The 259th Arrival in the Land of Gold (Part I)

"This is the Isthmus of Panama you are talking about?" Looking at the mountain peaks in front of me, Gao Jing is crazy, if a canal can be built here, how big a project it is.

Standing near Puerto Portovero in the old time and space, looking at the mountains to the southeast, the people who crossed it didn't know how to climb over.

"It's 200 meters above sea level, and the mountain in front of it is obviously part of the Cordillera mountain system, at least 800 meters above sea level. Zhao Shouzhong pointed to the mountain range in front of him and said.

"Originally, this canal was not the best solution, according to the mapping of the old time and space, the Nicaragua region is the best place to build the canal, although the distance is long, but there is no need to open mountains, there is no need to build locks to raise the water level, and the overall cost and later operating costs are not much higher than the Panama Canal. The canal, which runs through Lake Nicaragua, is planned to be three times longer than the Panama canal, but costs 200 million dragon dollars, compared to about 90 million dragon dollars for the Panama Canal.

Now this canal is a joke, it is simply impossible to realize, and it is simply disastrous in the later operation process, for the simple reason that the New World is still in the Stone Age at this time, and there is simply not enough demand to support the construction of this canal, so don't waste your time worrying.

We will now proceed to the poll one more time. Now there are two routes, one is to continue sailing westward to the Yucatan Peninsula to see what is now the most advanced civilization in the New World, the Mayan Alliance, and the other is to open the way south to our supply point on the Pacific side to return home. Raise your hand if you agree to visit the Maya where blood sacrifices and prisoners of war were slaughtered! ”

Seeing that no one raised their hand only showed that the eagerness to return home and the disgust for barbaric civilization overwhelmed curiosity. It seems that Li Ji's personal visit to the Mayan civilization had to be postponed until after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia in the future.

When Lee Ki decided to abandon ship. All the crew and passengers worked together to fork off some of the ship's key parts, taking away almost everything that could be carried out on board, down to pots and pans. Large sails and pulley sets. Once these things that condense the essence of industrial civilization fall into the hands of the Mayans, no one can afford the uncontrollable consequences, in order to prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses that may be carried on the ship, the last fire of the crossing people burned down the broken ship with only the hull left. Iron nails and various iron parts and copper pipes and other metals in the ashes were also turned out and taken with them.

The sails were cut into furoshiki for various parts, and the ropes and pulleys were burned and shattered, and the splinters were almost as good as dust. All sorts of glass products and valuable ornaments are buried deep in the roots of a few coconut trees in the sand. Make sure no one can see what's underneath the roots.

After carefully disposing of all the traces, the traverser began to cross the Isthmus of Panama. In the old days, the Panama Canal project was huge, and the construction of a three-level lock and a dam on the isthmus dozens of meters above sea level was a major project. The water generated by the damming of the river has even formed a large lake of several hundred square kilometers -- Gatun Lake. The isthmus of this time and space is still a pristine landscape, and the giant trees in the rainforest cover the sky and the sun, and it is difficult to walk through the shadows of these large trees that have never been cut down, and you have to hold a torch to see the road when the visibility is low. Although the well-prepared people did not receive many 'violations' from snakes, insects, rats and ants during the journey. But the humid and hot environment still made a few bodyguards and the delicate and expensive 'son' sick.

This is no small matter. Wu Qi confirmed that except for the three bodyguards who accidentally failed to replenish water in time were suffering from heat stroke, the rest were heat and cold, and this seemingly ordinary disease made the crossing crowd feel like a great enemy. If the dangerous cold virus accidentally spreads to the New World in the hands of oneself and others, then oneself and others are equivalent to the executioners who drop biological and chemical weapons.

After a few days of rest in the makeshift camp, everyone adjusted before continuing their journey. Theoretically, this narrow isthmus should have been the only route for the aborigines of North Akachura to migrate to South Akachuri, but there was no trace of human activity until the arrival of the Spaniards. It is as if the ancestors of the aborigines of South Chizhou traveled all the way south from North Chizhou and had no idea of settling in this tropical rainforest at all.

The same is a tropical rainforest. Why did the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Maya are located, develop a glorious civilization? There is no surface runoff, and only groundwater and springs can be relied on to develop primitive agriculture. The Isthmus of Panama still has surface water, and it is located on a major transportation route, so it stands to reason that it will not be unsettled.

Why is it that only the Mayan civilization is the only ancient civilization in the world that was born in a tropical jungle and not in a large river basin, compared to other rainforest civilizations with a similar environment, the environment in Chizhou is even worse, there is no wheat and rice here, only corn and potatoes, the protein content in crops is too low, there are no large livestock to domesticate, so the protein intake of the Maya is not enough for a long time, and it takes longer and the number of people to engage in heavy manual labor and construction of large projects. Therefore, the population agglomeration effect of the Maya is obvious, and in the Stone Age, large cities with a population of tens of thousands such as Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Mayapan (not yet appeared) appeared, which simply made the feudal European countries embarrassed.

Needless to say, the miraculous astronomical achievements and the sudden disappearance of secrets are fascinating, and the various architectural wonders are far beyond the level of civilization, and many large religious and monumental buildings are super-large buildings tens of meters high. The Mayan Confederacy was in the decline of the post-classical era, and a large number of people continued to leave the city due to famine, such as the representative cities of Nakbe and Ermirador of the pre-classical period, and the representative cities of Tikal, Palenque, Bonanpaque and Copán of the classical period were abandoned.

At the time of the rapid progress of the old continent, the only seedling of this civilized country in the new continent was almost extinct, so the traversers looked at this civilization with a kind of pity and the mentality of protecting rare cultures, and had no yearning and good feelings for advanced civilizations. In any case, the fact that this civilization is so serious shows that it is a sick civilization. Bloody blood sacrifices and a large number of religious activities have made it difficult for this civilization, and a large amount of resources have been wasted in non-productive areas, which is a helpless tragedy, without advanced agricultural technology (China) and abundant agricultural resources (Egypt) that can support the population and civilization level, its demise is inevitable, and no amount of flesh and blood sacrificed to please the gods can save this starving civilization.

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After a lot of hardship, they finally arrived at the supply point on the Pacific side: "What is this?" Isn't this a Mayan mask of the gods? Where did you find this mask? Li Ji immediately asked when he saw someone at the supply point playing with a beautiful mask made of jade.

"This mask is of average texture, it is an inferior jadeite, there are too many impurities, I bought it from a supply point in the west for ten yuan from a local dock vendor."

"Someone broke the ban and went inland?" Li Ji asked in surprise.

"What is this? Expedition is the bowl of rice to eat, if you don't go deep into the interior, where is the chance to find a rich country inhabited to pan for gold? ”

"With the land and land in the country, there is a stable life, but the expedition to the sea is not far away, isn't it just to fight for wealth? It is not known how many gold mines there are in this new continent comparable to the Divine Continent, and this mask is said to have been bought by a local explorer from an inland city with table salt. ”

"Bastard! Lu Anguo's stinky boy is simply looking for death! ”

"Who is Lu Anguo? Could it be the adventurer? Do you know him? The man with the mask in his hand realized that the man in front of him, who seemed to have a lot of money, might know an explorer who had access to the people who made the masks in the New World, and he couldn't help but put on an honorific greeting.

"You don't need to know who he is, you just need to be your grocer in this port honestly, this supply point will soon become a prosperous port, I will order you, buy more land to be the foundation of your children and grandchildren. If you deliberately violate the laws of the country for the sake of gold and expeditions to obtain honorary titles, and go to the interior in defiance of the ban, there is no guarantee that you will not return home alive. After Li Ji finished speaking, he hurried away.

"Wouldn't it? Could it be that this uncle is a nobleman from China? How did he know that this would be a bustling port? Listen to his tone so big! The guy who bought the mask couldn't help but mutter.

"Anyway, it can't be wrong to buy land, the wasteland here is not worth much, a few acres of land is only a dollar, the land around the wharf is nothing, and it is not a big expense to buy a few hundred acres, if it is really possible to develop into a big port, I will not send it?" (To be continued......)