Aztec Civilization: Destiny to Conquer America!

Chapter 2151 - 1561: Tenggeri’s Blessing! An Iron Pot Worth Thirty Horses! (Part 2)

"Clang!...""Longevity Heaven above! It’s an iron pot! It’s actually a precious big Iron Pot!! That Lord over there actually rewarded me with a big Iron Pot? I’m not dreaming, am I?... What’s in this bag? Ah! Salt?? A whole bag of white salt?!... What is this supposed to be? A bride-price for my daughter? What a rare, generous Lord Leader!..."

At this moment, Bone’s excited face showed undisguised delight. He knelt down and returned the salute to Aguda’s "generous goodwill." Then he hugged up the heavy salt bag, hoisted the big Iron Pot, and ran toward the tribal Bow Cavalry formation outside the stockade, still looking back as he ran, afraid of being shot by the other side’s Bow and Arrow. Before he left, Ali hurriedly shouted a couple of sentences in Mongolian.

"Longevity Heaven above! Bring over two Jurchen Translator! We are the Jurchen Tribe under the ten-thousand-household commander... Did you understand?"

"Ah! Praise Longevity Heaven!..."

Bone replied in a muddled jumble, no one knew what he was saying or whether he understood. Very soon, he returned to the facing tribal Bow Cavalry. And when they saw the big Iron Pot in his hands, Chieftain Ao Hala’s pupils contracted; he asked in surprise.

"Bone! This valuable big Iron Pot... was it rewarded to you by the Lord Leader?"

"Yes! And this bag of salt! Salt heavier than a sheep!"

"What? The stuff in this bag is salt? Salt this white?... Hiss! Such a strong salty taste!..."

Chieftain Ao Hala tasted a bit of the salt and looked at the big Iron Pot; his face was full of a "seen a ghost" expression.

"Truly strange! Which ten-thousand-household sent this Lord? After taking Tribute, he actually gives a return gift? And the value of this return gift is equal to twenty or thirty horses, forty or fifty sheep?!..."

This was not Chieftain Ao Hala’s fault for being astonished, but because the salt and iron goods brought by the Kingdom had a value on the vast grasslands far beyond everyone’s imagination! Yes, a big Iron Pot was worth twenty or thirty good horses! one tael of good salt was worth a fat sheep!

In this fifteenth-century Tatar era, on the vast, barren Northern Grassland, salt and iron were forever the most sought-after survival materials, and also the two controlled commodities that the Ming Dynasty most heavily blockaded and most strictly prohibited from flowing out to the Northern Grassland.

Among these, salt needs no extra explanation; it is a daily necessity that the nomadic tribespeople and livestock must replenish. Because the herds are huge in number, the combined demand of tribespeople and animals for salt has always been very high. Once the minimum intake of salt is lacking, herds of cattle and horses and sheep easily fall ill and die. Yet the salt that flows northward out of the Ming Dynasty is itself expensive and limited in quantity. The lake salt of the tribes in Qinghai flows into the Mongolian Plateau, then further east into the Hulun Bei’er Grassland, and finally into the middle reaches of the Heilongjiang River; its price is likewise far from cheap. In the middle and upper reaches of this Heilongjiang River, often one tael of good salt can be exchanged for a fat sheep, and even then you can hardly get any.

At this time, the various Mongolian Tribes and Jurchen Tribes in Liaodong usually could only eat bitter marsh brine salt, and sometimes would engage in private trade with the Ming Dynasty Border Fortress. This brought about another problem: the brine salt each tribes made themselves was too low in quality and carried mild toxicity. People could still barely endure it, but when cattle and horses and sheep ate it, they might easily get sick and die... Thus, this kind of good salt that does not cause illness was forever the circulating trade currency throughout Liaodong, just like Ironware.

And the reason why the Ironware on the grasslands is also critical survival material is not because tribes need better iron weapons for skirmishes. The Herdsman used Bone Arrow and stone arrow are already sufficient to shoot eagles and for tribal fighting; iron weapons are only icing on the cake. What is truly precious among Ironware is actually the Iron Pot! And the preciousness of the Iron Pot lies in saving fuel!

Yes, saving fuel! Fuel is the biggest weak point of nomadic life! The Mongolian Tribes in the middle and upper reaches of the Heilongjiang River, because they are close to the Outer Northeast Forest, find logging laborious but relatively easier. Once you go westward, to the vast barren Mongolian grassland everywhere covered in grass, the shortage of fuel reaches a truly terrifying degree, because timber is extremely scarce!

On the grasslands, what can be used to burn Fire are only dried cow dung, dried sheep dung, grass roots, shrubs, and groves of trees that the tribes bleed over to seize. Whenever the extremely cold and prolonged winter arrives, snow falls and the grasslands freeze; the tribespeople’s need for melting ice Water, cooking, and keeping warm, and the herds’ need for warmth and drinking Water, cannot be met without the fuel stored in summer and autumn. At that time, the quantity of fuel and the efficiency of using fuel become the key factors deciding the life and death of Tribes and herds. And the greatest value of the Iron Pot is that it saves far more fuel than a pottery pot!

The specific heat capacity of the Iron Pot is only half that of a pottery pot, while its thermal conductivity is far greater than ceramics, differing by an order of magnitude. This means the Iron Pot heats up faster and loses less heat. Thus, the fuel heat utilization rate of an Iron Pot is about 40%–50%, whereas that of a pottery pot is only about 10%–20%. When cooking quickly and melting snow Water, the efficiency of the Iron Pot can reach four to five times that of a pottery pot. When slow-boiling and stewing meat soup, the efficiency of the Iron Pot is roughly two to three times that of a pottery jar.

In other words, using an Iron Pot can save at least more than half the fuel! And an Iron Pot that saves more than half of the daily Fire fuel is the most cherished inherited Treasure in a nomadic tent settlement!

It is precisely because of the enormous survival value of the Iron Pot for northern nomadic life that, in its barter-based Tribute trade with the various Mongolian Tribes, the Ming Dynasty treated the Iron Pot as the most important and also the stingiest reward commodity, even writing in the records the astonishing note: "Iron Pot, three chi in diameter, valued at 150 guan," that is, a sky-high price of "150 taels of Silver"! Meanwhile, the purchase prices the Ming Dynasty offered for warhorses Tribute from the Mongolian Tribes were only "good horse 8 guan, pack horse 6 guan," worth merely "6–8 taels of Silver."