Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 99 The Ainu of Ezo Land
Two weeks have passed, and Zhao Xin's "complaint campaign" has done quite well among the soldiers.

A lot of things are like this, no comparison doesn't hurt.On the one hand, at least 50% of the annual tribute paid by the shogunate and the various vassals has risen to 100%;The refugees themselves vote with their feet.

Zhao Xin has also considered the current staple food of the refugees.

In the beginning, he bought polished rice and white noodles for convenience. In modern times, he wants to buy taro as a staple food on a large scale. Forget it. Modern people are not enough to eat by themselves.

After arriving at Bear Island, after careful consideration, Zhao Xin decided to use good rice and white flour to feed the appetite of these refugees.When they are used to eating these, no one will want to go back to the island country to eat taro rice with radish.

On April [-], it started to rain lightly in Beihai Town.

In the eyes of the crowd who came to see him off, Zhao Xin led people aboard the Thor.

Xu Shounan hugged King Duofu and shouted to Zhao Xin with tears: "Teacher, you have to come back early!"

Xu Funan bowed and saluted Zhao Xin's figure.

On the shore, Yajiro waved his arms at his brother Yaichiro on the deck to say goodbye.

A Miao... A Miao didn't have time. She was taken by Director Liu to check on the last batch of refugees.However, after hearing the whistle from the pier, she still clasped her hands in prayer in the direction of the pier.

The first target of the Thor this time is Ezo land, and then it will go to Ishinomaki Port.

16 hours later, the Thor took advantage of the night to stop at the open sea of ​​the future Otaru Port (Otaru, from the Ainu language, which means river on the beach).Since it has not yet been developed into a port, the reef situation in the bay is not familiar.

Zhao Xin plans to continue approaching the coast through the ship's sonar after dawn.

Historically, Ezo land has not entered the field of vision of the Tokugawa shogunate for a long time.As for the Matsumae Domain in the south, its predecessor was the Oyuzaki family that was active in the Ezo region during the Warring States Period.

In 1593, Hideyoshi set off on an expedition to Korea, and the fifth-generation head of the Osaki family, Keihiro Osaki, took his soldiers and horses all the way to Nagoya Castle in Hizen to participate in the war.Lord Taiko's reward for Qingguang's behavior was that he immediately promised the Lizaki family's dominance over the Ezo land, and expressed the emperor Feng Qingguang to guard the five subordinates and bestowed the "Ezo Island Lord" Zhu Yin. Shape and Tong Zhang.

In the third year of Qingchang (1598), Oyzaki Keihiro changed his surname to "Matsuzen" after serving in Tokugawa Ieyasu and became the first lord of the Matsuzaki domain.The Tokugawa shogunate gave him a "black seal", which reaffirmed the control of the "Ezo Land" by the Matsumae Domain and the power to trade with the Ainu. The Matsumae Domain thus completely monopolized the lucrative furs of the Ezo land. Trade with seafood.

The next morning, with the help of the onboard sonar, Thor came to a stop one kilometer from shore.

as predicted.More than an hour later, the observing sailors on the deck came to report that several Ainu people appeared on the beach and pointed at the Thor.

After a few people in the cockpit heard it, they quickly raised their binoculars to check, and four bushy, short Ainu people appeared in their field of vision.

"So they look like this." Liu Sheng murmured.

Zhao Xin has never seen the real Ainu. In later generations, there is very little information about the Ainu. He has only seen some black and white photos taken in the early days on the Internet.

The four Ainu in the field of vision are all holding bows and arrows.They wore blue robes with various patterns on their bodies, belts tied, and what seemed to be animal-skin boots on their feet.One of them also wore a strange hat on his head.

Let's say it's a hat, but it doesn't have a top; let's say it's a forehead cloth tied on the head, and there are many things tightly wrapped around it.

Zhao Xin didn't know that the clothes he saw were actually made of birch bark.

Because there are large white birch forests growing on the Ezo ground, in June and July every year, the Ainu people strip the birch bark and store it. After boiling and roasting, the bark becomes very flexible and can be bent at will.Then these processed birch bark can be made into various kinds of clothing, and then engraved and colored on the surface, which is the background color and various patterns on the clothes that Zhao Xin and the others saw.

Zhao Xin watched intently and said, "The color of their clothes looks pretty good."

In the field of vision, four Ainu people gestured the size of Thor with their hands.Zhao Xin could see that these people were shocked.After a while, the four turned around and quickly left the beach.

"What should I do?" Deng Fei asked, putting down the telescope.

"Wait." Zhao Xin said affirmatively.The reason why he is very sure that these Ainu people will come is because when the early Russians landed on Kunou Island and then contacted the Songqian Domain, it was the Ainu who led the way.

After lunch at noon, the sailors on deck came to report again.Said that there were four small boats coming from the coast, each with four or five people.

Zhao Xin immediately ordered everyone on the Thor to be on alert, and the twenty or so sailors on the deck also distributed weapons such as knives and spears.

As for the fifty soldiers who came with the ship, including Michiro, Zhao Xin was worried that the Ainu would cause unnecessary trouble when they saw it, so he ordered these people to stay in the cabin and not to go to the deck without an order. .

Speaking of which, Zhao Xin's worries are a bit unnecessary.

This is because the Ezo region at this time, including the Matsumae Domain, did not produce rice at all.Although it is said that the Matsumae Domain belongs to the [-]-stone level in the shogunate system, in fact, there is no actual stone height.The prosperity of the Matsumae Domain mainly relied on trade with the Ezo and the domestic domains, which led to an increase in tax revenue and was maintained.

In fact, these Ainu people on the Ezo land traveled all the way north by boat a long time ago, passing through the four northern islands of later generations, and came into contact with the Feyaka people on Sakhalin Island and carried out trade.Therefore, they are not afraid of foreigners, and are especially interested in those who can bring food and silk.

Soon, when Zhao Xin and others were ready, the four small boats came to the vicinity of Thor.

At this time, the three boats were far apart, and on the one at the front, an Ainu shouted loudly in Ainu language: "Is there anyone on the boat?"

After waiting for a while, seeing that there was no response from the boat, the man called again in the island dialect and Feyaka.

On the deck, Ping Tai saw Zhao Xin nodding to himself, so he walked to the side of the boat and leaned down to look down, and saw that the four people sitting on the boat were the same four people he saw in the morning.

"Hello." Ping Tai smiled and waved his hand in greeting.

The people on the boat saw a head exposed on the deck and could speak the island dialect, so they asked loudly in the island dialect, "Where did you come from?"

Ping Tai replied, "We came from the northwest continent."

The Ainu asked again, "Why are you here?"

Ping Tai said: "We want to build a trading post here to exchange goods with your people."

"What do you have? Do you have food? Do you have silk?"

"Yes, there are. You can send someone up to take a look. Don't worry, we won't hurt you."

After the four Ainu bowed their heads and discussed it for a while, one of them shouted a few words at the other three boats. Ping Tai couldn't understand what they were saying.

Then, the Ainu raised his head and shouted at Pingtai, "Then throw a rope down, and we'll climb up. Your boat is too big." After he finished speaking, he tapped the oars in his hand. hull.

"Dong Dong~~" The Ainu people were startled when they heard the sound.Then he knocked again in disbelief, and then touched it with his hand, suddenly dumbfounded.

Ping Tai turned his head and asked Zhao Xin, then turned back and shouted from the people on the boat: "You back up a little, let's put the ladder down."

The four people on the boat didn't care to probe the hull any more, and quickly backed away with the oars against the Thor.At this time, the Ainu people on the four small boats only heard a creaking sound from the big boat. A thin and long white ladder slowly stretched out from the boat, and then one end was pulled by a few thick ropes. Approaching the sea slowly.

"Come up from this ladder, and tie the boat to the railing of the ladder." Ping Tai continued to shout.

The boat slowly rowed towards the ladder, and after approaching, an Ainu stood up carefully and reached out and grabbed the railing.

"It's iron!" The Ainu exclaimed in surprise.

"Don't worry, the ladder is very strong. Tie up the boat and come up." Ping Tai shouted at the man.

So the Ainu picked up a thick rope made of bark from the boat and tied one end to the railing of the ladder and the other to the bow of the boat.

When the four carefully stepped onto the Thor, they were stunned.They had never seen such a big ship, and the hull and everything on the ship seemed to be made of iron.

There is no iron ore in Ezo, and the Songqian clan is trying to control the outflow of knives. Therefore, except for a few tribal leaders who have a samurai sword, most of the Ainu use bows and arrows, and the arrows are also ground from the bones of wild animals. .

(Based on this situation, when the Ainu hunted, they took a clumsy way of catching black bears. When the black bear was lured near the fallen tree trunk, a dozen people hugged the other tree trunk and pressed the black bear between the two trunks. When the black bear was unable to resist and was exhausted, the others Then they swarmed up and quickly tied the hands and feet of the black bear with ropes.)
Ping Tai smiled and waved to the four Ainu people and said, "Please come and have a look. Are these things what you need?"

The four of them came back to their senses in a daze, and looked in the direction pointed by Ping Tai.

On a table on the deck, there are several things that Zhao Xin had brought in.Under the sunlight, it is dazzling.

Several silks of different colors, a 10-kilogram bag of standard flour, a few short knives, a recurve compound bow for the Qing soldiers, two cotton armors with yellow flags, and two helmets.

When the Ainu people saw these things, they hurried forward, reached out and picked up a short knife.

Three meters away, Zhao Xin and Deng Fei both put their hands on the pistols tied to their thighs, while Liu Sheng, who was standing beside him, picked up the black Marlin 1894.

The four Ainu people didn't care about Zhao Xin's actions at all. The Ainu headed by them pulled out the dagger from the scabbard, and the sharp blade reflected the sunlight on his face.

"How do you change this?" The man turned to Ping Tai and asked.

"How do you say it's changed?" Ping Tai was still smiling.

"Fifty otter skins." The Ainu with a short knife said tentatively, he liked this knife so much.

"No problem. Just as you said."

When the Ainu heard this, they immediately became elated.He inserted the knife into the scabbard, held the short knife in one hand, and touched the several strands of silk beside him with the other.

Then, his eyes lit up, and he reached out and picked up the bow.

This Qing army-style bow is made of elm wood, with a layer of shark skin on the handle as a decoration; the surface is pasted with horns, and the back is pasted with beef tendon and birch bark; the tip of the bow is made of mulberry, with horns in the middle .The bowstring is twisted from raw silk.

The Ainu people pick up the unwound bow and look left and right, and they are very fond of it.After a long while, he put down the bow and touched the two cotton armors again.

Finally, he pointed to the bag of flour and asked Ping Tai, "What is this?"

"Grain. A kind of flour made from grain." Heitai said, taking a plate of steamed buns from a sailor's hand, and said to the Ainu with a smile, "This is the food made from this kind of grain. Did you try it?"

(End of this chapter)