stubborn thief

Chapter 653: Kuromabu's Tiger

Yang Qi knew that Liu Chengzong had never been interested in human heads.

If he could have sold the head, he would not have let Bai Wenxuan come to ask this question.

The truth was that the Ming Dynasty had impeached his relative Yang Sichang so severely that Yang Sichang was about to break off relations with him and would definitely not take his head.

The main reason was that the area south of the desert was in an awkward position. Seeing that Yang Sichang was not interested in the head, Yang Qi said that he would sell the head to Fu Renxi privately.

Unfortunately, Deputy General Fu didn't want it either. He wrote to Yang Qi, saying rather presumptuously: "I am stationed at Datong Shahukou, facing the Fengzhou Tan Tumed. The soldiers have to hand over a bunch of Eastern Tartar heads. Do you think it's appropriate, Commander-in-Chief?"

Yang Qi thought about it and it seemed to be true.

He wrote back to Fu Renxi, saying that they would first make it with lime saltpeter, seal it in a wooden box, dig a cave and hang it on the beam, and then wait for the Later Jin army to come next year, and then they could trade again.

But no matter what, Yang Qi himself does not think that these brains can be properly preserved until next year. It is estimated that they will not last for seven or eight months. What's more, what if people don't come next year?

Besides, if you come back next year, you will still have next year’s heads to chop off and sell.

Then he sent someone to ask Liu Chengzong.

Whether there is a date or not, just try it first.

Anyway, the Marshal's Mansion doesn't want it, so it doesn't matter to him.

He estimated that Liu Chengzong was not interested in the head, but he must be very interested in the person. It was very exciting for them to capture this wild Tartar.

At Huayan Temple outside Xi'an, two guards with goose-feather swords in their hands brought the captives into the temple.

There was nothing special about the Khorchin captive. He had a small braid on the back of his head and looked like a Mongolian squad leader under the Eight Banners. He was very polite and knelt there as soon as he came in.

It is estimated that after being captured by Yang Qi, he was often surrounded and kicked by Tumed Mongolian soldiers in Guihua City. Half of his face was swollen and there were bruises in his eye sockets.

The person standing next to him should be the wild Tartar that Yang Qi mentioned.

Liu Shizi originally thought that the "barbarian Tartars" mentioned in Yang Qi's letter were just a derogatory term.

But I didn't expect that the person brought up looked like a real savage.

The man was of medium height, with nothing on his upper body except a sleeveless foam-stitched cloth half-armor, with his arms bare; on his lower body he wore cotton trousers and a pair of Liaodong military boots with iron plates.

The two pieces of clothing and a pair of boots on his body were ill-fitting and were stained with old blood and dirt. It was impossible to tell what their original colors were, nor how many hands they had passed through.

Even if they said that it was taken from the defeated soldiers at Sarhu more than ten years ago, Liu Chengzong would believe it.

But what caught the eye was not the old armor, but the man's exposed arms.

Those two arms were so strong that they were almost as thick as his chest and back. His whole body was as strong as a door panel.

This body shape is not uncommon in the Marshal's Mansion where many strong men are born, but most of them are strong men who are malnourished but have to work and exercise. They are not like this wild Tartar, who not only has thick muscles but also has a thick layer of fat covering the muscles.

This is very rare in this era.

Liu Chengzong originally estimated that this kind of body shape should only be found on the seaside, but he did not expect that there would be such people in the Northeast.

What’s special is that on top of such an exceptionally strong body is a face that is both old and young.

From his short hair, it can be seen that he used to have a braid at the back of his head, but he hadn't had his hair trimmed for at least seven or eight months, and the braid had grown wildly at the back of his head, becoming a mess of hair.

As for saying old and young at the same time, it is because of the deep wrinkles and extremely rough skin on his face that he looks very old.

But the timid look in his eyes and the thin, short moustache made Liu Chengzong clearly feel that this man should be a young man around twenty years old.

Liu Chengzong was too familiar with this kind of savage temperament, which made him unconsciously look at Zhang Xianzhong.

What’s funny is that Zhang Xianzhong was also looking at him at this time. The two looked at each other and saw that each other was avoiding his gaze.

Both sides were quite certain that everyone had the same idea in mind.

This man exudes the temperament of someone who has lived in the wild for many years, just like when they were peasant soldiers.

Everyone is very experienced in being a savage.

This made Liu Shizi, who was sitting on the chair, laugh for no reason.

I thought that this was a historic meeting between the barbaric Tartars from the northeast and the barbaric men from the northwest.

He said to the imperial guards, "Bring them a cushion."

After that, Liu Chengzong rested his forearms on his thighs, leaned forward slightly, and asked Bai Wenxuan with interest, "What's his name?"

When Bai Wenxuan saw Liu Chengzong's attitude, he thought that Governor Yang really understood the Marshal. Their Marshal was not interested in common things like human heads, but only liked these new things.

He quickly replied, "Sir, it seems to be Amba or Mafa. I don't understand their language, but it probably means tiger. Anyway...you can call him whatever you want."

Bai Wenxuan pointed at the Khorchin soldier next to him and said, "His master said so."

While the two were talking, the Yulin riders brought over two cushions.

When Lao Hu heard the noble who escorted him here say his name to the noble in the hall, his brows unconsciously wrinkled into the shape of a "川" (川).

The cloth armor on his body, which looked worse than being worn, gave off a musty smell that went straight into his nostrils. The strange aroma of incense in the hall lingered around him. In short, all of this made him feel very uncomfortable.

It made him miss his hometown even more.

The tiger's hometown is in the northeast, at the foot of the Greater Khingan Range and on the banks of the Songhua River.

There were no soybeans or sorghum there, only big rivers and endless mountains, forests and swamps.

There are bears and tigers in the mountains, jackals and wolves in the forests, and in the swamps there are water plants and swarms of mosquitoes and flies.

In spring, the roads there are blocked by thorns and brambles; in summer, poisonous insects swarm in arrays; in autumn, ferocious wild beasts roam in droves; and of course, there are also brutal howling cold winds, and long, dry, and snowy winters that block the roads.

There, their country was called the Heizhen Kingdom. Its predecessor was called the Heishui Tribe during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Five Kingdoms Tribe during the Liao and Jin Dynasties, the Shiquan Tribe in the Ming Dynasty, or simply regarded as the wild Jurchens.

But in fact, the Black True tribes had already formed a very strong tribal identity, but just like their neighbors, the Deer Hermit Tribe or the Sauron tribes, the harsh living environment prevented them from forming a complete hierarchical system, forming a political power, or establishing a country.

They are widely distributed on both sides of the Heilong, Songhua and Ussuri rivers. In the vast land, there are less than 100,000 people, and the population density is even much smaller than that of the Marshal's Mansion.

Because they settled by the river, the tribe had superb technology for tanning fish skin, so people often wore clothes made of fish skin, and therefore they were called fish skin Tatars by the Jianzhou people.

The tiger was named after the day he was born. His father encountered a tiger while hunting in the mountains. He defeated the tiger to a draw with only a wooden spear and five good hunting dogs.

The tiger's front leg was pierced by the spear, and his father's leg was broken with a slap.

In fact, his father was a very fierce hunter with a strong temper, sophisticated skills and agile body, but he was already old when he was born.

Fishermen and hunters like them who live in the ice and snow have suffered too much in life and age quickly. After they are forty, their legs, feet and arms are no longer useful.

If I had encountered a tiger with my hunting dog when I was young, I would not have been able to kill the tiger alone, but at least I would have been able to escape unscathed.

Of course, this is just a guess based on the tiger's own strength when it grows up.

When his father told him this story, he refused to admit his age. He patted his lame leg and boasted, pointing to the forged steel tiger spear hanging on the wall and said, "If we had this back then, we wouldn't have been approached by the tiger. Unfortunately, we only had a wooden spear made of deer antlers, so the spear shaft broke and the tiger got close to us and crippled our legs."

This is pure bragging, because the forged steel tiger spear was made by the blacksmith of Wuguo City. The spear head has an iron deer antler with a repellent effect, and the spear shaft is wrapped with a foot-long steel wire. It will not be broken by a close-range tiger.

But back then, there was not a single gun in their entire village.

  This damn place has winter for five months a year, and the snow melts for another four months and the ground is covered with mud and frozen soil everywhere. Where can we get steel weapons?

It was the forged steel tiger spear that later hung on the wall of their house.

That was the second year after the tiger was born. His father, with a lame leg, took five dogs into the mountains again. They searched for two whole months, set traps all over the ground, and finally took revenge on the tiger.

Tiger skins, tiger bones, and tiger whips were all taken to Wuguo City, three hundred miles away, by his eldest brother and sold them. Only then was he able to exchange them for a forged steel tiger spear.

But in fact, that was the last time his father went into the mountains to hunt. He originally wanted to seek revenge on the tiger, but he didn't expect that he could come out of the mountains alive.

Otherwise, you should bring your brothers, nephews, and nephews together to form a hunting team and go into the mountains, which will be a sure win.

His father just felt that winter was approaching, and he was unable to hunt due to his lame leg, which would make him a burden to his family and even the tribe, and would waste limited food. It would be better for him to go into the mountains and fight his old enemy. Regardless of success or failure, he would be a hero.

Even if I feed the tiger with my own body, I won't lose face and I will feel happy.

Never imagined.

His father had a hard time with a broken leg, but with the help of his family, he recovered, but he was a little lame, couldn't hold his strength, and ran slowly. The beast also had a broken leg, but no one set it, so it had a hard time chasing a roe deer in the forest, and it was so hungry that it couldn't even break free from the noose that tied the roe deer!

If you go later, you won't have to beat it, the beast will starve to death.

In fact, his later life was not as desperate as his father had imagined. Although his lame leg made hunting inconvenient, the lifestyle of the Heizhen tribes was not limited to hunting.

They can also catch fish, but of course this is quite difficult.

In the dead of winter, people would sit outdoors in the ice holes on the rivers for an hour or two, catching salmon, carp, and 30 to 50 kilograms of taimen. The fish skins were the best material for making clothes.

In any case, the hunting experience left a lingering fear in his father's heart, so he named him Tiger, hoping that he would be as strong and powerful as a tiger.

Later, his eldest brother used the tiger spear and took his second brother to hunt another tiger, making their family famous hunters on the Songhua River. Even in Wuguo City, 300 miles away, their reputation was well-known.

Wuguo City was located in the later Yilan County of Harbin, close to Jiamusi.

It’s still another two thousand miles from Shenyang to the northeast.

They have their own language, culture, production habits and skills to make a living, and the tiger is supposed to be the king of all beasts in the forest and snow.

It was not until the Jianzhou people discovered that the wild Jurchens were an excellent source of soldiers.

They are certainly the best source of soldiers!

When autumn came to Shenyang, winter had already arrived in Wuguo City.

The temperature difference between Wuguo City and Shenyang is as great as that between Shenyang and Beijing.

The people of Jianzhou live in a world of ice and snow and are cold-resistant and good at fighting, but compared to Master Hei, they are nothing.

The tribesmen living along the Songhua River and under the Greater Khingan Range are much stronger in physique, archery, survival ability and luck than the people born in the Central Plains or even in Liaodong.

  This has nothing to do with race. What kind of life did a person live since childhood if he was born in the Central Plains?

When Tiger was a child, he listened to stories told by his father and knew that if he went west along the Songhua River, there was a group of people called Black Coats in a place as far away as the horizon.

The people in black coats are the people from the Central Plains, which is the transliteration of Khitan in the language of Hei Zhenren.

Ama said that the men in black coats were different from them, as they wore clothes made of cotton and could also write.

The tiger asked what cotton was. Ama said it was like clouds in the sky, like fish skin, and could be woven into clothes.

The tiger asked again what the word was.

Ama was very distressed at the time. He frowned and thought for a long time. Finally, he raised his hand and slapped the tiger: "You are such a fucking problem!"

Later, when Ama mentioned salt, he forgot about the word. Salt is very precious.

Ama said that the salt that they, the Black Master, bought from Wuguo City was all sold by the Black Coats from Jianzhou and Korea.

It is also said that Black Coat has been studying since childhood. Those from poor families dropped out of school as soon as they could learn to read and do farm work, herd sheep, run errands or work as apprentices. Those from well-off families studied hard.

This time the tiger learned his lesson and didn't dare to ask what the book was. The back of his head still hurt.

He only remembered that the cold wind was blowing in from the small window in the cellar built for hunting, but he was wrapped in a thick deerskin robe and did not feel any pain on his face because it was frozen.

My father was the same, his eyebrows, beard and eyelashes were all covered with white ice. He said, "You can study for ten years just by sitting there, and you still call it studying hard!"

The tiger was looking at the small window of the cave which was covered with bream skin, and thought to himself, that is really hard, but also really terrible.

There was no time to hunt, and no way to fish, so I just sat by the little window for ten years, neither freezing to death nor starving to death.

The memory of his father telling stories when he was a child was deeply rooted in Tiger's mind. He always believed that those in black coats were gods who wore white clouds, sat in the cold wind for ten years away from work, and did not eat, drink, or fear the cold.

But if you were born in the Greater Khingan Range, life would be much simpler for most people.

The God above our heads is like a professional and serious quality inspector, saving all living beings and coming to inspect them several times every year.

If you can't survive the spring, let the wolf take it away; if you can't survive the summer, let the poisonous insect bite you and send you away.

It won’t work in autumn, we’ll just freeze him to death first.

Winter is simple, starvation.

Life is as easy as pie. If you can't bear it, just step into a snow hole and you can't get out for half an hour. Half a year later, when the snow melts, it will still be alive.

The Northeast these days, apart from the densely populated area of ​​Liaodong, is no different from Siberia.

As for the Songnen Plain, which later became a major granary, it was still a frozen tundra swamp at that time. It took more than 300 years for 40 million people to go to Northeast China and 5.7 million young people to spend decades developing the Great Northern Wilderness.

Every adult male among the tribal people living in the Greater Khingan Range, Songhua River, Heilongjiang River, and Ussuri River area was selected by God in this way.

Of course, they are strong and powerful, able to endure hardship and cold, and able to wear strong armor and hold sharp weapons and fight to the death.

Otherwise, why in this era, the population of Jianzhou is larger than that of the entire Northeast, because Liaodong is the most suitable place for human survival in the entire Northeast.

Since Nurhaci, the Jianzhou Jurchens have wanted to force the Heizhen tribe to pay tribute, but the Heizhen tribes always refused. Even though Nurhaci used military force several times for this purpose, the Heizhen tribes still refused to submit. "If you dare to come, I will fight you."

They are annoyed by the issue of paying tribute.

As early as during the reign of Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty, the Heizhen tribes rebelled twice, led by Wuzhe and Shuidada, because the government demanded the conscription of Saker Falcons. It took ten years of intermittent fighting before the rebellion was suppressed.

Hei Zhenren was a man of integrity and straightforwardness, and he also liked people who were of integrity and straightforwardness. However, the people of Jianzhou were cunning, and when he could not get tribute from them, he sent troops to attack them.

Tiger's eldest brother died in Nurhaci's last war against the Hezhe tribe.

It’s because of the forged steel tiger spear from Wuguo City.

In fact, the wars launched by the Later Jin against the various tribes in the northeast were generally not of high intensity.

It was not because of mercy or because they did not want to kill people, but because the productivity of the tribes was too poor. The weapons and arrows made of deer antlers and animal bones could not break through the defense of the Later Jin army wearing iron armor.

On the other hand, it was difficult for the tribesmen wearing thick and heavy leather robes and leather armor to die directly from knife attacks and arrow stabbings.

As a result, the Later Jin soldiers could easily hunt and capture the fishing and hunting people who had extremely strong physical fitness.

But it’s different for the big brother with the tiger spear in his hand. No matter what you wear, he will shoot you one by one at close range. He is regarded as a great threat and will die under the special plum needle arrow.

During the reign of Huang Taiji of the Later Jin Dynasty, the Heizhen tribes came under even greater military pressure as Jianzhou suffered from insufficient population and manpower.

Two years ago, Huang Taiji sent people to tell the Heizhen tribes, "Your ancestors were all from our country, and the records clearly show that. You have never known this before, so you are willing to stay away from it."

  Isn't this bullshit? Are they people of the same country? We, Hei Zhenren, don't know, but you, the people of Jianzhou, know?

As for the saying that it is clearly recorded in books, that is even more bullshit. We in the Kuroshima tribe only have language, no written language, and we rely entirely on word of mouth.

What nationality did you load?

  Besides, if we were really people of the same country in ancient times, we should have interacted with each other on an equal footing. There would be no reason for us to pay tribute to you!

We are all friends, so why should we, the Black Zhenren, pay the Jurchens friendship fees?

When war comes, escalation is always inevitable.

Lao Hu's other two brothers were captured by the Later Jin army. During the war two years ago, Ama slapped Lao Hu into the river with a slap. He fought the pursuers with his bow and arrow and wooden spear and died on the shore.

The tiger swam across the Songhua River but could not escape the pursuit of the Later Jin army. After being captured, he was incorporated into the Mongolian Right Camp of the Later Jin army.

At this time, the Later Jin Dynasty did not have the Eight Banners of Mongolia, but only the Mongolian Niulu of the Eight Banners, that is, the Mongolian army under the Eight Banners.

There were two camps in total, namely the Mongolian Gushan Left Camp led by Wu Nege and the Mongolian Gushan Right Camp led by Eben Dui.

In the past, there were two Mongolian Beile camps composed of surrendered nobles. However, after Ligdan Khan fled westward and the Mongols south of the desert lost their threat to the Later Jin Dynasty, Huang Taiji abolished their independent status and merged them into the left and right camps of the Eight Banners Mongolians.

In other words, during this brief period of turmoil, the Later Jin Mongolian camp was actually a powder keg with very weak cohesion, which could only survive by being restrained by all parties.

Among them were Manchus who were born in Mongolia and surrendered to the Later Jin Dynasty as early as the Nurhaci period and were incorporated into the Eight Banners; there were also old Mongolian nobles who had lost their independent status; and there were also Mongolian soldiers who had neither independent status nor Manchu identity.

There was another group like Tiger, the 'Fish-skin Tartars' from the Dog Tribe and the 'Sauron Soldiers' from the Deer Tribe. They were captured as foreign prisoners of war and were sent to fight to the death in armored formations.

These foreign soldiers were not even included in the organization. They could not speak the language and were four or five thousand miles away from home. They had neither the possibility of organizing a rebellion nor the ability to leave the army. They could only wear armor and fight for the Later Jin.

Huang Taiji also promised them that if they could prove themselves on the battlefield, they would be incorporated into the Eight Banners and regarded as Manchus. In future wars, they would be able to share the spoils like the Eight Banners soldiers.

Of course, such promises are bullshit to Tiger.

  Where the hell is this?

good evening!