New World 1620

Under the blue sky, in the east of Brooklyn, Long Island, North America, lush forests surround patches of coastal plains or inland stream plains, presenting neat green geometric puzzle pieces.

In the vast farm with one hundred mu as a management unit bounded by ditches, young ears of wheat are quietly emerging from the waves of green wheat, and immature ears of corn are also hung on the corn like groves.In the field, a few Delaware Indian women are standing on the ridge of the field, looking at the seemingly endless wheat waves and corn forests in front of them, full of expectations and a sense of confusion.

The friendly attitude of the Chinese who came from afar made every Delaware Indian irresistible. Their unbelievable and bold lifestyle also made it impossible for people who have experienced thousands of years of traditional fishing and hunting life to adapt.These scenes symbolizing abundance and happiness in front of us impress everyone who was still struggling with nature in the same way as their ancestors in the first year.

Dharma was closely accompanied by an elderly Chinese woman, and walked in the field with several elders who were very important in the village.

Although in the past six months, more and more young Delaware Indians have gradually learned the Chinese language through their production and life interactions with the Chinese, there are still a group of older generations who keep a distance from outsiders in every village. people.Among them, these elders are included.

Dama had to act as a temporary translator. It is said that the Chinese people will pay her something called "money" as labor compensation, which seems to be the same thing as the "beautiful leaves" that can be exchanged for good things.You can get paid for your labor just by talking, which made Dama very nervous yesterday.

"Dama, tell you elders, starting tomorrow, I will arrange for a few young men to teach you to spray pesticides. Although the quantity may not be guaranteed to be sufficient, as long as you take good care of it, you will have a good harvest in two months. Don't worry, no You will be asked to exchange things."

Aunt Haihuifen, the agricultural committee member of the Manhattan Community Committee, happily looked at the Indian girl beside her who was dressed like a rural girl in the 70s. She liked this child who often went to school in the Brooklyn industrial area very much.

After some translation, several older Indian men showed strange expressions.

pesticide?Since it is so valuable, why waste it?An elder held back for a long time, but still held back.Hearing that there was no need to pay for any additional trading items, all the elders present smiled.

Before the technical upgrade of the Ministry of Chemical Industry was completed, indigenous pesticides and soil fertilizers became the only agricultural products that could be put to great use today.

Garlic imported from Europe is mashed and soaked, diluted 20 times, and becomes a very effective soil pesticide for preventing wheat diseases and insect pests.Another example is soaking or decocting tobacco leaves and diluting them to obtain an insecticide that can kill various pests.

Although the value of 1 kilogram of garlic has been more than ten times or even dozens of times higher from its origin to Europe and then to North America, the agricultural group still leaves a certain amount of garlic seeds and its own use. The garlic of the Spanish silver dollar is all made of soil pesticides.Compared with future earnings, Haihuifen will not allow this year's agricultural harvest to be discounted in order to save a little "foreign exchange".

"A...Auntie." Dharma struggled for a long time, and still used the more common address for elders taught by the Chinese teacher, "The elder asked, will you stop providing these after three years..."

The so-called three years are the agricultural cooperation conditions agreed upon by the Manhattan Community Committee and the surrounding Delaware Indian villages.In addition to its own agricultural area, the Manhattan community will provide various agricultural seeds and agricultural technicians to help the friendliest Delaware Indian villages around to establish their own farms, and these farms belong to the Indians themselves. In the next three years Sixty percent of the agricultural harvest will belong to Manhattan.

If this is placed in modern times, it is almost the most shameless and craziest labor exploitation and extortion in the world.The instigator is now making waves in the European flower world on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but what is left to the North American Manhattan Community Committee is a huge hidden danger that is about to harvest.

The entire area of ​​Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, Long Island has been nominally purchased by the Manhattan Community Committee through trading means. With closer contact, more and more young Delaware Indians have become hired workers. The fringe areas of life and production of Manhattan community residents.

Especially in terms of agriculture, the agricultural plan of the Manhattan community was limited to human resources. In 1621, the area of ​​self-owned cultivated land was controlled at about 2000 mu, but the food security plan required more than this number.For this reason, several Delaware Indian villages with the best relations have become the targets of the development of the Manhattan Department of Agriculture.

Dama’s village, which is the closest to the Brooklyn industrial area, has benefited the most. The fertile original soil has opened up a farm with an area of ​​more than 1500 mu, from the main crops of wheat and corn to several North American fruits and vegetables, and to general Killing all the potatoes, the village with a population of less than a thousand people was frightened by the scale of such reclamation agriculture from the very beginning.

Almost all the village elders can foresee the situation when the crops are ripe, and maybe they may not have seen that kind of crazy harvest scene in their dreams.However, no matter whether these dreams can become a reality, they have to be discounted at one time, and more than half of the harvest will go to the Chinese.

Hai Huifen didn't dare to guess whether these Indian chiefs who had been friendly with each other for more than half a year would have other ideas, but even if the cooperation was happy in the first year, it was hard to imagine that such an unfair transaction would last for three years.

Although a happy future is entirely brought by the Manhattan community, as a poor and backward tribe, once they enjoy such an unprecedented convenient and secure agricultural life, will they be satisfied?Will they develop a kind of dissatisfaction after being cheated?After all, including the agricultural area owned by the Manhattan community, most of the employees are local Indian employees.

Even Aunt Hai Huifen, who is not well-educated, has experienced this kind of mentality step by step in the previous rural reforms.

"Auntie... Did Dharma say the wrong thing... The elder means, do we want to buy it in the future..." The innocent Indian girl saw a slight change in the expression of the kind Chinese elder in front of her, and quickly lowered her head.

"Hehe, Auntie is thinking about how to answer you." Hai Huifen secretly wrote down this question, and planned to go back and submit it to the community committee for serious discussion, but now, she can only give a vague answer, "We are good friends, wait Three years from now, we'll have more to offer to make your lives better."

The answer was very vague, but the attitude was very sincere.The Indian elders who got this answer that was not an answer all laughed.

Dama also laughed, she really likes these Chinese people who look exactly like her own people, just like what the beautiful Chinese female teacher in the school said, in fact, the ancestors of the village and the ancestors of the Chinese people used to be the same From a village.

When everyone was enjoying the joy before the harvest, at the western end of the farm, two young men and women holding hands were walking slowly surrounded by a group of Indian children.

……

……

Na Da is now wearing a beautiful modern spring girl's outfit, and the Korean version of the mid-length coat makes her already good appearance even more lovely.If it weren't for the slight bulge of the lower abdomen, the image of this walk in the wheat waves in the countryside would be more like a female high school student and her classmates going on an outing.

"Husband, my dad sent someone to send a letter saying that he not only wants to meet you, but also plans to live with us for a while! My mother also wants to give you a surprise!"

Even though Na Da, who speaks Chinese more fluently, is four months pregnant, she still pulls Li Xiang's tie like a child, and walks towards the village like a king of children with children of the same family playing around.

"Uh... isn't the old man always refusing to live in the community?" Li Xiang was taken aback for a moment, feeling both fearful and grateful for this old Indian who supported him in every way.

"Because I want to live with my mother. There is no reason for a husband not to live with his wife."

Na replied that until now, she still can't understand why those Chinese families live with the man.The Delaware Indians are one of the few tribes in North America that still belong to the matriarchal society. Basically, a family revolves around a woman with the highest status to live, live or engage in production.

"Hehe, Na Da, we Chinese all live with our father or husband..." Li Xiang has repeated these answers many times, but every time Na Da seems to forget.

Is Nada really forgetful?Probably not, she might be hinting at herself constantly... Li Xiang felt a little uneasy.

"Honey, I won't force you..." Seeing that her husband's expression changed a little, Na Da quickly put on a cute smile, and hugged her waist tightly.

"Haha, we are husband and wife, why are you talking about this! You miss the old man, you can go home and have a look at any time. However, we have to wait until the child is safely born!"

As he said that, Li Xiang picked up his little wife and strode forward. The blushing Na Da buried her head in the young man's arms.The Indian children all around let out louder laughter.

……

……

Not far to the east of the farm is an Indian village located on a small plain beside a stream and a forest. Large and small round triangular animal skin tents are arranged in disorder, and there are occasionally a dozen or so rectangular ones. Tsuchiya.A little smoke rises everywhere, and the earthenware pots mixed with potatoes and bone-in meat are smoking on the fire, and the sparse men, women, old and young are walking or working slowly in the village, which is very peaceful and serene.

In an earthen house, an old Indian woman with exaggerated attire was sitting on a hemp mat in the center with her eyes closed and her lips moving, as if she was doing a personal act of praying to the gods.Beside the old woman, an old Indian man dressed in high-status was also sitting, holding a cigarette in his hand.

Amidst the smog, the village chief Kenlaton looked at his wife who was the village wizard, and then turned his gaze to the path outside the earthen house.

Today is the day when Na Da and her Chinese husband go back to the village. This day has been urged many times, but finally got a response before the wizard wife got angry.

Since Nada married the Chinese man named Li Xiang, life in the village has changed with each passing day. Not only are a large number of village youths working in the factories run by the Chinese, they can bring back good things that make the whole village happy every month. More importantly, the foreign invasions that once threatened the village almost never happened again.

The neat and murderous warrior group of the Chinese people, the terrible weapon that can emit roar and fire from a long distance, almost any ferocious beast or brave Indian warrior can't compete.

The Chinese people's exquisite white pottery (white porcelain), transparent pottery (glass), and strange and delicious sweet water, hard and durable tools, and extremely sharp arrows cost a lot of charcoal to burn and are luxurious enough to build a house The pottery (bricks) ... almost everything shocked the conservative old Indians.

It seemed that life was getting better and better, but Kenlaton felt more and more uneasiness in his heart, and he didn't know where this uneasiness came from.After slowly looking at everything in the earthen house, I was surprised to find that there are Chinese things in almost every corner. Could this uneasiness come from this?

Now the young laborers and even soldiers in the whole village no longer run around in the forest and on the river beach just to find the next meal.Even the crude farmland and vegetable fields around the village itself are no longer tended to.

Young Indian men and women poured into Chinese factories, farms, and docks. They took pleasure in wearing the old clothes replaced by the Chinese, and tried every means to get the "beautiful leaves" called "money".

In order to get these things that can make life better, they have to learn the language of the Chinese people. Even when they return to the village, they gather in twos and threes to compare who can remember more Chinese.

The number of young men and women participating in the monthly prayer ceremony of the village wizard's wife is gradually decreasing. Although they have not yet rebelled to the point of breaking up, everyone seems to be less attentive.When a small game made of "colored leaves" was brought into the village by a certain hunter, the daily activities of the warriors and hunters also changed from competing in archery and hunting to playing with leaves around a small stone table all day long.

"Dad, Mom! I'm back!"

The daughter's crisp voice finally entered the earthen house through the blue smoke of cigarettes.Before Kenlaton could recover, the wizard wife next to her was the first to open her eyes and jumped up, hugging her daughter who was dressed in beautiful Chinese clothes to her side.

"Dad, mom..."

Li Xiang stood at the door of the earthen hut, watching his little wife being doted on by her mother-in-law, while his father-in-law was still sitting on the hemp straw mat motionless and looking at him, so he quickly bowed slightly and said in Indian Greetings.

"Well, God bless you, my child, Nata seems to be doing well."

Ken Laton muttered the names of the gods that Li Xiang didn't quite understand until now, and finally a smile appeared on his wrinkled face, which calmed Li Xiang's anxiety a little.

The mother and daughter on the side were muttering quietly, and Nada touched her belly from time to time, her little face flushed.The witch, who had a grumbling and serious expression before, returned to a loving mother at this time, gently holding her daughter's hand and combing her soft long hair.

After a while, other men and women of the whole family entered the earthen hut, and a group of people sat on straw mats and ate all kinds of food.Li Xiang, who was used to the tableware, basically didn't have much appetite. He just secretly looked around the big earthen house where he used to live during the wedding while eating.

It seems that they have already relied on all kinds of small things produced in the industrial zone... After Li Xiang simply counted them, he was secretly proud.

"Hey, my mother asks you, when do you plan to go back to the village..." At this moment, the little wife Nada touched Li Xiang's arm.At this time, Nada changed into an Indian girl's attire. The only difference from other women in the family was that Nada's hair, which had been moisturized by shampoo for a long time, was extraordinarily smooth and black, and her skin was redder, smoother and tenderer. .

"Mom, work is very tight now. I have to go to the southwest to visit a new village next week..." Li Xiang became nervous again. Opposite him was the old witch whose face was wrinkled and whose real age could not be seen. The man is looking at himself quietly.

The old woman's expression didn't change, she just nodded slightly, but there was a hint of disappointment in her eyes.

"My child, the place where God is is our paradise. Take good care of the people around you, and God will forgive everything about us." Ken Laton was ambiguous and put God on his back again, holding a piece of paper in his hand. A cigarette was handed to Li Xiang.

Cigarettes are one of Li Xiang's most powerful magic tools to bribe his father-in-law. Now in the entire village, only a few leaders and men and women with the highest status are eligible to smoke such cigarettes that can make the whole body feel comfortable.Compared with the rough tobacco leaves traded from farther south, the feeling of smoking this tobacco wrapped in "snow-white leaves" is like whispering to the gods.

"Dad, it's better to smoke less cigarettes, the body is more important..."

Seeing the scorched face of the old Indian father-in-law, Li Xiang suddenly thought of his parents, and couldn't help but feel liquid flowing in his eyes.Feeling a bit out of control, she hurriedly lowered her head slightly, but a tear still fell unstoppably on the straw mat.

The appearance of Li Xiang was almost seen by the Indian couple.

"Well, you Chinese, I am surprised that you also call your wife's parents parents! I will get used to it." The old man extended his hand kindly, and patted Li Xiang's face, full of joy.

"Dad, you just said that your mother will give Li Xiang a surprise. What is it?"

At this time, after finishing the soup, Nata hugged the old Indian father's waist, while turning her head to look at her mother, the village witch who had never spoken much.

The old witch stood up and took down a small short spear from the wall not far behind her. The spearhead was polished with a huge wolf tooth.

The old witch's actions made dozens of Indian men and women in the family exclaim.Even Na Da opened her small mouth in surprise.

After some obscure murmurs, the witch patted Li Xiang's head, then made an exaggerated arm movement to the family members around her, and finally handed the spiked spear in front of Li Xiang.

"Na..." Li Xiang faintly felt that this family ceremony had an extremely important meaning, but his scanty knowledge of Indian customs made him completely unable to understand it.

"Husband, Mom announces that you will be the next patriarch of our family, and a candidate for the future village head of this village! The next village head, you will participate in the selection on behalf of our family..."

Na Da's eyes flashed with excitement, and she was a little speechless.

I'm dizzy, I became the next patriarch of a certain family in a certain village of Delaware Indians?Is he even the person who is eligible for the election of the village head leader in the future of the entire village? !

Li Xiang held the spiked short spear that he didn't know whether it was trouble or gain, and his heart was trembling.

"Son, I've decided to live with you and see how it's different from the village..."

At this time, Kenlaton calmed down the astonishment in the earthen house, stood up with a smile, and turned his gaze to the direction of the farm far outside the earthen house, as if he was thinking about something.