On the grassland under Helan Mountain, the Hun woman held the goat, and the man with the blade cleanly raised his knife to cut its trachea and arteries. The goat struggled, its blood splattered on the ground, turning crimson in the brown earth, and after twitching for a while, it was finally motionless and dead.

A group of people were busy cleaning up the dead sheep, only to see them quickly cut a small hole in the sheepskin, blowing into it, until the sheep was blown like a pufferfish, Chen Ping was very surprised.

Life is so big, he is the first time to see this way of cleaning up sheep, at this time the skin and meat of the dead sheep have been basically separated, it is much easier to peel the skin, the man who kills the sheep three times five divided by two peeled off the whole sheepskin, and then turned it inside and out, and then began to dig out the internal organs, chop the meat......

When the Huns slaughtered cattle and sheep, Chen Ping stood on the side, watching with his hands in his sleeves. At first, the Huns did not welcome this little white face with a strange smile on his face and curious to watch everywhere.

But when Chen Ping took out a piece of salt, or a small grain of brown sugar that was even rarer to see, as a gift, the Huns, regardless of men, women, and children, put on a warm smile, let Chen Pingdong look west, and even strongly invited him to sit in the vault.

Chen Ping did not refuse their kindness, he remembered his mission: to know oneself and know the other, in order to survive a hundred battles! He was the eyes and ears of the county lieutenant Heifu, so he had to observe every detail of the Huns and, if possible, try to learn their language.

This is a local "small and canal" pasture, and the translator arranged by Wu Shiyan for Chen Ping can't tell the original meaning of the canal, according to Chen Ping's understanding, it is probably similar to the "junchang" of Qiangrong.

Chen Ping came to Helan Mountain for a few days, although it was only one of the many Xiongnu pastures, but when the Xiongnu prince Maodun got married, there were many Xiongnu nobles gathered here, so Chen Ping finally figured out the various names within the Xiongnu:

Shan is the supreme leader of the Xiongnu tribe, integrating military and political power, and is hereditary from the Su Yu clan, who is the first generation of Shan Yu? The Huns themselves can't say clearly, anyway, the Xiongnu have been established for decades, starting from the Yinshan and Hetao areas, and gradually growing, and now it is Toumanshan Yu who rules the Xiongnu.

Alone, the Xiongnu also have the left and right big households, the left and right bones of the marquis, etc., these are high status of the big nobles, can lead the "ten thousand horses", the small tribe has thousands of people, the monarch is called the household, the smaller tribe, it is called and the canal, a thousand long, a hundred long, even long.

In this way, the Xiongnu implemented a feudal system, from Shan Yu to 10,000 horses, Danghu, and Qu, each of them had their own fiefdom subjects, and during the war, they had to lead the troops to follow Shan Yu to go on the expedition......

Since it is a small noble, the Xiongnu are small and the Qu family is well-off, which can be seen from the large amount of milky cheese drying on the grass outside the dome.

This dairy product is made by simmering goat's milk or cow's milk for a few hours until it becomes a paste, then putting it in a container or making lumps by hand and then drying it in the sun. After a few days, it was hard as a stone and could be stored for a year and a half.

As far as Chen Ping can see, there are a few pieces of cottage cheese in the bags of each Huns, ready to satisfy hunger and thirst, can be heated and melted to eat, or can be directly put into the mouth, holding for an hour, when speaking, almost everyone has a sour taste of milk.

Seeing this scene, Chen Ping suddenly realized: "No wonder Wu Shilu once said that the wind and rain are tired, hunger and thirst are not sleepy, and the Chinese people are like the Huns." In fact, it is not that the Huns can really endure hunger and thirst, perhaps because they eat cheese and jerky, which are easy to carry and can be put in their mouths at any time, which is really a wonderful dry food for marching......"

In the face of long-distance marches and thousands of miles of attack, the Huns had a great advantage.

However, Chen Ping was not worried, because before he came, Heifu, the lieutenant of Beidi County, had already purchased a lot of wheat noodles from Guanzhong, and planned to drum up a new type of dry food called "pot helmet......

Chen Ping's first reaction was to ask Heifu: "What is the pot?" ”

In the end, it was Chen Ping's wife who took him into the kitchen, pointing to the new cooking utensils in the kitchen of Heifu's house, and Chen Ping understood.

After thinking about it, Chen Ping had been invited into the vault by the Huns.

The so-called dome is the felt tent, its wall is woven with wicker, the sheepskin felt cloth is sewn full of gaps, the middle of the top is raised, the surrounding is drooping, the shape is like the sky, so the name is called the dome.

This kind of living room is not big, the whole family is crowded in it, it is naturally not comfortable, it can shelter from the wind and rain, and its advantage is that it is easy to disassemble and move.

Chen Ping began to think again: "Therefore, the Xiongnu people did not need to be in the city to cultivate the fields, migrated by water and grass, dismantled the dome and put it on the ox cart, and the whole family rode on horses, drove cattle and sheep, and ate cheese, so that they could go hundreds or thousands of miles away." Because this is repeated every year, the march and camp are also extremely fast......"

Compared with the Central Plains army, which can only walk 30 miles a day, and spend two hours camping, digging stoves and cooking, the custom of the Huns is really inherently suitable for war.

The Xiongnu Xiaoqiqu didn't know what Chen Ping was up to, so he enthusiastically asked his wife and daughter to bring fresh hot milk, and the Huns usually added some salt from Huamachi to the hot milk. But this time, Chen Ping gave him a pound of brown sugar, Xiao and Qu's wife and daughter cut half of it and put it in the hot milk, and after trying to taste it, Xiao and Qu's eyes lit up, and he raised his thumb and praised loudly!

For another taste, it is also a good experience for the Xiongnu nobles, and brown sugar can also be sold at a good price on the grassland.

When Xiao Youqu and Chen Ping communicated in a language they did not understand, the freshly cut mutton had also been boiled in the tent, Chen Ping noticed that it was not an iron kettle from the Central Plains, but an ordinary four-legged pottery mustache, which was not bad, and the average herdsman family could not even afford pottery, but boiled with thick cowhide to store water.

Except for salt, no ingredients were added to the mutton - in the land of the Huns, there were no grains, and spices were only used by the great nobles, and the cooked pieces of mutton would be evenly broken down and then distributed to family and guests.

As a guest, Chen Ping was given the best food: sheep's eye, and although he resisted a little, he still put it in his mouth with a smile, and it tasted a little chewy, like cartilage.

Several of Xiao and Qu's wives and children gathered in the tent, and at this time Chen Ping found that Xiao and Qu were sitting in the chairman, and as a guest, he was at the head of him, and opposite him was Xiao and Qu's almost adult son, followed by other wives and sons.

Only at the last seat, the farthest from the food, and the closest place to the door, sat an old woman with gray hair, who carefully ate a little bit of cold milk handed over the whole time.

"Who is this?" Chen Ping tilted his head and asked the translator in Xia Yan.

The translator said: "It is the mother of small and canals." ”

"Stepmother?"

"No, it's my own mother."

Chen Ping was a little surprised, in the Central Plains, parents are to sit first, to be sons, but also to choose the best food, remove the bones, and serve it personally!

"The customs of the Xiongnu are very different from those of the Central Plains."

The translator explains: "The Xiongnu are noble and strong, but they are old and weak. The strong eat fat, and the old eat the rest. Many Hun herdsmen, whose parents are sixty years old, will be carried to the place of worship, leave them behind, let them starve to death, and then be devoured by wild wolves and vultures! ”

Chen Ping couldn't help but be shocked, although he learned from Huang Lao and did not strictly follow the etiquette, but the righteousness of filial piety, this is the ethics and morality that all the Central Plains schools are trying to promote, and the Qin State also legislated to punish unfilial sons, and the behavior of the Huns was put into Qin, and every household was sentenced to death......

However, with Chen Pingzhihui, after thinking about it carefully, it is clear that the Huns are fighting and attacking, and their old and weak cannot fight, so they are fat and healthy.

After coming to Biansai, he gradually discovered that animal husbandry life was more cruel than farming, a snowstorm and a plague led to the death of cattle and sheep, and the herdsmen could only eat grass and hunt to survive. In this case, it is a burden to have an extra mouth in the family, and they either choose to abandon the old man who can no longer work, or choose to strangle the newborn......

Chen Ping remembered what the county lieutenant Heifu said: "Survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest!" ”

This sentence is vividly embodied in the grassland: when the basic living conditions cannot be met, we must plunder outward to make a living; In order to protect one's livestock and wives from foreign plunder, it is necessary to establish a military system.

The cruel environment has created a cruel nation, so the Huns in addition to animal husbandry and hunting, robbing and plundering, is also their means of making a living.

Earlier, Yan, Zhao, and Qin suffered from the Xiongnu, and later Li Mu defeated the Xiongnu, and the Xiongnu no longer dared to enter the border. So the Xiongnu targeted the Loufu, Baiyang, Linhu and other tribes in Henan, plundered them several times, and conquered them as their own tribal slaves.

The man who is small and kills sheep is an Aries man; The salt eaten by his family was carried by Hua Ma Chi Yan Rong; On Helan Mountain, there are also some Linhu people who have been snatched from hundreds of miles away who are responsible for cutting wood and chopping firewood.

Chen Ping somewhat understood why Heifu proposed the strategy of westward expansion, and then focused on proposing: first break the Huns, and then Tuyue's clan!

"I once heard that King Wuling of Zhao wanted to make his son rule the country for the king, and he was wearing Hu clothes, leading the scholars to the northwest to slightly Hudi, and wanted to attack Qin from the clouds and Jiuyuan to the south, so he deceived himself as an envoy into Qin to watch the Qin political ......"

"Although the matter of King Wuling of Zhao has not been completed, and the state of Zhao has also perished, the Xiongnu have replaced Qiang Zhao and become a great disaster in the north of Qin."

Decades of repeated plundering and conquest made the Xiongnu stronger and stronger, taking advantage of the opportunity of Qin's unification of the Central Plains and no time to look north, they took the opportunity to cross the river and occupy a large area of land south of the Hetao, with 100,000 men in control. And it is located in the north of Guanzhong, if the light riding breaks the Great Wall, go up to the county, the north, you can reach Ganquan Mountain within half a month!

If it is not dealt with in time, the Hu people may become a problem for the confidants of the Central Plains.

He secretly thought: "The county lieutenant is really far-sighted, and it is better to be peaceful......"

Smart people have always been able to see the subtleties, and Chen Ping did not eat this meal in vain.

After the feast, Chen Ping left another piece of cloth as a gift, said goodbye to Xiao and Qu, and when he left the dome, Xiao and Qu and his wife and son who were full of oil gave each other warmly.

Chen Ping was polite, but his eyes couldn't leave the old mother who was sitting on a dilapidated felt mat, holding a stone, beating the leftover sheep bones, and sucking the bone marrow inside.

At her feet, several dogs of the small Qu family were snatching food from her, gnawing on the fleshy bones......