Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 589 Contact (Part 9)

On December 25, 1643, the cold wind at the mouth of the Ummlekan River swept up snowflakes, like countless tiny knives scraping across the temporary camp of the Russian expedition.

The so-called "camp" was nothing more than a few low, semi-subterranean shacks hastily erected and a slightly larger wooden hut that served as a command post and warehouse, roughly surrounded by sharpened wooden stakes for defense.

In the center of the camp, a small campfire burned weakly in the cold wind. Several Cossacks, wrapped in tattered furs and with haggard faces, huddled around the fire, trying to draw a little warmth from it.

Vasily Poyakov, the leader of the expedition sent by the Yakutsk Governor's Office, was standing in his relatively "comfortable" shack, looking somberly at the leaden sky and the swirling snowflakes through the translucent tarpaulin covering the window.

Today, what is considered the sacred Christmas of Jesus by Catholics in Western Europe is, for him, an Orthodox Russian noble officer, just another ordinary and unbearable day in this damned, bitterly cold land of the East (Orthodox Christmas is December 25th in the Julian calendar, corresponding to January 4th in the Gregorian calendar).

Six months ago, he was ordered by Pyotr Golovin, the governor of Yakutsk, to lead an expedition consisting of 133 Cossacks, 1 clerk, 2 translators and 1 guide to the legendary rich "Heilongjiang" region, in order to obtain endless furs (especially sable) and the legendary silver mines.

Starting from Yakutsk, they trekked upstream along the Lena River and its tributaries, crossing the majestic mountain range known locally as the Greater Khingan Mountains. At the cost of losing five team members, they finally became the first Russians to set foot in the Jingqili River (Zeyya River), a tributary on the north bank of the Heilongjiang River.

They chose to establish this winter camp near the mouth of the Ummlekan River.

At first, they were full of confidence, thinking that they could easily exchange the much-needed food and intelligence from the "ignorant and ignorant" natives with goods from the "civilized world"—those brightly colored glass beads and rough printed cloth.

However, reality dealt them a heavy blow.

The indigenous people here are quite different from other tribes they encountered in Siberia.

They not only refused to make the deal, but their eyes also held undisguised contempt.

Poyakov still remembered the old Daur man who picked up a glass bead they considered a treasure, weighed it in his hand, and casually threw it on the ground, muttering in a language they couldn't understand. But his expression clearly showed that he was discarding a worthless piece of trash.

The Tungusic guide accompanying the group translated in a low voice: "They said... they have something better."

Better?
Poyakov didn't believe it at first.

They traveled south, using these goods from the "civilized world" to easily exchange for large quantities of valuable furs and enough food to fill their stomachs from the ignorant natives.

But his subsequent investigation was alarming. In the tribal villages of these natives, in addition to strings of dried meat and baskets of oats, there were also round tubers (potatoes) and golden kernels (corn). They wore thick cotton and woolen clothes, and more importantly, they possessed sharp iron swords, spears and arrowheads.

Even a prominent indigenous chieftain had a mirror the size of his palm!
The wealth and level of civilization here far exceeded their imagination.

This completely overturned the Russians' understanding of "natives".

Poyakov found this somewhat unbelievable.

With trade failing and supplies running out, Poyakov resorted to their usual method—military plunder.

However, these natives were not lambs to the slaughter.

They were brave and skilled in battle, and using their familiarity with the terrain, they put up a fierce resistance with their excellent iron weapons and accurate bows and arrows.

After several small-scale conflicts, although the expedition team killed some natives with matchlock guns, they also suffered heavy casualties, with more than ten people killed or wounded.

In this desolate place lacking medical care and medicine, and freezing cold, injury was almost equivalent to death, and the cries of the wounded echoed through the camp for several nights in a row.

Enraged, Poyakov conspired with his clerk Ivan Palkin to set a trap.

They feigned a desire for peace, inviting a respected local chieftain, Doptiur, to negotiate, promising to exchange suitable goods for grain before leaving.

When Doptiur arrived with several followers, Poyakov brazenly ordered them detained as hostages to coerce the tribe into providing food.

“If they still want this old man to live, they have to hand over the grain!” Poyakov said to the clerk Palkin, a cruel smug look on his face.

However, the resistance of the Daur people did not stop.

They attempted a rescue, but were repelled by the camp's rudimentary defenses and musket fire. However, the food supplies they received were meager and insufficient to sustain the expedition.

“A bunch of stubborn barbarians!” Poyakov paced irritably in the mud hut, the light from the brazier illuminating his contorted face. “Don’t they care about the life or death of their chieftain?”

“Sir…” the clerk Palkin suggested cautiously, “Perhaps… we need a more severe warning.”

So Poyakov ordered his men to cut off two of Doptiur's fingers and send them back to the Daur tribe.

The piercing screams and vicious curses echoed throughout the camp, constantly lingering in their minds.

This atrocity brought some more food, but it was far from enough.

Hunger, like a maggot clinging to a bone, gnaws at everyone's will.

Ultimately, the will to survive overwhelmed all human nature.

It is unclear when it started, but the corpses of the Daur people killed in the conflict became a food source for the expedition team.

"To survive, and for the glory of the Tsar, we must stop at nothing!" Poyakov convinced himself and declared this to his subordinates.

But whenever he saw the Cossacks gathered around the campfire, silently sharing their "rations," a chill would creep into his heart.

He knew that they had crossed a certain boundary and become monsters that even they themselves found strange.

Since then, the bodies of the natives killed by the expedition team have no longer been discarded at will, but have been "carefully" preserved and have become their life-sustaining "food" to survive the winter.

This inhumane act, while temporarily alleviating their hunger, completely tainted their souls and spread a terrifying reputation among the local indigenous people as "cannibalistic demons."

However, from the captured indigenous people, they learned an even more unsettling piece of news: at the confluence of the two rivers in the south (the Jingqili River and the Heilongjiang River), there exists a powerful force known as "Huanghetun".

The surrounding indigenous tribes all submitted to this power and obtained a large amount of high-quality ironware, cloth, salt, tea and other products from them.

"Who are those people from 'Yellow River Village'?" Poyakov pressed the captured Doptiur, even though the latter was already very weak from the pain of his severed finger and the torture of imprisonment.

The chieftain Doptiur glared at him with hatred and said hoarsely, "...the true saviors...they will... bring us justice, and they will avenge us..."

Upon hearing this, Poyakov's heart sank. A power that had arrived at the banks of the great river earlier than them and was able to provide the indigenous tribes with a large quantity of goods from the civilized world?
This was completely unexpected and caused divisions within the expedition team.

“Sir…” an old Cossack with a full beard and tired eyes, Andrei Ivanov, tentatively began, “We can’t go any further. When the weather warms up, we should take the furs we’ve collected and the maps we’ve drawn back to Yakutsk.”

"That force called 'Huanghetun'... They have many goods from the civilized world, and maybe even firearms, which means they are definitely not simple. We can't afford to suffer any more losses with our small numbers."

Upon hearing this, Poyakov immediately flew into a rage.

He vehemently rejected the suggestion, unable to accept that he had gone through so much hardship to get here, only to slink back because of an unproven threat.

"Return? What should we tell the warlord when we get back? Tell him we found Heilongjiang, but were driven back by a group of natives with iron arrowheads?"

"Tell him we're so hungry we can only eat people? Tell him we heard there's a powerful force to the south, and we're terrified before we've even seen them?"

"What the warlord and the gentlemen of Moscow want to hear about is silver, sable furs, and newly conquered lands, not our defeats and fears!"

"We must continue south and find out the truth about that 'Yellow River Village'."

The clerk, Parkin, chimed in, “The clerk is right. We must obtain more information about that force.”

"Who exactly are they? Which country's colonists are they? What is their troop strength? What is their weaponry like? If we return now, we will be missing all this crucial information. The warlord will not be satisfied and may even face a severe reprimand from him."

Poyakov continued to entice, "Just think about it, that stronghold called 'Yellow River Village' must hold the wealth of all the surrounding tribes, with plenty of food, bundles of furs, and warm houses... That will be the greatest reward of our expedition. It will be enough to promote all of us to higher ranks and grant us the wealth we've always dreamed of!"

“But what if they have muskets, or even cannons…” Andrei said worriedly.

"Musketeers?" Poyakov curled his lip in disdain. "They're probably just a few old ones that drifted over from somewhere else. The natives here are good at trading; it's not surprising they've acquired a few muskets."

"But we have brave Cossack archers with proven combat skills. In the face of real battle, a few muskets scattered among the natives can't change anything."

Despite some doubts and unease deep down, the allure of honor and the fear of returning empty-handed made Poyakov determined to lead an expedition down the river to investigate the mysterious "Yellow River Village" once the weather warmed and the snow melted.

That afternoon, as Poyakov was gazing out the window at the swirling snow, pondering his plans for the following spring and how to allocate his dwindling "special rations," the wooden door was suddenly flung open with a bang, and a biting gust of wind carrying snowflakes rushed in.

A Cossack stumbled in, his face pale, his lips trembling, his fur hat and beard covered in frost, and his eyes filled with lingering fear.

"M-My lord! Something terrible has happened!" he cried out breathlessly, his voice trembling with fear.

Poyakov turned around unhappily and snapped, "What's the panic! You're like you're being chased by a demon! What happened?"

“Sir, I am… I am Andrei’s squad!” The Cossack swallowed hard and said with difficulty, “This morning, according to plan, we went to raid the native village upstream called ‘Udinsk’ to get some… some food.”

"And then?" Poyakov's heart skipped a beat, a sense of foreboding creeping in.

That village was quite large; they had scouted it beforehand, and its defenses seemed to be tighter than those of other villages.

"We...we had just gotten close when arrows started flying from inside the stockade, just like before. Andrei ordered his men to return fire, intending to suppress them as before and then rush in."

The Cossack's voice trembled, "But... but right after we fired, gunfire suddenly rang out from behind the stockade wall! Yes, we heard it very clearly, it was musket fire! And it was louder and clearer!... The bullets hit the snow in front of us, kicking up high plumes of snow!"

"What?!" Poyakov and the clerk Palkin, who stood up from the corner upon hearing the noise, exclaimed almost simultaneously.

"Did you hear me clearly? Are you sure it's a musket?" Parkin stepped forward and asked urgently, his face even paler than before.

“Absolutely true, Your Honor!” The Cossack nodded vigorously, fear still lingering in his eyes. “We all heard it! And more than once! Several muskets were firing! Captain Andrei saw the situation was bad and immediately ordered a retreat… He sent me back to report to you!”

The cabin was deathly silent, save for the crackling of the burning wood in the stove and the increasingly mournful sound of the wind outside the window.

Poyakov felt a chill run from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, even more biting than the harsh cold of the Far East.

Did the indigenous people acquire firearms?
And it sounds like it's a more advanced firearm than the old matchlock guns they have?
How can this be? !
Where did they get them? Could it be...?

A name instantly popped into Poyakov's mind—Huanghetun!
If the natives' firearms came from that outpost, what does that mean?
This means that the unknown force not only learned of their arrival, but had also begun to arm the local indigenous tribes to fight against them!
Poyakov slammed his fist on the rough wooden table, making the tin wine glasses on the table jump.

“Huanghetun…” he squeezed out the words through gritted teeth, his face ashen.

The clerk, Parkin, leaned closer with a worried expression and whispered, "Sir, the situation is dire... If they can supply the natives with firearms, their strength is likely far beyond our expectations. Should we... should we still proceed eastward as planned next year?"

Poyakov did not answer immediately. He stared intently at the simple map on the table, his gaze seemingly trying to penetrate the paper and see the mysterious stronghold located at the confluence of the two rivers.

They had initially thought they were just some slightly stronger natives, or at most a small outpost of another colonial power, but now it seems they may have run into a brick wall.

Fear and a challenged anger intertwined within him.

retreat?

Should we return to Yakutsk to report this bad news?

No, that's not in line with his personality, and it could ruin his future.

But continuing forward would undoubtedly carry enormous risks.

He took a deep breath of the cold, polluted air, forcing himself to calm down.

"Tell Andrei, and everyone else, to be extra careful in all future operations! No one is allowed to attack large villages without my orders!"

He first gave orders to the Cossack who had brought the message, then turned to Palkin with a sinister look in his eyes, "As for next year... the plan remains unchanged for now. Everything still needs further observation, but we can no longer act recklessly as before."

"We need more intelligence, everything about that 'Yellow River Village'! At the same time, we need to be even more 'conservative' with our supplies..."

His gaze inadvertently swept over the dugout outside the house, where several Daur prisoners, including Doptiur, were held, his eyes cold and cruel.

In this remote, snow-covered wilderness, for survival and for that faint hope of glory, deeper sins seem inevitable.

The gunshots from the indigenous villages served as a warning, foreshadowing an unpredictable risk brewing on this land.
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(End of this chapter)