No one has ever been sure how large the territory of the Southern Barbarians was. Some say it had a million mountains, while others say it was the end of the continent, with land ten times larger than the Central Plains.
This claim has never been proven, but it has always existed because this has been the history of the Southern Barbarians for so many years. Every year, there are people who are desperate and willing to take a gamble, willing to cross mountains and valleys in search of new hope. Although many, many people die, there have indeed been many lucky people in history who found new continents and then established new barbarian kingdoms!
At this time, Ma Yunchang and his group were among the refugees who fled from the mountains.
This group was quite large, numbering nearly a thousand people. It included the elderly, the weak, women, and children, with young and strong men making up more than half of the group. However, almost everyone was emaciated, starving to the point of being skin and bones, with numb eyes, resembling walking corpses.
" Brother Yunchang, it's been ten days already, are you still leaving?"
The subordinate looked at the endless mountains ahead and asked, his lips almost cracked.
"What else can we do if we don't leave? Die in this desolate mountain? Or go back and wait to die?" Ma Yunchang turned around and asked, his eyes bloodshot.
The people around were speechless upon hearing this.
Go back? If one's former home were even remotely habitable, who would willingly leave their homeland?
Wutuo Kingdom is no longer a place fit for human habitation!
This current ruler, for some unknown reason, insisted on colluding with the Central Plains court, welcoming a sorcerer who set up Ghost General temples everywhere. The Wutuo Kingdom originally believed in the Earth Spirit Cave and the Spirit Snake Goddess. For the past fifty years, they had been the best-off among the Southern Barbarians kingdoms, with no worries about food or clothing and no need for human sacrifices. But in the last two years, things have changed. One Ghost General temple after another has been built, eerie and ghostly. At first, it was done secretly, but people kept disappearing—children, women, and the elderly.
Later on, there were even Ghost Temple rituals that required each family to contribute a child!
The methods of human sacrifice were extremely cruel. Children's limbs were cut off, their faces were peeled off while they were still alive, and they were soaked in wine jars for the so-called Ghost General in the Ghost Temple to enjoy.
The people, of course, disagreed. The Southern Barbarians barbarians, who worshipped minor gods and were known for their fierce nature, naturally rose up in rebellion. But by the time they realized what was happening and wanted to resist, it was too late.
The evil spirits in the Ghost Temple can devour all the gods and spirits of their folk beliefs. They will also drag the entire family of the rebels to the Ghost Temple and skin them alive in front of everyone. It is said that the people in the Ghost Temple can also suck souls, and people cannot be freed after death. They are truly inescapable evil spirits!
The people of the Southern Barbarians suffer greatly. They have little arable land, scarce food, and the mountains are rife with miasma and poisonous insects. A moment's carelessness can be fatal. They worship minor Daoist priests and evil gods in order to find a way to survive. In fact, they have already been exploited terribly in the past.
The imperial court needed to collect taxes, and even minor deities had to offer sacrifices of blood and vital energy from time to time. In more extreme cases, men and women had to sacrifice their bodies in order to barely receive some food and medicine to survive.
The situation is better in the Wutu Kingdom. They believe in the Earth Spirit Cave, and the amount of blood and essence they obtain is not frequent. They only need to go to the Earth Spirit Cave once a month to harvest enough food to feed their family.
Although the snake women in the Earth Spirit Cave were foul-smelling and disgusting, able-bodied men could simply close their eyes and grit their teeth and get through it.
Life here is so much better than in those neighboring kingdoms like Wudang Kingdom and Marsh Kingdom.
I used to think life was hard, far less fortunate than the people of the Central Plains. But now I realize that people really need to be content. Often, what disrupts our current life isn't necessarily a better one; it could very well be worse.
More and more Ghost Temple are being built, and human sacrifices are held every year. People in the city are almost bound to this and can't escape. People in the villages still have a chance. After a group of children were sacrificed, some family members went to the city to buy goods. When they saw the fate of their children, many of them cried so hard they couldn't walk.
The ever-growing appetite of cities has forced many villagers to emulate their ancestors and venture deeper into the mountains, just as the founding of the Wutuo Kingdom did, to find another suitable place to live.
"But we haven't eaten for three days. Adults can endure it, but women and children can't!"
The man at the head, named Ma Yunchang, looked around numbly, then sat down on the ground with a bitter smile, "There's nothing we can do. It's better for the children and women to starve to death here than to go back and be soaked in wine jars to feed those beasts."
The group fell silent, then all followed Ma Yunchang's gaze and looked ahead.
The deeper you venture into the Southern Barbarians, the denser the miasma becomes, to the point where you can barely see more than ten meters ahead. You never know what awaits you as you continue—it could be hope, or it could be a centipede or toad larger than a person, swallowing you whole.
The Southern Barbarians have never lacked legends of warriors exploring the mountains, finding new lands, and establishing kingdoms. But these legends are built upon countless bones. If finding new places were so easy, the Southern Barbarians wouldn't have only a hundred kingdoms over the years.
"Look, Laoda!!"
Suddenly, something amazing happened!
The thick fog ahead suddenly dissipated, revealing a dense forest with tall trees and bright red berries everywhere, emitting a mouthwatering aroma.
And the huge waterwheels on and off the mountain allow the clear, sweet-looking spring water to flow through the entire mountain range, like a work of art.
Some people were instantly stunned; they had never seen such beautiful mountains before!
"This... this..."
"Water? Water!!"
Many men who were already desperately thirsty looked on with shining eyes and tried their best to rush over, but they were forcibly stopped by Ma Yunchang and several of the strongest men!
"Don't move around, it might be a hallucination caused by miasma!"
Ma Yunchang has extensive experience in this regard. The miasma of South Mountain has many effects. Some can blind people, some can cause skin ulcers, and some, with colorful mist, can cause people to fall into hallucinations and unknowingly fall into the abyss, where they are smashed to pieces!
What looks like a paradise ahead could turn out to be a swamp of poisonous snakes, or perhaps a sheer cliff?
Moreover, the visual logic is illogical. They were clearly in a barren mountain covered in thorns, so how did they suddenly find themselves in front of a clearly cultivated mountain village?
This huge waterwheel, this field that looks like a field everywhere, although covered with snow, he could tell from the exposed black soil that it was extremely fertile land, probably only in the good places of the Central Plains Shandong.
How could the Southern Barbarians possibly have such a place?
But there weren't many people as rational as him. Most were already starving and desperate, completely deaf to reason, and charged in with all their might. How could Ma Changyun and a few other men possibly stop them?
A large group of people quickly broke through Ma Yunchang and his companions, and rushed into the picturesque mountains!
Ma Yunchang instinctively closed his eyes in an instant. He couldn't even bear to see the fate of those people going on blind dates, whether they were devoured by a group of poisonous snakes or fell off a cliff and turned into mincemeat. The worst part was that there were so many women and children among them.
But it's better than before. At least I saw hope before I died. If I die quickly enough in the final moment, it's actually a kind of relief, isn't it?
By comforting himself in this way, Ma Yunchang even felt a sense of calm.
But the next moment, someone next to him helped him up.
" Laoda, something's not right, look!"
"Of course something's wrong," Ma Yunchang smile. "This is obviously fake."
But when they opened their eyes, they were stunned. The group of people who had rushed in had neither been eaten by any monster nor fallen off the cliff. Instead, they had rushed into the picturesque mountains and started celebrating wildly.
"This water is so sweet! Quick, child, wife, come here!"
"This fruit is huge! Quick, bring the child over here, hurry!"
One by one, the men who had drunk the spring water and come to their senses turned around and called to their families, eager for them to come quickly, as if they were afraid that the water would be robbed of everything.
"What's going on?" Ma Yunchang was completely stunned. Could it really be true?
He carefully got up and stumbled along with the crowd, squeezing through as soon as he entered. The moment he stepped inside, he felt something was different.
It wasn't as cold here as in the desolate mountains. Although it was still cold, it was a refreshing cold. A breath of sweet, clean air made him feel like he was floating.
Where is this?
"Hey, who are you people?"
Suddenly, a deep, resounding voice rang out, and everyone looked up to see two burly, armored soldiers, and in front of them stood a girl with a youthful face, dressed in a scholar's white robe.
The girl was beautiful. In the eyes of these rough-skinned Southern Barbarians, she was as fair and delicate as a fairy, and she was wearing clothes that only learned scholars from the Central Plains would wear, which made her seem extraordinary.
The group of people arrived in an unfamiliar place and immediately became afraid to move. Ma Yunchang saw this and quickly warned everyone not to act rashly.
He had practiced martial arts, and he could sense that those two soldiers were no ordinary men. In the dead of winter, the snowflakes vaporized before they even reached within three feet of their bodies. He had only ever seen such abilities in the generals of the Wutuo Kingdom who rode elephants!
"My lords, we are refugees from the Wutuo Kingdom. We would like to ask, what country is this? And who is the ruler?"
In his mind, this should be a treasure country hidden deep in the mountains of the Southern Barbarians, which has not yet been officially announced to the outside world. This kind of thing is not uncommon. In some newly developed places, many people try their best to avoid contact with the outside world in order to avoid being harmed by their compatriots outside. They try to avoid making it public as much as possible.
It is said that the Wutuo Kingdom was initially hidden for a hundred years, and only after it had 100,000 able-bodied men and soldiers did it announce its establishment and take the initiative to engage in trade and enter the public eye.
In his view, this country, with its excellent land, must be a hidden, relatively undeveloped new nation.
It's truly thanks to the Spirit Snake Goddess's blessing; they've chosen the right positions.
" Wutuo Kingdom?" The burly man who had just reprimanded him sneered, "You can't even come up with a plausible lie. These days, even wealthy families from the Central Plains with their guards wouldn't necessarily be able to make it to my Jiangnan. You say you're from the Southern Barbarians?"
" Jiangnan?"
Ma Yunchang bewildered. Wasn't that the Central Plains? He was clearly in the Southern Barbarians Mountains, and the route he took was deep within the Southern Barbarians. How could he have ended up in Jiangnan?