It Became a Symbol of the Bronze Age - Chapter 298



Only Noblemtl
Read Novel Noblemtl

Episode 298. Sweet Black Horn Island (2)

Over there.

Enemy ships gathered together, scurrying about.

When viewed from a large ship, it looks like a fox or a grimoire.

“…It seems like the advance party has failed.”

I nodded at Saulbae’s words.

“I guess so. What’s the number?”

“It is estimated to be around one thousand and five hundred.”

One thousand five hundred, it’s a lot and yet a little.

Less is an absolute quantity, and more is a relative quantity.

Because the current Asadal merchant ship only carries about 300 people at most.

The difference in force is five times.

‘It would be funny if this were land.’

Asadal’s soldiers, well trained and armed with iron weapons, shields, and gunpowder, could dispatch five times as many Ryukyuans in an instant.

The problem is that this is the sea.

‘This isn’t very good.’

The possibility of ‘winning’ is honestly non-existent.

If a poor ship were to break down or sink, it would be a headache.

If just one ship sinks, it means we can’t take a third of our crew with us.

‘Besides, if we kill them all… Heukgaek Island will become an empty island.’

In my opinion, it would be difficult to settle Asadalmin here.

This is completely different from Japan or Shandong, which can be reached by coastal navigation. It is an ocean-going region.

This isn’t the Age of Exploration, and it’s extremely difficult for Asadal to directly control the ocean-going region.

Rather than that, it would be better to accept their surrender, take over the port, and then send merchants to the area to interact with them.

If we build a port like that and spread culture, wouldn’t it naturally become an ‘Asadalian Okinawa’ like Roman Britain?

‘In the first place, the Umbrella Country was similar.’

Silla did not make Usan-guk its own Usan-hyeon. It recognized Usan-guk itself and made it a vassal state. It did so because it knew that it would be practically impossible to rule over that far away sea.

What about direct military control of Ryukyu, which is even further away?

… No matter how much I think about it, it’s impossible.

Rather, the Asadal East India Company… .

No, what did I just say?

Correct it.

The best way to do so at present is to focus on ‘trading’ with merchants starting from the Pungbaek Sangdan in Seorabeolbu, and to only deploy the military when something happens.

“Let’s show them what we’ve prepared. If they still don’t surrender…then we’ll step forward.”

“All right!”

The giant waved the flag, and soon the second line responded.

Adallah, the captain of the second ship, personally removed the cloth covering the wooden statue.

and.

“Mokpo, fire!”

With his thunderous shout.

Whoosh whoosh!

Fire poured out of the mouths of the statues of the common people, the bears, and the giant birds.

The majesty of the giant smoke-belching statues is so amazing that even I, who know their true identity, amaze them.

What’s more,

“Huh!”

“What the heck, it’s a monster…!”

The enemies have nothing to see.

The board of directors would probably have captured the enemies to this extent.

But, that was Ulleungdo.

A tiny island only a quarter the size of Ryukyu.

This place is a little different.

A large island means it has a large population of people and troops.

This will give you a boost of confidence.

This confidence temporarily banished fear and made rational judgments possible.

“Wake up! Look! They don’t move! Maybe they’re made of wood…!”

Well, what difference does it make if it’s made of wood? If it breathes fire?

If you think about it, it’s sewage.

In this situation, surprisingly little logic is needed to persuade.

The fact that someone steps forward and shouts something is important.

And, despite shouting out randomly, it surprisingly got to the point.

“Look! It’s not moving! It’s a tree!”

“Oh, it’s moving?”

At that moment.

The giant Asadal Tiger, Asadal Bear, and Asadal Eagle moved.

This is thanks to the wheels mounted underneath.

The islanders who saw that felt something unusual had happened.

“There are a bunch of enemies hiding on that ship!”

“Do not leave alone those who would invade our beautiful green island!”

He shouted even louder as if trying to shake off his anxiety.

“Hey, don’t you lift your arms or tilt your head? There’s a person inside and it’s shaking! It might even be using wheels!”

He also presented his own rational analysis.

If Poongbaek had heard this, he might have been surprised and said, ‘Oh my, you know about wheels?’

But these words also… soon died down.

“Line 1 is ready!”

“Okay, open the door!”

The soldiers of Line 1 gathered up the cloth.

And then, he poked the tiger and the bear in the buttocks with a sharp branch. That’s how it happened.

“Koooooooooooo!”

“Kyaaaaaaaah!”

The living beasts cry out.

And the results were… surprising.

“It’s true that you’re alive!”

“I cry too!”

“Oh, okay! Can a buffalo swim? If I just collapse the boat right now and drown them all…!”

Around that time.

“Open one of us and let the tiger escape.”

“All right!”

At the command of the giant, a tiger fell into the sea. And then… .

Splash splash!

…swam.

The chieftain shouted.

“That, that’s a struggle! Just catch it and kill it!”

“Uh, that thing?”

“Look! I’ll kill you! You’re so big, you must be slow!”

Well, that’s wrong.

It is true that Phoenician merchant ships were ‘large and slow’.

Tigers are… both big and incredibly agile.

“Get out!”

Wedge!

The tiger easily avoided the javelin thrown by the chieftain by twisting its body.

The chieftain was embarrassed.

“Wow, what a coincidence! Even if I was really fast and avoided it… there’s no way something that big could swim!”

The chieftain who just said ‘That’s not real’ and ‘I can’t move’.

When it comes to tigers, everything is wrong.

with a plop!

The tiger charged at the chief who had thrown the javelin at it.

Splash splash splash splash splash splash splash!

That too, pretty quickly.

no.

“What, why is it so fast?”

Very quickly.

According to tiger researchers, tigers are incredibly good swimmers.

It is said that it can travel about 30 km per day while maintaining a speed of about 7 km/h.

What naval units like SSU usually require is ‘200m freestyle in 3 minutes’, and from an ordinary person’s perspective, if they can run 3km in under 60 minutes, they are nicknamed ‘Seal’.

Even if you apply the scientific swimming method and systematic training method of the 21st century, it is like this… How can you escape from a hungry tiger moving at 7 km/h in this day and age?

“Whoa, here already…?”

does not exist.

“But still, I have a boat…! I can’t just jump into the water!”

This statement was correct.

No matter how much of a tiger you are, you cannot show the realm of a leaping tiger by ‘kicking the water’.

However, if there is a problem.

The tiger’s combat intelligence is probably quite high.

They make surprise attacks from trees, hide in the grass, and even when hunting crocodiles, they use the fact that they are cold-blooded animals to stall for time so that the crocodiles cannot enter the water, and then bite their stomachs when their body temperature drops.

Even a bear that is larger than a tiger will lose nine times out of ten in a fight with a tiger due to this difference in fighting intelligence.

And that combat intelligence is now fully activated.

“Keuh-huh!”

“Ship, ship is capsizing!”

The tiger chose to capsize the canoe.

He may have just hit it in anger… or maybe the smart beast realized that the ‘ship’ and the ‘human’ were not one but separate.

Why doesn’t the cat always notice that the ‘cups on the table’ are separate and not one, and try to separate them?

But at best, the cat’s actions only result in breaking a cup.

Tigers are different.

“Kwaaak!”

So, one of the chieftains entered the jaws of an angry tiger.

After making sure there were no more enemies, the tiger swam toward the island with its prey clinging to its neck.

The islanders who survived in this way naturally looked at the person in the largest canoe after the chieftain.

“Oh, what should I do?”

Normally, I would be happy about this situation where I was tacitly recognized as the next chief.

The new chieftain (Jin) couldn’t do that.

“There is only one way.”

He rolled his head for a moment, then raised the window.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * Baca Novel Korean * *
* * * Noblemtl dot com * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

and.

with a plop!

He threw the window down and raised both his arms.

“Ha… Surrender! What are you doing! Surrender now! Drop your weapons!”

“Right? Without even fighting?”

“How can we fight something like that! If that thing is released, our island is finished! Surrender now, now!”

What a pity.

The new chieftain was not as courageous as the previous chieftain who had become tiger food.

***

Giant wooden statues and real bears and tigers.

The tribes of the large island, that is, Okinawa, who saw all these things, immediately lost their will to fight.

“Surrender, surrender!”

It was understandable. It was not hard to imagine the terrible future that would unfold if those giant beasts survived and reproduced on this small island.

“Those who surrender, throw down your weapons…!”

“What are you doing? Put your weapon down quickly!”

Splash! Splash!

The tribesmen here did not hesitate to throw stone-carved spears and axes into the water.

When Geoguroo saw that, he clicked his tongue.

“Huh, there really won’t be any naval battles….”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

I smiled brightly.

Ah, Lord Asla, Your Majesty.

Your wisdom was not wrong.

“If there had been a naval battle… I think we might have had to be prepared to lose at least one ship.”

“No kidding. Isn’t that the right way to do it?”

I looked at the back of the ship. There were a lot of little crescent moons lying there, ready to be thrown into the water at any moment.

If they had chosen to fight, the Asadal sailors, armed with Asadalian saxes and shields, would have immediately boarded their small boats and engaged in close combat.

Asadal would have won in the end.

‘I don’t think I could save as many people as I did now.’

I’m not just talking about Asadal’s army. The tribesmen of that region are also important resources for Asadal.

As I said, it was nearly impossible for Asadal to deploy troops or build a colonial city in this distant Ryukyu region.

like that.

Asadal’s three Phoenician merchant ships reached the shores of Okinawa without a fight. By then, it was virtually over.

If it had been a naval battle, they could have at least inflicted damage on Asadal… but it would have been impossible in a land battle. They seemed to have sensed that as well.

“What the heck are those weapons…?”

“It’s sparkling!”

They were puzzled by the sight of steel. Normally, nouns like ‘unique bronze’ or ‘silver’ would come out, but all they could come up with was the adjective ‘shiny’.

It can’t be helped. Bronzeware was only unearthed in Ryukyu during the Yayoi period, and at present, there is no such thing as metal.

There may be some gold (Southern China, where they originated, was a region where masks were made with gold as early as 1,000 BC), but it seems that gold is something that is impossible to obtain in such large quantities, so they did not even think about it.

“Convey my message.”

“All right.”

The Ryukyu drifters nodded. From that moment on, things went smoothly.

“There are three tribes?”

“That… is right.”

“What tribe?”

“First of all, there are many tribes that serve the moon.”

It is a common characteristic of maritime peoples.

Even people of this era know that the Hansari (large tide) comes during the new moon and the waning moon.

Due to the nature of sailors, they see many stars, and the moon, which shines the brightest among them, is a good object of worship.

“There are also tribes that serve the waves.”

This is also common. The early beliefs of humans often took the form of worshipping ‘terrifying’ things.

It is only natural for sailors to pray to the waves.

“Is the priest male or female?”

“Usually… women take charge.”

It seems that there is also a Kikoe-Ookimi culture.

‘Well, Jomon goddess culture is very, very old.’

Even among the Jomon moon goddess tribes similar to these, there is a goddess belief that creates female-shaped touhou figures.

‘It was the same even when the belief in the gods was imported through immigrants.’

As can be seen in Hwanung of the Korean Peninsula, Cheonja of the Central Plains, and Chinu of the grasslands, the heavenly gods of East Asia are often depicted as male gods, while the gods of the earth and the god of the moon are often depicted as goddesses.

But Japan is a little different.

The sun god is represented as the goddess Amaterasu.

In general, it is assumed that the existing Jomon goddess belief was combined with the celestial god belief that originated from the Korean Peninsula, and the sun god became female.

‘… In many ways, it feels similar to the Moon Goddess Tribe.’

Maybe because they are of the same Jomon lineage, they seem to have quite a few things in common.

However, there were some differences from Jomon.

“Well, in the south… there are some peculiar beliefs. The buffalo tribe worships the buffalo.”

“Buffalo tribe!”

“Buffalo tribe!”

“Buffalo tribe!”

Adala, Geoguru, and I shouted at the same time.

The water buffalo is one of the biggest reasons Asadal is targeting this area right now.

“Are there a lot of water buffalo?”

“I haven’t counted the exact number, but… there are often more than five hundred water buffalo grazing near the water.”

The buffalo tribe stored it in their heads.

And the fun doesn’t end there.

“And in the south… there are those who worship the sun.”

“…Sun worship?”

Sun worship is usually one of two things.

There is no reason for nomadic or agricultural people, or hunter-gatherers, to worship the sun.

First of all, the possibility of being nomads is 0. The land is the size of a rat’s paw, and there is nothing to raise. Do they have horses or cows? Oh, there are water buffalos… but they can’t raise water buffalos.

So, if you exclude the nomadism that is impossible in the first place, then worshiping the sun is like that.

“Do you grow crops?”

“…That, that’s right.”

It’s a story about knowing how to farm. What do you farm?

The first thing that comes to mind is rice farming. Since their origin is southern China, is it possible that rice farming spread there?

… It’s hard to believe that. If that were true, it would make sense that the Moon Goddess Tribe of Honshu, which spread out from here, would also have been cultivating rice.

However, the Moon Goddess tribe grew at best chestnuts and acorn trees, and as far as I know, agriculture was introduced to Ryukyu via the Japanese route.

… it won’t be rice.

So what do you farm?

While I was thinking about it, a chieftain approached me.

A Ryukyu refugee and interpreter explained.

“…That chieftain is the chieftain of the Sun Tribe.”

The chief of the Sun Tribe approached me.

The first thing I noticed was its small size.

It’s not just his physique. He’s also thin. Usually, if he’s a chieftain, he’s going to be big, right?

“…Are you a member of the Sun Tribe?”

“#()!)))##$….”

The other person answered. I couldn’t understand it because it was the local language, but I could tell that the pronunciation was slurred. It couldn’t be helped.

‘… You don’t have any teeth?’

Of course, in this day and age, except for places like Asadal and Egypt, the concept of ‘brushing teeth’ itself is not common, so people with healthy teeth are even rarer.

However, it is rare for someone of that age to have all their teeth missing. The reason for their small stature may also be related to this.

Without teeth, digestion rate is bound to decrease.

All the teeth were rotten and fell out.

Solar worship associated with agriculture.

And a region called Ryukyu.

What conclusion can we draw by combining these three?

“…Do you happen to grow a crop that tastes sweet when cut in half when ripe… that is, similar to honey?”

The Sun Tribe nodded after hearing what I said.

When I heard that, I almost jumped.

‘What the heck, that’s sugar cane?’

What the chieftain was talking about was clearly sugarcane, which was considered one of the three major plantation crops along with cotton and tobacco.

***

Ryukyu’s sugarcane business is also historically famous.

Joseon’s candy (at that time, sugar was called candy) was also quite popular, as it was imported from Ryukyu.

But the reason I was surprised was clear.

‘At this time… wasn’t it originally non-existent?’

As far as I know, sugarcane farming in Taiwan began around the 15th century, and sugarcane farming in Ryukyu began around the 16th century.

They mainly imported and cultivated sugarcane from Indonesia.

So, normally there shouldn’t be any sugarcane during this time… but why is there any?

‘Is it because of the climate?’

That’s unlikely.

Sugarcane in Ryukyu has grown very well since the 17th century.

‘… Then, historical context?’

So, originally there was sugarcane.

Around the Yayoi period, grains were spread, pushing out sugarcane and replacing it with grains…?

‘That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense.’

The Korean peninsula was similar. Originally, peas and other crops were grown extensively, but at some point, peas were pushed out by other crops and their influence gradually diminished.

Even things like sunchae (蓴菜) are recorded as one of the main vegetables during the Goguryeo period, but as time passed, they gradually decreased and are now considered luxury ingredients.

Even in an open continent, this is the case, but this is an island with few ecological inflow routes.

It is not strange that once you are pushed out, you are pushed out endlessly and eventually go extinct.

‘Anyway, sugarcane may have naturally disappeared because it lacks the ability to support the population compared to grains.’

It’s not entirely unreasonable.

Sugarcane is something that can be found all the way to Easter Island.

It wouldn’t be particularly strange to be in Ryukyu at this time.

And, this was also an unexpected hit.

‘Honestly, I thought it would be a jackpot even if I just took the black horn… sugar cane?’

What is sugarcane?

Until the Joseon Dynasty, it was a precious and valuable food that only the noble class ate.

But that fell into Asadal’s hands now?

Seriously, I don’t know what to do.

We haven’t even reached Taiwan or Maluku yet.

If it’s already such a huge hit… what are we really going to do?

Read Novel Noblemtl
Read Novel Noblemtl