Aztec Eternals

The sun rises from the mountains and forests in the east, and the dawn pushes away the night, emitting brilliant golden yellow. The morning dew shone among the grass and trees, and the birds also woke up, singing sweetly everywhere.

Xiulot 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 is a jar of cold water and a clay basin. Bertard stood quietly in front of him, watching his face.

He scooped up a basin of cold water and poured it over his head. The water flowed like a waterfall, flowing through the whole body, and the morning wind was instantly cold, and goose bumps covered his body, but his face remained unchanged. According to the requirements of the samurai, he must always maintain perseverance, without the slightest chill or hesitation.

After a while, when the water drops were slightly dry, he poured another basin of cold water, and repeated this until the tank of water was finished. Bertard smiled.

"That's right, Shulot, you already have some samurai spirit. It's already April, and the weather is starting to warm up. The cold-resistant will training will stop soon. Then we will change to agility training in the morning. Wait until October, when the warm weather The rainy season is over, and it will be back to normal again.”

Xiu Luote nodded resolutely, his face was already frozen and unable to speak for the time being.

At this moment, a little red bird was attracted by Shulot, and flew around the young man while calling. The little bird has an obvious crown on its head and a black face. It flies very fast and makes a high-pitched and cheerful cry with different timbres. No matter how you look at it, Shulot looks familiar.

"Hey, the singing birds are blessed by the goddess of fertility, Tonacacivatl. This is a good omen, and it seems that the season for all things to multiply has arrived. Shulot, you have to suppress your desires. Of course try once, It is also necessary to complete the transformation from a boy to a man." Seeing the auspicious omen, Berthard was in a good mood, and made a rare joke about a man.

Shulot rolled his eyes, his face could finally move. "Bothard, you have been spoiled by Avit. You don't need to show your theological knowledge in front of the priest. Tonacacivatl is also the god of harvest. Seeing the cardinal singing, it proves that the season of spring plowing has arrived .”

This beautiful little bird is the North American cardinal, which is widely distributed in the mountains and forests of Central and North America. April is the season of their courtship and mating, and they will have a particularly beautiful song. Hulot is more familiar with its other well-known name, "Angry Birds".

While they were talking, the two saw the eastern sky, and a thick smoke was gradually rising in the distance, and the smoke column was scattered in the sky, not too dense. After a while, another thick smoke rose slowly. Berthard looked at the direction of the smoke column, and then nodded in relief: "It's all in the direction of the village. This is Milpa's preparation, setting fire to the forest, and spring plowing is about to begin."

Xiuluo 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, and it is also the foundation of the prosperity of the Mexica city-state. One hectare of Chinampa garden can feed at least twenty people, which is equivalent to one and a half people per mu of land. Xiu Luote recalled the Ming Dynasty classics that he had read, "A fertile field attached to Guo, can harvest no less than five or six stones per mu", and Chinanpa is equivalent to the best paddy field in the south of the Yangtze River.

In the capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan, the city of lakes, has more than 9,000 hectares of Chinanampa gardens, supporting a magnificent city of more than 200,000 people. The population of the giant city is larger than any city in Western Europe in this era, and it is similar to Kaifeng and Hangzhou in the Celestial Dynasty. In this expedition, the three cities of the capital plus the villages in the Lake District, with a population of 1.5 million, directly provided five Hikipili, 40,000 warriors directly under the royal family.

Shulot once followed his father and visited the family's Chinanampa garden. This fertile floating field was the heart of every noble family. But he was not familiar with milpa, the most widespread 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. Schlott thought of hundreds of millions of cores in China, tens of millions of cores in Ottoman, and tens of millions of cores in France. Of course, the South Asian subcontinent was excluded.

With this in mind, Xiulot decided to take a look at Milpa's farming for himself. The action of the samurai never delays. He consulted with Bertard, who nodded, and went to gather a hundred warrior followers.

Then, Shulot went to find Totek 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." Totek frowned coldly, said harshly, "Be careful of the attack of the Otomi hyena", and gave it to the escort of a hundred samurai.

In this way, Shulot put on the coyote priest's clothes, took two hundred warriors, and 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 Mexica army had already started under the city of Ottopan. Siege warfare is not about tens of thousands of troops piled up under the city, but to fully set up camps, deploy troops, control the surrounding points, and cut off the city's food and water sources.

Now the villages within two days around the mountain city have been wiped out, and the nearest village to Xiulot is two and a half days away to the east. The samurai team then meandered east along the grain road.

Xiulot marched all the way, and encountered a grain transportation team in the middle. Hundreds of peasants carried tall grain bags, and the heavy grain bent their backs. warriors and militia. Shulot shook his head. This kind of grain transportation efficiency will consume at least half of it on the road.

After marching in the mountains for two days, they did not see the attacking Otomi warriors, but met the Otomi mountain people who came out of the mountains and surrendered. Today, nearby villages are under the control of Mexica warriors, and now the spring plowing is about to begin. Without spring plowing, there will be no harvest for a year, and death will undoubtedly follow. The mountain people had to give up hiding and go out of the mountain.

As for the villages that can be controlled, the legion will treat it as its own wealth, leaving enough kindness.

When Shulot came to the nearest Otomi mountain village, there was extinguished green smoke in front of his eyes, and a mountain forest outside the village had been burned, and the farmers took out stone Leisi from the mud walls of the huts, which is a simple digging method. Soil sticks, as well as corn seeds, are being prepared for spring plowing.

Seeing the group of Mexica warriors and the coyote priest headed by them approaching, the Otomi mountain people immediately bowed to the ground and bowed their heads deeply, hiding the fear and flames in their eyes. This is very different from the enthusiasm of farmers in the Valley of Mexico. The leader of the garrisoned Mexica militia also hurried over and saluted Shulot.

Shulot sees everything in his eyes: the empire's rule here is very weak, and obedience is maintained only by force. He didn't say much, but just informed the militia leader that the purpose of the team was to carry out the "sacrifice ceremony of spring plowing". The leader of the militia immediately yelled a few words, and the Otomi people who were lying on the ground raised their heads when they heard the words, and finally showed expressions of awe and joy.

The theocracy of priests is powerful. The power of theocracy lies in being rooted in the human heart, occupying all aspects of life, and maintaining it through different rituals.

Shulot came to the center of the village and set up a small altar. He first placed a round stone and sprinkled dirt on it to symbolize the earth. The soil is then topped with corn, beans, squash, cocoa and peppers, god-given foods that symbolize the planting to come. Then put green grass around it, which symbolizes growth. Finally, emerald green branches are placed on the periphery, symbolizing the final harvest.

This is a sacrificial ceremony to pray for a good harvest. It is the most simple and friendly, and it is widely spread in villages in Central America.

Then the young priest stepped onto the altar, and the audience immediately became silent. The crowd waited on the ground, and the priests danced and sang.

"I sleep under the earth,

Dreamed that there were seven snakes around you.

They feast on my old flesh,

Hissing for me to go home.

That's Tonacacivatl,

Goddess of fertility and harvest.

"

"The goddess chose me in the garden of flowers,

Sunflowers and corn are my ignorant childhood,

Beans and squash are my comfortable youth,

Coco is my bitter middle age,

Paprika is my ripe old age.

Then the flowers bloom and tear my throat,

Then the fruit is huge, solidifying my flesh and blood.

"

"The goddess dyed the fruit of me,

Cover me with old skin,

Life is gone from me,

Come, eat the sacrifice of my flesh and blood.

I shall take root again in the middle of the earth,

was deeply planted,

Have long sleeps.

"

"I am the grain of the goddess,

Seeds buried in the soil.

Germinated after planting,

grow after germination,

mature after growth,

matured and sacrificed,

return after sacrifice,

become seeds again.

"

"This is the endless circle,

I will always spring up for the Goddess.

She guards me with the sun,

She kisses me with rain,

Bring the earth a bountiful harvest,

And I'm never alone.

That is the great goddess,

Tonacacivatl!

"

Afterwards, the warriors performed solemn etiquette and shouted the divine name of "Tonacasivatel" neatly, while the mountain people lay down on the ground and kissed the ground beneath them.

In Schlott's view, this sacrificial poem is very straightforward, and it treats crops as people, which sounds very weird at first.

But 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 bullshit.

In the second paragraph, the planting order of crops is sunflower, corn, kidney bean, pumpkin, cocoa and red pepper according to time.

In the third and fourth paragraphs, the growth sequence of crops is: after planting the seeds, wait for a period of time before they germinate. When they germinate and grow up, they will bloom.

In the last paragraph, the conditions for crop growth are sunlight and water.

At the end of the sacrifice, the attitude of the Otomi towards Shulot changed visible to the naked eye. The boy was loveless and was surrounded by hundreds of villagers, and every corner of the priest's uniform was kissed passionately until he was rescued from the crowd by the personal guard Berthard.

After completing the sacrifice, the next step is to sow the seeds. Shulot followed and stepped forward to watch carefully.

The villagers dug a finger-deep hole in the burnt land, put a few corn kernels in it, gathered plant ash and fertilizer around the hole, and buried the planting hole. The interval between the planting pits is about half a meter horizontally and vertically, and it is impossible to plant densely like later generations of agriculture. The main reason is that the soil fertility is not enough.

This is the eldest sister of the three sisters of American staple food, corn.

The subsequent planting process all depended on the village elders talking and gesticulating, while Xiulot asked while listening.

After a few weeks, when the corn has grown to more than a dozen centimeters, you can grow beans. This is the second sister of the three sisters. The kidney beans must be planted next to the corn, and several kidney beans surround a corn.

Then after another week, you can grow pumpkins. This is the youngest of the three sisters. Plant one at about two or three meters, because the pumpkins will spread out on the ground.

Shulot thought carefully while recalling the common sense of the past. In the process, the corn goes straight up, providing a stalk for the soybeans to climb. Beans surround the corn, fixing nitrogen to replenish soil fertility. The squash is spread among the corn and beans to remove weeds from the field.

The three formed a perfect symbiotic and mutual assistance relationship, which did not require too much human management, and also dealt with the current situation in Central America, where there were only crude stone tools.

It is now April, and the corn needs five months to mature, and it will be harvested around October. The kidney beans are grown later, mature in about four months, and harvested around September. The early-maturing pumpkins only need more than three months, and they can be harvested from August to September. After the corn is harvested in early October, depending on the situation, another season of kidney beans will be planted at the end of the year, not for production, but to replenish soil fertility.

In terms of nutrition, corn is carbohydrates, kidney beans are protein, and pumpkins are used to feed the hunger, just to maintain the daily life of ordinary people. As for sunflowers, cocoa, and peppers, the village elders said that these are things that the city-state people like, and they are not used in the village.

Shulot did the math. If the time consumption of large-scale planting is added, it will be planted in April, May, and June, and harvested in August, September, and October. It is difficult for various city-states to mobilize militias from April to October, and they will not easily go to war. And the Mexica City-State Alliance, which has enough Chinanampa, can make a big move at this time, catch the enemy by surprise, and destroy the opponent's agricultural production by the way.

In general, Milpa started by setting fire to the forest, planted the three sisters of corn, kidney beans, and pumpkins in sequence, and then ended with one to three years of fallow. Yields range from one-fifth to one-seventh that of Chinampa.

Xiu Luote calculated it. According to the water and fertilizer, each hectare of Milpa can support three to five people, that is, three to five mu of land can support one person. It was slightly lower than the output of the dry fields in the north of the Ming Dynasty at this time. There was no advanced agricultural technology in China, and it relied solely on the high yield of corn and pumpkins. On the barren mountainous land, the mountain people will also grow some sweet potatoes as supplementary food.

Looking at the Otomi villagers busy in the fields and pondering the calculated data just now, Shulot suddenly realized that the total population of Central America may far exceed his expectations.

Even if two years of fallow are calculated, according to the food supply, the density of most population gathering areas in Central America will not be lower than one-third of the population density of the northern part of the Chinese Dynasty in this era. In the Valley of Mexico, which has countless Chinanpas and does not need to be fallow, the population density will be close to that of the Jiangnan of the Celestial Dynasty, which is the "Southern Zhili" of Central America.

Agriculture determines the population, and the population determines the potential of the country. This is why the Mexican states can pull out hundreds of thousands of troops at every turn to fight.

And throughout Mexico, from the Chichimeks in the north to the Zapotecs in the south, from the Tesques in the west to the Nahuas in the east, and the Mexica in the center, This is a civilized area that was identified by later generations as having a population of at least 15 million, and Shulott believed that it had a population of more than 20 million. It has the world's most productive corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and potatoes that are gradually spreading.

Xiulot looked at the distant field, and there was a golden hope in the field. He looked at the seeds that hadn't germinated, that was the civilization that was gestating.

"What does the tens of millions of people in the Stone Age mean?" Shulot thought, and then he smiled.

"This will be another celestial dynasty after the metal age, a celestial empire with a core population of tens of millions!"

This chapter is too difficult to write, looking up data and paraphrasing poetry is exhausting.