Bringing the Railway to Daming

The Meriya tribe currently implements a parallel public-private system, and with a population of several thousand, there is a market in the city specifically for residents to trade.

In fact, it is a large open space where public activities are usually held.

Melianika brought Zou Mingda and others here and introduced them to the tribesmen who had gathered along the way.

"They are merchants from foreign lands. Although they don't speak our language, they bring good things with them, such as fine sewing needles and beautiful silk threads."

Although the location of the Meriya tribe is not remote, caravans do not come here often. On average, it is considered a good visit if there is one caravan coming every month.

The tribesmen had a strong desire to trade and were also curious. After hearing what their leader Nika said, they became excited and expectant.

"Chief, let them take out the goods and show them to us!"

"I have a lot of hides stored at home, and I've been wanting to exchange them with the caravan for a long time!"

"This caravan's attire is quite impressive. Perhaps they have some truly new things..."

Nika immediately started talking to Zou Mingda in a babble of gestures.

Zou Mingda was able to become the shogunate recorder who was specifically responsible for communicating with the native tribes. Naturally, he had some talent in this area.

Although he couldn't understand a word Nika said, and couldn't even understand most of her movements, he guessed something based on the scene before him.

He immediately smiled and asked the guards to take out the goods from their backpacks one by one.

A sewing box no bigger than a fist, coarse porcelain bowls, coarse cotton cloth, glass bracelets and necklaces, in short, some small commodities that are cheap, easy to carry and do not take up space, and finally ten kilograms of refined salt.

Seeing these goods that were completely different from those brought by other caravans in the past, not only the ordinary tribesmen, but even Nika felt jealous and squatted over to look through them one by one.

When Nika saw the refined salt at the back and tasted it, her eyes suddenly lit up.

The Meriya tribe also mastered the technology of boiling salt from sea water, but the salt they boiled out was coarse salt, and the taste was very bad, not as good as the lake salt brought from inland by other caravans.

Even the lake salt from those caravans was not as fine and delicious as the salt in front of him.

Nika immediately communicated with Zou Mingda through gestures.

“How do we exchange these salts?”

Zou Mingda pointed to the gold necklace around her neck.

"This one? No, this one is from my mother and cannot be exchanged."

Zou Mingda probably guessed what Nika meant, so he took out a dime of gold he carried with him and indicated that he could exchange it for gold.

Nika understood what was happening and immediately asked a trusted girl to go to the public treasury to get gold - gold was indeed one of the hard currencies used in transactions among various departments.

Afterwards, the Great Elder Tuke and the Battle Commander Amaru also came over.

Seeing this, Nika couldn't help but boast a little, "Look, Great Elder, I told you these strangers brought a lot of goodies—would you like to trade a few too?"

Although Tuke was over fifty years old and had seen a lot, he was still surprised to see the small commodities that Yong Fan used to trade with the natives.

The same is true for Amaru.

However, like Nika, after looking at all the products, the one they valued most was the bag of refined salt.

After the two of them whispered a few words, Tuke said to Nika, "Chief, I think we can keep these foreigners here and let them teach us the technology of making this fine salt - we can exchange it for gold."

Nika was very smart and immediately understood Tuke's idea. She frowned and said, "You want to rob me?"

Amaru then said, "So what if we robbed them? From what they say, I'm afraid it has nothing to do with the tribes along the river. I don't know where it came from - if we just kill them all, who would know it was us?"

Nika said unhappily, "Amaru, doing this will make our Meriya tribe lose its credibility!"

Amaru said, "Nika, you're just like your mother—your so-called kindness and honesty only hinder the development of the tribe. The fact that our Meriya tribe's population has declined over the years is proof of that!"

"If it was Tuke or me who was the leader, the tribe might have expanded several times by now!"

"That's enough!" Nika glared at Amaru. "No matter what you say, I don't agree to do this!"

Afterwards, she urged her tribesmen to trade as quickly as possible. After the trade was completed, she rejected Zou Mingda's request to stroll around the city and sent them out of the city...
Zou Mingda left the city and walked for more than a mile with Liang Xiong and the others. Liang Xiong kept walking and whispered, "How dare they send someone to follow us? They really don't know how to live or die!"

Zou Mingda said: "If we take action, we must get rid of all the tails."

Liang Xiong smiled crookedly, "Don't worry."

Liang Xiong then commanded the troops to disrupt the trackers' vision and ambushed more than a dozen people. As expected, the three tracking natives were captured. Although these natives knew the terrain better and were good at tracking and raiding in the wild, their skills and experience were ultimately not as good as the elite Ming army.

After returning to the beach, Zou Mingda came to Zhu Chong to report the intelligence he had obtained.

"Your Majesty, the circumference of the native stone city is approximately 1,200 to 1,300 steps. As for the population, it should be over 5,000 and under 10,000. A more specific number is difficult to ascertain."

"Also, although they don't have iron weapons, they do have bronze blades, and some warriors even have leather armor for protection."

"Finally, from my humble observation, their top brass seem to be at odds with each other."

He then told of the capture of three natives.

After hearing this, Zhu Chong raised his head and laughed out loud, "Very good! I was just worrying about what pretext to use to attack them, but they actually dared to send people to follow you with evil intentions. Isn't this just an excuse?!" Yang Qian, Zou Mingda and others beside him were speechless.

They just sent someone to follow me, they didn't do anything particularly offensive, so that's an excuse... No, how can I use the word "excuse"? Shouldn't I say "in the name of"?

However, Yang Qian and others had already known Zhu Chong's character and knew that Zhu Chong was determined to take over the entire native tribe, so they did not bother with the details.

Zhu Chong glanced at the sky and saw that it would probably be three or four hours before dark, so he said, "There's no time to lose. In my opinion, we should immediately send troops to attack them. After all, they only have a few thousand strong men at most. We can definitely defeat them."

Yang Qian said, "Your Majesty, if we attack now, I'm afraid the army may not be able to gather the natives still outside the city in such a hurry."

"I suggest that we first send a thousand soldiers to pretend to attack the city, giving them time to gather the natives outside. At the same time, we can send other troops to bypass and ambush around the city, eventually forming a four-sided encirclement."

Zhu Chong nodded, "Okay, let's do as Mr. Yang says—try to capture the city before dark. I'm going to spend the night in the city!"

"Yes!"

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The city of Meria.

Amaru came to the residence of the great elder Tuke and asked with a little concern: "Why haven't Dilu and the others returned yet? Could something have happened?"

Tuke said, "We can send people to follow those foreigners, and they will naturally find Dilu and the others. Dilu and the others are good kids. Even if they are captured, they will not betray the tribe."

Amaru said bitterly, "It's all that little woman Nika's fault. If she hadn't stopped us, we would have directly captured those foreigners in and outside the city. Why would we have sent people to take the risk of following them?"

Tuke narrowed his eyes and said, "Be patient—Nika thinks she's great, but aside from being prettier, she's far less capable than her mother."

"It's only been two years since her mother passed away, and many people in the tribe still miss her. But after a few more years, there won't be many people who remember her mother anymore."

"By then, the tribe will realize that you are much more suitable as a leader than Nika. Then they can find any mistake she made and destroy her."

Amaru's expression became visibly excited upon hearing this, and he said, "Not only do I want to destroy her, I also want her to be my woman!"

Tuke frowned and hit Amaru with his stick. "What are you dreaming about? You're her uncle!"

Amaru touched his head, a look of dissatisfaction flashed across his eyes, and he thought to himself: When I become the leader, I will get rid of you, old man!

"Oh no!" Wakashi's voice suddenly came from outside. Then Wakashi pushed the door open and came in, panting, "Great Elder, Commander, there are many foreigners outside the city again!"

The two were surprised to hear this.

Tuke asked, "How much is a lot?"

Wakashi thought for a moment and said, "About the same number as last time, ten."

Amaru was still wondering how many ten people were last time, but Tuke had already realized what was happening and frowned, saying, "A thousand people? These foreigners really have bad intentions! Amaru, don't just stand there, go gather the soldiers to defend the city!"

"Know!"

Amaru ran out.

When Tuke came to the city wall with a wooden staff, he found that the leader Nika had also arrived and was looking outside with a frown.

Tuke also looked outside the city and saw thousands of foreigners standing in a neat row several hundred steps away, as if they were on guard against an attack. A few hundred more were cutting down trees, as if to make ladders for the siege.

In his early years, Tuke had participated in a war between the tribal alliance and another alliance, and had seen many tribal warriors.

But no tribal warriors could stand as neatly as those strangers, as tall as pine trees, and as still as if petrified.

This made his heart sink, and he said solemnly, "Amaru, Nika, I'm afraid that disaster is coming for our Meriya tribe. These warriors from this foreign land are very powerful, even more powerful than the Antis warriors I have ever seen."

Amaru said, "Not necessarily—aside from their strange clothing and weapons, what makes them so powerful?"

Tuke knew that in Amaru's eyes, the symbol of strength was size and muscle, so he didn't bother to explain. He just said, "While they are still making siege ladders, quickly call back the soldiers outside the city. Have the soldiers inside the city climb the city walls as well. Young men and women prepare stones, hot water, and other defensive weapons..."

No matter how much Nika and Amaru hated Tuke in their hearts, they subconsciously followed his orders at this moment - after all, Tuke was older and had much more experience in dealing with war than them.

As the long sound of a copper urn rang out, the Meriya warriors outside the city rushed back from the nearby fields and forests.

They did not go through the city gate, but entered the city from other directions using rope ladders lowered from the city wall.

When the sun set, nearly two thousand soldiers of the Meriya tribe stood on the city wall with weapons in hand. Only then did the Yongfan vanguard troops outside the city form a complete formation and prepare to attack the city.

Wuwuwu——

A horn sounded from the south where the city gate was located, and then the sound of horns rang out in the east, west, and north directions as if in response!

Upon hearing this, Tuke, Nika, and Amaru all had expressions that changed suddenly.

Tuke said, "There are also these foreign warriors in other directions!"

"I'll go and take a look to the east!" Amaru said and ran towards the north city wall.

"I'm going to the west!" Nika also ran towards the west city wall.

At this moment, she deeply regretted letting those foreign merchants into the city. She felt that it was because they had entered the city and seen the wealth of the Meriya tribe that more foreigners came to attack the Meriya tribe. (End of this chapter)