As an important land pass, near the North Gate of Taizhou, where people come and go, there are many horseback warriors in a formation, although it is not rare, but it is indeed not rare enough for passers-by to stop and watch.

The civilians who went out with their families consciously made way for the samurai to avoid, most of them humbly bowed their heads, and the few young and ignorant children who raised their faces curiously to watch were soon pulled and reprimanded by their parents.

"People" - this is a term used by the Moon Nation as a common term for the common people. It is not possible to find words in the Lamani language that have the exact same meaning to translate, and even if they are explained in long sentences, it is often counterproductive. Some things come from the cultural system to which they belong and are easy to understand, but it is difficult for outsiders to understand them.

The term "common people" refers to the common class, but it is not just a class of commoners. It also contains a variety of life, and the composition of the common people themselves is very complex, with thousands of names and thousands of meanings.

If you directly translate it with the meaning of "one hundred castes", most of the people in the empire will see it in a fog, because most of the people don't really have surnames.

This is a more ambiguous and general concept, and like the social structure of the Moon Country, it is deep, complex, and changeable, and it is difficult for outsiders to fully understand it in a day or two.

And this kind of diversity is exactly what the group saw after stepping into the north gate of Taizhou.

Even though the strict social class ruled that the common people could not have the fancy clothes of the aristocracy, you could still easily distinguish the rich merchant from the poor peasant by appearance.

It's late spring, and the temperature is quite high today, and even the hats with shade in the afternoon are still unbearably hot. Therefore, the peasants who work in the fields are very unsophisticated, and the adult men are often a simple crotch cloth with a light short-sleeved loose jacket made of linen, which looks very unsightly, and the picture is a cool one.

Because of the reserved culture of the country of the moon, women are admittedly more complete, but most of these clothes are washed and faded plain cotton and linen, and large and small patches of different colors can often be seen.

By contrast, wealthy families who were in business and had a small success in their careers naturally mimicked the high society they aspired to in their attire: men wore clothes similar to those of samurai, and in colder weather, cotton underwear underneath, accompanied by oversized tunics and hakama called hakama.

In fact, such clothing is only suitable for spring and autumn, and it is not suitable for the late spring and summer solstices and the midwinter wax moon, although the appearance is more elegant than the rude appearance of the peasant who does not even wear the bottoms, but the warmth and breathability are very unsatisfactory.

The samurai dressed similarly throughout the year, which is inseparable from the culture of the samurai class that emphasizes patience and restraint. What is the last thing the ruling class wants in a country that has been peaceful for a long time, with many warriors who have lived by fighting and who have been training in combat since childhood, but who have rarely had the opportunity to fight?

The answer lies in the current state of the Moon Country.

Among the samurai who had been trained to follow various rules since childhood, there were still many rebels who became bandits and began to live a life of plundering others by force. Imagine if they did not have a moment of spiritual self-training, their inner awareness of their own traditions, their spiritual belief in their own class, and their unshakable loyalty to the sovereign, these long-trained warrior class with nowhere to play would surely become a major problem for the country.

Without faith and a firm and unified goal, if you only act in pursuit of immediate interests, no matter how strong your martial arts are, you will always be a swordsman, not a true samurai.

"Samurai" is a Lamanite term used to correspond to "knights" in order to make it easier for people within the empire to understand. And like any translation, it must be distinguished from the original context. In the language of the Japanese people, the real name of this class is actually that of a waiter-a warrior, a person who has mastered force and serves the royal family and his country by force.

Swords, armor, and even martial arts are really just their appearance, and the core of what really matters is the spirit of self-discipline and absolute loyalty.

Without this, the samurai class, which underpins the country's vital structure, would have been reduced to a mob of wanton plunder. And this country, which has been unified for thousands of years, is bound to be like the chaotic west coast of Rigal, divided and fighting each other.

- Words go back to the original place.

Wealthy merchants, though often imitated their attire out of a desire for high society, were not trained in samurai discipline and eventually compromised in some places. For example, samurai wore long ankle-length, full-size bottoms, while merchants wore large-mouthed hakama that was only below the knee and resembled cropped pants in the summer. The same goes for the jacket, which is shortened and made of lighter, more breathable fabrics.

This modified costume, which was born out of the patricians imitating the aristocracy and pursuing comfort, became accepted by the upper class over time, and became the casual dress adopted by many samurai, especially young people, during the summer months.

Of course, they still wear neat and complete traditional attire on the most formal occasions, but this detail is proof that the seemingly distinct upper and lower classes in this country are in fact not in exchange.

The group went upstream, and after walking out of a distance of more than 100 meters from the north city gate, the flow of people began to gradually become sparse.

The Qingming holiday lasts for a week, but just like the soldiers who are still guarding the gate in front of them, whether they are eating public meals or self-employed businesses, there will still be people who choose to work overtime during the holiday to earn as much silver taels as possible.

Although it is also important to go out with your family and visit the graves of your ancestors, your own business will be better if other families are closed, and there are many merchants who have this idea. The holiday is a week-long one, and it is also so that they can stagger their travel time.

After officially entering the upper part of Taizhou's territory, merchants and workshops lined up one after another, and looking further away, the terraced rice fields built on the slopes of the mountains reflected the light of Ling Ling in the brilliant daylight.

From here, the terrain is lowered again towards the west.

Rice, a staple food for the wealthier people, began to be cultivated in Taizhou, and although it was still grown in conjunction with other crops, the rice production area here did not rely on trade like the northern land behind it, so the price was naturally cheaper.

Walking past the small businesses near the North City Gate, the group walked through the terraced area from the straight road on the ridge, and when they looked down, the farmers were busy planting rice.

The keel waterwheel, made of movable wooden structure, is erected diagonally at the top of the ridge road, and after the waterwheel is operated by manual trampling, the irrigation water is transported from the artificial stream below to the top, and then it is automatically watered in the dug ditch.

It then flows down the planned ditch to each section of the terraces.

After the land has been cultivated, irrigation needs to be done before the seedlings are planted. When the irrigation water in the cultivated field has calmed down, the pre-cultivated seedlings are taken out and planted into the rice field one by one.

Judging from the fact that most of the fields are still vacant and the time point, it is obvious that when the group arrived, it was obviously the time when the early rice had just started to be planted.

It was a magnificent scene.

From the ground under your feet to the other end of the distant horizon, the trees and shrubs on the hillside are cleared and the slope is terraced one by one.

At the foot of the mountain, a three-meter-wide stream was dug by hand in the past, and after the water was brought directly from the Yongcheon River basin, a wooden rickshaw was set up every other section, placed on the slope of the mountain, and the water was transported to the mountain by foot.

The waterwheel consists of a runner with pedals and a transmission belt with a small barrel in each section, and the other end is placed in the water. As soon as a person pedals on the runner at this end like a staircase, the transmission belt will start to operate, automatically scooping up the water in the stream with each bucket and moving upwards, and then tilting the bucket to pour the water due to the structural design after reaching the top.

There is no need for manpower to carry it back and forth, and you only need to step on a water truck to continuously transport the stream water to the mountain. After that, relying only on natural gravity, the water gradually overflows the terraces in each section of the terrace.

The only thing the farmers had to do was to clean the ditches with pitchforks when they were clogged with weeds.

Thanks to such efficient agricultural infrastructure, the cost of manpower and farming time is greatly reduced. Although the peasants are still at the bottom of society, the peasants of the Land of the Moon are living a different life than the peasants in Rigal, who are often overwhelmed by the lord's exorbitant taxes.

Poverty is indeed still the norm for most people, but the so-called poverty in the country of the moon refers to the kind of poverty that cannot afford to eat good things, all-you-can-eat coarse grains, and most of the clothes are replenished and supplemented, rather than the kind of poverty that is not covered with clothes and food. I can eat enough, but I can't eat well, and I have a house, although it is not big. You need to work every day, and there is only a national festival like Qingming Festival that you can relax in a year.

They are rich and poor, and although they have not been able to break through their class for most of their lives, they can still live their lives in peace.

Such a unique scene is unimaginable for those who have traveled all the way from the mainland of Rigal.

A unified and strong central government with strong regulatory measures to prevent local officials from exploiting civilians is a political structural reason, but this alone is only a matter of filling the gap.

What really determines the richness of the material culture of the Moon Country is the large number of infrastructure facilities accumulated by them for thousands of years of peace without war and destruction. The watermills and terraces that the group is about to pass through are the epitome of this.

No matter how loud the spiritual slogans are, if the material basis cannot be satisfied, then the status quo will not change, or even if it changes in a short time, it will eventually become chaotic again.

If the class of loyal warriors with faith constitutes the backbone and backbone of the country, then the workers and peasants who are all over the country engaged in their own industries in an orderly manner are the solid and unshakable solid foundation of the country.

Relying on infrastructure, efficient and orderly farming means that they have more time and energy to do other things.

Weaving cloth and paper umbrellas while farmers are plowing the fields is very common in Taizhou, and most of the owners of small commercial houses near the North City Gate behind the group are also willing to take the goods they make from the farmers and sell them in escrow.

Priest Alfonso looked at all this, combined with what he had seen and heard along the way, and the mixed tastes in his heart were not enough for outsiders.

It is a country where the vast majority of the people in the country are content with the status quo, like a towering tree with solid roots and lush foliage. The fact that the suffering of the White Church in this world is a test, and the fact that there will be a better life in the afterlife is not attractive to them in the slightest, the more he knows more about the people of this country, the more he can affirm it.

Each has a lot of things on his mind and a lot of thoughts. The magnificent and vast scenery and the various situations of life give them a reflection that cannot be summed up in two or three sentences, but this kind of question can be pondered slowly, and now they have more urgent things to do.

The supplies were almost depleted, and they had to find a way to replenish them.

And beyond that, Henry and Mira looked back at the people behind them who were dressed like civilians.

Temulun and the others' joint trip is about to officially end here.

The power of the people on the way forward is getting bigger and bigger, even if there are samurai to take cover, the risk is too great for the few people who are being hunted down by Xinjing at this stage.

They were going into the mountains, to the shelters of the Yi people in the mountains, and the best time to do so was in the last few days.

Hidden in the city, if a Yiren tribe with a size of more than 50 people enters the mountains alone, it is difficult to escape some of the passes set up by the people.

But now it is the Qingming holiday nationwide, and there are many civilians who go to the mountains to worship their ancestors. Blending in and quietly disappearing into the mountains, no one will be able to notice, so that the Japanese samurai will not be given the opportunity to track down themselves to the Yiren refuge point.

"Really, really not sure if you're going with us?" said Temulun, pausing at the end of the terraces, to Lulu.

"......" The Yi girl shook her head, although she was of the same clan, she did not belong to this branch of Temurun.

Ahead is the place of separation, Henry and his party will take the western fork in the road to return to the vicinity of the Yongchuan River valley, while Temurun and the others will take the eastern road and enter the mountains.

As a parting gift, the last supplies and some tools were given to them for use on the way.

The shared journey and the previous battle with the bandits allowed the samurai to bridge their estrangement and establish a relationship of trust with the Yiren, even though it was only a few weeks, and the time of separation was still a bit sad.

But that's what life is.

The two men and horses who had walked up the fork in the road turned back in unison and performed a simple salute by pressing the edge of the hat on their heads.

"If there is fate, we will meet again somewhere. ”