Controlling mountains and rivers since the Warring States Period

Chapter 97: The Distant Country
distance,

As Suichao was eating, he suddenly asked, "How long has it been since we left Zhuxia's territory?"

The unshaven Gongzi Chao began to count his fingers to recall the past, and at the same time he took out the records he carried with him to check, and finally told him, "It's been exactly twenty years!"

finished,

He burst into laughter for no apparent reason, slapped his thigh and said, "Oh my God, it's already been twenty years!"

The others were also stunned for a moment, and then they started laughing.

When the laughter gradually died down, someone repeated the long time in a low voice, "Twenty years..."

Then, there was a faint cry, "So it's been so long since we left home?"

Although Mohism advocates universal love for all people, its disciples are not as attached to their hometown and relatives as ordinary people.
And those who were specially selected to follow the young master on his journey west were all lonely people without any relatives.

But this does not mean that

They will not miss the place where they were born and grew up.

It's just that they left too far, for too long, and suffered too much along the way.

Let those longings be buried deep in the heart, without any spare time to dig them out to see the sunshine of this distant land.

Now as Sui Chao asked and Gongzi Chao answered, a huge sadness suddenly swept over them, making it impossible for them to hold back their tears.

A sense of sadness spread, just like the moonlight cast by the full moon at this moment.

Invisible and colorless,

Yet it is everywhere.

"Why do you suddenly ask this?"

Gongzi Chao also stroked his beard and was silent for a long time. Then he perked up and asked Sui Chao.

Suichao is an orphan who was adopted and raised by the Mohist school. With his stubborn and competitive personality, he has always been the most resolute and unrestrained one among their group.

He rarely complained about the difficulties of the journey, and rarely expressed his nostalgia for his hometown.

When Gongzi Chao occasionally looked up and saw the moon and couldn't help crying, Suichao would come over and kick him, telling him to stop dithering like a woman.

As a result, he was the one who took the initiative to bring up this topic.

Suichao just opened his mouth and silently spit out something -

His teeth fell out.

The young master went over to pick it up, then asked, "Did you knock it off while eating?"

"I didn't put sand in your porridge this time!"

Suichao shook his head, "It just fell off by itself."

"Didn't I tell you yesterday that I've been a little weak in walking lately?"

Gongzi Chao recalled what happened yesterday, "But you said that you had an upset stomach and that you were weak from diarrhea!"

Sui Chao snorted and said with a somewhat unwilling tone, "It's better now. I found that I didn't have a stomachache!"

"I'm just old!"

Gongzi Chao then leaned over, pulled apart Sui Chao's messy hair, and found that there was indeed a lot of white inside.

Then he untied his hair, held his hair and stroked it, reflecting it in the moonlight, and finally sighed, "Ah, it turns out that we are all old!"

When he organized a caravan and set out from Zhao State, he had just come of age and was only twenty years old.

Looking back now vaguely, I have reached the age of “no doubt” as Confucius said.

Suichao was seven or eight years older than him. He had never lived a life of luxury and was indeed getting old.

"When we set out, there were about 200 people, and now there are still about 200 people. I almost can't react!"

Lamenting his own weakness, Gongzi Chao began to count the number of people in the team.

Twenty years have passed,
Their number increased instead of decreasing, and there were more than ten of them.

Among those who initially left Qin and headed further west, some naturally died on the way.

However, Gongzi Chao and his men relied on the military force and education of the Xia people, and used the power of rites, music, benevolence, righteousness, frugality and the pursuit of virtue to conquer and defeat many barbarian tribes on the way, and absorbed some talents from them to supplement their journey westward.

Until now,
The number of Chinese and barbarians in the team is almost the same.

Who can blame the barbarians on the way who will keep appearing, while the gentlemen of the Chinese people will become fewer and fewer as they die?

Gongzi Chao still can't understand why there are so many barbarians in the world, and why they grow more luxuriantly than the weeds on the roadside.

No matter how you kill, you can’t kill them all!

“I wonder if the marks we left behind can be discovered by those who come after us!”

"The master said back then that if there was a chance, he would persuade Qin Jun to send a team to catch up with us!"

Someone laughed and said, "It's been so many years, haven't you gotten old and confused and forgotten about this?"

"How is that possible? With Juzi's wisdom, even if you forgot to eat, he couldn't have forgotten it!"

"It must be Qin's problem!"

Before they left, the Qin State was still in chaos!
but,

They still believed that Xiang Liqin and other Mo family members who stayed in Qin would definitely fulfill their promise.

So along the way, I couldn't help but leave a note of "I've been here" in many places.

And those who died on the way,
They also chose a good place to bury him.

According to the climate west of the Xia Dynasty, I'm afraid it won't rot even after thousands of years!
"When the time comes, we can dig it out and scare people in the future. That will be interesting!"

When someone talked about this, there was another burst of laughter.

Sri Lanka is dead,
They naturally miss it.
But there is no need to be sad all the time.

People always have to look forward.
Like they were still moving forward.

But Suichao rolled his eyes and said, "If you want to scare future generations, you have to find a place to bury you!"

"How long can we old bones walk? How much can we do?" But in this distant West, there is still no prosperous place.

The barbarians are running around everywhere,
There are few who resemble human beings.
The gentlemen of all China will get annoyed when they see this!

So Gongzi Chao also sighed, thinking that what Sui Chao said made sense.

Then he said, "According to the route and the information provided by the barbarians along the way, we seem to be not far from the mountain pass mentioned by the ghosts and gods!"

"Why don't we go there!"

"Anyway, the ghosts and gods said that the people there are not in any danger!"

"How about we go there and find a place to build a country like our ancestors did?"

The blue wisps of the road open up the mountains and forests!
This was the experience of the ancestors of the Xia Dynasty when they first went to their fiefdoms!

These descendants will not be afraid if they repeat it again!

As for too few staff?

joke,

When the Emperor of Zhou was making promises to the princes, he did not provide them with much supplies!

Moreover,
No one is without money,

Don’t they know to ask the barbarians for it?

Anyway, it is useless for the beasts to take these things, so it is better to give them to the gentlemen of the country so that they can bring greater value!
Someone clapped his hands in agreement with Gongzi Chao's idea, "I think this is feasible!"

"The marks left behind may be blown away by wind and rain!"

"But if we find a place to build a country, leave our bloodline, and spread the culture and wisdom of the Xia people, it will last much longer than the mark!"

As soon as this was said, many people immediately agreed.

Suichao listened but did not comment.

He said, "Whatever!"

So Gongzi Chao slapped his thigh and changed the route from now on, "It's settled!"

"Let's go south and find that mountain pass!"

A group of people swayed.
Embarked on a new journey again.

It took a lot of time again,

They finally broke through the magical mountain pass and came to the place that the ghosts and gods had mentioned.

Indeed, after a period of time, he conquered several surrounding barbarian tribes and established a country that could not be any smaller amidst simple and noisy rituals and music.

In order to indicate the origin of their branch and their nostalgia for their homeland, they were named "Xia".

The original name of this nation, its first dynasty, took root in the land outside the Xia Dynasty, and gave rise to new branches, becoming the "New Xia".

As for the system,

After discussion among the people, it was finally decided to nominate Gongzi Chao as the king, and his successor would follow the example of the three generations of sages and succeed the throne through the process of abdication.

of course,

The scope of the election must be limited to the gentlemen of the Xia Dynasty and their descendants!
After all, with such a small number of people, there is really no need for them to learn from the Zhou and Zhao republics.

The most important thing for a new country is to be united.

How could they divide their power and eventually cause the noble Chinese states to fall into the hands of the local barbarians?
After settling down, Gongzi Chao and Sui Chao laughed at each other's gray-haired and old appearance.

Then Gongzi Chao couldn't help but think back to his youth.

"The ghost said that the people here can be easily subdued, but I never thought that they really didn't put up any resistance at all!"

Although he only brought more than 200 people with him, their physical fitness was absolutely guaranteed to have allowed them to advance all the way here.

This is also the reason why Gongzi Chao dares to brag about establishing a country.

But with only two hundred people ruling over thousands of people and with vast and fertile land around them, Gongzi Chao still felt it was a bit of a dream.

Sui Chao said, "Barbarians are like this. Don't treat them as normal people before they are educated!"

The Mohist concept of "universal love" is applied to humans. How can it be required to love animals?

Gongzi Chao then sat cross-legged again, patted his belly and said, "When I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I once thought about becoming the king of Zhao."

"After all, my father is in power, so I have the qualifications to expect that position."

Suichao was picking his feet beside him and just said "oh" and was too lazy to look up at him.

Gongzi Chao continued to recall, "But later, I gave up fighting for those things and set a new goal."

"Who would have thought that after traveling west to this point, I would become the king of a country!"

He laughed, "Is this what I said, let nature take its course?"

After he finished laughing, Gongzi got up and decided to write down his recent records.

"It's time to give this record of the journey to the west a name..."

He looked at the documents piled up in front of him and thought to himself, "Du Jianguo will stay here and not go out to add content. We have to give this book a name."

Sui Chao said, "Let's just call it The Classic of Mountains and Seas!"

"Anyway, it just records the mountains and rivers along the way. There's nothing profound about it!"

Gongzi Chao adopted his suggestion, "Okay, let's call it "Classic of Mountains and Seas"!"

In the not too distant west, a group of Qin people were slowly coming along the countless "visited here" signs left by Gongzi Chao and others.

They complained about the desolation of the West and the barbarians running around everywhere, but they also admired those who dared to leave the land of Zhuxia twenty years ago.

at the moment,

They walked on the path that their predecessors had taken, heading towards the distant land of Xinxia.

(End of this chapter)