"Whoosh~~"
The September wind blew across Sakhalin Island, bringing with it the cold of the Siberian polar lands. The deep birch forests were the ink of the northern horizon, while the bright Ezo sea was the white of the southern horizon. Within that vast scroll of dark green and white-blue, there was one patch where gray, yellow, red, and white mingled, like the midpoint between two parallel horizons that would never meet.
"Awroo! Awroo!..."
As Flying Eagle rode the cold wind closer, the complex colors within that boundless world suddenly unfolded, becoming a plain and simple tribal harbor, crude yet brimming with life. The gray became potato fields after the harvest, the yellow was rows of thatched huts and wooden houses, the red was the Temple at the center of the harbor, and the white turned into a white birch wood harbor where ships large and small lay moored.
Countless little dots moved between the fields, the camp, and the harbor. There were tribespeople drying fish, smoking meat, tanning hides, and making bows; cattle and horses grazing, stopping and starting as they roamed; and packs of dogs barking, running, standing guard, and chasing after one another.
"Awooo! Awooo!..."
This was the kingdom's Shenhuatai Port, home to more than twelve hundred tribespeople of various peoples. With the Jurchen tribes Zuwaro's fleet had brought back, as well as the submission of the surrounding Ainu People, the population of Shenhuatai Port had grown rapidly, and its proportions had once again changed. At present, in this largest kingdom port on the Western Sea, one-third were Ainu tribes, one-fourth were Jurchen, one-sixth were Wajin, and one-fourth were Kingdom Warriors and Sanda hunters.
Of course, aside from the Wajin, whether Ainu, Jurchen, or Sanda, none of the tribespeople yet had much sense of ethnicity, and they