New Shun 1730

Soon, the migrants who were selected had no choice but to accept the organization of the court and began a migration journey across what the locals called Dashishan Mountain.

From a more macro, national, or human perspective, this migration is undoubtedly romantic.

A group of people crossed the vast ocean and came to the west coast of the New World, carrying the technical experience of thousands of years of exchange on the World Island, and embarked on the journey to the New World, just like leaving a backup of human civilization in the New World for the old world island where wars frequently broke out.

From everyone's perspective at this moment, this migration is only a little bit of romance with cultural characteristics.

But the mainstream is destined to be a difficult and heretical journey.

Dashishan Mountain, also known as the Rocky Mountains in later generations, is the watershed of the North American continent.

Crossing the watershed is never an easy task.

Water transportation is almost unusable, and it is necessary to rely on feet and animal power to go through the most difficult journey across the watershed.

Dashun has experienced this during the process of immigration to the Northeast.

More than 600 young and strong laborers, taking their families as "hostages", settled in Maple Bay.

There was no "burden", especially the "burden" in the early stage of building forts and cultivating fields. Even the cooks were all men, not a single woman. I can reunite with my family in three years, but it is definitely not possible now.

Although it is dark, the fact is that if more than 600 young and strong laborers work in a wasteland for two or three years, the women who follow them may at least cause dozens of murders or revenge killings.

More than 600 people are all men.

As for the livestock carrying food and tools, fortunately, the Maple Bay area was used as a supply base for the gold rush in Haida Gwaii and other places before, and there were always livestock carrying seeds and farm tools.

Each person carried 30 kilograms of dried meat, sugar, and fried rice. A musket, 90 lead bullets, and a set of clothes.

The food carried by the accompanying livestock was all used as seeds, and it could not be eaten and was absolutely not allowed to be eaten.

It is a truth that every agricultural civilization knows that it takes time for seeds to be harvested after being planted in the ground, and people still need to eat before harvesting.

Dashun has a special term called "the gap between the green and the yellow".

As for what these people eat, it is what I said before. Only the Chinese can experience the "romance" under the influence of cultural factors.

There are of course a large number of North American bison on the prairie, and a large number of indigenous tribes chase these bison.

Hunting is not just "romance" that only the Chinese can understand.

The accompanying indigenous guide told the migrating team a fact, that is, the indigenous people in the river valley area of ​​the Rocky Mountains would collect a kind of food.

This kind of food is of course very familiar to the Chinese. Although the local indigenous people cannot call this plant according to the Chinese name, people who have read books know very well what this thing is.

Wild rice.

It is so "romantic" that it is one of the "six grains" of the Zhou emperor.

Europeans definitely don't eat this thing, and they probably haven't even seen it.

But the Chinese, who have eaten it for a long time, can be on the emperor's table. It was not until the great development of rice technology in the Song Dynasty that this thing gradually faded out of the category of grain.

"Zhou Li" said: For all meals, cattle are suitable for rice, sheep are suitable for millet, pigs are suitable for millet, dogs are suitable for sorghum, geese are suitable for wheat, fish are suitable for wild rice... All the gifts for the king are six grains. The six grains are rice, millet, millet, sorghum, wheat, and wild rice.

"Li Ji" also said: Snails are eaten with wild rice and wild rice is eaten with pheasant soup.

This thing was later infected by fungi and used as a vegetable, called wild rice. And the places where this thing can be grown can basically grow rice after the Song Dynasty. It is no wonder that this thing faded out of the ranks of staple food and was removed from the list of six grains.

The members of the surveying team who accompanied as guides and returned from the east coast in the early stage said that there are a lot of wild rice in the river valleys and lakes.

In addition to hunting, the local indigenous people also collect a lot of wild rice as food. Moreover, they already had pottery as containers for storing wild rice, and they could pound rice. Looking at them, it seemed that we could indeed see the life of people before the Shang Dynasty.

This was something that Europeans could not understand, and it was the feeling of the Dashun people who had studied for a few years when they saw the local aborigines eating wild rice.

Combined with the fabricated story of "descendants of the Shang Dynasty", there would always be an illusion of interlaced time and space, as if the style here was closer to that of the Zhou Li era, at least in terms of wild rice. Especially the aborigines here, they were indeed "fish suitable for wild rice".

There were so many wild rice that they grew in large areas wherever there was water. As long as they could hold on until autumn, there would definitely be no shortage of food this winter.

In spring and summer, a large number of animals such as bison would run in groups on the grassland. More than 600 people should not be hungry.

There were countless fish in the water, and since no one had ever fished on a large scale, it was probably not wrong to say that they used a ladle to scoop fish here.

That's what they said, and it's almost true. But in fact, it doesn't mean that life is simple, but it means that although they may not starve to death, life must be difficult and the workload must be huge.

Because not only do they have to build forts and cultivate fields, but they also have to complete all of this under the huge psychological pressure of having no food in stock. Just think about how hard it is.

The most important thing is that the main labor force of these migrants are people from the Central Plains.

The ecological collapse and population explosion of the Central Plains for many years have fixed their consciousness: if they don't have food, they will definitely starve to death.

They could no longer imagine how much there was to eat in the vast grasslands and river valleys and lakes that had not been fished for millions of years.

This is not a place where people can kill people and rob them just for the leaves on an elm tree during disaster years. Because elm leaves are much more delicious than willow leaves, at least not bitter, they are enough "material" to cause bloody conflicts between people who climb trees and pick leaves to protect their own elm trees.

After all, social consciousness lags behind material reality.

These Central Plains people, who have remembered too many memories of the disaster years, are panicked about food shortages and do not understand that the more than 600 people who are so rich in products that they do not cultivate the land are really starving to death. Faced with this knowledge and awareness, the team leader must Show strong leadership.

There must be no panic of any kind. Once panic occurs, someone will inevitably raise their arms and return to Maplewood Bay.

This kind of panic may be caused by being eaten by wild animals, running out of food, or a natural disaster or storm.

Thirty kilograms of dried meat, sugar and other high-calorie foods are not enough to support the entire migration journey. Therefore, from the very beginning, the test of fishing and hunting while walking and ensuring the daily traveling speed has begun.

Fortunately, Dashun had previously sent a surveying and mapping team to look for gold mines and to find mountain passes across the mountains. They had completed very critical exploration and mapping - they had found the mountain passes beyond the mountains. The real mountain passes that one man can pass and ten thousand men cannot open. If you want to build roads or inns in the future, you must pass through the mountain pass.

At night, about a month after departure, after the camp was set up, the leader of the migration team and the guides of the surveying and mapping team once again unfolded the crude map under the light of the oil lamp.

A member of the surveying and mapping team pointed to a river: "Follow this river and walk for another ten days, and you will reach the mountain pass. After passing the mountain pass, there will be a river very close to the bottom."

"The locals eat wild rice from the river valley and use reeds from the river valley to make bows and arrows, so they call it the Bow River. This does not mean that the river meanders like a bow, which is similar to the understanding of bowing."

"Going down from the Bow River, there is a big bend, which the locals call the 'elbow'. The land there is fertile. I saw poplars growing straight in number. I cut down a few more trees and looked at the growth rings. It seemed that there was no early frost. If there are any, there will be boils on the trees and the growth rings will be weird. If the poplars are growing, there will definitely be no problem in growing wheat.”

"Moreover, you can see the snow-capped mountains from a distance. It has the meaning of 'the window contains the snow of thousands of years in the Xiling Mountains, and the door holds the boat thousands of miles away from Dongwu'. To the east, you can reach the east coast all the way down the river; to the west, you can stand on the river You can see the snow-capped mountains on the side; in the northwest is the mountain pass that will be passed through when building roads in the future. If it becomes a city in the future, it can be called the new Yizhou."

"As long as we cross the mountain pass, everything will be easy. There are many fish in the river, and if we go down the river and chop down trees to make boats, it will be much easier and we won't be too tired."

"The most difficult thing is still these ten days. As long as we cross the mountain pass, everything will be easy."

The members of the surveying and mapping team pointed their fingers at the surveying and mapping team's greatest "achievement" this time. The mountain pass across the mountains was regarded as the only place where the road construction station would pass in the future.

At this time, it is obvious that the snow-capped mountains in the distance can be seen here. The snow-capped scene can be seen clearly even from more than a hundred miles away.

This has caused some panic among the migrants. After all, they have lived in the plains all their lives and have never seen snow-capped mountains. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like to cross the snow-capped mountains.

Even though there was no need to climb the snow-capped mountains this time, just crossing the mountain pass, the panic had already spread.

The leader of the migration had never seen snow-capped mountains when he was a child, and he was also a commoner in North China. But when he was young, he followed Liu Yu to the Western Regions and crossed the passes of the Altai Mountains, so he was not panicked by this.

However, these migrants were not the Qingzhou Army that had undergone rigorous training.

He also felt quite resentful about the fact that the court deceived them and took their wives and children as "hostages".

If it is not handled well, something may happen.

The team leader looked at the map and said helplessly: "After all, hunting and fishing these days do not consume much food and dry meat. Since we have to cross the mountain pass, we must speed up. The faster we go, the better. As long as we cross the mountain, it will suddenly become clear. , everything will be fine once we see the grassland.”

"Give me a solid answer. Can we guarantee food after crossing the mountain pass? If it can be guaranteed, we must speed up in the next few days, eat and save food, and cross the mountain pass as soon as possible."

The guide of the surveying and mapping team solemnly said: "Dare to issue a military order. As long as we cross the mountain pass, everything will be fine. Even if we are extremely unlucky and can't meet the locals carrying dried meat to hunt prey, the prey there and the fish in the river will not be the same." Guaranteeing food and drink for these six hundred people will not be a problem."