Aztec Civilization: Destiny to Conquer America!

Chapter 2115 - 1546: Western Sea Trade, the Black Hole of Gold and Silver

"With the Chief Divine as witness! At the very end of the Divine Initiation Archipelago lies an exceedingly vast Ice and Snow Peninsula. On the Ice and Snow Peninsula dwell the Reindeer Mountain Tribe and the Rokube, nomadic herding and fishing Tribes who pasture their deer herds, and they are Gummy People kinsmen of the same origin as us. On the Ice and Snow Peninsula, the Kingdom has established Divine Twins Smoke Harbor and Shinnan Mountain Port. These two ports each hold only several hundred people in scale, with fields of planted Potatoes...""It is worth mentioning that among the Mountain Part there is an elderly Old Shaman who, relying on his many descendants and his Shaman God Divinity, has formed an exceedingly loose Mountain Tribe Alliance of roughly ten thousand in size. The Mountain Tribe Alliance can mobilize two thousand Tribal Warriors to wage war against the more Northern Snowfield Nomadic Deer Tribe... They have entered into political marriage with the Kingdom, becoming allies witnessed by the Ancestor, and have already begun to worship the Chief Divine. They are skilled in Archery and have many strong men among their tribes, who join the Kingdom’s strongholds on the Western Sea and are very reliable ’native troops’! Before I came, because of the White Disaster, a Thousand Mountain Tribe’s Tribespeople, including three to four hundred fighting strong men, had just begun moving southward to join us..."

"Oh? Loshanda, both you and Zuwaro High Priest have established marital ties with the Mountain Part? This Tribe has already converted to the Chief Divine?"

"Mm... the main branch of the Mountain Part can be considered formally converted, while most of the branches only enshrine the Chief Divine, regarding Him as one of the many Divine Spirits of Heaven..."

"Oh! Then that means the faith has only just entered in its early stage; more missionary Priests must be sent there!..."

In the Chief Divine Temple on Whale Island, three High Priests of the Kingdom sat cross-legged facing one another, jointly fixing their gaze upon the "Map of the Western Sea Continent" spread on the wooden-staked case table. The northern starting point of this map was precisely the Kamchatka Peninsula at the End of the Aleutian Divine Enlightenment Island Chain, a vast land of fully 270,000 square kilometers!

Yet, owing to the influence of the Thousand Islands Cold Current, the shores of this Ice and Snow Peninsula are far colder than those of Alaska. Only in the central part of the Peninsula, in several hot spring Valleys controlled by the Mountain Part, are there suitable places for pasturing deer herds and planting Potatoes. As for the two coastal strongholds occupied by the Kingdom, they in fact possess little potential for development. At best, each of the two ports can support about a thousand people. In terms of positioning for voyages on the Western Sea, they can only, like the ports along the Island Chain, serve as necessary resupply points.

"From the Ice and Snow Island, if one follows the Thousand Islands southward, one can reach another broad Great Island, the Ainu-Maoshili Island. This is where the Gummy People Branch and the more than one hundred thousand Ainu Tribes reside! On this Great Island the number of Ainu Tribes is enormous, their size ranging from a few dozen people up to a thousand. The five relatively larger Clans are Beiyu, Ishikari, Sumunkur, East Plain, and Uchiura..."

"Among these, the Uchiura Clan has been campaigned against year after year by the Japanese from the South and has already been reduced to vassal status. The Ishikari Clan, together with the Japanese, once even fought against us, but in the end were disastrously defeated. At present, the Ishikari Tribes fear us and have submitted, trading large quantities of coal mines and Iron ore with us... Yes! Within their territory lies a very considerable belt of coal mines, as well as many small Iron Sand mines... This Ishikari Clan is also the Kingdom’s primary target on Maoshili Island for assimilating the Gummy People and spreading the faith!..."

"As for the Beiyu Clan, once the weakest, they have joined our Kingdom and completely converted to the Chief Divine, becoming an extremely close native ally of ours. We dispatched samurai officer to train several hundred conscripted spearman from among the Ainu Tribe for them, roughly on par with the Kingdom Peasant Soldiers, though not as capable as the Tribal Flag Team... Zuwaro High Priest furthermore took three noble ladies of the Beiyu Clan as wives, becoming most intimate with the various Chieftains and serving as the Beiyu Clan’s nominal ’spokesman’!..."

Before the map on the case table, Kimier Grand Priest again used a fine brush to mark down the approximate locations and sizes of the five Ainu, paying particular attention to annotating the "coal mines" and "Iron ore" within the Ishikari Faction’s territory. The area of this Ainu Maoshili Island is 83,000 square kilometers, roughly one third that of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yet the population it can sustain is ten times that of the Kamchatka Peninsula!

"Zuwaro High Priest has not only taken a Mountain Part wife, but also three Ainu wives?..."

"Yes! Besides this, Zuwaro High Priest has also taken a wife from the Forest Sea Nuzhen Tribe. That Maha tribe within the Forest Sea is likewise an extremely important ally of ours!..."

Upon hearing of Zuwaro’s political marriages with the various Clans of the Western Sea, Kimier and High Priest Miki exchanged a glance, their expressions growing somewhat subtle. The two fell silent for a moment, then signaled for Loshanda to continue.

"With the Chief Divine’s blessing! At the very southern end of Maoshili Island stands the Japanese Insect Mountain Clan. This is the first Japanese Great Tribe we encountered, numbering in the several thousands to ten thousand, holding twelve villages and towns. Those Japanese Great Tribes that are stronger still, numbering in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions, lie upon the ’Honshu’ Great Island opposite Maoshili Island..."

"After the initial ’conflict’, Zuwaro High Priest, through ransom negotiations, successfully established a ’Gold trade’ route with this Japanese Insect Mountain Clan. From that point on, the Kingdom could finally make use of ample ’Gold’ to carry out the ’Gold trade’ foretold in Your Majesty’s Prophecy, exchanging with the Western Sea Tribe Alliance for Craftsman, rice and salt, Ironware, and Armor..."

"Subsequently, the scale of the Gold trade gradually expanded, and new Japanese powers joined in. One such force is a Temple power known as ’Tiantai’, held in high esteem within the Japan Tribe Alliance and capable of readily gathering large numbers of Japan Craftsmen and supplies... The eleven Master Craftsman I have brought back this time were all basically obtained by using Gold to trade with the Tiantai Temple’s merchant fleets!..."