Chapter 2356

Wang Tom's interest in exploring unknown things soon shifted from the sea to the Ainu people. He was very interested in the "original" lifestyle of the Ainu people, so he asked Shiro Amakusa to act as an interpreter and learn more about the two uncles and nephews.

About the living conditions of the Ainu tribe.

When and where these aboriginal people living in Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and Kamchatka moved into this area, even in later generations, there are different opinions, and there is no definite conclusion. But the Ainu people

Their lifestyle is obviously more primitive than that of the East Asians at the same time. They have not yet entered a farming society at this time. They are even more backward than the Li and Miao ethnic groups on Hainan Island. At most, they are not as advanced as those on Taiwan Island.

The indigenous tribes are almost the same.

The Ainu people have their own independent language, and it is obviously different from Japanese. Wang Tom has read relevant information before, and it is said that the Ainu language is very similar to the languages ​​used by Eskimos and Indians. But these uncles and nephews

The folk tales and narrative poems mentioned are still obscure after being translated by Amakusa Shiro, and it is difficult to deduce from these clues where their ancestors came from.

Wang Tom believes that one of the reasons why the Ainu people have not been able to develop farming technology is because the ethnic group has lived in the bitter cold areas of high latitudes all year round and is far away from the advanced civilizations of the same era. Therefore, they have not cultivated food adapted to their living environment.

Crops can only stay in the stage of primitive society that relied on fishing and hunting for a living.

The backward productivity makes it impossible for the Ainu to build city-sized settlements in this area, let alone establish a country. Therefore, the Ainu are still scattered in the form of tribes, without a unified society.

There is no system at all. And this kind of loose social form naturally cannot compete with Japan, which has entered feudal society for a long time. The emergence of Matsumae Clan is just the beginning. In the next hundreds of years, the area that originally belonged to the Ainu people will

Being eaten away bit by bit by external forces, eventually this race will slowly decline and die out.

This historical trend is unlikely to change due to Kaihan's intervention, unless Kaihan can provide agricultural assistance to the Ainu people and help them build the coastal plain in eastern Hokkaido into a large granary.

Of course Haihan would not do such a thankless task. After all, the Ainu people have little contact with the outside world and their cultural level is almost zero. It would be extremely difficult to train them into a labor force that has mastered certain agricultural production techniques.

, it may take several generations to achieve significant results, and that is obviously not a prospect that the Executive Committee is willing to accept.

After the fleet left Matsumae Castle, it continued heading north along the west coast of Hokkaido. The two uncles and nephews benefited from the benefits, and they were quite conscientious. Regardless of whether the weather was bad, they always took turns on duty on the deck of the flagship, ensuring that they could provide navigation information to the fleet at any time.

required information.

However, the information they provide is not like sailors who can clearly grasp their position and direction. Instead, they can only judge their location based on the topography they see near the shore. They also

He would proactively point out to Amakusa Shiro where an Ainu village exists on the nearby coast, in order to prove that his navigation work was valuable.

But according to the situation they described, these Ainu villages near the sea are not very large, with tribes of a few hundred people at most. This obviously does not have the value of allowing the fleet to dock and make a special visit.

Two days later, the fleet arrived at the Shakotan Peninsula. The coast here is very steep. Many cliffs are more than 100 meters high. The scenery seen from the ship is quite magnificent. Many sailors resting in the cabin heard that there was scenery to see.

After hearing the news, everyone came to the deck to enjoy the beautiful scenery together.

For the sailors participating in this operation, this is probably the easiest voyage mission in their military careers, at least so far. They don’t have to travel at full speed, there are no combat missions, and they encounter places with beautiful scenery along the way.

Tom Wang would also take the initiative to slow down the fleet, and even stop to go ashore to admire it. It was more like a vacation trip than an expedition.

After bypassing this peninsula, there is Ishikari Bay, which spans more than a hundred miles, and the largest coastal plain on the west coast of Hokkaido is located here. This place was also very famous in the era before Wang Tom crossed over, and it was Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido.

The name Sapporo also comes from the Ainu language, meaning "big river valley." However, Sapporo in later generations only began to plan to build a city in this place after Japan took over Hokkaido in the second half of the 19th century. This is not the case in this era.

What city is located here?

According to the uncle and nephew, there are several large tribes on this plain, and the total population should be several thousand. But even if there are large river valleys and plains with superior natural conditions, the aborigines are still not allowed to engage in farming.

This era was completely unlike Sapporo in later generations, which turned every piece of arable land on the plains into farmland.

Although there are many Ainu tribes here, Wang Tom does not want to waste time here. At most, these natives can bring some local specialties and then barter for some Haihan products, but they cannot be like

A more meaningful exchange with Kaihan like the Matsumae clan would not bring much help to the subsequent itinerary. Therefore, Wang Tom ordered not to stay here, but directly crossed Ishikari Bay and continued northward.

At the end of January 1639, the fleet arrived at Soya Bay on the northern coast of Hokkaido, which was also the hometown of the Ainu uncle and nephew. According to them, one or two merchant ships from the Matsumae clan came here every year to trade with their tribe.

.

The reason why the Matsumae Clan went to such great lengths to trade here is of course because the supply of local specialties here is relatively large. Even in the previous transactions that Wang Tom made with the Matsumae Clan, many items actually came from this place.

The uncle and nephew were not bragging when they claimed that they could supply Haihan with better terms.

However, in addition to the fruits of their labor, some of these souvenirs actually come from Sakhalin Island further north. The Ainu tribe there is more isolated and lacks opportunities for trade activities with the outside world, so they will cross the strait.

Go to this place and conduct some transactions with the local tribes. The local tribes will then trade some of the items to the Matsumae Clan, which is equivalent to getting a price difference in the middle.

After hearing these "insider stories" from Amakusa Shiro, Wang Tom also felt that these Ainu people actually had no good intentions. Although this kind of buying and selling could be regarded as rudimentary business behavior, they themselves did not realize this and did not think about it.

He wanted to use this method to amass wealth, and when asked by the Haihan people, he told the whole story without any secret.

"Arrange a boat to take them ashore, and also see what they need to trade, and give them some." Wang Tom was not interested in going ashore to deal with these Ainu people, so he handed the matter over to Amakusa Shiro.

Wang Tom now has to focus on more important things. He has to decide the next direction of travel, whether to cross the Soya Strait and continue north to Sakhalin Island, or to cross the Strait eastward and enter the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, along the Thousand Islands

The archipelago proceeds northeastward to explore the route to the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Bering Sea.

If he wanted to go to the Kamchatka Peninsula, then Tom Wang would naturally set his sights on the Bering Sea to the east of the peninsula. The Aleutian Islands on the south side of the Bering Sea are distributed like a string of pearls between the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Alaska Peninsula.

The other end of the necklace is the North American continent.

However, in this era, these areas do not yet have an official name. The Bering Sea and Bering Strait, which are familiar place names for later generations, all come from the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, and this man has been in the world for more than 40 years.

He would be born later, and it would still be a hundred years before he discovered the route from Kamchatka Peninsula to Alaska.

Of course, these records have no special significance to ordinary people, and few people would consider what strategic value this desolate and cold place would have.

But Tom Wang is not an ordinary person. He is a senior general who holds great power. The intelligence and resources he possesses far exceed those of most people of his generation, which means that he can do many things that ordinary people cannot achieve.

——For example, dispatch an armed fleet to travel thousands of miles to explore unknown waters.

One of the main reasons why Tom Wang chose to participate in the time-travel operation was that he wanted to go back to the seventeenth century to fulfill his dream of sailing and become a great navigator admired by later generations. However, after coming to this time and space, although the time spent at sea was actually

Quite a few, but not many times when he can really use it to explore new routes and unknown seas.

Wang Tom needs to command the naval fleet to conquer the north and south, and play a role in Haihan's external expansion. As for personal interests and goals, in the face of such a huge responsibility, he can only wait a little bit.

But this trip with the fleet did make up for his regrets over the years to a large extent, allowing him to finally use the power in his hands to do something special for himself.

If Tom Wang can lead the team to complete the feat of crossing the Bering Sea, then he will become a great navigator in the history books who completed the great geographical discovery. The northern route from the Asian continent to the North American continent will inevitably be named after him.

, and the place names of the relevant areas will also become names with special commemorative significance such as Wang Tom Strait, Wang Tom Sea, Wang Tom Islands, etc. What an honor this will be for a person who is obsessed with sailing!

Of course, such an honor is not easy to come by. Even if Tom Wang has detailed maps of the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands, it is still very dangerous to sail into such alpine areas. Another pioneer of time and space, Bering

He died of illness while exploring this route, along with twenty-eight other sailors on his ship.

Even if he had prepared sufficient supplies before this trip, Wang Tom would never rashly think that he was ready to explore the northern route. Therefore, his goal was not to go to another continent via the northern seas, but to

The western end of this voyage starts on Bering Island.

Bering Island is located about four hundred miles east of the Kamchatka Peninsula, but it is more than four thousand miles away from the Soya Strait where the fleet is currently located. This is equivalent to setting Bering Island as the end point of this trip.

So now we are only halfway through the journey.

If we can find some supply points along the way to ensure a supply of fresh water, then the supplies carried by the fleet should be able to support the trip to and from Bering Island. But the problem is that it is such a remote trip, and there is likely to be a long interruption to the journey.

The cost of contacting the country will also be far higher than expected, and Tom Wang is not even sure whether the Executive Committee will support such an action.

So while he was staying at Soya Bay, he gathered the senior officers in the fleet for a meeting and solicited everyone's opinions.

"This is an opportunity to make a difference, but even in my opinion, it is a very radical approach, full of unknown risks, and it is very likely that it will not be supported by the executive committee. So I also want to hear your opinions. What will you do?

Choose a bold adventure or a more conservative itinerary.”

Wang Tom drew two different routes on the map. One went diagonally northeast to Bering Island, which is thousands of miles away. The other went north to Sakhalin Island and then along the coast of the mainland.

Turn back southwest.

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. They thought that when they got here, their boss would start thinking about the return trip, but they didn't expect that Tom Wang would have such a bold idea and mark such a distant destination on the map.

Someone boldly asked: "General, it is already very cold where we are now. Just removing the ice and snow from the deck, sail ropes, and masts every day requires a lot of manpower. If we go thousands of miles further north,

How cold will it be there? Can the general be sure whether our ships and equipment can withstand it?"

Tom Wang nodded and said, "Do you have any other questions? Everyone can speak freely without any taboos."

Someone else asked: "General, going to this far north place must be full of risks. I wonder what kind of treasures there are that make the general so worried? In my humble opinion, even if there are mountains of gold and silver there, it is not worth it."

Instead of taking risks, it’s better to go back and conquer Nasado Island and occupy the gold and silver mines on the island. Wouldn’t it be easier than venturing into unknown lands?”

Another person asked: "General, even if we successfully occupy such a far away place, how can we move a large number of people to settle there? If the local climate is extremely cold, we will not be able to grow food, and the supplies will have to be thousands of miles away.

It's really fatal to have to travel all this way!"

After listening for a while, Wang Tom already understood the difference between his ideas and those of his subordinates. They simply could not understand how much impact this voyage would have on the future, and naturally they could not agree with his idea of ​​adventure.
Chapter completed!