Agriculture and Empire

The Sun rose from the eastern mountain forests. Dawn pushed back the night and released brilliant gold. Morning dew glittered among the grass and trees, and the birds awoke with it, their pleasant calls ringing everywhere.

Facing the Morning Sun, Xolotl stood bare-chested, the most convenient white loincloth tied around his waist. Before him stood a vat of cold water and a clay basin. Bertad stood quietly ahead, watching his face.

He scooped up a basin of cold water and poured it over his head. The water cascaded over his whole body, and the morning wind made him instantly cold, raising goosebumps all over his skin. Yet his expression did not change. By a warrior's standards, he had to remain steadfast at all times, without the slightest fear of cold or hesitation.

After a while, when the droplets had mostly dried, he poured another basin of cold water over himself. He repeated this until he had emptied the entire vat. Only then did Bertad smile.

"Not bad, Xolotl. You've gained some of a warrior's bearing. It's already April, and the weather is beginning to warm. The will-training for cold endurance will soon stop. Then we'll switch to agility training in the mornings. Once October comes and the warm rainy season has passed, we'll resume as before."

Xolotl nodded resolutely. His face had already frozen stiff, leaving him temporarily unable to speak.

Just then, a little red bird, drawn to Xolotl, flew circles around the youth as it chirped. It had a distinct crest upon its head and a black face. It flew swiftly, sang in a high and cheerful voice that shifted through different notes, and now and then flew over to peck at the water splash by his feet. The more Xolotl looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

"Ah, a songbird singing for a mate—the blessing of Tonacacihuatl, goddess of fertility. This is an auspicious sign. It seems the season for all things to multiply has arrived. Xolotl, you must restrain your desires. Of course, trying it once and completing the transformation from boy to man is also quite necessary."

Seeing this lucky omen put Bertad in a fine mood, and he made a rare manly joke.

Xolotl raised an eyebrow. At last, his face could move again.

"Bertad, Avet has led you astray. You don't need to display your theological knowledge before a Priest. Tonacacihuatl is also the God of Harvest. Seeing a Red Sparrow singing joyfully proves that the season for spring plowing has arrived!"

This beautiful little bird was the North American Cardinal, widely distributed throughout the mountain forests of Mesoamerica and North America. April was their season for courting and mating, when they sang especially beautiful songs. To Xolotl, though, it was more familiar by another well-known name: "Angry Birds."

As they spoke, the two saw a plume of thick smoke slowly rising in the distant eastern sky. The smoke column drifted apart overhead and was not too dense. After a while, another plume gradually rose. Bertad looked toward the direction of the smoke columns before nodding in understanding.

"The Main God blesses us! They're all in the direction of the villages. This is preparation for Milpa—setting the forest ablaze. Spring plowing is about to begin!"

Xolotl nodded in agreement. In this age, the agriculture of the Mexican tribes came in two forms: Chinampa and Milpa, floating fields upon the water and dry fields upon land. Thanks to the high-yield crops of the New Continent, even without Ironware or Draft Oxen, these fields' yields were in no way inferior to those of the Old Continent.

Chinampa were high-yield floating fields in rivers and lakes, the foundation of Mexica city-states' strength. One hectare of Chinampa gardens could support at least twenty people, equivalent to one and a half people per mu of land. Xolotl recalled a Ming-era text he had once read: "In rich fields adjoining a city, every mu yields no fewer than five or six shi." Chinampa were thus comparable to the finest paddies of Jiangnan in the Celestial Empire!

In the imperial capital, Tenochtitlan, the City in the Lake, possessed over nine thousand hectares of Chinampa gardens, supporting a magnificent giant city with more than two hundred thousand people. The population of this Stone Age metropolis even surpassed that of any city in Western Europe at this time, rivaling Kaifeng and Hangzhou in the Celestial Empire. And in this campaign, the three capital cities together with the lake-region villages, a population of one and a half million, had directly provided five Xiquipilli—forty thousand Royal Direct Warriors.

Xolotl had once followed his father to visit the family's Chinampa gardens. These fertile floating fields were the heart of every noble household. Yet he was unfamiliar with Milpa dry fields, the most widespread farming method in Mesoamerica.

Agriculture was the foundation of an empire, and population the cornerstone of civilization. Only civilizations with vast core populations could truly grow into empires. Xolotl thought of the Celestial Empire's hundred million core population, the Ottoman's ten million, and France's ten million. Naturally, the South Asian subcontinent was an exception.

With that in mind, Xolotl decided to see the cultivation of Milpa dry fields for himself. A warrior's actions never dragged on; once he thought of something, he did it immediately. He discussed it with Bertad for a while, and the latter nodded before gathering a hundred warrior retainers.

Then Xolotl went to find Totek and told the commander-in-chief that he wished to visit an occupied Otomi village to the east "to conduct a sacrificial rite for spring plowing."

At this, Totek furrowed his cold, hard brows. In a rough voice, he merely said, "Watch out for attacks from Otomi hyenas," then assigned him another escort of one hundred warriors.

Thus, Xolotl donned the robes of an Earth Wolf Priest, led two hundred warriors, carried ten days' worth of provisions, and set out on foot toward the eastern mountain villages.

By then, the siege, which had made no progress whatsoever, had already lasted half a year. The Mexica army had long since deployed beneath Otopan City. In the Classical Age, a siege was not simply tens of thousands of soldiers heaped together beneath a city. Camps had to be properly established, troops deployed, surrounding strategic points controlled, and the city's food and water supplies cut off.

At present, all villages within two days' travel around Mountain City had been cleared by the Alliance. The nearest village to Xolotl lay two and a half days eastward. The warrior party followed the supply route, winding east.

While marching, Xolotl encountered a supply convoy once. Several hundred Alliance Laborers carried towering bundles of food along narrow mountain paths with difficulty, their heavy loads nearly bending their backs. Around them stood more than a hundred fully armed warriors and Militia, ever alert for Otomi attacks. Xolotl shook his head at the sight. With such transport efficiency, at least half the supplies would be consumed on the road. The Laborers, too, would be steadily worn away like expendable materials in ambushes.

After two days of marching through the mountain forests, they saw no attacking Otomi warriors. Instead, they encountered Otomi mountain folk emerging from the woods to surrender. The nearby villages were now under Mexica Warrior control, and the fields cleared around them had also fallen into Alliance hands. It was the season for spring plowing, and spring plowing had to begin. If there were no spring plowing again, there would be no harvest for the entire year, and death would be inevitable. Under the threat of survival, the mountain folk had no choice but to abandon their hiding places, emerge from the mountains, and beg for a way to live.

For villages they could control, however, the Mexica Legion treated them as its own wealth and showed sufficient mercy.

When Xolotl arrived at the nearest Otomi mountain village, he found fading blue smoke before him and a stretch of forest outside the village already burned to ash. The farmers took stone Lei and Si from their thatched huts and mud walls—simple digging sticks—along with Corn seeds, preparing to begin spring plowing.

When they saw the large party of Mexica Warriors approaching, led by an Earth Wolf Priest, the Otomi mountain folk immediately prostrated themselves. They buried their heads deeply, hiding the fear and fire in their eyes. This was utterly different from the farmers' enthusiasm in the Valley of Mexico. The leader of the garrisoned Mexica Militia also hurried over and saluted Xolotl.

Xolotl took everything in: the Empire's rule here was weak, and obedience was maintained by force alone. He said nothing more, merely informing the Militia leader that the party's purpose was to conduct "a sacrificial rite for spring plowing." The Militia leader immediately shouted several commands. Upon hearing them, the prostrate Otomi raised their heads as well, finally revealing expressions of reverence and joy.

In this barbaric age, the divine authority of Priests was powerful. Its strength lay in its roots in people's hearts, its occupation of every aspect of life, and its maintenance through different sacrificial rites.

Xolotl came to the center of the village and built a small altar. First, he placed a round stone upon it and scattered dirt over it to symbolize the Earth Mother. Then he placed Corn, bean, pumpkin, Cacao, and Chili upon the soil. These were foods bestowed by the gods, symbolizing the coming planting. Next, he arranged green grass around them to symbolize growth. Finally, he placed emerald branches around the outer edge to symbolize the final harvest.

This was a sacrificial rite to pray for a bountiful harvest, the simplest and most approachable of rites, widely spread among Mesoamerican villages.

Then the young Priest Xolotl stepped onto the altar. The crowd below immediately fell solemnly silent. As everyone waited prostrate, he danced and sang.

"I sleep beneath the Earth Mother,

Dreaming of seven coiling serpents around me.

They feast upon the flesh and blood of my old days,

Hissing as they call me home.

That is Tonacacihuatl,

The goddess who rules fertility and harvest.

"The goddess chose me in a garden of blooming flowers,

Sunflowers and Corn were my ignorant childhood,

Beans and Pumpkin were my comfortable youth,

Cacao was my bitter middle age,

Red Chili was my mature old age.

Then flowers bloomed, tearing open my throat,

Then fruit grew heavy, congealing my flesh and blood.

"The goddess colored me, the fruit,

And dressed me in old skin.

Life then fled from my body.

Come quickly, sacrifice that devours my flesh and blood.

I will take root once more in the heart of the Earth Mother,

Planted deeply,

To sleep a long, long sleep.

"I am the goddess's grain,

A seed buried in the soil.

After planting, I sprout,

After sprouting, I grow,

After growing, I ripen,

After ripening, I sacrifice,

After sacrifice, I return,

And become a seed once more.

"This is the endless ring,

I will surge forth for the goddess forever.

She guards me with the Sun,

She kisses me with rain and dew,

Bringing harvest to the Earth Mother,

And I am never alone.

That is the great goddess,

Tonacacihuatl!

When the sacrificial song ended, the warriors performed solemn rites and shouted Tonacacihuatl's divine name in unison. The Otomi mountain folk directly lay flat upon the ground, kissing the Earth Mother beneath them.

In Xolotl's view, this ancient sacrificial poem was exceedingly plain and straightforward. It treated crops as people, dripping with flesh and blood; when he first heard it, it had seemed deeply strange, very Cthulhu. In truth, Cthulhu's style had originated from the indigenous cultures of the Americas.

Yet after hearing it several times, it became easy to understand that this was actually a simple, accessible agricultural poem meant to guide farming.

The first stanza was nonsense.

The second stanza gave the planting order of crops by season: Sunflower, Corn, bean, pumpkin, Cacao, and red Chili.

The third and fourth stanzas gave the growth cycle: after planting the seeds, wait some time for them to sprout; once the sprouts grow up, they flower; after flowering, they bear fruit; once they bear fruit, eat them quickly; after eating them, remember to plant again.

The final stanza explained that crops needed sunlight and water to grow.

After the rite ended, the Otomi people's attitude toward Xolotl changed in a way visible to the naked eye. The young Priest Xolotl was surrounded by hundreds and thousands of villagers with a look of utter hopelessness. Every corner of his priestly robes was enthusiastically kissed, until his guard Bertad rescued him from the crowd.

With the rite completed, it was time for planting. Xolotl followed the working villagers forward and watched closely.

On the burned land, the villagers dug small holes one finger deep and placed several Corn kernels inside. Then they gathered ash fertilizer around the holes before covering the planting pits. The pits were spaced roughly half a meter apart in both directions. They could not be planted as densely as later agriculture, chiefly because the soil was not fertile enough.

This was the eldest sister among the Three Sisters, Corn.

For the next part of the planting process, Xolotl had to rely entirely on the village elders' explanations and gestures, listening and asking questions as he went.

Several weeks later, when the Corn had grown over ten centimeters tall, Beans could be planted. This was the second sister among the Three Sisters. Beans had to be planted around the Corn, with several Bean plants encircling each stalk of Corn.

Then, another week later, pumpkin could be planted. This was the youngest sister among the Three Sisters. One was planted every two or three meters or so, because pumpkin would spread across the ground.

Xolotl thought carefully and recalled the knowledge he had learned before. In this arrangement, Corn grew straight upward, providing stalks for Soybeans to climb. Beans surrounded the Corn, fixing nitrogen to replenish soil fertility. Pumpkin spread between the Corn and Beans, removing weeds from the field.

The three formed a perfect symbiotic relationship of mutual aid, creating the most ancient form of ecological agriculture. It required little human management and suited the barbaric Mesoamerica of this age, where only crude stone tools existed.

It was now late April. Corn needed five months to mature and would be harvested around October. beans were planted later and matured in roughly four months, harvested around September. Early-maturing pumpkin needed only a little over three months and would be harvested from August to September. After the Corn harvest was completed in early October, another crop of beans might be planted at year's end depending on conditions—not for yield, but to replenish soil fertility.

Nutritionally, Corn provided carbohydrates, beans protein, and pumpkin filled the stomach, perfectly sustaining commoners' daily survival. As for Sunflower, Cacao, and Chili, the village elders said those were things city-state people liked; the village had no use for them.

Xolotl calculated that, including the time spent on large-scale planting, crops were planted from April through June and harvested from August through October. Thus, the city-states across the highlands found it difficult to mobilize Militia from April to October and would not lightly go to war. The Mexica City-State Alliance, with sufficient Chinampa, could instead mobilize in force during this period, catch its enemies off guard, and incidentally destroy their agricultural production.

Overall, Milpa dry-field farming began by burning the forest, followed by planting the Three Sisters—Corn, bean, and pumpkin in sequence—and ended with one to three years of fallow land. Its yield ranged from one-fifth to one-seventh that of Chinampa floating fields.

Xolotl converted the figures. Depending on water and fertility, each hectare of Milpa could support three to five people—meaning three to five mu of land supported one person. This was slightly below the yield of dry fields in northern Ming at this time. There were no advanced Huaxia farming techniques here; they relied purely on the high yields of Corn and pumpkin. In poor mountain lands, the mountain folk also planted Sweet Potato as supplementary food. Naturally, the Sweet Potato, Corn, and pumpkin of this age had not undergone scientific breeding and were all far smaller than their later counterparts.

Watching the Otomi villagers busying themselves in the fields and pondering the figures he had just calculated, Xolotl suddenly realized that Mesoamerica's total population might far exceed his expectations!

Even accounting for two years of fallow land, the density in most Mesoamerican population centers, based on food supply, would be no lower than one-third that of northern Celestial Empire at this time. And the Valley of Mexico, with countless Chinampa that required no fallow periods, would approach the population density of the Celestial Empire's richest Jiangnan—Mesoamerica's own "Nan Zhili."

Agriculture determined population, and population determined a state's potential. This was why the various states of Mexico could so easily raise armies of over a hundred thousand around their city-states and send them to war.

Across the entire Mexican region, from the northernmost Chichimec to the southernmost Zapotec, from the westernmost Teske to the easternmost Nahua, and including the Mexica People at the center, this was a civilizational region later believed to have at least fifteen million people, and which Xolotl believed had over twenty million. It possessed the world's highest-yielding Corn, pumpkin, Sweet Potato, and the gradually spreading potato.

Xolotl gazed across the distant fields, where golden hope lay spread before him. He looked at the seeds that had yet to sprout; they were civilization in gestation.

What did a population of tens of millions in the Stone Age mean?

Xolotl thought for a moment, then smiled, radiance flickering in his eyes.

"This will be another Celestial Empire after the Metal Age—a Celestial Empire with tens of millions of core population!"

This chapter was far too difficult to write. Looking up data and freely translating the poem had nearly exhausted me.