"Whoosh!" The arrow shot out and hit a roe deer, which struggled and ran a few steps, fell with a bang, rolled a few times, and then lay to the ground.

"The master is good at archery." In the distance, there was applause, and then a group of horses approached quickly, and someone fell sideways from the horse's back, and with a stroke of his hand, picked the prey on the horse's back.

The leader was a majestic figure, wearing a fur hat, and the white vapor exhaled from his nostrils was endless, and his breath was a little rapid, and it seemed that he had been hunting for a long time, and he was a little tired.

The man looked at the harvest on the back of more than a dozen horses behind him, although each horse had a few roe deer elk, or rabbits and pheasants on it, but he still shook his head slightly, obviously not satisfied.

One of the knights who followed him whispered, "Master, it's not too early, or I'd better go back." ”

The leader squinted his eyes and looked west, the sun had already set halfway, nodded, pulled the reins, and ran down the hill first.

This area is a mountain forest, and if you don't get out of the dense forest as soon as possible, it will be a bit troublesome to get there after dark.

"Don't worry, master." The man who spoke to persuade him just now followed, "Although there are not many wild things harvested from hunting, but they have accumulated over the past few days, and they are still passable, and the food can be saved some, and there is no problem until the next time the Fan family comes to Liaodong, counting the days, the Fan family caravan should also arrive in these two days." ”

The one who is called the master is one of the four great Baylors of the Later Jin, the owner of the blue flag, Amin, and the person who opened his mouth to persuade was one of his confidants, named Dajib.

Since Amin escaped death in Shengjing, all the cattle under his command have been confiscated, and his net worth has plummeted.

The remaining cattle are scattered among the mountains, forests and grasslands in western Liaoning, making a living by hunting, fishing, herding sheep and horses, and without fields, there is no grain input that does not cost money, and the whole day of the blue flag is embarrassed at once, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is difficult.

At the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the birds and beasts survived the winter, all lean and lean, this is not a good opportunity for hunting, if you meet the black blind man who wakes up from hibernation, busy looking for food to satisfy hunger, and has a fierce temperament, more than ten people may not be able to deal with it smoothly.

However, now that food is becoming scarce, Amin, as the owner of the banner, has to go out to hunt and get some wild things to survive.

The Jurchens called themselves unparalleled in riding and shooting, and some experts in later generations said that they started fishing and hunting, so they were brave and invincible, but in fact they were few and did a lot of things, but they were not very good at it.

Fishing and hunting are not as large and small tribes as the Jurchens or fishskin tartars that they call further north, these people are the ancestors of the Hezhe and Oroqen people in later generations, and they have been fishing and hunting for a living for generations, and in this regard, the Jurchens can't catch up.

The reason why the Jurchens are not the opponents of the Jurchens, and they are constantly encroached and enslaved, in the final analysis, is the backwardness of weapons and military literacy.

In addition, several generations of old slaves followed Li Chengliang to fight in the east and west, and learned the advanced tactics of the Ming army, and even came out of the blue, and it was not too easy to fight these newly civilized tribes.

Needless to say, herding sheep and horses is not as good as the Mongolian people on the grassland.

In the first few generations of the old slaves, they learned from the Han people and planted grain on the flat land, although they didn't know what to level the land, fertilize the land, etc., they all relied on the sky to eat, but relying on the fat black soil in Liaodong, there were some gains, at least stronger than those tribes that hunted and fished.

With food, the population naturally increased slowly, and its strength gradually surpassed that of other tribes.

In the early days, the farming cattle to which the Houjin banners belonged were built around their mature fields, and after taking Shengjing and other places into their pockets, they naturally laughed at the surrounding fields.

There are not only fields in the Farming Cattle Record, but also Jurchens who can farm.

Of course, after the large-scale enslavement of the Han people in Liaodong, the farming was mainly done by the Han people, but there were still many knowledgeable Jurchens in Niulu.

Amin didn't let the captive Han people open up wasteland and farm on their own territory, but there was a great drought for many years, except for some pitiful output near the water source, the rest of the land was no harvest, and there was no water, and the Han people couldn't do anything no matter how capable they were.

Listening to Dajib's consolation, Amin snorted lightly in his nostrils, "What about the Fan family, we don't have much gold and silver in our hands, and if we want to exchange for more food, I have to personally go out and beat them, so I really feel aggrieved." ”

The blue flag is located at the junction of Liaodong and the grassland, is the only place to enter Liaodong, every time the Fan caravan comes to Liaodong, the blue flag occupies the geographical advantage, the first to contact with the Han merchants, even coaxing and frightened with those gold, silver, jewelry and silk snatched from the hands of the Han people, from the hands of the eight grain merchants in exchange for grain, in order to barely survive.

According to the rules, after all the goods arrived in Shengjing, he would dispose of them first, as the Great Khan, to demonstrate his authority of the Great Khan, and then the bannermen and bannermen would trade with the caravans.

The move of inlaying the blue flag is obviously a violation of the rules, but Huang Taiji's original intention is only to suppress the inlaid blue flag, not to exterminate it, if this opening is also blocked, it will be too much.

Since the year before last after entering the customs and making a windfall, Houjin has not taken any action, and the blue flag is all dependent on fishing, hunting and grazing to live, and he can't make ends meet, so he can only sit and eat empty, and the gold and silver have been almost spent.

You can't openly rob the caravan, and you can't get much food for what you have left.

What worries Amin even more is what to do after the gold, silver and silk are used up, the Han people have already starved to death, and the Mongolian people are also living extremely hard, and only the Jurchens can barely go hungry when they complain.

If they don't find a way to get some inputs, even the Jurchens will have to starve.

In a hurry, Amin and his party finally got out of the mountain before dark, and when they returned to Niulu, it was already completely dark.

Before entering the cow record, you can see a pile of bonfires connected to each other in the distance, and you can't see the end at a glance, during which there are figures shaking, and the voices of people, cows and horses are faintly heard, which is much more lively than when they left during the day.

"The caravan has arrived?" Dajib, who followed Amin, exclaimed, "This trip is a lot early. ”

When Amin saw it, his heart was also a little relaxed, and now he could only take one step at a time, first to get through the imminent food crisis, and then he didn't care about the Han people who starved to death, but for every person who died, there would be one less person to farm and work, and the meager grain harvest would be less, and the overall strength of the blue flag would decline even more.