The guide is Zhang Mingli's family, also surnamed Zhang, called Zhang Cheng. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoHe often goes deep into the Li district because of his salt trafficking, and he is very familiar with the living conditions and customs of the Li people.

Along the way, from his introduction, it was learned that the Li people close to the Han county town were generally incorporated into the Dutu, that is, the household Qi people, generally called "Shu Li", accepted the management of the Han people, the same tax payer, most of them had some land, but the yield was much less than the Han people's land, most of them had to go to the lord of the mountain, that is, the local officials appointed by the government, to plant some land, work for a short time, usually have nothing to do to go to the mountains to hunt or pick red and white vines (Hainan's specialty) to the market to sell for salt and rice farming tools, but to the Han District not only have to go through the inspection departmentThe terrible thing is that there is a Ming army camp on the road: at least they are extorted for money, and at worst, the goods are robbed, and their lives are not guaranteed. Most people have a hard time.

The trade between Han and Li has always been unequal - the mountain goods really can't be sold for a few dollars, and a mountain boar can't be exchanged for two or three catties of salt, they all like the iron farming tools of the Han people, but the price is ridiculously expensive, and only a few large baskets of millet can be exchanged for a sickle, except for the lord and a few rich landlords, no one can afford it.

The journey was uneventful, but as we got closer to the Li district, the ground became more and more rugged, changing from gentle slopes to rolling hills. Pedestrians on the road are also rare. Near noon, the group stopped to rest for a while, ate the dry food they brought, and continued on their way.

On the way, they passed a camp of the Ming army, which, according to Zhang Cheng, was called the Nanluo Battalion, which was guarded and monitored by the town to enter the key pass of Panbao Mountain in the Li District. To avoid trouble, they took a path around the barracks.

After the military camp is Fanbao Mountain, the terrain of Fanbao Mountain is treacherous, only a one-man wide mountain path passes, this place is the main pass of the border between Han and Li. After the Panbao Mountain, there are many Shengli residences. They had different dialects and habits, and they rarely interacted with each other - only when they rebelled.

After entering the mountain, the mountain is not precipitous, along the road you can see a small piece of land between the mountains, planted with rice that is about to be harvested, there are traces of planting on the relatively gentle slopes, the green mountain forest is like a blanket of hair, from time to time showing pieces of yellow, this is the mountain fence planted by the Li people - this is a primitive agricultural method that is almost slash-and-burn.

One or two villages can be seen on the hillside in the distance. Although it is autumn, Hainan is like summer at all times, and the mountains are still full of flowers, the grass and trees are verdant, and the scenery is particularly beautiful. Compared with the bleak scene of barren smoke and vines outside the mountain, it has a different flavor.

Except for the guide Zhang Cheng, everyone entered the mountainous area inhabited by the Li nationality for the first time, and the group couldn't help but take a few more looks. At this moment, the sharp-eyed Yang Youji saw three people coming from the opposite side, dressed like they were not Han people, and the group immediately became vigilant.

A few native soldiers came over and asked loudly from a distance. They were all wearing cloth shirts, but their lower bodies were wrapped in strips of cloth like briefs, which was a kind of clothing often worn by Li men, a bit like the Japanese crotch cloth, with a hook knife straddling the waist - this is what every Li man carries with him, that is, a production tool and a weapon - a crossbow arrow on his back.

Zhang Cheng came forward to talk to them for a while, informing them of the intention here. Because Zhang Cheng often came here to sell salt, he was familiar with his face, and the Li soldiers were not wary of him, so they took them to meet the lord of the mountain.

It was a village called Tinan Mountain, and the native soldiers took them to the open space of the village and told them to rest here and not move. This Li village has no wall, from the outside it looks like a slightly larger ordinary village, around the village planted dense thorny dwarf trees, and overgrown with all kinds of vines and bamboo, not to mention people, even a rabbit can not drill through.

This is the first time everyone has seen such a wall. The houses in the village are all pyramid-shaped straw huts. The walls of the house are made of bamboo and pasted with mud, which looks very special. This Tinan village is where the "capital" of this mountain is located.

The so-called Li Tong in Hainan is generally divided by natural terrain and is generally composed of several villages. The lords have been recognized by the government, hold hereditary positions, and are issued with seals and bronze medals. The local officials of the Li people, such as the lord of the mountain and the Tushe, are to suppress the Li people and maintain local public order and social order; The second is to complete the various apportionments sent by the government on time every year, where there are taxes on the official side and "auspicious money" for the private affairs of officials. Of course, their own income is indispensable -- no matter how big or small the local officials are, the government does not give them money, and they have to rely on themselves to collect them. In other words, as long as you pay the various official and private "share money" that should be paid on time every year, the local officials can do whatever they want in their own territory, and they are basically a local emperor.

After a while, they were taken to the lord. The group was led into a large house in the middle of the village. This house is taller than ordinary houses, built on a pedestal, and in addition to the middle corridor, there are bamboo beds on three sides of the house, which are used for everyone to sit and sleep. The fire pit is on the back wall, and on top of it hangs bamboo rafts, which are used to smoke food. There are windows on the side of the roof, but the lighting is still very poor, and when you enter, you feel that it is dark in front of you, and it takes a while to get used to it.

The lord is an old man, surnamed Fu, called Fu Nandi, who can speak Qiongzhou dialect fluently. His hair had turned gray, and his face was not very good—and they later learned that he was in his early fifties, but he was an old man by 17th-century standards. Xia Nan presented a meeting gift - refined salt and farm tools.

Salt is a very important necessity for the Li people, and cast iron farm tools are a necessity for production. ”

Xia Nan told the lord of the plan to recruit women to work, and promised that he could pay half a year's salary in a lump sum, which could be paid with anything such as copper coins, salt, cloth, and farm tools.

Lord Fu was very interested in this plan. According to him, in recent years, there has not been much peace on the road, there are many fewer Han vendors in Laili District, and salt is already expensive, but now the price is higher. As long as there is salt, there is as much as you want, and iron tools are also urgently needed, and there is a shortage of farm tools and knives here. It consists of five villages, with a population of about 2,000 people, of which nearly half are women, and about 100 women go to work for the Han people, which is not a loss for the whole mountain, and the primitive mountain pen cultivation does not require much labor, and the men's dog herding (concentrated hunting) is still an important source of food.

The key is wages, and the lord promises a hundred women, and they are young and unmarried. Without waiting for the summer Nankai bid code, he handed over the hole card - each woman has a monthly work package for food and housing, and the salary is paid with salt, ten catties of salt per month, and one hundred people are one thousand catties of salt per month.

Xia Nan was shocked on the spot, this price is too shocking, the ancient minority brothers are really simple. I sell salt for one stone and one tael of silver, and ten catties of salt are less than one penny of silver, plus food and housing, and each female worker spends three or five dollars of silver every month.

Shocked to shocked, out of the nature of a businessman, he still pretended to say if the price could be lower.

Lord Fu said that it must not be less than ten catties of salt per person per month, but twenty additional people can be added, no wages, as long as food and shelter are included. Xia Nan couldn't help but be dumbfounded, what kind of algorithm is this, what is the difference between giving away twenty laborers for free and eight catties of salt per person? It wasn't until later that I learned that the master of Fu Yu would only use the knotted rope method to calculate integers such as ten and hundred.

Both sides were satisfied with the results of the negotiations, and the lord instructed people to bring wine to the guests-rice wine made from the glutinous rice of Shanlan rice planted by the Li people, which developed into a local famous local rice wine "Shanlan Yuye" in later generations.

Shanlan liquor is the simplest fermented glutinous rice liquor, with a brewing period of only seven days and a negligible alcohol content, similar to that of later generations. Everyone present drank a bowl.

No matter how low the alcohol content is, it is also wine, and with wine as a lubricant, it is easier to talk about things. In the summer, Nan took the opportunity to set up a lot of other situations. He vaguely remembered that the history books said that the cotton textile technology of the Central Plains was transmitted to the Central Plains from Qiongzhou through Huang Daopo, so there must be cotton in Qiongzhou.

Sure enough, the lord of Fu told him that there are two kinds of cotton in the Li District, one is tree cotton and the other is grass cotton - in fact, tree cotton is kapok, and grass cotton is a collective term for long-staple cotton and fine-staple cotton.

In earlier ancient times, Li women were weaving cloth with kapok, although the fiber of kapok has the advantages of light and soft, not easy to be soaked in water, strong pressure resistance, strong warmth, natural antibacterial, no moth and no mildew, but the fiber is too short, not suitable for textile raw materials.

In addition to kapok, there is also long-staple cotton known as island cotton. Compared with fine staple cotton, which is known as continental cotton, the fiber is longer and the strength is higher, which is suitable for spinning high-count yarns, and can spin worsted high-count cotton cloth with a texture and feel comparable to silk. As for fine staple cotton, it is the cotton that is the most grown in Chinese mainland, while there is very little fine staple cotton in Qiongzhou, most of which is long-staple cotton.

However, Xia Nan and Fu Nandi do not know the difference between Qiongzhou's local long-staple cotton and the mainland's fine-staple cotton, Xia Nan only knows that kapok is not suitable for weaving, and herbal cotton is the main raw material for weaving.

Lord Fu agreed very happily, and proposed a hundred catties of cotton and a catty of salt - the Li people planted mountain grass and cotton everywhere on the slopes where rice could not be grown, and they were all over the mountains, which were not worth much in his opinion, and he couldn't use so much to spin and weave cloth for his own use.

For the amazing price of the lord of Fu Yu, Xia Nan gradually got used to it, a big living person is only worth ten catties of salt, what is the cotton alone.

The result of the negotiation made Xia Nan himself feel that he was a profiteer, in fact, he didn't know that the vendor who specialized in trading in Li District could exchange a pound of coarse salt for a mountain boar, and he was not self-deprecating in comparison.

The Han people sent him the salt he needed the most, and he had a thousand salt a month, which could not only meet the daily needs of his own people, but also be used for exchange, such as paddy fields, cattle, sheep and pigs and other livestock in other mountains.

As for iron tools, agricultural tools can be used to cultivate more food, and knives can be used to arm native soldiers. If this continues, he will become the richest mountain in the area of Panbao Mountain. All they pay is women and cotton—women send them out to work, saving both food and income; Cotton is used by women to spin and weave themselves, and it is everywhere in the mountains, and it is not worth a few dollars.