Chapter 1243 The Most Delicious Fish

Jade is hidden by the waterfront, and white eagles fly across the sea and sky. Eight hundred miles north from the Black Snake Department is the Kingdom's largest stronghold on the west coast, Xishan Port in Jinshan Bay. After three years of development, this natural harbor with excellent hydrology has grown from an initial population of two to three hundred people to a large bay town with 3,200 tribes!

Last summer, the second fleet of Kingdom ships heading north arrived at Golden Bay. This fleet of longships not only brought a new group of priests, warriors, and civilians, but also important craftsmen in pottery and brick making, metal smelting, and shipbuilding, making the entire town more prosperous.

Looking around, a newly built small main temple is located on the west mountain of Haikou, overlooking the long golden bay of 500 miles. The expansion scope of Xishan Port also follows the newly reclaimed large tracts of farmland and the temple with the flag of the main god, extending from the zigzag east bank of Jinwan to the narrow west bank at the foot of Xishan Mountain.

Xishan Port occupies both sides of Jinwan Bay, so it is naturally divided into two towns, the east and west. In the Jinwan Shipyard in Dongzhen, the most important entire keels of eight longships have been erected, and extended cabin decks have been built. More than a dozen kingdom shipwrights, more than 200 meters of Walker craftsman apprentices, and dozens of tribal carpenters and chieftains' children from the North Bay are all busy working on the skeleton of the longship, building the largest ship in the history of the West Coast. The largest "big ship" ever built.

In fact, these self-built longships on the west coast are obviously smaller than those on the south side of the kingdom. It was only about 16 meters, 4 and a half meters wide, and could accommodate 32 oarsmen, and the same number of warriors, or 24 tons of cargo. In general, the size of the small longship is only 80% of the kingdom's standard longship, but it is made of excellent redwood wood. The reason why it is only built so large is, on the one hand, the lack of master craftsmen, and on the other hand, the shortage of metal connecting parts.

In the entire 500-mile-long Jinwan area, more than a dozen open-pit gold mines have been discovered, and there are even three real large gold mines, but not even an open-pit copper mine can be found. It is simply outrageous! The only nearby source of metal for Xishan Port is a batch of newly shipped iron materials after iron was smelted at Northern Huwan Port at the beginning of this year. And with these stable sources of iron, the next batch of longships can be built to the standard size of the kingdom, or even larger...

Outside the entrance of Jinwan, four small long boats that have been built, three old long boats, plus dozens or hundreds of canoes are all busy going back and forth. A quarter of the entire population of Xishan Port was mobilized to welcome the spring fish flood when fish migrate, casting nets in the bay full of fish. When they saw the big fish being picked up one after another, the tribesmen would cheer excitedly from time to time.

"Praise the Lord God! Praise the great spirit of the sea for allowing us to catch so many fish!..."

"Ah! Look! It's a long-spur walleye, the most difficult walleye to catch! It's been squeezed out from the bottom of the lake by the fish. Hurry! Lower the net quickly!..."

"Okay! I caught it! This is the most delicious fish. It must be dedicated to the most noble priests of the Lord God who are blessed by divine power, bring harvests and big ships!..."

The "big-eye fish" in the mouth of the Miwok tribesmen is the famous walleye in later generations. It is an extremely delicious freshwater fish with almost no fishy smell. This kind of fish is actually mainly distributed in the Five Great Lakes, but it is also found in California, but it is extremely difficult to catch...

Soon, there were canoes loaded with fish, paddling towards the Kingdom Port in the east. Hundreds of women and children from the tribe were ready to set up rows of fish racks on the shore, and then used thousands of kilograms of lake salt transported from the south to pickle the salted fish with great enthusiasm. When the spring fishing season is over, tons of salted fish will be stored in the "big fish warehouse" on the east coast, giving the entire Xishan Gangdong Town a "pleasant" salted fish smell. It's hard to say whether there is any unexplainable relationship between the main god's priests who eagerly built a temple in the West Mountain and opened up the West Town of Jinwan where the priests live, and the "Big Fish Cang" in the East Town...

However, as long as they smell this wonderful salty smell that symbolizes the abundance of food, all the Miwok tribesmen who farm in the fields will show a simple smile of relief, joy and even obsession. Because, since there was a large fish warehouse for storage, the tribe had real confidence. With surplus food in hand, the tribe no longer has to worry about famine!

As for the new fields that are constantly being cultivated on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, although a lot of manpower has been invested, the harvest is actually far less than that on the Mexican plateau. It will take at least several years for the cornfields by the river to slowly turn into high-yielding cultivated land. The only output now must be given priority to warriors and warriors. The potatoes, pumpkins and sweet potatoes grown on the side of the mountain do not require water and soil, and can produce good yields even on new dry land. They are the most important subsistence grains for the tribal people...

The smell of salted fish spreads from the fish warehouse. A batch of salted fish that has been stored for more than a year has just been taken out and transported to the small island in the center of Golden Bay, which is also the "market" where Miwok ministries come to trade. Before the kingdom arrived at Xishan Port, trade among various ministries was actually infrequent because various outputs were very limited. And when the kingdom established Xishan Port, advanced productivity, transportation tools of salt and iron, and three kinds of spread cereal crops... all greatly changed the current situation of Jinwan tribes!

In particular, the North Bay of Miwok, where Cedar Shaman is located, occupies the Napa Valley with the best water and soil. After planting three imported cereals, it already has more than 8,000 tribal people! Such a huge northern tribe with shamans is undoubtedly the "leader of the tribes" among the tens of thousands of Miwok tribes in the Golden Bay area!

But when the trusted disciple of Cedar Shaman hurriedly returned to the North Bay Tribe at the beginning of the year with the Shaman's experience in the Lake Kingdom...the "powerful" North Bay Tribe with thousands of warriors finally learned about the tens of thousands of troops in the Lake Kingdom and understood the "real power" of the kingdom! ...Then, after two months of debate, at the beginning of this month, the Council of Elders of the North Bay Tribe officially passed a resolution, announcing that the whole tribe would convert to the Lord God and embrace the "Supreme Great Spirit"!

At this moment, the temple of the Lord God in the North Bay Tribe began to be newly built. The preaching priests of the kingdom were also invited to settle in the Napa Valley. Under the influence of the North Bay Tribe, tens of thousands of Miwok tribes in the Jinwan area also worshipped the Lord God one after another, and sent the children of the chiefs to Xishan Town to study, actively and passively moving closer to the belief of the "Great Spirit".

As for the old salted fish that are currently being transported to the "market" on the island, they are used to trade fur, bird feathers, herbs and minerals produced in the mountains with the Miwok tribes, mainly the North Bay tribe, and to attract small tribes of dozens or hundreds of people to move to the port of the kingdom as a whole. In fact, this kind of trading item with a lot of salt and cherished by the salt-deficient tribes is, to a certain extent, more like a religious benefit brought by the kingdom to the Miwok tribes, and is the "eggs" distributed during missionary work...

Since it is "eggs", there must be a priest of the main god present. Jia Shu, the preaching priest of Xishan Port, was sitting in a large boat full of salted fish, guarded by ten warriors of the kingdom. He was wearing a fur robe in the northern style, sniffing his nose from time to time, and his face was full of dedication and determination. When he arrived at the market island and saw the messengers from more than 20 Miwok tribes in the mountains, and saw those "pious" and eager smiling faces, he was even more excited and smiled.

"Praise the Lord, three new tribes' messengers have come, and three more groups of 'Lord's fish' have come! With the conversion and surrender of the North Bay tribe, this vast Golden Bay is becoming the Lord's 'big fish pond'. And in this fish pond, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Miwok tribes will surely fall into the arms of the Lord and become the most delicious 'big-eyed fish'..."

"Lord God bless! Soon, the first large city-state on the west coast will be established in our hands! And more temple towns will also start from the North Bay tribe and extend all the way east until they cover the 500-mile Golden Bay!...Haha! At that time, the rich Golden Bay on the west coast will surpass the underpopulated Leijin Town and become the real political center of the Northland, and even establish a huge church province and a group of elders of the fourth-level priests!..."

Note: The Easter egg chapter is the Golden Bay map.