Aztec Civilization: Destiny to Conquer America!-Chapter 1743 - 1246: The Most Torrential Great River
The toxic smoke from the iron smelting wafted with the wind, bringing the initial "industrial scent" to the Western Sea Coast. And following the south wind heading north for three hundred miles, past the towering Divine Revelation Tree, lies the tens of thousands of Tolowa tribes. Due to the salt marshes at the boundary of their tribal hunting grounds, tens of thousands of Tolowa people had completely split into two small tribal alliances, centered around the Redwood Great Tribe and the Leaf Grass Great Tribe, engaging in frequent challenges and battles. With the appearance of the Kingdom fleet and the intentional influx of metal weapons, the scale of these tribal alliance wars is intensifying!
The Kingdom's passing fleet delivers metal weapons, sparkling gemstones, and planted grain crops every six months. But what the Kingdom fleet takes is not just the mountain produce, but also the warrior captives from the wars between the two Great Tribes. Over more than two years, four hundred able-bodied captive warriors have been transported north successively to supplement the Kingdom's North Port. Leading this strategy is none other than the ambitious High Priest of Kejie, stationed at North Port!
"Chief Divine be witnessed! Among the entire developing Western Sea Coast, besides the most core West Mountain Port, the second most prosperous will certainly be my personally stationed North Port! North Port is at the downstream of the Great River that spans thousands of miles, and from here, whether it is the Rivermouth Tribal Alliance downstream, or the Kalapuya tribes upstream, or even the more upstream mountain hunting tribes, all will be influenced by the Kingdom, all will eventually convert into the embrace of the Chief Divine!..."
Three Kingdom longships, loaded with salt and coal rocks, along with sixty newly exchanged Tolowa captives, slowly docked at the Kingdom's North Port on the south bank of the Great River.
The long Columbia River, originating from the distant eastern mountains, flows for over four thousand miles, nurturing countless tribes along its banks, before finally merging here into the Pacific Ocean, with an estuary several miles wide. It is a truly turbulent river, the mother river at the heart of the tribes along its banks, a manifestation of the running and surging River God. And at this river estuary, the Kingdom's North Port is the starting point of faith along the entire turbulent river, the initial source of the Divine Fire!
At this moment, High Priest Kejie stood personally by the port, lighting a blue Sacred Fire, holding sacred Blood Oath conversions for every warrior captive disembarking.
"Chief Divine's protection! Carve the Chief Divine's emblem, recite the Chief Divine's name! From now on, you are the Sacred Warrior of Chief Divine Wezi Lopo, a returned honor Jiao person to the ancestors' clan!"
High Priest Kejie chanted loudly, and most of the kneeling captives showed awe on their faces, not daring to look at the blue flame, just bowing their heads, repeating the not unfamiliar name of the Chief Divine. Because, when they passed Kusi Bay, they were already taught once by the Kingdom Priest there...
These able-bodied captives boarded from the two warring Great Tribes, traveled north for more than four hundred miles, and stopped for several days at the Kingdom's South Port by Kusi Bay. South Port Priest Keshu is a master at growing corn, and the converted are the patient Cus people who cultivate the fields. Therefore, with a population of just over one thousand at South Port, he cultivated six thousand acres of cornfields, having the largest corn reserves on the entire Western Sea Coast! And Kusi Bay's South Port is also fondly referred to by the warriors as the "Corn Port."
Not long ago, when the fleet docked at the "Corn Port," Priest Keshu deliberately treated everyone on the transport fleet, including the escorting Kingdom's warriors and the Tolowa captives, to several aromatic corn cakes, and prepared some extra dry rations for the warriors. Under these rare "hometown delicacies" temptations, the Kingdom's warriors turned a blind eye and allowed Priest Keshu, under the guise of spreading the Chief Divine faith, to intercept a quarter, that is, more than twenty captive warriors...
"Ah, praise the Chief Divine! Finally, all have converted! With the addition of these warrior captives, we can continue expanding along both sides of the Great River, seizing more tribal populations from the expansion of the Kalapuya tribes!..."
The Sacred Fire burned fiercely, and the spring sun was also bright. Under the dazzling sunlight, High Priest Kejie sweated heavily, took off the heavy ritual robe, and changed into the light vine attire of the Northern Tribes, looking increasingly like a local Great Chief.
"Merciful Chief Divine! That Keshu, the grasping guy, always intercepts a quarter of the warriors... Hmm, considering he provides corn cakes to the fleet, even as a higher-ranking High Priest, I can only acquiesce to his methods!"
High Priest Kejie arranged many trusted subordinates within the fleet, naturally aware that Priest Keshu has been secretly intercepting. But North Port's expansion was too fast, with limited cultivated fields and limited food output. The fields mainly produced easy-to-grow but hard-to-eat mixed grains, therefore not providing enough of the warriors' favorite corn cakes. And to appease the Kingdom warriors who row back and forth tirelessly, he could only reluctantly acquiesce to this "greedy" interception of manpower.
After all, in this distant Northern Land, the authority of the priests must rely on the support of the warriors! When facing many fierce hunting tribes, the priests can only speak with the warriors' Bow Spears, just like the highly aggressive Kalapuya Alliance upstream in the Great River.
And the priests of each port, in fact, have considerable autonomy, boldly acting for the local colonization interests. As long as they can develop the ports in various places, and control more converted tribes, they will naturally be promoted to higher priest levels! In the face of such seemingly boundless prospects, no one would take a big step back, abandoning their bright future, so they can only rely on strength to compromise with each other...
"Chief Divine's protection! My personally stationed North Port already has two thousand tribes, firmly controlling a hundred-mile radius of the Great River's downstream. And the Rivermouth Tribal Alliance, allied with North Port, combined has more than thirty thousand people, with more than ten Great Chiefs from various tribes united, fighting against the upstream Kalapuya tribes! This long and cruel tribal melee has been ongoing for ten, twenty years since long before the Kingdom's arrival. And the Kalapuya tribes, relying on their exceeding tribal strength, are increasingly prominent and prosperous..."
The Rivermouth tribal alliance indeed has a very mixed origin, in addition to the Kingdom's North Port led by the Krasop people, it includes the Chinook people, the Cathlamet Tribe, the Wahkiakum people, among others. And the main opponents of these tribes, the tens of thousands strong Kalapuya tribes, centered around the Portland River Valley, form a fairly tight tribal alliance, united and brave! Of course, their stone-tool hunting clans' bravery is clearly insufficient when facing the Kingdom's experienced warriors with bronze weapons. They can only rely on superior numbers and familiar terrain to fight poor battles of woodland ambushes, dragging the Kingdom's warriors into a brawl on an unprepared equal playing field...
Faced with such flexible small-scale poor battles, High Priest Kejie was also troubled. The Kingdom's main base warriors are too few, too precious to afford piecemeal losses. And the Krasop people who serve as auxiliary troops are too docile, adept at farming and fishing, but perform poorly on the battlefield, collapsing at the first strike.
High Priest Kejie pondered, until he discovered the battling Tolowa people, and suddenly his eyes lit up. He specifically deployed fleets, willing to sell weapons, just to trade with the Tolowa tribes for captive warriors who had fought many small-scale skirmishes and had ample mountain forest combat experience, to serve as reliable auxiliary troops for the Kingdom's warriors... 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦
And High Priest Kejie, sparing no expense in continuous engagements with the Kalapuya tribes, was not for the upstream river valley occupied by the Kalapuya, nor the lush hunting grounds there. North Port never lacked land, but desperately needed people to cultivate it! High Priest Kejie's primary aim was to rescue the large and small tribes defeated by the Kalapuya in the Great River's upper reaches from their population, continuously supplementing them into the Kingdom's North Port, to rapidly increase the number of tribes. As for longer-term plans, it was to establish a stable leadership position within the Rivermouth Alliance, continually propagating the "War God's" protection, to plot long-term ambitions...
"Chief Divine's protection! In this struggle, North Port has fully proven the Kingdom's military strength, gradually becoming the largest force in the Rivermouth Alliance, with the opportunity to become the alliance leader! And the Southern War God, so adept at battle, is also gradually becoming an important deity worshipped by the tribes in the Rivermouth..."
"Chief Divine be witnessed! I must plot long-term, for the spread of Chief Divine's glory, at all costs!... If I can truly become the leader of the Rivermouth Alliance, leading the more than thirty thousand tribes in the Rivermouth Alliance to fully convert to the Chief Divine... then this mighty land of the Great River's downstream will become the starting point for the 'Coy' family! And the future Priesthood of the Western Sea Coast will inevitably always have a place for us!..."
The sun sets in the west, the Columbia River rolls and surges. The waters flow westward into the sea, washing away countless future heroes. All is left as idle talk~~
Note: The Easter egg chapter is a detailed map.
