As long as both sides think it is beneficial to them, the matter of the alliance of the ministries next summer will be decided. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Since the alliance will be held next summer, the scale of this sacrifice cannot be too large, and it can only be a small-scale sacrifice.

At this time, Chen Jian was not a high priest, so it was still Su Yue who presided over the sacrifice.

Chen Jian is no longer a person who didn't know anything about the rules of sacrifice a few years ago, and this time he learned it well.

In fact, the sacrifice at this time was still extremely simple and did not have too much cumbersome content, because this group was a more rational race from the beginning, knowing the difference between the living and the dead, and in the case of insufficient productivity, it sacrificed with simple utensils that could not affect the survival of the living, and did not fall into the terrible circle of irrational sacrifice.

However, with the expansion and development of the city, the rules of sacrifice gradually changed.

The number of grass-tied cattle and sheep that were originally used to fool the ancestors of the gods due to the lack of surplus products decreased significantly, and more living creatures began to appear. Bronze vessels have appeared in the sacrificial utensils, and horses and wheat have replaced certain animals and food as important sacrificial objects.

Sacrifice is constantly improved with the progress of the productive forces, even if you want to use bronze sacrifice when bronze is insufficient, it is impossible, the best things cannot be given to dead souls, just fool them with fake, this is the consistent style of this race.

It's just that in the normal process, the rules that were originally established by reason gradually faded away, and most of the leaders gradually raised the standard of sacrifice in order to divide the ethnic group at the spiritual level, turning the witchcraft and ghosts of the whole people into a certain class, and achieving a monopoly on the right to communicate with their ancestors - they may not believe it, but they need the symbolic meaning of it.

The process of the ritual itself is inherently a kind of knowledge, and it is knowledge that only a few people can grasp. Those who know this knowledge hope that the fewer people who know the better, but the reality is that there are more and more people who know, so when there are many people who know, they need to change a way.

The ritual becomes more cumbersome and formal, and the more property is consumed, and finally the knowledge itself is no longer the key, and the practical ability to practice knowledge becomes the key, and finally the sacredness is connected with property and status, forming a group to protect the group's own interests.

There is a trend today, but it is not so complicated that it cannot be further complicated.

Fortunately, this time it is only a small sacrifice, not the highest standard sacrifice that all the tribes have, and it only needs to worship the ancestors, which is not too unbearable.

This sacrifice was in the city, the scale was not large, and the items needed were not very large, but through some rituals to let the ancestors know the merits of this battle.

One of the most crucial rituals is a fire.

Chen Jian used to think that lighting a fire during the sacrifice was just a worship of fire, but later he realized that it was not all.

About a long time ago, one of the priests of his clan noticed that when the flames rose, the hot air would envelop some of the grass ashes in the air. In the consciousness of the race, the soul is lighter than the body and flies into the air, so the sacrifice is brought to the soul of the ancestors by borrowing the hot air created by the burning of the fire.

Jade objects need to be placed in the fire, the blood of livestock needs to be dripped in the fire but not on the ground, and the news that needs to be heard by the ancestors is recited when the blood turns to steam in the fire, in order to be protected by the ancestors.

The people of the two cities of Feng and Wei also chose the elderly and virtuous people, cried about their sufferings in Dongyi, and thanked their ancestors for guiding them to rescue them from slavery, and by the way, they also said some words of gratitude to Chen Jian, praying that the ancestors would always care for this young man.

The biggest difference from the previous one is that because of the appearance of wooden tablets and writing, there is an extra step in burning the memorial text.

Since writing seemed to them to have been guided by their ancestors, their ancestors must have been able to read and write, even if they did not know how to read when they were alive.

Chen Jian had already written all kinds of major events for this expedition, such as a battle on a certain day, victory on a certain day, and how many prisoners and slaves were killed by the enemy, and he did not write about the situation that several cities were closed, which made those cities very satisfied.

The wooden tablets are in duplicate, one is sacrificed to the ancestors, and the other is used as a historical record, only to express merit and not criticize.

The wooden tablets were burned to ashes, and as the hot smoke rose, they became closer to the sacrificial thinking of the people, and these slight changes were not criticized for being difficult.

By the way, Chen Jian also told his ancestors that in addition to these feats, he also temporarily became the leader of thousands of people in Weicheng. Once these contents have been conveyed in the sacrifice, it is a certainty, and it is only necessary to wait until next year's festival to symbolically tell the leaders of the rest of the clans.

Even if the ceremony was not too cumbersome, it still lasted a whole day before it ended, and the banquet in the evening was decided that the representatives of each city would go to Yucheng on November 15 and follow Chen Jian back to Xiacheng.

At this point, the affairs of the rest of the clan leaders and nobles are finished, but for Jian Chen, this is not over. He was about to become the high priest of the tribes, and he needed to take the opportunity to consult the priests of the other clans in order to grasp the content of many sacrifices.

There were no books and words before, and there were no strict regulations, and it was very slow and time-consuming to learn by word of mouth, but fortunately, Su Yue asked several people in Sucheng who were in charge of the preparation of the sacrifice to follow Chen Jian back, which was the solution to the urgent need.

For Chen Jian, who is about to become a high priest, things like sacrifices and divine rights are not sloppy at all, not only in the process, but also about the future of the race.

Jian Chen didn't quite understand whether ancestor worship was a religion or not.

Perhaps formal religion does not yet have a basis for existence, or perhaps ancestor worship will one day emerge with the differentiation of society into a system of immortals similar to the structure of secular power; It may also condense the wisdom, courage, and strength implied by the concept of ancestors into godhead and personality, and embody the vague concept of ancestors into many gods. Or perhaps the ancestors will be transformed into omnipotent, singular gods.

In any case, the concept of religion or pan-religion is a hurdle that ethnic groups cannot get around, and no one knows what it will become.

By the time formal religion emerged, most of it was actually progressive at the time, perhaps with a spirit of rebellion and preservation of the bottom, but in the end it was just a replacement for the original theocracy with another theocracy.

In the end, God changed, but the divine power itself did not change, and it could easily be combined with power and wealth to become a new instrument of rule.

This is incomprehensible, the only thing Chen Jian thinks of is to rely on the productive forces to crush the past, the more developed the society is, the less theocratic flavor in secular rights, and shortening the period of religious prosperity may be the only way he can practice.

It's just that things must be reversed, and after the indulgence of unconstrained morality prevails, religion with moral elements will rise again, and most people will always have a spiritual sustenance, but they don't know what the sustenance of this world will be made into by future generations.

Now that he was about to become the High Priest of the Tribes, something heavy began to weigh on his shoulders in the face of sacrifices.

It is difficult to be a high priest, it is difficult to be prestige, it is difficult to make meritorious deeds, and it is difficult to be trusted and supported by everyone.

It is even more difficult to be a high priest who wants to betray the theocracy, because it is difficult for him to betray his position under the ass.

After thinking for a long time, there was no solution once and for all, so I had to find a way to destroy the position of high priest at that time, so that the theocracy and secular power could be linked together but the meaning of theocracy could be diluted, so that the future generations of people in power would be extremely opposed to the new religion.

Only the old theocratic leaders would be extremely opposed to the new gods. In the previous life, the destruction of the Buddha and the ban on the white lotus was, in another sense, the struggle between the eldest son of the true dragon and the Buddha and the Bodhisattva for divine power.

It's just that this degree is too difficult to grasp, and if it is too weak, it will be religious anesthesia, and if it is weak, it will allow outsiders to take advantage of it, and perhaps some kind of study that has extremely high moral requirements but does not speak of gods and ghosts will eventually become the best choice for rulers for a long time.

This is the first time since Chen Jian crossed over to feel his humility and insignificance so cordially, and only then can he understand that history is written spontaneously by thousands of people, and one person cannot create history, he is too weak.

On the way back to Yucheng, Jian Chen frowned.

In the era of catching birds and shrimps, he could be at ease, but now he is already worried, and maybe he will only be unknown to everyone in the future.

Becoming a person in the shortest possible time is a great thing for the race, and it is also his dream, but there is still a faint loss in his heart.

It is always reluctant to smash the foundation of the existence of his own altar.