mu, and her own name was Mu Taoliang, and Jiang Ergou also told her her name.
The name Jiang Ergou cannot be uttered. Fortunately, he still has the name Jiang Fuyu now.
According to Mu Taoliang, their tribe has been passed down from generation to generation, and her father Mu Danyang is the leader of this tribe. This is no wonder why she can have a lamb as a pet.
.
And when her tribesmen saw that Mu Taoliang who went out to look for sheep actually brought back a strange man, they all looked at Jiang Ergou with some curiosity. Although many people gathered around him, they were all driven away by Mu Taoliang.
, but before leading him away, there was something wrong with the way they looked at Mu Taoliang.
"Abba!"
When he reached the tent in the center, Tao Liang happily ran in. The grassland herdsmen lived in the grass, so they had always had no fixed place. This kind of tent that looked like a big bag was the most suitable for them.
.
Jiang Ergou followed her into the tent, but no one jumped out to stop him. It seemed that there were no guards around the leader.
When Jiang Ergou walked in, the eyes of a man with broad shoulders and dark skin immediately fell on him, and he looked at him from head to toe, while Tao Liang leaned into his ear and said something.
What.
After his daughter finished speaking and stood up, Mu Danyang spoke.
"This young hero has grown up
Chu has come from a long way, so he is naturally a guest of our tribe. I will have people prepare a banquet later, and also invite the young hero to rest here for a while."
Jiang Ergou was not so casual when facing Mu Danyang. It was not that he did not dare, but that the two of them now each represented Da Chu and the grassland in a sense, so some necessary etiquette and rules were indispensable.
.
"Chief Mu is too polite. To be more precise, it's the boy who's causing trouble."
Jiang Ergou held the sword in his left hand, then put his right hand on his left hand and bowed with a fist.
After Jiang Ergou sat down next to him, Taoliang ran out with a smile. Looking at her weird look when she ran out, I really didn't know what kind of trouble she was going to cause. Could it be that she was going to invite that person?
The most beautiful fairy in the tribe is gone?
With this thought, Jiang Ergou was looking forward to it as he sat in his seat. Although he had never found a wife in his life, he had seen quite a lot of beauties, especially the likes of Lin Xuanqing and Mu Xianer.
It will be hard to forget after that.
There is no man in the world who doesn’t like beautiful women. This sentence can be adapted to children as young as three or five to old men as old as seventy or eighty, even those Taoist monks who live in temples and claim to have seen through the world of mortals.
There is no exemption from this.
If it weren't for this reason, how could there be a distinction between female donors and female Bodhisattvas? When they see beautiful women, they will call them female Bodhisattvas, and if that woman is a poor choice regardless of her appearance and temperament, they will
I will call her the benefactor.
This does not mean that they have violated their own principles. In fact, everyone has a love for beauty. Even if those indescribable thoughts do not come to mind, there is still no problem in looking at a girl who is pleasing to the eye.
Mu Danyang sat on it and said nothing. Jiang Ergou was thinking about the fairy and naturally had no time to pay attention to him, so the two of them just sat there without saying a word, and the atmosphere was a little awkward.
But during this process, Mu Danyang called a waiter out of nowhere and arranged for him to go down and prepare dinner.
This awkward atmosphere only ended when Mu Taoliang brought a girl into the tent.
"Jiang, please see for yourself whether my sister Hongling is pretty or not. I will blind you today!"
Taoliang's voice had already arrived before she walked in, but her last word "dog eyes" scared Jiang Ergou, and he thought he had inadvertently revealed his Ergou's name.
As Mu Taoliang opened the curtain and walked in, a girl held by her hand behind her also walked in.
When he saw the girl whom Mu Taoliang called a fairy, Jiang Ergou was indeed surprised. Although there was indeed an element of beauty in this surprise, he was more surprised by her skin that was as beautiful as snow.
There has never been a distinction between spring and autumn on the grassland, only summer and winter, so the grassland is indeed not a place that can support people. Most men have dark skin, while women's skin is a healthy wheat color.
But the woman in front of her was different. In addition to her skin being as fair as mutton-fat white jade, she also had peach blossom eyes and red phoenix eyebrows that only beauties from Dachu had.
I have to say that this woman is no worse than Lin Xuanqing and Mu Xianer. She even outperforms them by a few points after being brought to Dachu General to raise her for some time!
But most of these women don't get any good endings on the grasslands. Beautiful women are a gift from God. They are not only beautiful and delicious, but also pleasing to the eye.
And such a woman is even more precious on the grassland. Think about it, raising a girl from the south of the Yangtze River with the rough and fierce temperament of the grassland is not as difficult as bringing a girl from the south of the Yangtze River to the grassland.
Comparable.
It is precisely because they are rare that such women often cannot find a good home. The leaders of the big tribes and the twelve wolf kings on the grassland are not good at it. They would send out elite cavalry to kill the tribe just for a beautiful woman.
It’s not just once or twice.
So Mu Taoliang's department may not be hiding here because of this woman.
If a girl is born into a wealthy family, she will naturally think that the more beautiful she is, the better. But for children from poor families, being beautiful becomes a sin, a sin that can bring disaster to their family and tribe.
Since ancient times, beauties have had a bad life, leaving only green graves to face the dusk!
Miss Hongling, who was called sister by Tao Liang, seemed embarrassed and stood there a little uneasy. She was probably sweating as she pinched the white corners of her clothes with her fingers.
The water is coming.
“Quite beautiful!”
Jiang Ergou has always been relatively gentle towards such a gentle woman. It's not like when he faced Tao Liang, "You play rogue with me and I'll go hiking!"
"That's right! I don't know how many young men in our tribe and the surrounding tribes are secretly admiring my sister Hongling! What do you think I will introduce her to you! According to what you Da Chu said,
Are you just going to stay in our tribe and be the son-in-law?"
Jiang Ergou was happy to see the success of this matter and laughed happily.
"Hehehe, this deal is not a loss for me! It's even a huge profit, I don't have any objections."
Hong Ling, whose hand was grabbed by Mu Taoliang, pulled it out embarrassedly, and then tugged on Taoliang's sleeve, her face blushing all the way to her neck.
After slapping Mu Hongling's hand away, Mu Taoliang looked at Jiang Ergou and continued.
"Okay! But if you want to marry my sister Hongling, you have to accept the challenge from the warriors in our tribe. Only by defeating them can you gain the favor of my sister Hongling. Otherwise, I advise you to give up.
!”
At this point, Jiang Ergou finally understood what Mu Taoliang was planning. Wasn't it just to make him hated by all men, and then someone would teach him a lesson?
Generally speaking, this kind of bad ideas are leftover from the tricks played by the shrewish girls from wealthy families in Dachu. Unexpectedly, I have never encountered such tricks in Dachu, but I encountered them on the grassland.
Jiang Ergou was very smart and didn't answer. Although he was very skilled in martial arts, it was better not to do things that would cause public outrage, not to mention that he still wanted to have a few meals with others.
What would happen if he beat someone up as soon as he arrived? Mu Danyang had no choice but to have someone throw him out.
Seeing that he didn't respond for a long time, Mu Taoliang naturally thought that Jiang Ergou was scared, so he led Mu Hongling to him in high spirits.
"What? Are you afraid, Young Master Jiang? Don't be afraid! The beauty is right in front of you. If you win, you can hug her back. Even if you lose, it doesn't matter. Maybe you can still touch the beauty and you can hug her."
The beauty has returned, right?"
It is estimated that in the past, Hongling was often teased by Taoliang like this, so although she was shy at this time, she still allowed Taoliang to lead her around in front of Jiang Ergou.
Ergou looked at this girl and remembered the scene when he first met that girl Chen Xici. She was as innocent and cute as her, but now it's been five or six years, and he doesn't know where that girl is now.
Can you still remember him?
Although he was lost in memories, Jiang Ergou quickly came back to his thoughts, and he was still smiling.
"I'm talking about Miss Taoliang, let's not talk about whether Miss Hongling can fall in love with me, a crooked person like me. Even if Miss Hongling's eyes are not good and she is lucky enough to see me in the eye, I have to think about it myself, right?
Besides, even if I really want to compete with them, you have to make me full before competing! Otherwise, it won’t be honorable even if they win!”
Mu Danyang, who had been sitting in the main seat and watching all this with a smile, said.
"My dear daughter! What you said by Young Master Jiang is right. How can you have the strength to compete in martial arts if you are not full? What you said needs to be pushed back."
Seeing that his father didn't even speak for him, Mu Taoliang put his hands on his small waist and said angrily.
"Hmph! I wonder if you are my father! Why do you always turn your elbows outward! If this kid really wins, I want to see if you are willing to marry Sister Hongling!"
Until the end, no matter how much Mu Taoliang tried to convince Mu Danyang that she would not agree to the competition, she was so angry that she took Mu Hongling's hand and walked outside.
In the end, the only ones left to eat were Jiang Ergou and Mu Danyang. Fortunately, Jiang Ergou had been hungry for a long time, so the whole roasted lamb was not wasted tonight, and every last bit was eaten by him.
belly.
There was also the unique highland barley wine on the grassland, which tasted really special when drunk with mutton. It wasn't until his head started to lose consciousness that he was helped to rest in a tent. As soon as he entered the door, he fell upside down.
Unable to wake up on the bed.
Jiang Ergou hasn't had a good night's sleep in an unknown amount of time. Ever since he fought against Helian Zejun's men, he has never had a peaceful life. It was only today that he finally relaxed his tense expression.