On the day of January 4th, Wang San and Li Si got up early, and according to the usual rules, today was the day when merchants came to buy venison.

The two of them now live in the Fangsuo Tsai Society, 20 kilometers upstream of the Lower Tamsui River (Gaoping Creek). The house is a rented bamboo liao, four lieles or four iron pots a year, eight deer legs and four pieces of cloth can also be used.

In fact, the two of them are not rented for residents, they can build a shed in the wilderness casually. The key is that they have to find a place with a lot of people to put their prey, otherwise mountain leopards and mountain wolves may steal the prey.

You can't find someone to take care of it, right? So it's more convenient to keep your prey in the village.

Moreover, it is also important for them to have a good relationship with the Fangsuo Tsai people. The cost of the rental was given to the public money of the society, and in private, they also gave the president and other elders some small things, but they couldn't feel sorry for a few small dollars.

The Fangsuo people have a clan rule of not stealing people's things, and they think that stealing other people's things will bring disease to their people. Wang San and Li Si liked their rules very much and hoped that they would keep them forever.

There are a few more villages like this in the upper reaches of the Tamsui River. If you go further in, close to the mountains, it is the world of the Kaliyan people. They did not dare to go deeper into the mountains, because there are terrible legends of weishenme. One of them is that some tribes like to use human heads as decorations to show their bravery.

When they first came to the village a few years ago, they brought salt and cotton cloth with them, as well as a few knives. But it soon became clear that the people who put the rope also recognized Lille, silver taels, and copper coins. And I can understand them. In the words of the chief of the Bunkers, they had long ago bartered deerskin venison with merchants from the mainland, and it was not until the Dutch came that they had to pass through their hands.

After a long time, Wang San has not been able to understand a few things.

The first is that the people do not live by the river, but only live on the slopes of the mountain. The second is not to eat sea fish, and never let a boat into the sea, only to catch fish in the river and stream. The third is to eat eggs but not chicken.

He secretly asked the well-informed Li Si. Li Si stroked his mustache and said, "You see that these people have a large skin color and are Nanyang Kunlun slaves, they must be from Nanyang. Those who are not of my race will have different hearts. ”

The Dutch divide the whole of Taiwan into different tax districts, and if you want to do business, you can't do business as casually as before. They gathered merchants together and used a competitive bidding method to get merchants to bid on the areas and varieties of goods they did business in.

This area of the Lower Tamsui River was won by the Lin family in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, which specializes in preserved venison. As for the more profitable deerskin, it was a Dutch exclusive project, which was equivalent to two electricity and one grass in later generations. No one can touch it.

When the Dutch hanged a number of smugglers and tax evaders in the square in front of the city of Geranza, no one dared to disobey the Dutch's arrangement.

The two of them first went to the warehouse on the bamboo floor and looked at the hard work they had worked in the past two months.

All the prey was still there: thirty-seven deer skins, ten quintals of dried venison, and two quintals of dried deer. They looked through it, and fortunately, there was no mildew. Far from the riverbank, not only are there fewer mosquitoes, but it is not too wet.

They went downstairs, put the bamboo basket woven by the Suozi people on their backs, and walked directly out of the village. The Fangsuozi people are good at weaving bamboo utensils, which they use to exchange salt and other daily necessities with others.

Their trap was an hour away from the village. Along the way, there are patches of bamboo forests, occasionally plantain forests, and wild sugar cane can be seen from time to time.

Wild sugar cane is much shorter and thinner than the varieties brought by the Dutch, but if you pick the right one, it is sweeter than the Dutch.

Li Si said to Wang San, who was picking wild sugarcane: "That root, that root, those with thick roots and thick beards, are determined to be of the highest grade!" ”

Under the command of Li Si, Wang San successfully cut down two and ran back to the path through the grass.

The two of them peeled and chewed as they walked, and it was really sweet.

"Have you decided to go back to tenant the cane fields?"

"Well, fourth brother, planting rice can only be mixed with a full stomach, planting sugarcane, and you can have more silver taels left."

"Yes, I heard that the Dutch are also going to lower the poll tax for those who rent sugar cane. I'm a little tempted. Besides, deer hunting is not a long-term solution, and seven or eight hunters came last month, right? ”

"Yes, it's getting harder and harder to hunt deer, and we used to hunt many times more than we do now. And as you said, these squeezers are getting worse and worse. Let's move my family to Taiwan, and cross the sea four times a year, like crossing the ghost gate four times. ”

Hey, Li Si sighed, far away from his homeland, it's not easy to talk about.

They left the path, recognizing the marks they had left behind, and cut down the vines and weeds along the way. These things are so annoying that they can grow into pieces in two or three days.

When they arrived at the place where the trap and the trap were set, the two were pleasantly surprised, two of them were mixed in the trap, and one of them was hit! Wang San jumped up with joy, while Li Si frowned, something was unusual.

This is not a deer road, and there should not be such a haode harvest.

Li Si squatted down and observed the ground. He found that he had walked past a large number of sambar deer, most likely sika deer. He pulled off a handful of hairs hanging from the branches and sniffed carefully. That's right, it's a sika deer, which is far lighter than the sambar deer. Without predators chasing them, they don't walk through the trees like sambar...... Is there a beast coming? Judging by the hoof prints, he also found that it was a large herd of sambar deer coming from the lower reaches of the river.

He looked apprehensively toward the lower reaches of the river. What's coming downstream?

The Fangsuo Tsai Society is located in the southeast of the city of Geranza, and the Xingang Society is in the northwest direction of the city of Geranza, which is more than 40 kilometers away from the city of Geranza, of which only more than 10 kilometers are mountain roads.

There are only about 2,000 people in the Newport Society, but they are the natives closest to the Dutch. All of the men, women, and children in the community believe in Christianity, and they will have a few doctrinal questions. Young people are also mostly able to speak Dutch and write Dutch.

On the morning of the 4th of January, the people who had run back from the dock market brought the sad news that pirates had attacked the market in the city of Geranza in strange ships yesterday morning.

"How many of them are there?" President Magada asked with a frown as he looked at this "fast leg" who had been running for a day and a night before running back.

Kuaileg shook his head and said, "I don't know, as soon as I saw everyone running, I ran back first." ”

"You're a coward!" Magada just scolded in his heart, "Otherwise, you wouldn't have learned to do business like the Dutch and the Mingren." ”

Seeing that the president's face was not good, he withdrew from the president's Zhuliao in a disdainful manner.

President Magada sighed heavily.

It's time to pay blood tax again. 14 years ago, relying on their tall stature and large numbers, the people of Kaliyan forcibly occupied the land of the people of Xingang, so that the people of Xingang dared to be angry and did not dare to speak.

Later, they provoked the powerful Dutch because of their disobedience to taxes, causing the Dutch to attack. Seeing that the opportunity had come, the people of Xingang took the initiative to contact the Dutch, and sent 300 troops and Dutch soldiers to make up 900 men, and attacked them together, relying on the Dutch's muskets, and quickly defeated the Tagaryan, burning their village to the ground. The rebellious Tagaryans were killed, and the rest were gathered at the entrance of the village, where the Dutch deliberately made them watch the entire village burn to ashes. Then drive them away and let them go around preaching the strength of the Dutch. The Kaliyans did not return, they all took refuge in the mountains of the east.

When the men, women, and children of the Kaliyan people left their village, from their eyes, the people of Xingang read the word "mortal enemy".

From then on, the Newport Society was completely allied with the Dutch. Every time there was a war, such as with the Huweilang people and the Madou Society, the Xingang Society had to send troops to participate, and even participated in the attack on the Spaniards' Tamsui and Keelung. Even though this is a war that is completely out of line with them. The Dutch called this a blood tax.

Soon, the president, Magad, summoned a meeting of the elders in the village house to discuss how much they would have to pay if the Dutch came to send them troops, and what price it would take.

In front of each elder, there was a bamboo tube containing upland rice wine. The elders drank this upland rice wine, which was very precious. Like other indigenous people, Xingang Society does not grow rice, but only upland rice. They don't weed, they don't plough the fields, they prick their eyes on the ground with a sharp stick, and put rice seeds. When the upland rice is ripe, pluck the rice ears with your hands and flush them with mortars.

When making sake, the rice is steamed and medium-cooked, and the unmarried girls in the society are allowed to chew it with their mouths to make koji, and then ferment it into sake, which is called daughter wine. You can't drink this wine without a certain status.

"Fifty iron dart heads. Last time they only gave 30. An elder said.

The president nodded. Next to him, a fifteen or sixteen-year-old child wrote down with goose feathers.

"The sackcloth cost twenty horses, and last time we sent out two hundred warriors, five were wounded, and only fifteen horses were given."

The president nodded again.

Suddenly, a young man shouted:

"They collect too much tax on our venison! We fight for them, and the warriors have to pay a poll tax! ”

The president looked at his son Daru sadly and angrily, and said, "I just asked you to listen, and you can only use your ears, not your mouth!" ”

Daru had been watching from the sidelines, and when he saw these old people, who only cared about a few darts and guns, and a few pieces of cloth, he couldn't help but be annoyed, didn't they know that the Dutch had increased their taxes again?!

"Get out! The leopard in the jungle is not as good as the bobcat, and the young man is not as good as the boar without a brain! ”

Daru means leopard.

He left the public housing in hatred, leaving the old fools.

The elders were still smiling and sucking their daughter's wine with bamboo tubes, and no one cared.

The president sighed and thought to himself: "It's not that the Dutch can't do without us, it's that we can't do without them." You can't see that, my son. When will you become the Mountain Leopard King at the top of Jade Mountain? ”

Several elders also knew that no one cared about this father-son dispute.

"Twenty more loads of rice, I think the Dutch have as much rice as a mountain." Another elder said without raising his head.

The president nodded again and said, "This time we will dispatch three hundred people. ”

Wang San and Li Si quickly chopped some bamboo and rattan and made them into dry carts. The dry cart is similar to the climbing plough in the Northeast, but it is dragged by people, and it can slide on grass and mud, which is very convenient, but of course it is tiring to drag. They loaded three deer and dragged them back to the village to deal with them.

Before they reached the entrance of the village, they heard the cheers of the people who put the ropes. It turned out that they also had a great harvest, and a dozen hunters in the village killed eight deer, including two sika deer.

Li Si watched from the sidelines, and there were several wounds on the deer, which were obviously caused by dart guns. The people who put Suozi once learned from Li Si and Wang San to lay traps and dig traps, but the methods did not work and would not change. But this is also more harvest than before, but there will not be more and more deer.

With the increase in the number of people coming from the mainland to hunt deer, deer are really difficult to hunt.

The Dutch were naturally happy, they issued hunting licenses and collected money; venison and its appendages, for money; Deerskin franchise and make a lot of money.

But if there are fewer deer, the life of the people will be difficult, they are not as good as the people of Xingang Society, at least they will also grow upland rice. And they are completely inseparable from the deer.

The Dutch brought something to the Lancers, who called it Snow Peas.

The Dutch merchant warned the Suozi people that they had been punished for attacking the hunters from the Ming Continent, as had the Madoushe people. They don't want something similar to happen in the Lower Tamsui River. He brings a good thing to the Lancers, which can be used as food.

So the Dutch gave them a dozen round things like a child's fist, cut them into several pieces, and plant them in a flatter place, and after four months they would harvest more. You can eat it boiled or grilled, and don't just think about eating venison.

The people obediently planted according to the salesman's request, and sure enough, four months later, they had a rare harvest. The snow peas are roasted and boiled to eat, and the venison is really sold more, and you can change more ironware.

Later, people from other villages came to ask for seeds, and soon they spread naturally in the area.

This naturally got Li Si's attention.

After returning to the village, Li Si and Wang San quickly disposed of the deer. Today is said to be the ripening period of snow peas, and they want to take a good look.

Snow peas, they tasted them, they weren't delicious, but they tasted okay.

The witch who released the rope boy wore a scary mask, and was still dancing and singing around their prey, with a strange voice, but Li Si and Wang San could understand it.

The witch sang, "Our ancestors, there was a flood. Floating far away, here it is. Give us food, and deer that you can hunt inexhaustibly. We're here, that's our place, hehe! Our ancestors are watching, it's our land! “

Li Si whispered to Wang San: "Next time I come, give Ah Wu one more piece of cloth." ”

The two of them did not dare to disturb the sacred and solemn ceremony of the Suozi people, and quietly walked towards the snow bean field. The so-called field is only slightly level, and the people who put the rope can't even pull out the weeds.

Li Si rudely pulled out a snow pea, and there were several beans the size of a child's fist under the root.

"It's really different from sweet potatoes, it's small and many."

Wang San rolled his eyes and said, "It's different at first glance." ”

Li Si smiled: "In that case, how about bringing it back to your hometown to grow widely?!" ”

There wasn't a single tip today. Compared with yesterday, it is really two days of ice and fire, and it is not good to go on like this, and you will catch a cold.

Did I write the last chapter badly? But I've put my heart to it!

I hope to be rewarded with your generous tip. Streaking doesn't taste good.