Everything is not overnight, the peach moon has passed alternately, the melon moon has been bypassed, and finally the fruit moon has arrived.

Usually this is the busiest time of the year, when the fruits are ripe and people do not leave the village, except for the occasional harvest during the holidays.

The wine is still fermenting and bubbling, and the hemp is taken out of the pond to be peeled and dried, and it is still a long time before it is spun into a thread.

The adults were busy harvesting the seeds that had not burst and fallen into their ears, and carefully harvested the wheat rice waiting for the next apricot; The children also got snacks from the by-products of brewing, and they knew that the wheat had sprouted so sweetly, but they didn't know why they had to use sprouted wheat to make wine, and they didn't know why Brother Jian was happy at a pile of moldy and wet wheat grains.

On the seventh day of the fruit month, the village welcomed the first tribe to come, a total of thirteen people, all of whom were strong young men.

They are the tribe near the upper reaches of the Grass River, and they are also the tribes that are most active in this matter.

They were accompanied by terrible news that another tribe had been attacked.

According to those who escaped, the first few of the tribesmen rushed to the front, their hair spread and they shouted in an unintelligible language, showing their strength for the new tribe.

The tribesmen did not dare to imagine what kind of situation it was, and why they could live together despite the hatred of killing their relatives. If you haven't experienced it, it's naturally unimaginable.

After a few days, more and more people came to the village, bringing their own stone axes, bows and arrows, or stone spears.

The people in the village had already prepared enough food, and an ordinary meal seemed to them to be extremely hospitality.

Chen Jian counted the days, on the fifteenth day of the fruit month, ten of the fourteen tribes who had sworn an oath last time came, one tribe was attacked, and three did not come, all of them were tribes far away from the threat.

The chaotic village was covered with a layer of solemn atmosphere, Chen Jian led the clansmen of the two clans to form a good team under the black and white flags in front of the village, and the rest of the tribes who were originally chaotic felt a shock, and involuntarily quieted down, secretly smacking their tongues at their neatness.

Standing on the far left of the line, Song glanced sideways at the crooked tribes, and involuntarily stood more straight, his chest raised. He felt that if he rushed over with these thirty people, he would be able to knock the dozens of people next to him to the ground.

Chen Jian stood at the front of the team, did not make any sensational speeches, but led a horned deer and deliberately dangled in front of people.

"That tribe killed our people, of course we have to kill them back. That tribe had horned deer, sheep, and food for the winter, and each tribe that participated in this battle would get a share. ”

His own people were still quiet, because the drums were not sounding, and they had to carry stones and rattans to speak at this time. The rest of the tribe shouted excitedly, and they also wanted to ride on the body of the horned deer, a tall, rideable animal with an irresistible magic for men.

Jian Chen only said one sentence, and then beat the drum to signal that the clansmen could disperse. There was a lot to do tonight, a lot to prepare, and the whole village was busy, and he had to make the final preparations for tomorrow's expedition.

The women were busy preparing food or scrutinizing their brothers' weapons and wicker armor.

The wicker garments were strung together with deerskin and rope like cascading leaves, and they carefully checked for no damage.

The unpregnant woman of the tribe looked silently at the few people she liked, whispered something to them, or carefully put an extra piece of deerskin on their wicker armor, and put it on the beating place of the heart.

The old grandmother kept wandering around the stove, reminding those who were cooking food not to forget to add salt to lard and not to forget to fry peas, and she could not remember how many times she said it. The women didn't get bored, and responded sentence by sentence, even though they knew they wouldn't forget.

All kinds of pendants and animal teeth, carrying the hopes and blessings of women, hung around the necks of their brothers or lovers. What is sung in the sunset is not a war song, but the kind of love song that makes people blush.

The children took out their favorite caramel for their uncles and brothers to eat, and usually teased them to bite off half of a piece before giving it, but this time it was a block.

Even those little wolf cubs who often bark on weekdays seem to be a little uneasy, hiding in the corner and watching the busy people, resisting the urge to bark twice, and suppressing the barking into a whining whisper. Because today is so unusual, the owner who is reluctant to beat them on weekdays disgusted them and whipped them with a rope.

That rope was drawn by Yu Qian'er, and she was in a mess now, but she had to calm herself down. Because Jian Chen asked her to count the number of people, as well as the food used for fifteen days, and also count the feather arrows, stone spears, and rattan armor.

A few days ago, he had already started to get busy, and he took the trouble to count over and over again, for fear that he would miscalculate, and he wouldn't even have time to carve a beast tooth for his brother.

Every day is so busy that her head is dizzy, and sometimes she sleeps late, and half of her head is like a bone needle pierced in it, but she doesn't say a word. I vaguely felt that I was now weaving nettles by hand, and these foods and weapons were the Mai that protected my brother. The more it hurts, the more he proves that he is more worried about his brother than the girl who called the front teeth.

Different women are busy with different things, but men enjoy a rare calm.

Song and a few people sat by the river, wolf skin bent over the side to look for stones to draw from, and there was no nervousness or fear.

The stone drew ripples in the water, and the wolf skin stared at the stone and said, "Those wickers can block the sling, but the bow and arrow can still shoot through." ”

"If you get far away, you can't shoot through, and if we get to thirty paces, we can break them."

Song answered, looked at the foreign tribes in the distance, and whispered: "That tribe is also chaotic in the war, we will definitely win." ”

As if to convince himself, he nodded heavily and repeated, "I can definitely win." ”

The wolf skin threw another stone indifferently and said, "Of course, didn't Hua also try it with his people a few days ago?" The team of four and the team of five fought once, and in a moment they were covered in mud. Any of those five-person squads can't beat me, and they probably can't beat you, but together they are very powerful. ”

Song ignored the last sentence, smiled casually, broke a piece of thatch and bit it in his mouth, lay on the stone with his hands behind his head, touched the blackened bone on his chest with his hand, and whispered, "Mom, bless me." ”

In the early morning of the sixteenth day of the fruit month, the river was full of people, dozens of birch bark boats with ropes tied to them, and several people pulled forward one by one.

The women followed behind and babbled about what had been said dozens of times, and the men lowered their heads and pulled the ropes, responding to the trivialities of life.

"Those gourds can be picked and dried, don't forget to stir the malt in the clay pot, remember to water the vegetable furrow, and collect the mustard seeds......"

In the midst of trivial exhortations, a black and white bear flag was hoisted in the wind, and the men did not look back, dragging the boat and striding forward.

The women watched as the man's back was finally blocked by the river bend, and hurried to the cliff behind the village. There's higher, you can see farther, and maybe you can see their backs.

…………

Chen Jian tried to keep his people as close to the river bank as possible, so that he was a hundred and ten paces away from the trees in the distance, and he had enough time to react if something happened.

Wolfskin and Tanuki rode two horned deer hundreds of paces ahead of the group, alerting the situation ahead. Several foreigners were also running back and forth away from the riverbank, scouting for possible enemies on the flanks.

Every day the distance traveled is not much, a fire is made in the evening, there is a vigil at night, and the next day you can sleep on the boat.

There were more than 100 warriors of the two clans, and more than 80 people from other clans, and Chen Jian was not ready to use means such as surprise attacks, but pushed them to the enemy's door step by step, forcing them to come out and fight with him.

Be as careful as possible along the way, after all, this was the first time he had commanded nearly two hundred men to fight, and nearly half of them didn't know the difference between charging and retreating.

Walk slowly and fight dumbly.

The distance of more than 100 miles was more than four days, and at noon on the fifth day, the tanuki said that at this speed, he could reach the village before the sun set, and calculated that it was a distance of more than ten miles.

If he continued walking, it was already evening when he arrived at the village, so Chen Jian and his people walked forward for a few more miles, and found an extremely open river bank and stopped. That's about ten miles away from that village.

"Cook, rest, and leave tomorrow morning at dawn."

"Now make a fire and they'll see the smoke."

"See, tell them we're coming."

With a wave of his hand, Jian Chen led people to raise dozens of fires, except for a few for cooking, the rest were covered with thick blades of grass, emitting thick black smoke.

The thick black smoke stood out in the clear sky, and of course it could be seen in the village ten miles away, so the men exclaimed, stopped what they were doing, and looked at the smoke rising from the lower reaches of the river in amazement.

I don't know who screamed, and the village immediately panicked, and they all picked up weapons and blocked the exit of the fence with wood.

Several slaves who had been forced to beat the ears of grain looked up a few times, and were immediately beaten with sticks by the people next to them.

The redfish and badgers also saw these dozens of smokes and were a little frightened.

None of the scouts they sent out two months ago had returned, and the Redfish knew that the tribe was far more powerful than he thought.

The dozens of black smoke rising now proved her judgment, but how could there be so many people?

The badger took up his bow and arrows, called several hunters of the tribe, and shouted at the red fish, "You look at the house, I will go and see." ”

"If you can't beat it, run away."

The badger waved his hand to show that he understood, stepped onto the horned deer, and let the people open the wooden fence, and a dozen people ran cautiously along the riverbank.