Two and a half months later, the third spring rain fell.

In a cave in the mountains north of the grass river, from time to time there was a cry of a baby, and the women were breastfeeding, and the leader smiled as he looked at the growing tribe, and looked at the wheat that had begun to tiller outside, and his heart was full of joy.

The spring was good, the sheep gave birth to three lambs, the horned deer gave birth, and even the tribe had four pairs of twins.

A month ago, before the women were due to give birth, the healthy tribe sent two people, a boy and a girl.

The man was holding a strange thing in his hand, not a stone, with a faint blue-yellow sheen, about half an arm's length, which opened just enough to fit into the baby's head.

With the help of this tool, only one of the three women in the tribe who had a difficult birth died, which is really something to celebrate.

After burying the dead people, the two men went back, saying that the village was now crushing struvite and adding it to the wheat and bean fields, and they were in a hurry to get back to work. It's been a month since this flicker.

The leader stood at the entrance of the cave and looked at the spring rain outside the cave, and said in his heart that the harvest would be less than two months away, and that he and his people would be able to move to the city, and that they would have built their houses before the snow fell, and that they would never have to live here again.

At this moment, there was a sudden sharp sound of pottery whistles in the grass-colored mountains, and the air was a little dull through the wet air.

The men of the clan immediately stood at the entrance of the cave and looked into the distance.

A horned deer, a rider, dressed in a thatched robe.

When he got close to the cave, he took out a black and white flag from his bosom and shouted, "Twenty-five men, prepare your own food for fifteen days, take bows, arrows, stone spears, and go to the city in seven days." Those who fail to meet the deadline shall be reduced to wild people and shall not be allowed to live in the city. ”

The rider shouted three times, and the leader raised his head and said, "Is this going to be a battle?" ”

"Yes, Ken said to fight before harvesting the wheat, and capture the slaves so that they can harvest the wheat. Now they are also giving birth to children, and they don't have much to eat, so they just want to fight now. ”

After the rider finished speaking, he threw down a pottery shard, which looked like a tiger's head, but only half of it, and engraved with today's date - the third day of the first month of the grass month.

This pottery shard has already been burned, and today is the third day of the grass month according to the calendar.

"Grab the pottery shards and get there in seven days."

"It's raining, why don't you come in and warm up?"

"No, you can't make a mistake on the pottery shard, if I send it late, I will carry the stone and be whipped when I go back." Okay, I'm on my way to the next clan. ”

"Whip?"

The rider did not answer, clamped the horned deer between his legs, put the flag in his arms, and ran wildly on the slippery grass into the distance.

The leader looked at the pottery shard in his hand, knowing that there was about to be a war, but he did not panic at all, but was a little excited.

He felt that his tribe would not be able to deal with such a tribe no matter what, and that the tribe that followed Jian could catch some slaves to harvest wheat beans and plant the next crop soon.

The men cheered, what they got in the last war helped the whole tribe, and this time they didn't know what they could gain. Last time, if it weren't for the fact that these tribes didn't fight and rushed indiscriminately, they might have died less than ten people, but this time if they were obedient, they shouldn't have died.

The whole tribe began to get busy, baking and preparing the acorn pieces, taking out the dried fish that had already been dried, and learning the rattan shields woven by the Jian tribe.

"It's raining, and I'm afraid the bow and arrow won't work well if it's raining?"

"Go first, and when the rain stops, you will be sent with grass and plows, but you must not be too late, or you will be driven out of the city." The rest of the tribes wish that our tribe would become savages, so there are more people who pay food and serve as servants. ”

Twenty-five men packed up their belongings, put on thatch, said goodbye to their mothers and sisters, and hurried out on the journey.

A few days later, in the city, the sky had cleared, and Chen Jian was standing on the wooden bridge over the trench, followed by several people, holding half a tiger-like pottery shard in his hand.

The ditch was more than as wide as the two of them flowed with water, which was brought from the river by the wild people of the seven tribes after the first spring rains.

The walls were only a man high, and they were still in the shape of mounds of earth, but there were already sharpened wooden sticks in front of them. The use of bronze axes and saws made it possible to see wood and sharpen in batches.

There were only three entrances to the trench, and a small bridge was tied to it, and ropes were tied to it, which could be pulled up at any time.

Two stacks of more than four meters high were piled up near the bridge, a total of six. There were large piles of quicklime on it, as well as some stone blocks with flags planted on them.

There was no entrance to the south of the city, and there was a small dock with wooden stakes, on which birch bark boats were docked, and several slaves were carrying ore in baskets.

This was their hope, and when there were enough pottery shards they would be able to become wild people, though it seemed a bit out of reach now.

The pottery and brick kilns outside the city have stopped, but a shaft furnace has been added, where the smoke is smelting tin ore.

Blister copper and tin are smelted again in a crucible furnace more than half a meter high, and when the furnace is perfect, it is poured into a clay mold. Several potter's wheels installed next to it are constantly rotating, and the sand and stone on them are polishing various weapons.

The number of them was small every day, only ten were cast, and the entire tribe was transferred to a wartime system, with all but the slaves cultivating the land outside, and the rest of the men came to transport ore and cut down trees.

The bronze sword is very short, only half an arm long, Chen Jian does not use the sub-casting method, and there is no such good craftsmanship as in the Warring States Period, and the bronze sword can only be twenty or thirty centimeters long, and the polishing is ugly.

Bronze swords are used to stab, and stabbing is the most lethal form of attack. The thirty tribesmen who originally used stone axes were replaced with bronze swords, each wearing two swords, because the casting was not up to standard, it was brittle, and it was easy to break.

Because of the fact that the Meteorite tribe did not have bows and arrows, the weapons of the two stone axes and rattan shields in the five-person squad were also replaced with short ges to prevent attacks from the flanks. The remaining three were bronze spears with wooden handles.

The weapons of the rest of the tribal soldiers who participated in the winter training were also ready, and the remaining baggage soldiers and servant troops still used stone weapons, and those bronze weapons had exhausted the production capacity of the tribe.

Men are basically preparing for war, and so are women.

The women who gave birth also started to work, and the confinement room that Chen Jian imagined had no time to build for the time being, and the women were busy with some lighter tasks, such as drying acorn flour mixed with lard and salt, or grilling dried fish.

The whole city is busy, and after the winter snow melts, it starts to heat up, not the weather but the atmosphere, and there is little time to relax. Even the faint ceremony of the blue grass and the tanuki was postponed until after the battle and the wheat was harvested, and the tanuki said that he wanted to eat a wheat meal at the dusk.

At this time, the tanuki was beside Chen Jian, next to him was Song, whose left hand was no longer able to curl up freely, holding the iron sword called "Wufeng", standing straight, straighter than others, as if only in this way could he forget that he could never go to the battlefield again.

Yu Qian'er stood behind her brother, holding a clay plate and charcoal, waiting for the arrival of the rest of the tribe.

Look at the sky, the sun is already high.

Soon, as far as the eye could see, a group of men came out of nowhere, carrying wicker baskets, not being surprised by the changes in the city, hurriedly ran to Chen Jianjian's side, and handed over the half of the pottery shard.

The two pottery shards were put together, Yu Qian'er counted the number of people, looked at the food they were carrying, and said, "Twenty-five should come, twenty-seven came, the food is enough, and the days are just right." ”

Jian Chen nodded, asked someone to take these people into the city, and continued to wait here.

Until the sun went down, more than 260 men from ten tribes had arrived, and 200 men from seven savage villages had gathered in the city.

"Drumming, blowing."

The wolfskin beat the big drum, the tanuki played the pottery, and the soldiers who were in the queue for practice in winter hurried over with their weapons, and the people of the four tribes in the city reacted faster.

After the drums, Tanuki and Wolfskin returned to the queue, and they were the captains of each of them, and began to organize their ranks.

The baggage soldiers also took their weapons and stood in a mess, and there was more confusion on their side, but the soldiers were already quiet.

Together with the two tribes that were rescued, and the number of people from each tribe according to their population, the entire army of soldiers had more than 260 people, and there were 400 heavy soldiers and auxiliaries in total, almost half of the men of all tribes were concentrated.

Jian Chen looked at the army that was beginning to take shape and shouted, "Before we set out, there are four things to say. ”

"If you don't listen to the order, charge at will, kill."

"Turn around and flee, regardless of the lives of relatives and friends, and expel the tribe."

"Bloodsheds in kinship wars, without distinction between booty and slavery."

"I am the chosen military chief, and you must listen to my words until the battle is over. If you want to listen or not, you can negotiate among the tribes to replace me after the battle, but before the battle, you must not question it, otherwise you will be whipped. ”

He raised his hand and asked the people around him to show him what a whip was.

Not an ordinary whip, no longer a rattan, but a "nine-tailed cat".

Woven with deerskin and hemp rope, a total of nine forks, deerskin decorated with some pottery shards and knots, just look at how painful the whipping hurts on people.

The newcomers were silent, and the people of the same tribe also lowered their heads, saying in their hearts that they didn't care about anything when they were fighting, and the uncle had been beaten a few times with rattan sticks in the last battle, and the whip tasted and uncomfortable on his body.

Seeing the crowd quiet down, Jian Chen nodded at a few people in the distance, who were holding dozens of spears and distributed them to the new soldiers, each of whom also had a grinding stone.

In addition, the five soldiers were given a small gourd of wine, a piece of venison jerky, and a small sack sewn from linen with fried dried acorn powder. The auxiliaries were a little worse, but they were given a small gourd of wine for every ten people.

Jian Chen looked at the auxiliaries and the wild people's baggage soldiers, and said, "You also have a chance to kill. I will remember the enemies you kill, and if you kill more, you will be able to get your tribe out of their status as wild people and move into the city. This is the result of the last tribal meeting, but if you flee in wartime, it will not be a matter of being whipped and expelled from the clan, and the whole clan will be punished. Did you hear that? ”

"I hear you."

"Got it"

"We're not going to run."

After answering in a chaotic manner, Jian Chen asked Yu Qian'er to take a few people to share the house where these people would live at night, and looked at the sky, tomorrow will be a good weather.