Chapter 71 Exploration, Discovery
From that beautiful and noble bird with clear and high voice, it is like the legendary "phoenix".
Zhou Ming immediately knew that this was a brand new piece of land that had never been set foot on, and had a completely different new continent from the land he lived in in the past!
After the towering Ural Snow Mountains geographically isolated a complete continent, even though the two continents were still closely together, the differences and changes produced by the two independent ecosystems over billions of years of species evolution are even greater than the differences between Asia and America, which float on two spheres and are separated by thousands of miles of oceans on Earth.
In the western continent, because the crust plates are relatively strong and the overall structure is relatively stable, there are many flat landforms such as plains, grasslands, forests, and swamps. In addition, the Ural Snow Mountains have blocked the invasion of the eastern monsoon to a certain extent. The overall climate is relatively comfortable and mild, and there are not many species of animals and plants with greater differences, and there are about thousands of the most common ones.
The eastern continent has a fragile crustal plate structure and many surfaces are fragmented. In addition to some flat terrain on the western continent, there are countless complex landforms such as volcanoes, mountains, hills, deserts, basins, etc. on this continent, many areas, and even multiple landforms.
In addition, underground dissolving water erodes limestone to form karst landforms, which are also extremely common in this continent.
Therefore, on this continent with countless terrain and landforms, the active species of animals and plants are almost impossible to count.
Zhou Ming, who wanted to find several resources he wanted, soon gained great gains.
From that pass, he walked eastward for less than a hundred kilometers. By the side of an underground magma river with fiery red lava, Zhou Ming found the sulfur he had dreamed of finding - the number was so large that it was enough to last decades.
After walking down the plateau with higher altitudes and entering the grasslands and forest areas at medium and low altitudes all the way east, Zhou Ming was very happy.
Countless towering and stout trees can be used as spices, some can be used as high-end furniture, some have medicinal value, and some have fruits on the trees are delicious and nutritious, and can be eaten directly.
Countless animals that are big and small can provide carnivore, some can provide fur, and some can be domesticated and raised to serve as livestock mounts.
Countless mineral resources on the surface are easily exploited, some are of high quality without selection, and some are extremely beautiful and can be regarded as rare treasures.
But these trees, animals, and mineral resources failed to stop Zhou Ming. Even if he stayed for one or two days for a short time, he even asked the expedition members to throw away the huge pieces of gold and a few dazzling gems they picked up on the road. These things were too bulky and would affect the speed of the subsequent expedition after taking them.
Entering the low-altitude plain, winding down a long river, people traveled thousands of kilometers eastward, and discovered countless animal and plant resources and mineral resources with greater value.
Although some of these resources are not necessary, their potential value cannot be underestimated.
For example, there is a watermelon-like fruit growing on vines. The giant watermelon that grows is like the space watermelon on Earth. One weighs hundreds of pounds, killing one is enough for dozens of people to eat.
For example, there are grapes growing on trees, hanging in bunches of them, similar to those of the earth, but they are larger and have a sweeter taste. A grape tree can produce hundreds of bunches.
For example, there is a plant similar to sugarcane, which has a diameter thicker than an adult's arm and is seven or eight meters tall. It is a bit harder when chewed, but the juice inside is unprecedentedly sweet.
There are also some wild rice-like crops and bamboo-like plants, which are of great help to the agriculture and construction and furniture industry. Once introduced to the western continent, it will inevitably bring huge changes to people's dietary structure and living environment.
In the end, Zhou Ming got a small amount of giant watermelons, vines and wild rice seeds and put them in his backpack. As for plants that are not easy to carry, he gave up temporarily.
In addition to plants, Zhou Ming also discovered a large number of valuable livestock resources, such as a huge bison, which is very terrifying, bigger than a car, but very gentle in character, and does not actively attack unthreatening creatures. They know that they are all day long and eat all kinds of grass. It is obvious that they are a good livestock target for domesticating cattle.
There are also divine wild horses that are faster than leopards in the forest, smaller but very clever wild donkeys, wild deer, wild sheep, wild boar, wild dogs and other animals, all have good potential to tame and keep in captivity.
Of course, there are also some large carnivorous animals that are highly aggressive, such as tigers with poisonous fangs in their mouths, ferocious lions with three meters long, crocodiles in the water and some giant pythons, etc., which bring great life threats to the members of the expedition team at all times.
However, because everyone carried sharp and rust-free alloy swords, these highly aggressive carnivorous beasts could not get benefits in front of them. The only time they were more dangerous was that they were besieged by hundreds of wolves, and only a few team members suffered some skin trauma.
The real reduction in the expedition team was mostly caused by inadvertently being bitten by various poisonous snakes, centipedes, ants, spiders and other poisonous insects that were unpredictable, and after poisoning the two team members, Zhou Ming asked everyone to wear a set of protective suits with extremely thin mesh. Only in places where there are no poisonous insects gather can the protective suits be opened.
After walking east along the river for more than three months, after walking to a swamp filled with black tree stumps, which were floating in the river, which were actually countless crocodiles moving, Zhou Ming did not choose to continue moving eastward, turned to the south, and marched towards the southern part of this continent.
After walking south for more than a thousand kilometers, a pyramid-shaped building that is as high as a hundred meters, with a unique shape and obviously only a smart civilization can build, presenting it to Zhou Ming and others.
There are people on this new continent!
A group of natives with yellow skin, dark eyes, brown hair, big pie face, and high nose bridge.
These natives, with naked upper body, covered with white cloth on their lower body, oil paint on their faces, and bird feather caps on their heads. They mostly hold wooden spears and stone weapons. Some natives also hold bows and arrows with rough craftsmanship or bamboo tubes. After using poisonous arrows and poison needles, their lethality to people's prey should not be underestimated.
Let’s look at the muzha villages and dome thatched houses where these indigenous people live. Zhou Ming estimated that the level of civilization development of these indigenous people should have been at the end of the Stone Age, but it has not yet entered the Bronze Age.
However, a discovery made Zhou Ming feel a little strange at first. In this indigenous village, except for some indigenous women who care for livestock, who are busy working, other male indigenous people seem to be doing nothing. They either lie there comfortably bask in the sun, or play wooden target shooting with arrows, and carry tools and weapons to hunt outside or work in the fields.
It was lunch time, and when Zhou Ming saw the "lunch" that the natives had for lunch, he almost jumped up excitedly.
Corn is very thick and long, and can be eaten with just one piece.
There are also sweet potatoes, rich in sugars and starch, and they are huge. One weighs more than ten kilograms. At least three or four natives need to eat one of them to finish them.
There is also a bread fruit that looks like bread, which is about the size of a hamburger. Zhou Ming doesn’t know how it tastes. Judging from the natives’ tastes so delicious, the taste will definitely not be bad.
In order to observe what the father plants of these three foods look like, Zhou Ming and several people quietly followed an indigenous woman who was picking fruits and went to their food collection site to take a look.
Shocked!
Six large corns grew on the yellow plant with straw that were more than three meters tall.
The sweet potatoes dug out from the relatively barren slopes are as big as football.
There are also bread fruit trees with a height of more than ten meters and a cape of them. At least thousands of bread fruits have been produced on their prosperous branches.
After scanning his eyes again, he accidentally swept to the side of the bread forest. After the isolated plant that was more than six meters high and with a swelling "white clouds" growing on the branches, Zhou Ming couldn't help but say: "God, you're not cheating on these natives, right?"
It turns out that this tree that grows "white clouds" is a "cotton tree" that enlarges more than ten times the plant that Zhou Ming remembers.
On the cotton tree, each flower has pure white "cotton" as big as marshmallows. There are hundreds of flowers blooming on a tree, which is enough to weave several pieces of clothing.
Zhou Ming, who discovered four crops with great strategic value at one time, was envious and jealous of these natives. These natives must be the illegitimate children left by God. Otherwise, how could they be so lucky and enjoy the VIP treatment that even he had a cheat.
At night, he secretly collected the seeds of these four plants. Zhou Ming led the expedition team to walk more than a thousand kilometers southward and entered an indigenous empire. This indigenous empire is fighting against the giant savages in the west. These giant savages are all like Mount Tai ape. They are over three meters tall, with thick skin and amazing strength, and seem to have a lot of populations.
As a result, in a battle between 5,000 natives against 300 giant savages, the thin natives won a complete victory, defeating this giant savage tribe in heavy losses and fleeing in a panic.
Chapter completed!