In the faint morning light, accompanied by a deafening explosion of firecrackers that pierced through the sky, Hope Port ushered in a new dawn.

Twenty-five-year-old Hungyutizgan lumberjack Kaukom, who was in a sound sleep, was frightened by the roar of the second kicking cannon and danced, and then rolled down from the thatched pile that was used as a bed, and then hit his head against the pillar, and suddenly his eyes were full of pain, and he had to hold his swollen forehead, and wail in pain.

“…… Lazy bugs! What the hell is it here! It's time to get to work! Breakfast is ready for you! ”

My wife, who had already gotten up before dawn and was cooking on the fire, poked her head out of the stove and complained angrily, "...... Hurry up and eat! ”

“…… Oh, I'm going to wash my face first...... Then I'll come over for dinner right away......"

Somewhat frightened, Cocomb agreed, and then stepped out the door, tilting his head back and taking a deep breath of fresh air.

-- Although it is said that it is a city, the cities of the Mesoamerican Indians of this era, even if they were built by time-travelers, could not be full of stones and cement. So, between the streets and houses of Port Hope, there are lush coconut and palm trees, as well as weeds, wildflowers, and small vegetable beds...... The hot and humid tropical maritime climate means that the vegetation is always growing at an alarming rate.

The dense rainforest outside the city and the never-ending strong sea breeze make the air here hardly muddy.

Cocomb picked up a gourd scoop from the windowsill, walked to the public pool in the middle of the street, and like the rest of the morning citizens, leaned over and scooped up a scoop of water from the pool, rinsed his mouth first, and then washed his face, and suddenly felt much refreshed.

-- After the establishment of a pot and camel machine to pump water, the Port of Hope began to build a water system. However, the current Hope Port has not yet had time to train a sufficient number of plumbers. In addition, many thatched houses in the slums are expected to need to be renovated on a large scale in the future.

Therefore, the traversers only installed domestic water and sewer systems (these simple houses have preset water pipes) in the color steel bungalows ordered from modern shijie in the "aristocratic district". As for the vast slums on the periphery, in order to reduce the amount of work and save inputs, the ancient Romans used the urban water supply method - each household generally did not have a separate running water tap, but in the center of each block a public pool of cement was poured into the flowing running water. Then, a group of old men and aunts similar to the directors of the neighborhood committees were appointed to maintain the cleanliness of the public pool, scoop up floating debris on the surface of the water, and regularly clean up the silt at the bottom of the pool.

In order to avoid contamination of clean water sources, all public pools are regulated to scoop water only with clean utensils. Anyone who scoops water directly with their hands, or buries their head in the water, will be punished with a whip if they are found - for example, behind Cocombe's back, there is an old woman with a red armband with a long whip, always watching for anyone to make a mistake.

When he had finished washing, Cocomb shook his head again, borrowed a small round mirror from his neighbor, looked at his face, grinned, and showed a mouthful of white teeth, and then stretched and walked home.

When he walked into the house, his wife had already brought out all the food and placed it on a reed mat, and the couple sat on the floor and ate breakfast face to face—like the ancient Chinese and Japanese, the Indians rarely used furniture such as tables and chairs.

Today's breakfast at Cocombe's house consisted of two bowls of hot cornmeal batter, a few fragrant roasted sweet potatoes, and a plate of tomatoes sprinkled with sugar after slicing. The condiment is red dried chili peppers and snow-white refined salt, which has always been a must-have in the recipes of the Mexican Indians, and the spicier the better, just like the Sichuanese, Hunanese, and Koreans of later generations in China. …,

The hot corn paste is served in two small bowls of delicate and smooth white porcelain, and the cold tomatoes, peppers and refined salt are served in small blue and white porcelain dishes - since Ma Tong not only runs a ceramic shop in her own home, but also many of her relatives and friends in the family run ceramic factories, and the other shijie is in the midst of an economic crisis, and business is very difficult, and almost all of her relatives have a large backlog of stock......

As a result, all kinds of ceramics that were not marketable in the 21st century were bought by Miss Ma Tong, who was willing to help her relatives, and were dumped in Mexico in the 16th century, and soon turned from a rare treasure to a daily department store that everyone in Hong Kong could afford.

For Cocombe, not only the exquisite and gorgeous tableware, but also such sumptuous and delicious food, which he never dared to hope for as a civilian. Even the snow-white and shiny refined salt in the dish was something he had never seen two years ago.

-- It is also pitiful, although the people of Hungshutizgan live in the Pacific coast, know how to cook sea salt from a very early age, and have been trading with inland tribes with homemade sea salt, so it stands to reason that there should be no shortage of salt. But because the jishu was not up to par, most of the finished products they got were just coarse black salt bricks, which were the color of the salt blocks after repeated boiling and being smoked by fire. In this coarsely made salt brick, there are many impurities, rich in all kinds of harmful ingredients, and the bitter taste can overpower the salty taste.

But the sad thing is that even such coarse black and bitter salt bricks, because they need to burn a lot of firewood to produce, the actual price is also very high, many poor people are reluctant to eat more, in order to save as much as possible, they have to tie the salt bricks to the side of the stove with a rope, and when they are used, they are only put in a pottery urn to soak it.

When Cocomb was a child, he had seen in the salt works of the kingdom of Hunghyutizgan, even the so-called "pure salt" for the nobles and the rich to enjoy, at least it was slightly yellowish and slightly bitter, where could it compare to the refined salt brought by the "gods", the color was snow-white, the grains were fine, and the taste was delicious...... Now that I am blessed, I can eat such refined salt every day, I am afraid that it can strengthen the body and prolong life!

And with the finest seeds rewarded by the "gods" and the pungent smell of small particles called "chemical fertilizer", the sweet potatoes and corn cultivated not only tasted much sweeter, but the yield was ten times that of the past, so that even a commoner like him could eat enough at every meal.

There is also a new variety of tomatoes given by the "man of God", which grows the size of a fist, and if it were not for the taste and color of the original, Cocombe could not believe that it was the same plant. (At the time, the Indian tomatoes were still small, about the size of a modern fruit tomato, or cherry.) It wasn't until they were scientifically cultivated by Europeans that tomatoes swelled to their modern size.)

Thinking back to the hungry days, Cocombe sighed slightly, sprinkled a pinch of fine salt into the cornmeal batter, added a few pieces of crushed dried chilies, stirred it with a plastic spoon that looked like it came with instant noodles, and ate it with a few strokes.

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By the time Cocombe had finished his hearty breakfast with a satisfied face, the second round of firecrackers that morning had crackled at the top of the pyramid. Urging citizens to hurry out of their homes and rush to their respective jobs.

He quickly wiped his mouth and stepped out of the door again, the bright sun shining on his face, making him squint.

Looking at the people rushing to work on the street, Cocombe's expression couldn't help but be slightly dazed. …,

Although he watched the city grow from nothing to prosperity, Cocombe still felt unreal about what he saw.

He and many others around him were once residents of the old royal city. However, the old city, though majestic and even larger than the Port of Hope, has a very different feel to the Port of Hope in front of it – the former is gloomy, the latter is vibrant.

Moreover, the city no longer exists after being attacked and slaughtered by the Aztecs.

Six years earlier, he had fled from the city of Hungshetzgan, which had been captured by the Aztec army, in a pool of fire and blood, wearing armor stripped from the dead, dragging his wife and children, and carrying arrows and javelins. Four years earlier, bare-bottomed, spear and catapult, he had struggled to survive in the wilderness with vipers and jaguars, hunting wild animals and picking wild fruits.

Although they were forcibly relocated to Hope Port after being found out of the forest by the search party of the Hungshutizgan Kingdom, the small family of Cocomb suffered another catastrophe - his only eight-year-old son unfortunately died of the great plague more than a year earlier, and the couple struggled to survive after a few days of fever due to the "miracle medicine" generously given by the "men of God" in time.

But overall, life is getting better day by day. Thanks to hard work, Cocombe not only never starved again, but also ate refined salt and sweets, cotton clothes and plastic shoes, and had his own house, vegetable patch, and a lot of utensils and tools, as well as a good job.

Although he is very sad that his son is gone, he and his wife are still young, and they will definitely have more children in the future. If it really doesn't work, anyway, there are many boys and girls in the Hongshutizgan Kingdom now, as long as you can save some wealth, it seems easy to ask for a little wife......

Cocomb narrowed his eyes and fantasized about it, but immediately remembered his wife's roar and washstick, and suddenly shivered violently.

He prayed silently in his heart, thanked the "man of God" for bringing him a beautiful new life, and then accelerated the pace of work.

All in all, like the city's name, Port Hope is indeed a great place to be full of hope.

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PS: Regarding the problem of tomatoes, some readers mentioned the famous "wolf peach" legend, that is, in the early days of the introduction of tomatoes into Europe, some brainless scholars said that they were poisonous plants (they stupidly lost the fruit and went to eat the tomato leaves, but they were really poisoned), and the tomatoes were sent to the flower garden instead of the vegetable garden, and were labeled as drugs, and were named "wolf peach" (wolfpeach) to show their "poisonous ferocity", and could only be cultivated as an ornamental plant for a long time. It wasn't until a bold French painter tried tomatoes and found that they were okay that tomatoes began to spread as a vegetable. It follows that the Indians of Central America probably did not eat tomatoes either, but only used them as ornamental plants.

But according to other accounts, the Aztecs did refer to tomatoes as "swollen fruits" and used tomato sauce as a condiment. At least before Cortez landed in Mexico, tomatoes were widely cultivated in many parts of Central America. Of course, the tomatoes at this time were still very small, completely different from the big tomatoes we eat when we cook vegetables, but more like the modern finger-sized fruit tomatoes.

In addition, in a Western Han tomb excavated in China in 1983, a 1,700-year-old "Han Dynasty tomato" was also found, but I don't know that Weishenme was lost later - if it is not lost, the history of tomato cultivation by the Chinese may be longer than that of the Indians!

Regardless of the variety, the early tomatoes were pocket-sized. But from the beginning of tomatoes to the vegetable and fruit team, the pursuit of bigger and more tomato fruits has become the main goal of breeding. Subsequently, continuous cross-breeding did make the tomatoes bigger and bigger, but these big tomatoes were not fragrant or sweet, and even the sour taste was omitted, completely losing the personality of "wolf peach".

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