Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 234 Black Fox Fur

"Hello!"

On Ezo Island, Aman sneezed while sitting on a snow sled. He looked around but didn't see anything. He muttered, "Which dung beetle is cursing me?" and then looked up into the distance.

The distance was still a vast expanse of white, nothing but snow, and even the pine forests were covered in snow, their vibrant colors barely visible.

Ezo Island in winter is Ezo Island covered in snow.

Aman only realized after arriving here that there were such unlucky places in the world. The snow didn't fall in small, scattered flakes; the snowflakes were as big as a palm, falling in fluffy clumps from the sky. They were incredibly soft, and when the wind blew them into the depressions, people who walked on them simply disappeared, leaving only a dark, empty snow hole.

As for the cold, it was especially cold at the beginning of winter, but after getting used to it, it was bearable as long as there was no wind. However, when the wind blew, it would chill her to the bone, making her, who had lived in a warm area since childhood, feel like she was dying.

She even managed to break her bad habit of laughing out loud after spending a winter on Ezo Island.

You can't laugh too hard here, or your face will sting and your mouth will crack.

She deeply regretted listening to Yuan Ye's deception and agreeing to this unfortunate task that seemed destined for her. She planned to go back and advise Yuan Ye not to invest any more energy in Ezo Island—in this era, the natural conditions of Ezo Island were too harsh. Even with initial development, it would take at least three or four generations to complete. In the short term, it would not only be of no benefit to Wanjin but would also be a huge burden.

The key issue is that even the people of Wanjin find it difficult to adapt to the climate on Ezo Island.

Yuanye left her with dozens of men, but before winter was even over, six of them had already died, and more than a dozen were bedridden and still not well. It was likely that a few more would die later. The casualty rate was too high, too high to accept.

Unless they can disregard the lives of ordinary people like the Kakizaki family and forcibly immigrate here at the cost of 20-30% of their population dying, they simply cannot gain a foothold here.

Ezo Island is probably only valuable for its furs, at least for the time being.

However, after suffering so much, Aman's mission has made some progress; at least she has made friends with some Ainu tribes.

The problem is... it's a bit difficult to visit these friends. The Ainu people don't have farmland; their food mainly comes from gathering, supplemented by fishing and hunting. Each tribe needs a piece of land dozens of times larger than a farming village to feed itself. Their settlements also move around frequently with the seasons, so each tribe is far apart. Sometimes they even like to go deep into the mountains, making them very difficult to find.

Aman and her exploration team have been traveling in the wild for almost two days using horse-drawn sleds as transportation. If they still can't find the tribe they're looking for, she'll have to turn back and rest for a few days before trying again in a different direction, all to ensure the horses can get back alive.

But perhaps because they were being watched, Aman led his exploration team on a journey to the northwest for most of the day and finally found a few hunters—hunters from the Zhaier tribe.

Zhaier is a transliteration; a direct translation would roughly mean "people who live in the lowlands and mountains."

The hunters were lying in ambush with Ezo deer, the local species of sika deer. When they saw Aman leading a sled team through the snow from afar, they were slightly wary and subconsciously prepared to avoid them. However, they quickly noticed the "colorful gourd flags" stuck on the sleds and relaxed.

One of the older hunters, as the sled drew near, greeted him with a hearty laugh: "Aman, what good stuff have you brought this time?"

"Nothing of value! We're almost bankrupt! Where's the black fox pelt you owe me? If you don't give it to me soon, don't blame me for not giving you any face—I'll slap you twice!" Aman, speaking fluent Ainu, dressed in bulky clothes and wrapped up like a ball, cursed as he got off the sled, not forgetting to casually greet the other younger hunters, "Utali! Utali!"

Utali means "friend" and can sometimes be used as a greeting, similar to a short phrase like "Hey buddy."

She indeed possesses exceptional language talent and a remarkable memory. She mastered Ainu in just six months, and she was self-taught. If she were born in modern times, she would definitely be a "foreign language academy saint," and mastering seven or eight foreign languages ​​would be no problem for her. She had been teaching her subordinates, but even with teachers, they still spoke haltingly after six months, and daily communication was somewhat difficult. This shows that people are different, and talent does exist. She was indeed the best candidate to carry out this mission.

Of course, she was forced to learn on her own. Initially, she wanted to find an Ainu language teacher. She secretly brought people to kidnap an interpreter from the "monomimi" (trading post in the immigrant village) of the Kakizaki family. However, this interpreter was also a novice. Aman beat him for ten days and only learned some phrases such as "how much", "cheaper" and "too expensive" from him, which were not very useful at all.

In the end, she took the wine, disguised herself, and infiltrated the Kakizaki family's trading post. She took the initiative to chat with the Ainu people and that's how she learned to write. She has already started learning to write.

Well, she used to think that the Ainu people were savages who sucked hair and drank blood. After getting to know them, she discovered that the Ainu people also had a writing system, a pictographic script that was clearly very ancient. After Yuanye saw it in the letter, Yuanye suspected that it was a local script from the Spring and Autumn Period, or at least influenced by the Wu and Yue regions.

Of course, this is just a suspicion. He is not an expert in ancient writing, so his judgment may not be correct. However, he finds these characters very familiar. For example, there is a character that the Ainu people often draw on their bodies, which looks like the original version of "Su". Its meaning can probably be translated as "virtue" or "land of virtue". Moreover, many characters look like the inscriptions on the Terracotta Army. At least some of the radicals of the characters are very similar, suggesting that they may have originated from the same source or influenced each other.

However, the Ainu people do not look like Chinese people. They have fair skin, are hairy, and the men have long beards and curly hair, making them look somewhat like Russians.

Is she probably of mixed race?
Even Yuanye couldn't determine the origins of the Ainu people, let alone Aman. But she didn't care about that. She didn't care where the Ainu people came from. She drank with them and made friends. The old hunter Zhapinong from the Zhaier tribe in front of her was the first Ainu person she met. Aman learned a lot of Ainu from him, and her accent was very similar to his.

At the beginning of their acquaintance, Zahinon, who went to "Monomimi" to sell furs, was very wary of Aman and even had a slight aversion to her. He was only willing to talk to her because he wanted to drink her wine. However, after Aman explained that she was not a "Wajin" but a "Wanjin", Zahinon looked at her clothes and found that they were indeed quite different from those of "Wajin", at least from those of the Kakizaki family. Only then did his attitude soften.

After they became familiar with each other, especially after Aman had learned some Ainu, Zapinong, drunk, began to hurl insults at the "Hoh people," accusing them of reckless migration, encroaching on the land they depended on for survival, and also accusing them of being faithless, often selling inferior goods, and having no respect for oaths to the gods—a bunch of utter scoundrels.

After all, the first major conflict between the Kakizaki family and the Ainu people occurred when the Ainu ordered an iron dagger but was dissatisfied with the goods, believing that the weight was short. They argued with the shopkeeper, who then stabbed the Ainu man in a fit of rage. Enraged by this, the Ainu people, who had often been cheated, joined forces and launched a fierce attack on the Kakizaki family, destroying more than a dozen immigrant villages. Unfortunately, they were overtaken by Kakizaki family's son-in-law, Takeda Nobuhiro, and failed to capture the Kakizaki family's stronghold, Hanazawa-kan, ultimately falling short of their goal.

Afterwards, the Kakizaki family invited the nearby Ainu tribes to a meeting under the pretext of peace and border demarcation. However, they poisoned the wine and killed all the Ainu who came. They then launched a counterattack, which forced the Ainu in this area to retreat and cede the territory to the Kakizaki family.

This happened almost a hundred years ago. Since then, the Kakizaki family has continued to engage in outrageous practices. Taking advantage of the fact that the Ainu people needed them to provide necessities such as ironware, food, salt, and cloth, they bought low and sold high, used inferior goods as substitutes, and broke contracts as a matter of course. They basically did not treat the Ainu people as human beings. Now they have a bad reputation in this area, and no Ainu person does not hate them.

However, it's easy to go from simplicity to luxury, but difficult to go back to simplicity. After using iron tools, the Ainu people found it hard to switch back to bone arrows and copper daggers, and could only endure their long-term exploitation. After understanding all this, Aman immediately joined Zhapinong in cursing the Okizaki family, saying they were utterly dishonest and lacked any integrity, yet they confidently assured her that it was just salt and iron junk. They had plenty of these things in Wanjin, and couldn't even sell them. Their leader was constantly worried about the salt and iron in the warehouse, even shedding fur from worry for a long time. Giving Zhapinong some junk would be no problem at all!
At that time, Zapinong was already dizzy from drinking the taro liquor that Aman had brought, so he just thought she was talking nonsense because she was drunk and didn't take it to heart. However, the next time he went to the village of Kakizaki to trade furs, he was actually stopped by Aman on the way. Aman gave him a sack of salt, a good knife, a big bag of arrowheads, and a big barrel of wine.

The salt was pure white, without a trace of sand or soil, and its taste was only salty, not bitter. He had never seen such good salt before.
The knife is made of high-quality steel, with ample material and a heavy weight. The arrowhead is also a standard heavy arrow, made entirely of iron and quenched, making it extremely sharp. With the shaft and fletching attached, it becomes a fine arrow capable of hunting bears and wolves.

Zhapinong was overjoyed. He felt that although Aman had little hair and it wasn't curly enough, he was very loyal and hadn't taken her things for nothing. On the spot, he gave her the deer and bear skins he had brought.

The two sides thus became acquainted. Zhapinong began to visit the immigrant village of Lizaki less often, and often saved the furs, even if it meant waiting dozens of days to save them for Aman. He also introduced her to other Ainu tribes. Once, when Aman came, after the two drank together, he promised to give Aman a black fox pelt as a reward for the good wine she brought.

However, there are quite a few foxes in Ezo, but their fur is mainly light brown and coffee-colored. Black foxes are a variant and are extremely rare. Some hunters may never encounter one in their entire lives. He was just drunk and bragging.

He was bragging, but Aman remembered it. Knowing that black fox fur was very precious and rare, he planned to make a fur collar to wear back to Wanjin to show off. Whenever they met, he would ask him for it. Zha Ping Nong could not give it to him, which made him very embarrassed.

This time was no different. Zha Ping Nong had caught a few foxes this winter, but hadn't seen a single black fox fur. He chuckled a few times and quickly changed the subject, looking at the snow sled: "It's just a black fox pelt. I'll give it to you sooner or later. I'll definitely give it to you when I find one... We've collected quite a few pelts recently. Do you have enough to carry?"

Aman didn't press the matter too much. Anyway, he would have to give the black fox pelt to Zhapinong sooner or later. If he didn't give it to her, he would take his daughter back to Wanjin to pay off the debt. There was no rush. He went over and lifted the straw mat on the sled, saying confidently, "I brought three times more than last time. Our leader is the richest man in the world. Wanjin has plenty of good things."

The supply ship from Wanjin has arrived, delivering three full ships of goods to Aman's temporary camp, enough for the small tribes Aman has contacted to use for a long time, according to the needs of Ezo Island.

The hunters immediately went forward to inspect the sled and found a large amount of grain, cloth, bundles of arrows, and a considerable amount of wine. There was also some salt, but not much, since Aman had already exchanged a lot of refined salt nearby, and the demand for salt among the nearby tribes had decreased significantly in a short period of time.

Zha Ping Nong drew an arrow and stroked it for a moment, feeling that Wan Jin was still as reliable as ever. All the goods were of excellent quality as always, and even the arrows were all the same, with the shafts of the same length and thickness as if they were carved from the same mold, which was very rare. This was very important for a hunter, as he did not have to consider the differences between arrows, which could save him a lot of effort and also improve his hit rate.

Needless to say, food can be stored for a long time, which can be used to prepare for famine and disaster. It is also an extremely precious resource for gathering and hunting tribes. The high-quality and brightly colored cotton cloth is unique to Wanjin and is very popular among women. With these cloths, more people in the tribe are willing to wear cloth.

"These are all good things!" Zhapinong exclaimed after looking at them, but he felt a little regretful that the furs his tribe had accumulated could not be exchanged for all these things.

Aman was very good at reading people's expressions. He could tell what the man was thinking just by looking at his face. He waved his hand generously and said, "Alright, Lao Zha, don't be like this. I've already brought them over. These are all yours. Let's give you an extra 20% off the price from last time. If it's not enough, you can pay back slowly. Use the things for now."

"Really?" Zhapinong was overjoyed and slapped Aman hard, saying happily, "You are truly a good friend of us Zhaier people. On our Zhaier land, you can always walk freely, and everyone will treat you as a distinguished guest!"

"Alright, alright, enough with the nonsense, let's get down to business!" Aman, having finished his generous act, didn't mince words and got straight to the point. "Let's forget about the furs for now, give me whatever you have. I also want feathers, give me any extra feathers you have. And what about that... Iku people you mentioned last time? You said they have gold dust, you have to help me find them, I want to trade them for their gold dust!"

“The Iku people are further north. You have to cross the mountains and walk to the vicinity of the river to find them.” Zhapinong didn’t think Aman’s conditions were excessive. They were already much better than those of the Okizaki family. At least Aman always provided the goods in good quality and quantity. He was very generous and sincere. So the Zhaier people couldn’t be too stingy. They had to help their friend get things done.

Furthermore, the Iku people are even worse off than them. They can't eat or drink the gold dust, but if they were given grain, arrows, cloth, salt, and wine in return, they would certainly be happy to accept it.

He thought for a moment and then said, "Stay here for a while and see how the weather goes. I'll go with you on a trip over the mountains and I'll definitely help you find them."

“Let’s go then, let’s go to your place first!” Aman climbed back onto the sled, gesturing for Zhapinong to lead the way, and said rather unhappily, “I’m saying, next time you move, could you please send someone to let me know? It’s such a hassle to contact you every time.”

Zhapinong stopped hunting deer, prioritizing getting the goods back first. He then boarded the sled and huddled with Aman for warmth, casually remarking, "There are only three or four places like this. You'll understand once you stay here for another year or two. Most of our wintering grounds are in that valley."

“I don’t want to stay here for another year or two. There’s nothing here but ice, snow and wild beasts. It’s so boring!” Aman bluntly criticized Zhapinong’s hometown as a boring, rotten place. He took out a small wine flask from his pocket, took a sip, and handed it to Zhapinong, muttering, “You should really go to Wanjin. It’s much more comfortable there than here, and the life is better. The only advantage here is that you can drink freely. Everything else is terrible.”

Without Aqing and Yuanye to restrain her, she could drink without restraint. Whenever alcohol was transported from Wanjin, she would take a few barrels to her room first, using her status as an excuse to "test and prevent spoilage" and embezzle a little. But after drinking for half a year, she started to get bored and wanted to outwit Yuanye and Aqing again.

The wine that can only be drunk with the help of Yuanye and Aqing is especially sweet; if it can be drunk easily, it is not very interesting.

“Wanjin ah…” Zha Pingnong wasn’t angry. He took the small wine pot and took a sip. He felt that the new wine was stronger and exhaled a white puff of steam, feeling very good.

There's no need to take it to heart when friends argue. Besides, Aman had often mentioned Wanjin to him before, always wanting to go back. He even told the people in the tribe about Wanjin during his previous visits. Many children started to yearn for Wanjin, even though they couldn't imagine what it meant to have spring all year round or what prosperity was like.

They chatted and sipped wine along the way, guided by Zhapinong, winding their way through the wilderness and hills into the mountains. After more than an hour's drive, they finally arrived at the wintering valley of the Zhaier tribe. In autumn, they would store food in caves and live there during the winter, leaving when the weather warmed up to go to a more suitable place to gather food.

They usually go to places like mountains, rivers, and wetlands according to the season, where it is convenient to collect berries and wild vegetables, or to fish or catch otters.

Unlike before, when Aman used to bring goods, this tribe of nearly a thousand people would always welcome him warmly, or rather, they would all come out to watch the excitement. But this time, only some women and children heard the commotion and came to the entrance of the valley to greet him, and they didn't look very happy.

It's easy to see that, according to Ainu tradition, women paint their lips large in various colors. Young girls wear light red, older women wear bright red, and older women wear light purple or dark purple, which is reserved for shamans. When they smile, everyone has a huge mouth that can take up half of their face, which is quite frightening. You can tell whether they are happy or not at a glance.

Now, the women at the mouth of the valley have relatively small mouths, which look much more normal, proving that none of them are smiling.

Aman's beady eyebrows immediately started to swell towards the center, indicating that something was wrong.

(End of this chapter)