The nomadic people of the Absela steppes, with their simple social structure, still have a very strict hierarchy. In addition www.biquge.info to the large number of slaves that existed within the tribe and were used as livestock servants, the real steppe people can usually be divided into three classes.

The top class is naturally the nobility represented by the priests and the patriarch, and the priests are usually the eldest people in the entire tribe, so their position is not only the clergy, but also the wisdom of the entire tribe, and the existence of a guide for the patriarch and the next patriarch. The two positions are sometimes held by one person at the same time, but most of the time they are separated, with the patriarch in charge of conquest and domination, as well as matters within the clan, and the priest in charge of the sacrifice to the gods and the training of the younger priests, as well as communicating with the priests of other races.

It is also very rare for two positions to be held by one person at the same time in the Abu Sera steppe, which has more than 300 tribes, large and small. Generally speaking, this is only the case for very small and underpopulated tribes that are not able to welcome the favor of the priests, but there are other, rarer cases, where the personal ability of the newcomer is indeed particularly prominent.

There are a few legends in the history of the steppe people that have seen such figures, and each time they appear is often accompanied by a catastrophe of the blood of the settled peoples - but let's return to the present first.

Relatives such as the children and wives of priests and patriarchs were naturally among the nobles according to the primitive social structure of blood, and in addition to this, as a clan that admired martial arts, the social status was in the second class, and it was natural that they were feared steppe warriors.

We have mentioned earlier that the nomads on the steppe are all soldiers, and they have learned how to shoot arrows and ride horses since they were four or five years old, and any child of thirteen or fourteen years old has the combat power to kill several ordinary adults on the west coast or the south by himself, even if he encounters a regular mercenary with green card certification, if he is not well-equipped enough, and does not have a shield or a hard plate armor or cuirass to resist arrows, he will inevitably die instantly in a head-on battle under the accurate cavalry.

The ability to use a bow and shoot on horseback was a matter of course for the steppe people, and in such a social structure, those who could deserve the title of samurai were of course even more prominent. The so-called samurai on the steppe can all fight against several blue-card war mercenaries on their own, and their existence is similar to that of the knightly nobles on the West Coast, but there are no fiefs or titles in comparison, and their loyalty to the patriarch is incomparable to the rebellious knight nobles of the West Coast.

The way to distinguish a steppe warrior is very simple, not only is they as skilled as all the steppe people, they can walk through the trees in a hundred steps, but they also know how to use a one-handed scimitar in foot melee combat and on horseback - the person with a one-handed long knife at his waist is a true steppe warrior, in the steppe where iron ore is scarce and can only be captured by plunder, and the lower third estate, can only carry a short knife for hunting.

But that's not all, the steppes still have strict rules about dress, such as what color and what fabric can only be used by nobles and samurai, or there are no beards on the west coast and the south - ordinary people here are not allowed to have a beard at the chin, at most they can only keep the upper lip. A steppe warrior could have a goatee, while a thick beard was only available to the patriarch and priest.

This simple and straightforward way of distinguishing status ensures that you know the identity and status of someone when you see them, and the one who doesn't have a beard may not necessarily be a commoner, but if you have a beard and a beard or something, you'd better be respectful to the other person.

In any case, as the lowest class of the people, as in all other places, the artisans, herdsmen, and their children of the common class are the most numerous. These men were used by the samurai and nobles to herd and hunt and gather food, and they were constantly trained to shoot and ride horses according to the will of the patriarch, and they had to use force when war came, so to speak, not much different from the West Coast in this respect.

Perhaps the only thing that really makes people feel the huge gap is the rigid and stubborn attitude of the steppe people towards outsiders, culture, and the trade of goods.

There is no currency in the Abu Sera savannah.

The people here rely on plunder or barter for everything, and the merchants are considered by them to be a low-class existence, and even if a person such as a patriarch tries to trade with other tribes, he will be despised by others and considered to have lost his roots as a steppe people. After all, in a place where everyone believes in the dogma of "if you need anything without trade, you can just rely on force to take it", if you take a peaceful approach, you will be looked down upon and looked down upon.

- This may be the fundamental reason why when Henry and his party came to the group that they were said to have traded with the Felex merchant group seven or eight years ago, and they felt that all the people around them were looking at them with cold and hostile eyes.

The primitive social structure was always simple and straightforward, and the steppes respected the strong, so they did not look down on these heavily armed Soladin mercenaries and the like. Although there is vigilance and hostility, it is also a proof that he is treated as an opponent of the same level.

On the contrary, it is these merchants in the south, these merchants who pay to hire mercenaries to fight them, and stay in the rear to enjoy themselves, are really more despised by the steppe people, and regarded as weak and weak waste.

The sound of the wheels rolling came, and the group slowly approached the vast camp under the leadership of a dozen or so steppe warriors with serious faces who glanced at this side from time to time.

Scattered throughout the lower basin are fenced camps and tents, herds of cattle and sheep frolicking and feeding in the nearby areas with abundant water and grass, many people washing their clothes and food at the water's edge, and more camps in the distance are rising with smoke curling.

-- Visual inspection alone must have at least tens of thousands of people.

Flags fluttered fiercely in the wind, and horses made of pointed wooden stakes and hemp rope surrounded the camps of the major ethnic groups, and the few Soladin mercenaries who had previously drawn their bows and arrows were immediately instigated, and their group was only half a hundred, if the front was not stopped and a hand shook and shot the arrow, as long as the people who existed here mobilized one percent, it would be enough to wipe out the entire team.

The numerical advantage is extremely terrifying, especially when these people basically have a bow in their hands, even if in close combat with better armor, these mercenaries may be able to defeat one enemy ten, but when they encounter a bow and arrow, even if it is a steppe short bow with a range of only more than a hundred meters, the overwhelming arrow feathers will shoot, except for the knight wearing full-body plate armor, anyone will feel terrified.

But even the heavily armed knights of the West Coast are still vulnerable to attack. A set of full-body plate armor usually weighs between 35 and 40 kilograms, and the weight of the built-in cotton armor armor evenly covers all parts of the body, although it can still move normally, if you lose your horse on the battlefield, then you will definitely not be able to escape quickly with such a weight.

Although the horses of the steppe are smaller than those on the west coast, they can still weigh more than half a ton. Coupled with the presence of momentum and shoes, it was no less trampling than a powerful armor-piercing war hammer, and it was a matter of course that dozens of horses could catch up with a single charge, trampling a fully armored knight alive, not to mention that the more sophisticated warriors of the steppe people also possessed melee weapons, which could quickly approach the knight's side with their unarmored advantage, and use daggers and daggers to pierce through the weak points of the armor, such as armpits, throats, and observation ports.

In a frontal conflict on the plains with no cover and no hiding points for ambushes, it takes at least two advantages in equipment, numbers, and training to make victory relatively stable, and in the case of equal combat ability and a complete disadvantage in numbers, even wearing better armor and holding better weapons can only make you die a little slower.

This group of tens of thousands of steppe people living here, although there are still a considerable number of slaves who are not allowed to carry weapons and can only do the hardest and most tiring chores, if they can unite and invade the southern border or the Shoradin region, a small town like Rosemary, whose population is no more than a few thousand including slaves, will easily bleed rivers.

This is what makes the nomads of all soldiers terrible, which is why civil strife and war between them are the most desirable things for all the surrounding countries. The merchants of the south and the bishops of the White Church had put a lot of effort into making sure that this state of affairs could be sustained, and there was no need to talk about the financing of weapons and equipment, and the plots of framing and plotting that had been bred by the more superior intrigue of the better social system were endless.

The present situation in Absela is inseparable from the "efforts" of all people, whether it is the naturalized people of the steppes who have been corrupted by a better life, or the ill-intentioned people of the West Coast and the South, if the two sides could have been more restrained and polite when they first came into contact - or if the White Church did not exist at that time - the current stalemate and the appearance of the two sides fighting each other could not have existed at all.

However, history is always full of inevitability that seems to be coincidental. Even in Henry's time, even if our protagonist has the reputation of being a sage who knows everything, all he can do is erase the surface of the ice floe, and the situation of the whole world after this is like a lake that is still invisible, and even he can only be prepared to deal with it, but cannot completely and completely control everything.

In the future, if we look back from God's perspective, many things may be so simple and clear, but how can people in the midst of the times know what will happen in the future.

The so-called authorities are obsessed with bystanders, and that's about it.

Time passed calmly and slowly, and when the whole procession of fifty or so men, including the merchants, entered the territory of the nomads, many of them involuntarily clenched their weapons - the mercenaries, and so did many of the young steppe people.

Many young boys and girls with light black skin, red hair or black hair, clutched the short bow in their hands, and looked at this side with a frown, and the bright hostility sent chills down the backs of the people on the horses. As for the older ones, although they were well controlled and did not show it, their hands never left the handle of the short knife at their waist.

The semi-encircled posture of the old and young men and women of the tribes along the way frightened several young people among the merchants who came out for the first time, but fortunately, the middle-aged and chubby southern merchant with a small mustache was the leader of the team when he came here to trade last time, and he had more or less an experience, and he has always maintained a calm smile, which made the others feel a lot more at ease.

The camp of the tribe with the head of the white goats on a black background, which is known as the Aries clan according to the understanding of the southerners, is located in the relatively safe part of the center of the whole camp, and the relatively large terrain around it and the number of animal skin tents in the vicinity that obviously belong to this area than any other group, it can be assumed that they should be the number one in the platoon, at least among these tens of thousands.

It is no wonder that the more powerful tribes will be allocated a correspondingly wider range of plundering campaigns, and the chances that the patriarchs from this origin will choose to trade with the southerners are naturally much higher than the lesser-known tribes.

Under the murderous onlookers around the road, the group rode horses and was led forward by more than a dozen warriors of the Aries clan. Mira rode on horseback and looked around, and many of the people who were washing their clothes near the water's edge on the left also turned their heads to look this way, and at such a close distance that the girl could clearly see the dirty bodies and tattered clothes of these people—it was obvious that the people who could do such chores were slaves and not real steppe people.

She noticed that many of them had long blond or brown hair, and the relatively fair skin on their dirty faces, which had obviously been plundered from the west coast by the nomads.

The mercenaries of the Soladin background turned a blind eye to this, and perhaps had become accustomed to being slaves, and the West Coasters were still numb when they saw their compatriots in their homeland - a few of them, even with a hostility and hatred similar to or even greater than that of the steppe people, seemed to have integrated into the culture and regarded themselves as members of the steppe nomads.

"......" The white-haired Luoan girl didn't linger on them too long, and the chubby merchant leader in front raised his hand again, and at this time everyone finally came to the door of the camp to which the Aries clan belonged, and he shouted in a voice that was not too high: "Everyone dismount-" The softer pronunciation of the Lamanite language unique to the south and the elongated tail note avoided the sudden sound from triggering an overreaction from the steppe people, and the mercenaries were puzzled for a moment, and then they all turned over in accordance with the instructions of their employers.

Mira glanced at the camp and saw that there were only a few people riding horses in the camp, thinking that it must be some kind of rule or something, but the solemn expressions on the faces of the dozen or so steppe warriors relaxed when they all got off their horses obediently. They led the group in and paused for a moment near the entrance, where Mira heard them and the caravan leader say something in the steppe language.

Both men nodded to each other, and then some of the steppe warriors walked in the other direction, while the rest rolled over and dismounted, gestures and gestures that seemed to lead them towards the huge main camp with the Aries banner at the top.

Such matters had to be decided by the patriarch himself, but it was impossible for a team of forty or fifty men to go to each of them, so of course they had to elect representatives.

The fifty-year-old bearded Soladin mercenary Bartlet, who is of steppe descent and plays an important role as a scout and an important translator in the team, is one of the candidates, and the leader of the caravan, the chubby middle-aged man Inagi, is another indispensable being, in addition to a mercenary under the command of Felex and two young merchants as retinues, and the rest are Henry and Mira.

When the two of them were selected to go together, many mercenaries in the team reacted, but this was not envy and jealousy, but rather a blessing, after all, it was the patriarch of a group on the grassland who was going to go in to meet him, and it was normal to really go to the other party's front and not know where to see that you were unhappy and kill your head directly.

Although staying outside is also surrounded by grassland people, no matter what, it is much better than entering the main camp.

The leather boots stepped on the dirt and there was a real feeling, and when I walked into the main camp made of thick animal skins, the sound and light were quickly cut off when I walked outside, and several samurai in front led the procession, and the openings on both sides of the aisle for ventilation and heat dissipation let in wisps of sunlight, and the mouth and nose were filled with the smell of sweat and the peculiar smell of cattle and horses, as if the smell of some kind of dairy product had been fermented, and it seemed that the heat was rushing in waves, most of the people here were making some food unique to the grassland.

"Alaku, Said. Most of the words came from the mouth of the samurai who led the way in front of him, and the passage of the camp finally came to an end, and the leader of the Aries clan waved his hand, and the samurai bowed his head respectfully, and then turned around and waved for everyone to enter. (To be continued.) )