According to the pre-prepared haode plan, after everyone entered the mountain, the gun method was changed to a state of alert, and at the same time, sharp soldiers were sent to the front to investigate. The mountain is not steep, and along the road you can see small patches of land in the mountains, planted with rice that is about to be harvested, and there are traces of planting on the relatively gentle slopes -- the green mountain forest is like a dehaired blanket, showing patches of yellow from time to time -- this is what the Li people have planted on the mountain fence -- this is a primitive agricultural method that is almost slash-and-burn. One or two villages can be seen on the hillside in the distance. Because they had plenty of time, they were not in a hurry and watched the mountain scenery as they walked. Although it is autumn, Hainan is like summer at all times, and the mountains are still full of flowers, grass and trees, and the scenery is particularly beautiful. Compared with the bleak scene of barren smoke and vines outside the mountain, it has a different flavor. Walking up a hill, everyone stood and looked around. Wen Deji couldn't help but praise:

"It's a great place."

"Compared to the banks of the Wenlan River, the scenery is much more beautiful." Everyone said the same, wiping their sweat and pointing to the surrounding scenery

"What is this?" Not far away, there is an extremely tall and straight tree on the hillside, but among the lush trees, it is very conspicuous that it has lost its leaves.

"This is Kapok." Wen Desi said. As a person living in Guangzhou, it is impossible not to know the plants that are the flowers of Guangzhou.

"Kapok, I know! The flowers are beautiful. When I went to Panzhihua, I saw that there were a lot of them. Mu Min said.

"Hehe, that's good. The place Panzhihua is named after kapok. ”

"Why are these trees losing their leaves? Trees in the south generally don't shed their leaves. ”

"It's a deciduous tree," Fashilu explains, "because it is grown in both wet and dry seasons, and the leaves are removed before the dry season to save water." "Although he is an agronomist, he has also worked in plant protection. This aspect is relatively well understood.

"This tree is very useful," Fa Shilu continued, "and it is a very haode fiber raw material." ”

"It's good, but you can't spin it."

The fibers of kapok are much shorter than those of draft cotton, so they are not very suitable as textile raw materials. However, it grows rapidly, the material is light and soft, the fiber is short and fine, no bending, the hollowness is as high as 86%, it is not easy to be soaked in water, it has strong pressure resistance, strong warmth, natural antibacterial, no moth or mildew, and can be filled with pillows and life jackets.

At present, the traversers have found many kapok trees sporadically along the Wenlan River, but this is the first time they have seen such a forest. If it is developed, it should be promising.

"Mr. Wen, I want to collect some samples." Fa Shilu asked.

"Fagong, you tell Captain Commander about this—" said Wen Desi, "I am only a member of the team, and I have no commanding authority. ”

"Okay, I forgot again." The agronomist smiled sheepishly. The title of Chairman of the Committee on the head of Wendeji always made him forget this.

"Lao Fa, you said that this kapok can't be spinned, why did I hear that the cotton textile jishu of the Li nationality has always been a leader in ancient times? Even Huang Daopo learned spinning from the Li people in Hainan. Cui Yunhong, who accompanied him to collect samples, carried a lot of equipment on his back: a laptop, a transient electromagnetic instrument, a bolt detector, an ultrasonic detector...... There's even a small hand-cranked generator for poverty alleviation in Africa -- no problem, who would have told them to use electricity. Taking advantage of him to collect samples, he also did some geological survey things by the way.

"Not all kapok can't be spun." Fa Shilu carefully avoided the thorns on the trunk and pulled the tape measure, "Some varieties of kapok are okay, but the quality cannot be compared with herbal cotton. There is also the fact that some of the so-called kapok is actually island cotton. ”

"Sea Island Cotton?"

"It's a very high-quality long-staple cotton. It is produced in Central and South America. Because it was once distributed in large quantities on the southeast coast of the United States and its nearby islands, it is called island cotton. "There is a similar long-staple cotton on Hainan Island, which is very close to this American island cotton. ”

"I've seen cotton, it's very short and grassy, and it's one a year. How can it be like a kapok elephant? ”

"Hehe, because cotton can be annual or perennial." Fa Shilu knew that most people in the original time and space were not divided into grains, and there were many people who used wheat seedlings as leeks, and it was already good to be able to see cotton, "Cotton can grow into perennial woody in the natural environment, probably because it is the same as kapok, with cotton wool on the outer skin of the seed, so it is mistakenly called kapok." The raw material of the Li people spinning cloth on Hainan Island should be this perennial woody cotton. He continued, "I've seen a few of these scattered cotton trees. Fairly common on the island. Our department is thinking about how to make cotton. ”

"This is Kapok, right?"

"It's ordinary kapok." Fa Shilu is a little regretful, if the forest of island cotton will be made: this kind of long-staple cotton can not only be used as worsted raw materials, spinning worsted high-count cotton cloth with a texture and feel comparable to silk, but also the raw material for cord cord, which is indispensable for the tire industry in the future.

"It can be used to make sponges." Zhang Bolin, who was guarding them on the side, interjected and said, "As long as it is fiber, it is enough to make sponge." ”

"You can't say that-" Fa Shilu was saying, when he suddenly saw two or three people coming from afar, dressed and looking not Han Chinese, knowing that it was a Li person, he quickly packed up his things and returned to the brigade.

Two native soldiers came over, leaving some distance and asking in a loud voice. They were all dressed in cloth shirts, but the lower body was wrapped in a strip of cloth like briefs, a bit like a Japanese crotch cloth (this is a type of clothing that was often worn by Li men in the past). Straddling his waist was a hook knife - this was what every Li man carried with him in the past, both as a tool of production and as a weapon - a crossbow arrow on his back. Lu Rong talked to them for a while in Qiongzhou dialect, and knew that this was already a mountain boundary, and the lord of the mountain lived in a place called Nanan Village in front of him (this village was purely apocryphal).

While they were talking, the captives behind them were in a commotion, and they all hurried over, regardless of the heavy salt bags on their bodies, and when they saw each other, they all hugged their heads excitedly and wept - it turned out that these two native soldiers were from their village. Early this morning, a hunter reported that a strange-looking team had arrived, and they were not many in number, not officers and soldiers. It is not a single or small group of Han Chinese traders. At the same time, the lord of the mountain was also the head of the earth house appointed by the Ming Dynasty government, and he had the obligation to maintain local law and order, so he sent someone to inquire about it.

From the conversation, we knew that five of the 30 Li soldiers sent by Ben Yu had escaped. Now the Li District is saying that there is a powerful team of pirates on the sea, and the firearms are powerful. The small traders from the Han District added fuel and vinegar to the story of the Battle of Bairentan, and now almost everyone knows how terrifying the traverser is.

Knowing that the person who came was the "pirate" with the power of ghosts and gods, the two native soldiers showed a look of fear, and Lu Rong hurriedly explained that he was not a pirate, but a businessman, and he had no choice but to fight with the official army in Bairentan. This time, I came to the Lebanese District to return the eight prisoners, and second, I wanted to do business. As he spoke, Lu Rong opened a salt packet - the snow-white refined salt sparkled in the sun. The power of salt was really huge, and after licking it to confirm that it was really salt, the two native soldiers seemed to run away.

Lu Rong instructed everyone to wait in place, if the information obtained by the security team from the Li captives was accurate, the power of salt would be enough. Even so, everyone was still a little nervous, afraid that the other party would take revenge in case they came. The firepower of more than 20 SKS rifles, even if there are one or two hundred people, is not a problem, but when the conflict is together, it will be difficult to deal with the aftermath, and if there are a few more casualties on our side, it will be an irreparable loss.

Not long after, I saw more than a dozen Li soldiers coming, surrounded by a middle-aged man, dressed much more elaborate than the almost half-naked native soldiers, looking like a traditional Li brocade, with pheasant feather decorations on his head, it seemed to be a head man or something. According to the captives, this was an "Aoya" in their mountain (note: the meaning of "old man" in the Li language, and the ordinary Li people before the liberation used this to call the upper class leader of the Li people. ), is a big man after the master of the earth.

This "Aoya" can speak very haode Qiongzhou dialect, and he walked to the open space on both sides alone, and first cut the hook knife on the ground.

"What does that mean?" Lu Rong was a little nervous.

"As if it meant no hostility." Wen Desi remembers that when he watched an Amazon rainforest adventure film in the past, the expedition team met the natives of the forest, and they also put the machete on the ground first to show their friends, "Just do it." (Note: This is purely nonsense)

So Lu Rong also walked out and put the machete on the ground. Not only was he extremely nervous, but everyone in the team was sweating - he was only more than fifty meters away from those native soldiers, and when he fired a crossbow arrow, in case he was in a place where there was no stab-proof suit to protect him, the arrow poison wood on the crossbow arrow would be bloody and his throat would be sealed.

The two sides stood there and talked for more than ten minutes, and then he came back and said helplessly: "He won't let us go to the village." Salt they are willing to buy, and the captives are willing to ransom what we want. ”

What is the use of Wen Deji wanting to go back like this. But the captain was Lu Rong, and his meddling in the decision-making seemed to violate the command policy formulated by the executive committee.

So he still asked very tentatively, "Let's talk about it again?" Let's send some gifts—"

"Gifts!" Lu Rong laughed, "I have resigned for more than a year, and I have forgotten the content of this bank. So they went back and talked a little more. After a while, Lu Rong came back with a smile:

"Yes, he promised to take us outside the village, but we couldn't go into the village. Can only trade outside the village. But he promised to let us see the lord. ”

The price of this transformation is a small fruit knife. Although the fruit knife is not made of high-grade steel such as tool steel, it is also a steel knife, and it cannot be compared with the rough iron hook knife in their hand.

It seems that commercial bribery is easy to use anywhere.