Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 259: Headhunting in the Wild, Fishing and Hunting in the Ezo Region, and the Japanese Girl

"According to the imperial court's decree, our Eastern Frontier Prefecture's garrisons have two main tasks: one is to reclaim wasteland and cultivate land, and the other is to eliminate the unruly inhabitants of the island."

"And based on what happened to the island where the guards have been over the past year or so, if we want to peacefully reclaim wasteland and cultivate land, we must first wipe out the insubordinate tribes!"

Wei Xingguo, the commander of Jianan Guard, sat at the first seat on the left below with his horse and sword in hand and spoke in a loud voice.

Zhu Yu was different from Zhu Zhen. Although he was no longer as averse to studying as before, he had not carefully read the documents sent by the court. After hearing Wei Xingguo's words, he asked directly, "Are the barbarians on Dongfan Island so unruly that they are difficult to convert?"

Liu Zhen, the commander-in-chief, said, "Your Highness, the indigents of Dongfan Island are not simply unruly and unruly; they are wild and difficult to tame, and almost impossible to communicate with."

"Based on what we've learned over the past year or so, many of the island's indigenous peoples have the custom of hunting and headhunting—whenever a man reaches adulthood, he must hunt a human head as a rite of passage."

"In addition, the indigenous people consider those who kill many heads a day as brave, and they also like to use human skulls and hand bones to make ornaments."

Zhu Yu was not surprised to hear this and interrupted, "What's the big deal? Doesn't our Ming army count military merits based on human heads? As for using human bones as ornaments, it's common among the barbarians, so it's not surprising."

Liu Zhen said, "The evil habits of the barbarians on Dongfan Island are not limited to this. Your Highness, as early as the end of the Song Dynasty, many Han people fled the war and landed on this island to reclaim wasteland and cultivate land."

"At its peak, there were probably tens of thousands of people, with dozens of villages. But when we landed on the island, there wasn't a single Han Chinese there. Your Highness, do you know where those Han people went?"

Zhu Yu was no fool. He frowned and asked, "Are they all going to be killed by the barbarians?"

"Your Highness is right."

Zhu Yu was puzzled. "If all the Han people who landed on the island were killed by the Tibetans, how did you know there were tens of thousands of them?"

Liu Zhen said, "Because we have discovered dozens of village ruins on this Jianan Plain. And observing the traces, the most recent village was destroyed only 10 or 20 years ago."

"Later, we heard that some people from the Fujian coastal areas had lived on Dongfan Island, so we sent people to inquire. We also verified this with the indigenous tribes we had already wiped out, and only then did we learn about the indigenous people's more evil habits."

"For example, when they went out to raid Han villages or other tribes, they often killed the men and brought the women back to the tribe to bear children for them."

"They only want the first child born by a woman, so after the captured woman gives birth, she will be used to sacrifice to their gods."

Zhu Yu was finally shocked and said with wide eyes, "Isn't this murdering his wife?"

Liu Zhen said, "That's why I say many of the wild tribes are still wild and not even human. In fact, some of the wild tribes on the island still maintain the custom of cannibalism, believing that eating humans can gain strength."

Zhu Yu was puzzled again. "There shouldn't be a shortage of food on this island, right? Why would they resort to cannibalism?"

Liu Zhen shook his head, "I don't know about that."

Zhu Yu thought for a moment and said, "I remember the imperial court once sent someone to estimate that there were about 100,000 wild people on Dongfan Island. Could it be that there are no tribes that don't engage in headhunting?"

"Of course there are, but the proportion is extremely small, you could say only one in ten."

Wei Xingguo was a bit impatient, and he was already a little impatient after hearing this. He said, "Your Highness, the savage tribes are still wild and refuse to obey the king. Last year, they frequently attacked the remnants of the garrison troops. Therefore, our main task this year is to wipe out those savage tribes."

"Even those in the deep mountains, we won't send our troops on a long expedition. We must defeat them so that they dare not come out to plunder again!"

Zhu Gui also felt that those headhunters and cannibals deserved to be killed, so he nodded and said, "Since that's the case, you should report this matter. This king is only here to inspect the military affairs of the various garrisons and the farming affairs, and I cannot give you any orders."

"I'll wait to understand."

Zhu Yu stood up and said, "Alright, send someone to take me to inspect the thousand and hundred households below. This is a task assigned by my father, and I must complete it."

When Zhu Yu went to inspect the thousand-household and hundred-household offices below, he thought of the overseas fiefdoms because of the bad habits of the barbarians on the Dongfan Island.

"If we encounter these headhunting and cannibalistic barbarians in our overseas territories in the future, it seems we will have no choice but to exterminate them."

"Of course, if we really are short of manpower, we can capture some prisoners and use them as hard labor, but we cannot give them the chance to be free. We must use them until they die."

"But where should we go to be a vassal in the future? I heard that the natives in Southeast Asia and Australia are too ugly, and India has my eye on it, and America and Africa are too far away... It's really hard to choose!"

"If that doesn't work, then we can discuss it with our fourth brother and have him take us to India to be a vassal."

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Ezo Island.

On the shore of a bay west of the southernmost tip stands a small civil structure castle built only last year. It is Ezo Nishie Castle (later Matsumae County, Hokkaido).

Zhu Di, whom Zhu Gui had been talking about, had been here for half a month.

In addition to being responsible for continuing to implement the Ming Dynasty's "converting rice to mulberry" and "immigration" policies towards Japan this year, he also received the temporary task of inspecting the Beiyang Regional Military Commission.

In the past half month, he has successively inspected the five thousand-household units of Ezo West Guard and the many hundred-household units under its jurisdiction.

Because at that time Japan only used Ezo Island as a place to exile criminals, the entire island was actually occupied by the Ezo people - in fact, even in the northern part of Honshu Oshima, Japan today, there are still a few Ezo tribes.

If you look at the map, you will know that the latitude of Aomori, Akita and Iwate in later Japan is similar to that of Jilin, which shows how cold it is there in winter.

As for Ezo Island, it goes without saying that the island is now inhabited by Ezo people who make a living by hunting and fishing.

After one or two years of contact, the Ming Dynasty now has a deep understanding of the Ainu people.

The Ainu were about as civilized as the Jurchens of the Northeast. They not only made clothing (animal hides) and pottery, but they also grew millet. However, they primarily hunted and fished, and only grew millet and vegetables sporadically.

The largest Ezo tribe on the island could have a population of several thousand, and could mobilize about a thousand young and strong men as warriors. The combat effectiveness of fishing and hunting ethnic groups was quite high in the era of cold weapons, and basically every adult was a qualified warrior.

A small tribe has a population of at least a thousand people and can mobilize three to five hundred warriors.

It was precisely because the Ainu people were so powerful in the era of cold weapons that the Japanese and the ethnic minorities fought against them for thousands of years and even established a special position of Shogun.

However, since the Tang Dynasty, Japan has continued to learn from China, and its planting, smelting and other skills have been continuously improved, which has also continuously improved Japan's combat effectiveness, and the Ainu people began to retreat.

At this time, the Ainu people were almost completely retreating to Ainu Island.

In less than a hundred years, the Japanese will reach Ezo Island and continue to squeeze the living space of the Ezo people until they occupy the entire Ezo Island.

The Ainu people could not defeat the Japanese who had learned various Chinese skills, and naturally they were no match for the Ming army equipped with bird guns and cannons.

When the various guard posts on Ezo Island were first established last year, the nearby Ezo tribes attacked the guard posts out of a sense of territorial protection.

As a result, they were severely beaten. The lucky ones could escape to the mountains with the remnants of their troops, but the unlucky ones were directly exterminated - the Ming army did not kill many people, but only captured men for hard labor and betrothed the young women to soldiers in need.

The Ainu people were not stupid. After knowing that the Ming army was not easy to deal with, and seeing that the Ming army was mostly reclaiming land and farming instead of hunting and fishing, they wisely stayed away from them.

Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty court did not want the Ainu people to live a peaceful life on the island, unrelated to the garrison troops.

Last year, the main order given by the imperial court to the military garrisons on the two islands of Ezo and Kuwu was to establish garrisons and reclaim wasteland and cultivate land to gain a foothold.

The orders issued to the two island garrisons this year were to intimidate the tribes on the islands into submitting to the Ming Dynasty and becoming minority tribes under the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

If there is disobedience, the garrison troops will be responsible for suppressing the disobedience in addition to farming!

During his inspections over the past half month, Zhu Di discovered that although not much land had been cultivated in the Ezo West Guard, the soldiers were in high spirits, and the guard's military equipment was complete, even excellent.

The reason why the garrison troops had such high morale was simple.

First of all, the land obtained by the military households who came to settle here was more than double their original amount!
Although the land needed to be cultivated by the families themselves, the imperial court had provided rations, seeds, and farm tools, except for a cow. Although no cow was ultimately given, many military households later received slaves (called forced labor, but actually slaves), which made cultivating wasteland and farming much easier.

Secondly, wives were given to some of the bachelors in the military households - a small number of them were native Ainu girls, and most of them were young Japanese girls.

Of course, it doesn’t mean you will get it just because you are single. You have to make certain contributions - at most you will be asked to pay the contributions first.

Therefore, the military households in Ezo West Guard are not only highly motivated to farm, but are even more motivated to fight.

Many people even look forward to fighting with Japan, because only by fighting with Japan can they get young Japanese girls as wives.

On this day, Zhu Di bid farewell to several senior generals of the Ezo West Guard and boarded the Beiyang Navy's squadron with a thousand-man guard. He was ready to continue inspecting the West Guard, Kuwu South Guard, and Kuwu North Guard, with the final destination being Liugui Guard.

"Weigh anchor!"

With the shouts of the naval officers on board, the ship slowly left the port.

Zhu Di stood on the deck, took out a telescope and looked back at Ezo West Guard again, and happened to see a merchant ship docked at the dock.

Then, the merchant ship guards drove off the ship one petite figure after another.

His telescope had a high magnification, so he could see clearly that those petite figures were all women, most of them were thin, like the women from the south of the Yangtze River, but upon closer inspection, they were different.

"It seems that Japan's immigration policy has made progress again, otherwise merchants would not continue to transport Japanese women to Ezo Nishie."

Thinking this in his mind, Zhu Di put away the telescope and went to his private cabin.

The sea breeze on Ezo Island in February and March can be very cold...

Fujino Sakurako was the last one to be taken off the boat by the guards.

She seemed to have sensed something and turned around to see the Beiyang Fleet not far away. Her attention was instantly drawn to the flagship, the Polang.

Although she came from a warrior family and had some experience, she had never seen such a large warship. In addition, the Ming army soldiers on the ship were all tall and mighty, which made her stunned for a moment.

"What are you looking at? Hurry up and leave." The guard next to her pushed her forward.

Fujino Sakurako had to look away, staggered away, and walked towards an unknown future.

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)