The vast area of the Blue Sea is still beyond Hado's imagination: the mountain peak he stands on should be only a small corner of the southwest region of the Blue Sea, and the vast land can be found in the distance to the north, while the land and islands in the east extend into the ocean. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 From his point of view, there was another large mountain range in the north, which was unobservable from this angle, and to the northeast was blocked by a tall snow-capped mountain perpendicular to his position, and the only thing that could be seen a little more clearly was the island chain due east, and then a winding mountain range.

It can be said that the land on this side of the blue ocean is a land that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but there are obvious advantages and disadvantages: human settlements are confined to a limited land divided by mountains, which inevitably leads to chaos and strife, fighting for living space, food, and control in a small space. But this kind of strife will inevitably bring them enough pressure on technological and cultural development, and after round after round of fighting, their civilization will be abruptly raised to the next level, and then abandon the original procrastination and burdensomeness - just like Hado did on the grassland.

However, the climatic conditions here are more complex than those on the grassland, and there are many mountains here, and the terrain is undulating, and there must be huge differences in the four seasons, and the climate in front of and behind the mountains will be different. Therefore, if there are human settlements here, the conflicts between them will not only occur due to internal causes such as primitive worship and different living habits, but also due to external causes such as differences in life pressure caused by differences in climate and environment.

Of course, Hado doesn't need to worry about possible conflicts - he's a passer-by after all, and it's more about figuring out if there's more technology than Shin'ne-Nu, and if so, then limiting it as much as possible, and if not, then of course everyone is happy, and there's no need to be overly nervous.

As he made his way to the top of the mountain, Hadu began to feel a little wheezing: there didn't seem to be enough air on the top of the mountain, and he needed more strength with each breath. But for him, it was still up to it, and he didn't let the guards follow, otherwise they would all have fainted panting. Hadu took a hard look at the direction he was heading, and thought that he should still follow the coastline, the ruggedness of the mountain road was beyond the team's capacity, and it was easier to lose his sense of direction. In addition to this, he also saw that there was a nice bay by the sea at the foot of the mountain, with a small sharp corner extending outward from the land, not far from the Blue Sea Strait. Since Hado had thought about building a fort, this point was a good choice: it would be a good place to guard the strait, while also being able to monitor the coastal area around the blue sea, and the nearby bay would be a good place to develop an offshore fishery and provide food for the fort.

This time, Hadu also carried a lot of cowhide rolls, this kind of material after leveling the leather surface can be easily used for writing and painting, and Hadu's idea is to explore and map the unfamiliar area, not only can be used when exploring, but also when his own people come to build a fortress in the future, it is more convenient and not easy to get lost.

After surveying the bay and the sharp corner, the next step is to look at the land behind it through the Hengduan Mountains in front of you. Looking down from the mountains, you can see that there is a river channel with considerable runoff between the two mountain ranges, and there is a possibility that there will be human settlements there, so it should also be used as a major direction of exploration. If you go down the hill you should be in the middle of the river, but then you have to go back to the bay, and if you go to the bay first, you will search the river from the lower reaches of the river and if the situation is not for them, you can quickly go down the river - just cut down a tree, grab the tree and float down the river.

After making up his mind, Hadu returned to the way he came, beckoned everyone to come down the mountain, and then heard a guard muttering that he had thrown the big discus too early, which made Hadu roll his eyes for a while. It is said that it is easy to go up the mountain and difficult to go down, that is because you can stop in place to rest when going up the mountain, and when you go down the mountain, it is often because the slope is too steep and it is difficult to brake, and the chance of injury is relatively large. In addition, the mountains of this era did not have the stairs and walkways of later generations, and could only be climbed by the hands and feet of climbers. When Hadu was descending the mountain, in order to prevent everyone from rolling down the valley, he would see a tree between the trunks not far away every time he walked, and even if someone really stumbled and accidentally rolled down, he could quickly stop his body to prevent further damage.

It didn't take long to descend all the way, and it certainly took less effort to go downhill than uphill, but even if they were as strong as Hado, they were so tired that they were panting, and the guards were even more unbearable, and they were slumped in the woods - it was the most tiring to carry the donkey down from the mountain. I don't know who proposed (of course Hadu asked) to take the horse up the mountain in the first place, but at this point everyone didn't have the heart to care about it, just gasping for breath and recovering their strength.

Hadu regretted a little that he had gone out with his guards and horses.

After a night's rest, they arrived at this small bay, and today was a rare sunny day, and the seaside scenery was unique. Hadu rode on the horse, his guards by his side, and the group walked towards the sharp corner. The sharp corners are high in the east and low in the west, with steep cliffs to the east and a narrow beach to the west, and two very different terrain features appear on the same sharp corner, which gives it a unique advantage: a fortress on top of the cliff can overlook all the land below, and a checkpoint on the beach can block enemies from the sea - the corner of the sharp corner is a flat sandy area, which is ideal for landing operations. Even though there were no boats on the grasslands, Hadu knew that wood could float on the water, and that it could sit on people without sinking. If someone later invents a "big log" that can carry several hundred people, then the landing operation will by no means be wishful thinking. And in this most landable place, only a few squads are needed to defend it, and the possible large army can be put in a dilemma, and its strategic position is self-evident.

However, at this time, the sharp corners were only bare rocks and white sandy beaches, and the rest were all kinds of crustaceans and birds. There was a river that meandered into the cove, but Hado had seen it from the mountains, and there were no human settlements near the small river with little runoff, so it was of no search value.

Hado decided to search all the way to the original coastline, both to obtain detailed information about the outline of the land and to reduce the search time. But it was this decision that led him to miss the opportunity to discover human settlements in the Iberian Peninsula.

In fact, to the northwest of the landing site of Hado, there is a vast alluvial plain of rivers, the estuary of the Guadalquivir River, the longest river in the present-day Autonomous Community of Andalusia. The river formed a rich and well-conditioned wetland system at its estuary, and small human settlements emerged nearby, who lived mainly in caves and left a number of murals.

Hado's search direction is staggered - or rather completely parallel to the great river, so that all human footprints in Andalusia are missed by Hado, and even though he has explored some of the upper reaches of the tributaries, the human population here is clearly different from the way the people live in the steppe: they do not like to camp directly near the river, because this means that they are vulnerable to predious beasts, and they live in the slope-top caves facing the river, which are usually deep in the jungle, i.e., the main area that Hadu searches.

And so, they marched along the coastline, and it took them 100 ascends and falls to reach the vicinity of the Hengduan Mountains, and this time Hadu learned wisely: he ordered his guards to set up a small camp in the lower reaches of the river at the foot of the mountain, and then climb to the top of the mountain themselves—they would go up faster and without looking backwards. But there was a big problem in front of Hadu: whether it was a high mountain in the southwest direction or a ridgeline in the northeast direction, the delta where the camp village was located was very far apart, and from the visual distance, it would take at least 10 ups and downs to observe which side it would take to see. In the end, Hadu chose to go to the northeast, that is, the Hengduan Mountains to observe, after all, what he wanted to understand was the terrain behind the Hengduan Mountains, and there was no value in continuing the search on this side (according to Hadu's logic: there are no fishermen downstream, which means that there must be no one here), so there is no need to continue to climb high and look far on this side.

Eventually, Hadu came up with a compromise solution: he had his guards cut down a lot of trees, tie short trunks to long trunks with vines, and make a cross-shaped wooden frame that could be easily seen from a distance. Then let the guards set off after 4 ascent and head along the coastline in the direction of the Hengduan Mountains, sticking a wooden frame to the beach every 5,000 steps. When Hadu had finished observing the terrain, he descended the mountain in the direction of the coastline and looked for the wooden frame ahead, and if he saw the wooden frame, he would speed up and follow the team, and if he didn't see it, he would wait for them in the same place.

From the eastern ridgeline to the highest peak in the middle of the Hengduan Mountains, Hado's serial leaping and charging did not take long - he hunted a few goats to satisfy his hunger, and then hurried to the top of the perennially snow-covered mountain. The snow line at the top of the mountain was about 200 people high, and Hadu tried it and found that even he could not move forward in the snow several people deep, but if he was lying on the snow and crawling forward, he would not fall into the snow - of course, he would not go forward in such a strange way, but would turn back to the place where there were trees, cut off the branches and leave the trunks, and then throw them straight up the snow, and then he could easily step on the trunks of the trees on the snow without worrying about falling into the snow.

It took two more ascent and descent to reach the summit of the highest peak, where there was not much snow, only hard, cold stone waiting for Hadu. To the north, there is an endless plain, which stretches out of sight of Hadu and bends down to plains (i.e., obscured by the horizon), except for a slightly raised plateau to the right. But to Hado's disappointment, he didn't see any campfires or smoke. There are two possibilities: on the one hand, it may be that the human settlements here have not yet learned to use fire, so they must not be large, and if they want to survive, then they must be particularly adaptable to the environment, and on the other hand, there are no human races, although this is equivalent to Hadu finding a large area of borderless land out of thin air, but it is impossible to occupy it with the current situation of "Shin'ne-Nu", which is also inconsistent with the purpose of Hado's hike.

After sloppily drawing the topographic map, and then taking out other cowhides for comparison, Hadu can basically show the terrain of the east and south of this mountainous area completely on the same leather surface, and then look to the west for a long time, and add the west side as well, but after all, he did not conduct field investigations, and the west side is mostly high mountains and mountains, and the image is very blurry.

On the way down the hill he walked straight east, looking for the conspicuous wooden shelves. Once he had found a spot, he hurried forward, and at last he had passed two more shelves and followed the group, which by this time was close to completely circumnavigating the mountains. Before entering the Great Plains on the other side, Hado and the others had a full meal and rested, in case there was any threat after entering the area - there may be no humans here, but the flat land will also breed a large number of dangerous predators, and they must fill their stomachs to better defend themselves against the attacks of these fierce beasts.

While hunting, Hado noticed a peculiar creature: a body as long as his calves, a motley coat that could easily hide in the forest, feet padded to avoid making sounds when walking, a pair of sharp and small ears that could turn from side to side for better sound identification, and a slender tail behind it to balance the body. It also has fangs, sharp claws, quick reflexes, and explosive power, and its main food is rats and snakes. Hado always felt like he had seen such a small creature 3,000 paces away from him, but he couldn't remember. However, in terms of use, if the animal can be domesticated, then the annoying rat and snake infestations that often appear in the tribal granaries will be much easier to deal with.

Just as Hadu was thinking, the little creature suddenly moved, pounced and slapped a ground rat tightly with its sharp claws, and then bit the throat of the ground rat with a gentle tear of its sharp teeth. Then it let out a soft "meow" to call out to its companions, and Hadu finally remembered what a creature it was.

Cat, the legendary creator god of the steppe tribes.

In the legendary ancient period, the heavens and the earth burst apart, everything retreated, and plants died in large areas, resulting in an uncontrollable rodent infestation. The hungry little devils gnawed away all the grass stems and roots in their path, and when there was nothing to eat, they even pounced on the humans and gnawed at them. It wasn't until they ran near the "Fa Lie" that there was really no way to escape, and the creator god "Ben-Mao'ol" descended, swallowing up 9 into 9 sick rats with a single meow, and restoring the vegetation on the grassland with a "meow".

However, the strange thing is that the story of the creator god is spread in the grassland, but none of the grassland tribes believe in the creator god. Another thing that puzzled him was that he had never seen a cat in the grasslands or deserts, not even in the valley of the two rivers.

The steppe tribes have also been plagued by rats, and it is rumored that the "Yin-Zun-Mi" super-large tribe (as can be seen by the appearance of two honorific idioms in its tribal name) collapsed in the rat infestation. When rats appeared, the Shin'ne-Nu tribesmen also tried to use flooding (digging deep trenches around the grain to fill them with water), isolation (double granaries with the actual entrance to the patio at the top), natural enemies (releasing snakes), and thermal energy (building the granary next to the charcoal kiln - Jinnyima didn't know the stupid way to come up with it), and found that they could not completely avoid the invasion of rodents. The strange thing is that no one has proposed to domesticate cats to catch mice, nor has it been thought of such creatures that can catch rats.

Hado believes that before he returns to "Shin'ne-Nu", it is necessary to trap a certain number of cats for domestication in order to solve the long-standing and annoying rat plague.

After eating and drinking, the group continued to march to the north of the Hengduan Mountains, and after crossing the front line of the woods in the mountains, the temperature dropped suddenly, and it was no longer warm. Even if the sun shines on me, I still feel a little cool, which is the difference between crossing a mountain. It is conceivable that if a war were to be waged between the north and south sides of the Hengduan Mountains, it would be very funny to think that they would have to put on and take off their clothes during the actual battle due to the difference in climate and temperature.

It took 20 ups and downs for Hadu to reach the valley between the Hengduan Mountains and the terrace ahead, and now he was facing another fork in the road: to the left, there is an endless plain area, but it is bound to be far away from "Shin'ne-Nu", and it may be questionable whether he can return in 10 years;

Just as Hadu hesitated, a heartfelt rumble came into his ears, and a guard pointed to the blood-red sky in the distance and shouted—looking into the distance, a mountain was billowed with smoke, and red sparks were splashing out of the mountain pass, and these fiery fluids were tumbling down, destroying all the animals and plants below them in an instant, and bursts of steam rose as soon as they entered the sea. Directly on the top of the mountain, a piece of smoke filled the sky, completely enveloping the distant islands.

The tremor was undecided, and even Hadu was a little unsteady, and the guards staggered, but it was at this time that he decided: to march towards the peak of the smoke.