The Alaskan brown bear is a subspecies of the brown bear, a distant relative of the Siberian brown bear, which migrated to North America in ancient times when Asia and the Americas were still connected.

Some stayed in Alaska and became Alaskan Brown Bears. The rest went south to survive in the Maple Leaf Country and the United States, that is, the North American brown bear.

This part of the brown bear in Alaska has no natural predators at all, and is at the absolute top of the food chain.

The average length of an adult male Alaskan brown bear is 2 meters, and the average height at the shoulder is between 1.2 and 1.4 meters. Those powerful male Alaskan brown bears are not much smaller than a Beetle car.

And the best of them is the subspecies of the Alaskan brown bear: the Kodiak Island brown bear.

The Alaskan brown bear on Kodiak Island is so large that the scientific community has even taken out the subspecies of this island and made it a separate subspecies, that is, the largest bear subspecies in the world: the Kodiak Island brown bear.

Speaking of which, Liu Yifeng and the others also passed by Kodiak Island on their way to Caoshan City. Kodiak Island is located in Cook Bay, where the castle is located, and is now called southwest of the exit of the Mt. Oak Bay, and it can be reached by boat for 1 day.

After the reclamation of the Ming Dynasty arrived in Dongshan Prefecture, they were completely frightened when they saw the Alaskan brown bear for the first time, after all, the largest bear they knew was the size of an adult man.

But the next moment, they were excited.

For such a big bear, the fur is sky-high when peeled off!

After the rebellion of the Jianzhou thief Nurhachi was put down, in order to save the image of the Jurchens in the Ming court, in addition to actively participating in the Northern Expedition to Tatar, the upper echelons of the Jurchens once gave His Majesty a carpet made of Siberian brown bears.

The Siberian brown bear was nearly 2 meters long and more than 1.5 meters tall at the shoulder, which is basically the limit of what the Siberian brown bear can grow. The Jurchens used their traditional tanner's skills to preserve intact bear skins, including the skull, replacing the bones with a wooden frame.

His Majesty liked it very much and put this carpet in Wenyuan Pavilion.

Wenyuan Pavilion is the place where the cabinet meets, and eighty percent of the policies of the Ming Dynasty and the livelihood of nearly 100 million people are decided here, which shows the value of the bearskin.

The Maritime Safety Bureau established the city of Gishan, and after completely stabilizing in Dongshan Prefecture, the first thing it did was to organize a trading house to hunt down the Alaskan brown bear, which they called the giant bear of Gishan.

The effect is not bad, no matter how huge these brown bears are, they are no match for humans who can use tools, are extremely organized and disciplined.

Unfortunately, the fur of the Alaskan brown bear is too stiff, too heavy to make a robe, and the softness is not high, and it is like wearing a piece of armor on the body, which is definitely not comfortable.

The bears' fur is much harder than that of cats or canines, and this biological trait saved the Alaskan brown bears, and the Maritime Administration and private trading houses soon became less interested in hunting the bears. After paying a terrible price, the giant bears of the mountains also understood that they were no longer the bosses in this land, and they left the area of the mountains and began to hide from humans.

Although ordinary people would not wear robes made of the fur of the Giant Bear, the two merchants who were sitting on both sides of the Eight Immortals Table like a bear by Liu Yifeng wore robes made of the Giant Bear.

Because neither of these two is a pure-blooded Han Chinese, one of them is a mixed race of Han Chinese and Jurchens, and the other is a mixed race of Han Chinese and Mongols.

Sitting on Liu Yifeng's side is Boss Liu in the mouth of a chatty man, his father is a merchant in Jindi, and during the Northern Expedition, he bought a princess of a small Tatar tribe as a concubine and gave birth to him.

And sitting opposite Boss Liu was Boss Qin, whose father was a small army leader of the Guanning Iron Army. The Northeast mature women have always had a tradition of giving the most beautiful women in the clan to the Han people as concubines, and Boss Qin's biological mother and several aunts are all beautiful women of the Jurchen tribe.

He is the third in the family, and the merchant in Jishan City is called Qin San with a higher status than him, and the one with a lower status than him is called Qin Sanye.

Although these two people are Han according to the Ming law, they are of mixed race, and they were born to concubines, and they also chose to do business.

Just like the robe made of the giant bear skin on the body now, it is heavy and hot, but the two of them are killed and refuse to take it off, because it is a symbol of status.

"Third Master Qin, you have already gone to the north a few times, how can it be my time this time."

"Brother Liu, it's not that I won't let my brothers, but you haven't caught a snow bear either, I'm afraid that Brother Liu, your brothers will suffer heavy losses."

"If I don't catch snow bears, can I catch snow foxes, or collect a group of mountain dogs to raise them?"

After speaking, Boss Liu put the teacup in his hand on the table.

Suddenly, a group of men behind the two of them all turned their eyes to each other, and sparks exploded in the air.

Seeing such a scene of sabre-rattling, similar to gangster negotiations, Liu Yifeng asked the talkative man: "Are we here to fight in a group?" ”

"Generally, we can't fight, we just come to stand up and make a noise, and Boss Liu will pay after the station." After speaking, the talkative man glanced at the man surnamed Zhao who had squeezed to the front, and whispered to Liu Yifeng: "But there are people on both sides who want to fight, they are so good, and they look forward to being favored by the two bosses." ”

Liu Yifeng also looked at the back of the man surnamed Zhao, and he squeezed to the front, just behind the group of men sitting behind Boss Liu. He put his hands on his chest, raised his chin proudly, and used his height to release the aura of "I am strong".

"Why?" Liu Yifeng asked: "Is it very promising to follow those two bosses?" ”

Countless white eyes came from the surroundings, and the talkative man knew that Liu Yifeng was a man who had just come this year, and the situation in many Dongshan Prefectures was not clear, and said: "Of course, I haven't been to Ganshan City, I don't know, but in Caoshan City, there are so many commercial houses that only fur trading houses can make a lot of money." ”

Only then did Liu Yifeng know that these two "bears" were fur merchants, no wonder they were dressed the same as bears. Of course, it is not that the Maritime Safety Bureau restricts the Han people in the city of Yushan from going to the north, but the geographical environment in the north is very harsh, and there is no local indigenous Inuit to lead the way, so they basically run for nothing, so there is the saying that the Inuit are fighting.

"Hmph, Brother Liu, it's not me who said, you herd cattle and set horses, it is definitely a must in Dongshan Prefecture, you should honestly stay in Jishan City to graze, and come to Jishan City to make some fun."

"It's your business! Can I catch the snow fox? Don't think that you can hunt, we can hunt bears just like the men of the grassland. Qin Sanye, the mountain is so big, maybe there are old ginseng in it, why don't you stop hunting and go digging ginseng. ”

The conversation between the two made the sparks in the air more intense, and Boss Liu and Boss Qin also stared at each other and stopped talking.

Liu Yifeng didn't understand, and asked the meaning of the words of the two talkers.

The talkative man did not disappoint him, explaining: "Boss Liu's business house is mainly based on cattle, sheep, red and deer skins, and occasionally rabbits, foxes and the like, and its headquarters is in Yushan City. And Boss Qin's trading house mainly hunts bears and wolves, and its headquarters is in Qishan City. ”

Then he also told the origins of the two bosses, and Liu Yifeng knew why the conversation between the two bosses just now was so needle-pointed.

Because Boss Liu is of mixed Han and Mongolian blood, there are a large number of Han and Mongolian mixed blood or Mongols who have retired from the Beiting Metropolitan Protectorate, so Boss Qin mocked them for going to the mountain city to be nomadic, and don't get involved in hunting.

And Boss Qin, as a mixed race of Han and Jurchen, also accepted a large number of mature and raw Jurchens. Before the Wanli Dynasty, the Jurchens basically always relied on digging ginseng in the Great Xing'an Mountains, the Small Xing'an Mountains and the Changbai Mountains and selling them to the Han people in exchange for resources, and Boss Liu would pretend to be kind to let them go to the mountains to dig ginseng.

It's also a shame that neither of them has read any books and doesn't understand history, if Liu Yifeng comes to scare people, he can directly take out the battle of Caizhou more than 400 years ago to talk about things, which can scare Boss Qin to the point of losing his temper.

The Battle of Caizhou more than 400 years ago was the last battle in which the Mongols and the Southern Song Dynasty joined forces to destroy the Jin.

Do you want to be ashamed of Jingkang again?

Unless Boss Qin is tired of living, he can only obediently lose.

Just when Liu Yifeng was distracted, the other people were discussing with great interest, and the two bosses and their subordinates looked at each other passionately, there was a commotion from behind the crowd opposite Liu Yifeng.

A group of people parted the crowd on the opposite side and escorted a man in a white-haired robe out.

"Meet Second Master Sun."

"Brother Sun, you're finally here!"