Chapter 1057 Returning South with a Full Load, on the Windy and Snowy Road Ahead, Recite a Few Poems!

"Sir! The little one is wrong! The little one is deceived by lard! Spare the little one, the little one will never dare to do it again!..."

"Haha! God bless you! Gold Shipsmith, you actually participated in the design and construction of this complicated-looking ship? Not bad! Very good! You are a man with real skills, different from that blacksmith named Otani. Same. When you get to the Lake Kingdom, as long as you build a ship for His Majesty and build a big ship that can go to sea, Your Majesty will definitely receive a heavy reward!..."

"Sir! Spare me, don't kill me. I'm kowtowing to you!... Bodhisattva! Please save me!..."

"Lord God! Get up! Why did you kneel down again? I didn't punish you... I mean, you just need to convert to the Lord God and build a big ship for the kingdom! Not to mention being made a military noble, even a hereditary noble. Marrying a noble daughter of the kingdom is both visible and tangible! You must know that Pukuta, the great craftsman of the kingdom, was appointed by His Majesty as the Director of the Shipbuilding Department just because he designed and built the kingdom's longship. He has jurisdiction over thousands of craftsmen and civil servants in the north and south! He was directly promoted to the third-level divine priest, Wood-Driller, and was granted a fief of two to three thousand acres. He has a title equivalent to a hereditary noble!..."

"Ah! Sir, let me get up? Uh... Thank you, Sir, for sparing me. I will kowtow to you again... Uh! No kowtow? No kneeling?..."

The five-masted shelter boat was parked on the snow on the shore, like a giant whale stranded on the white beach. At this moment, Zuvalo stood on top of the giant whale, his heart full of excitement and pride. To be honest, the shipbuilding technology of this sea-going ship is obviously much better than that of the Kingdom. And now the master craftsman who can build this kind of sea ship and the sailmaker who can make sails have also fallen into the hands of the kingdom, right in front of his eyes!

The kingdom attaches great importance to craftsmen. A skilled craftsman like this, whose status in the Lake Kingdom should at least start as a military aristocrat. And those who master unique technologies, such as shipbuilding, cannon making, bow making, armor making, gem making and glassware making, can lead a subordinate department of the Divine Inspiration Institute and become hereditary nobles of the kingdom!

His Majesty has always attached great importance to shipbuilding. Since the gold shipwright can really build complex large ships, in Zuvalo's eyes, he must be a future hereditary noble, and the kind who can write directly to His Majesty! Therefore, his attitude at the moment was very kind and cordial, and he would not let the other party kneel down again. In fact, in the Kingdom of the Lake, a master craftsman like this has a high status, is very independent, and has a very strong temper. The god-inspired priests of the kingdom have long been used to it.

"Haha! Witness the Lord God! It's normal for a gold shipbuilder, a capable master craftsman, to have a bad temper! But you did what you did before, kneeling down and kowtowing at every turn, but you lost your identity in vain!..."

"Huh?...Sir! Aren't you angry?...It's really strange, the leader of the barbarians, how can he still laugh when I scold him? If it were the two masters in the sky, they would have to drag me out directly. Beat him to death, right?...His! Beat the craftsman to death, just like I've seen him do before..."

After a brief outburst, shipwright Jin Shanshu became timid again, filled with fear. He stood bowed in front of Zuvalo and wanted to kneel down and kowtow, but the leader of the Yi people held his arm tightly and refused to allow him to kneel down. And when he looked at Zuvalo's face, there was no anger at all on his face. He actually seemed to be "laughing"? …

"Bodhisattva! Am I dreaming again? But this barbarian leader has never spared his hand even when he beheaded the warrior masters of China! Why is he so lenient to me? Just because I can build ships? But I can build ships again. , is just a craftsman..."

Looking at Zuvalo's kind smile, Jin Shanshu was stunned on the spot, truly in a dreamlike trance. In the past two days, facing the courtesy of these barbarian leaders, he felt uncomfortable all over, and he couldn't even sleep well.

North Korea imitated the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty inherited the Yuan system, both of which had an "excellent" craftsman tradition. Ordinary households in the Ming Dynasty were divided into three classes, "the first is civilians, the second is military, and the third is craftsmen." In other words, the status of craftsmen households in the Ming Dynasty was not only lower than that of ordinary civilian households, but was even one level lower than that of poor military households. In fact, it was equivalent to being directly classified as a lowly citizen. In the Li Dynasty, which was in the same line, according to different types of craftsmen, the status of the craftsmen's households also bounced back and forth between the second-class and the lowly.

As an important shipwright, Jin Shanshu had a slightly higher status and could barely be regarded as a third-class ordinary citizen. But on weekdays, it was easy for him to see second-class gentlemen, so he had to kowtow from time to time. From a distance, he had to kneel to the gentlemen passing by. He had been kneeling for so many years that it was instinctive for his knees to become weak. It was not that easy to stand up.

As for what he didn't understand, the rewards, fiefdoms, and nobility that Zuvalo was gesturing about were things he had never thought of even in his boldest and wildest dreams, and he didn't even dare to think about them! …

"God bless you! It's frozen in winter, but this big ship can't sail away. We can only drag it ashore and keep it here. Fortunately, we can't lose such a heavy ship! ... We just lost the deer There will be another snowstorm in the Moss River Department soon. It is impossible for any deer to dare to migrate to the south this winter... Before the freeze next spring, we will come here on the sled and then go back on this big boat. Haha! Here we are! When the time comes, I have to take a closer look at how this ship hangs its sails and how it borrows the wind!..."

After thinking for a moment, Zuvalo reached out and patted the frozen hull of the boat, his face full of emotion.

Before heading north this time, he thought he would see another galley ship from the West Sea Tribe, but he didn't expect it to be a multi-masted sailboat like this that he had never seen before. But no matter what, this sailing ship, which is good at using the wind, must be sent back to the lake kingdom together with the shipwright and sailmaker. Let the kingdom's shipbuilders learn the shipbuilding technology of the Xihai tribe and achieve a technological leap!

"Praise the Lord God! If we can always rely on the power of the wind and the wind from all directions, then the speed of sailing of sea ships will be much faster and easier than the current galleys of the Kingdom! ... And if the Kingdom can create such a sea It will be very fast and convenient to transport support personnel and supplies to the west coast!..."

Zuwaro thought about it for a moment, and he became more and more interested in the shipwright Jin Shanshu and the sailmaker Pu Shunfan who had taken refuge. So, he first asked the kingdom's warriors to take the gold shipwright back to the tent where the deer sleigh was being pulled to rest. Then he looked at the warrior captain Shi Jian who was cleaning up the camp and asked aloud.

"Shi Jian, how are you? Have you packed up all the supplies in the camp?"

"Captain! The sleds are already full, including iron tools and drinks. We only have these sleds, and the things we can take away are limited. There are nineteen more prisoners... all kinds of useless skins and herbs. , I just threw them all in the cellar and didn’t take any of them! I guess even if a hunter from the Deer Department or the Mountain Department found them, they wouldn’t be interested. When I come next year, if these skins are still there, I can take them back with me!… "

Warrior captain Shi Jian wiped the snowflakes from his face and looked around the messy camp. This camp is located on the border where deer and mountain tribes fight, and the risk is very high. The kingdom's power is limited, and it will not send people to stay. It is useless if there are few people left, so it is better to take away the needed supplies.

After he carefully checked the supplies in the camp, he casually discarded all the expensive furs that Murakami and Watanabe had worked hard for and spent a year to receive in the camp.

If the two of them heard it, they would be so distressed that they would vomit blood. Which of these wolf skins, deer skins, bear skins, fox skins, and mink skins from the Far North shipped to Kyoto is not a valuable item worth tens, hundreds, or even hundreds of guan? What, you said selling leather is too troublesome, just take out the gold and buy it with shiny real gold? ...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've never seen so much gold! In this current era, the Sado Gold Mountain and Kai Gold Mountain in Japan have not yet been developed...

"Well, God bless you! Just keep those skins here! As for that kind of ginseng, you can take some back and try it. I heard from the big boatman that it is very effective... Ahem! Shi Jian, those kinds of rice, Have you brought all the new crops of millet, soybeans, and adzuki beans?…”

"Uh... Witness the Lord! Captain, I have loaded all the beans needed to raise horses on the horse-drawn sled. Those big horses are really strong, especially the biggest one. There are a lot of reindeer, but they are really picky about what to eat!… As for the rice and millet, I packed most of it, but I couldn’t pack the rest, so I buried them in the cellar. Let’s wait until next year!…”

"Okay, that's it! Let the hunters in the mountains prepare to set off! Try to go as far south as possible while the sky is still bright... God bless you! We will come back next year!..."

"okay!…"

"Aww! Aww! Aw!.."

"Law! Law!"

The sky was gloomy, and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, reflecting the pale sky like a glow that enveloped the earth. But the snowfields in the far north are so vast and vast, the fields are vast, and the desolate white has no end in sight.

In the clouds where the snow has stopped, hundreds of reindeer, wolf dogs and horses, neighing, pulling dozens of full sleds and tents, embarked on the snowy road back south. Mountain hunters and kingdom warriors drove running sleds, their faces full of excitement and joy. They were looking forward to returning to a safe camp, looking forward to drinking hot soup, and looking forward to resting in a woman's arms and completely relaxing their tense minds.

"The Lord God bless you! This expedition to the north has been really fruitful!..."

"Yes! The power of the Lord God has always protected us! His Majesty's prophecy has always guided us!..."

"Yes! Praise the Lord God! Praise Your Majesty!..."

The sound of devout prayers rang out from the team returning to the south, and also woke up the sleeping and cold warriors of the Republic of China.

Murakami Jitong pursed his lips, wrapped his leather robe tightly, and looked at the camps and ships disappearing in the north. Two lines of tears slowly flowed down his stubborn face. These two days were full of ups and downs. He lost his boat home, lost all his goods, and even lost members of his team... At this moment, although he was heading south, towards the direction close to Ezo Land, the feeling in his heart But my hometown suddenly disappeared, as if it was like a far away camp, which I could no longer touch...

"My hometown is in the south. I walked towards my hometown, but my home became far away!~~"

Amid the joy and prayers of the kingdom's warriors, Murakami lowered his head, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and muttered a haiku from the countryside. Watanabe Masumi next to him heard it, lowered his eyes, sighed, and recited two lines of Buddhist scriptures.

"All things are changed by the mind, and manifested by consciousness. A kind heart is in good times, and a calm mind is at ease in adversity... I should be patient and patient, obey the leader of the stickman, and wait for the opportunity to jump out of the cage~~"

The wind and snow whistled, drifting from the dark sky, and the suspended snow started to fall again. And the footprints of the past are gradually buried in the snow, and the road ahead is also in the wind and snow~~