Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 445: Tanzhou
"The Dog Slave Kingdom? What kind of a weird name is that? Are you trying to trick me because you don't know how to translate it?" Gan Ning looked at the Zhouhu translator in front of him with doubt.
However, if you are familiar with Gan Ning, you will know that this tone is just his normal provocative tone and he is not necessarily really angry.
However, the Zhouhu people in front of him were horrified when they heard this. They bowed down and said, "General, how dare we deceive you? These Yamato people are so strange. I have tried my best to translate it faithfully and elegantly!"
I have to say that the translation is very good, and they even know the meaning of "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance". Moreover... these people are rare translators who can speak Zhouhu, Chinese and Yamato. There are not many of them in Zhouhu.
That’s right, Gan Ning was in the legendary "Danzhou" at this time, which is Kyushu Island, the westernmost of the four major islands of the island country in later generations!
Starting from Jeju Island, also known as "Zhouhu", to Kyushu Island, the sea distance is actually about the same as from the southern end of Kuaiji to the northern end of Yizhou, but the wind direction is more difficult to use.
But for Gan Ning, who already had a lot of sailing experience, it was nothing...
During this half year, Gan Ning traveled from Qingzhou to Zhouhu State and Youzhou, inspecting various enclave ports of Chu State. Afterwards, he continued eastward from Zhouhu, found Danzhou, and completed the sea chart!
With such a close distance, although the Yamato people were still in the transition period from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, there was already contact between the Zhouhu people and the Yamato people.
There were even reports that people from Tanzhou would come ashore from time to time to trade in Jiangdong, and their main "commodity" was Tanzhou slaves.
Unlike the Zhouhu people, there was no unified kingdom in Danzhou, or on the four major islands of the island nation at that time.
Instead, there were dozens or even hundreds of tribal states of varying sizes. Among them, on the western island of Kyushu, the strongest tribe was the "Kunu Kingdom". The king was called "Himi Yuhu", but the actual power was in the hands of a powerful official named "Gou Gu Chi Beigou".
Gan Ning was already exhausted from spitting out the translation of this name, and it was not easy to remember. It was much more difficult to pronounce than calling the king of Bizhou Hu "Star Lord" and the general "Prince", so he simply announced: "From now on, the name of the Chu State here will be the West Dog State, the king will be called the West Dog King, and the powerful minister will be called the West Dog General!"
"Dog slave... No, the king and people of the Western Dog Kingdom will definitely be grateful to the Grand Commander for generously bestowing the name!" Zhou Hu, the translator, said excitedly.
Although it had nothing to do with him, he still pretended to be grateful. After all, in the eyes of the Zhouhu people, the Chu people were invincible.
"Is the Xiquan Kingdom the most powerful country in Tanzhou?" Gan Ning asked.
"No, the Xiquan Kingdom is in the west of Danzhou and is considered the strongest country. However, further northeast of Danzhou, on a larger piece of land, there is another country that is not inferior to the Xiquan Kingdom. It is called Yamatai and their queen is called Beiliuhu." Zhou Hu translator said hurriedly.
"What is Yamatai? Why the word 'humble'? From now on, we will be called the Kingdom of Dongma and the King of Dongma." Gan Ning curled his lips, obviously not happy with these difficult-to-pronounce names.
At this time, the two most powerful countries on the four islands of Danzhou were the Xiquan Kingdom in the west and the Dongma Kingdom in the east.
Of course, the productivity of the Tanzhou civilization could not support the emergence of a centralized state. Its form was more like the numerous tribal states during the Shang Dynasty, and the Western Dogs and Eastern Horses were just vassals.
Because it is next to the Chaohaixian Peninsula and the small island of Zhouhu, a technology tree point on the sea, the Tanzhou civilization can now be influenced by the Chinese civilization, even though the two have no official exchanges...
This allowed the Tanzhou civilization to almost skip the Bronze Age and directly transition from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, but it was still very backward in terms of humanities and had no decent writing.
Historically, it was only after Cao Pi became emperor that the queen of Yamatai actually sent envoys to the Wei State to pay a visit to the Danzhou civilization, and was named "the pro-Wei King of Wa" by Cao Pi - this was also the first time that the word "Wa" was used to describe the Danzhou civilization, which is half of the word "Wei" plus the character "person".
From then on, the development of Tanzhou civilization became more rapid, and a hundred years later, the representative Yamato Kingdom emerged...
It was just because of the lack of written records that even before Bai Tu traveled through time, the islanders themselves could not know for sure whether Yamato was the continuation of Yamatai or the continuation of Kunu Kingdom, but the former was more popular.
The emperor who claimed to be "the emperor of the ten thousand generations" was finally officially "found to exist" in the fifteenth generation, that is, during the Yamato period. Unlike the previous fourteen emperors, not only was there no evidence of their existence, but the more archaeological research was done, the less there was any room for their existence. It seemed like they were made up...
The name "Yamato" was also given by Prince Shotoku several hundred years later based on Confucius's saying "The purpose of ritual and harmony are the most valuable."
The pronunciation has actually always been "亚mato", but in writing, it was written as "哇" in the early days and later changed to "大和".
It was only after the establishment of the Yamato Kingdom that the concept of Yamato people came into being, just as the main Chinese ethnic group began to call themselves Han people after the Han Dynasty. As for race, the Yamato people should be an ethnic group formed after the native Jomon people mixed with a part of the Han people who crossed the sea to the east, as well as the Buyeo people and the Samhan people from the Korean Peninsula.
Bai Tu did not "spoil" too much to Gan Ning, otherwise it would seem too mysterious... More importantly, Bai Tu doesn't know as much as Gan Ning does now!
After all, there is controversy among the island countries in later generations about where Yamatai is, and there are several versions.
Some say that Yamatai and Kunu Kingdom are both on Kyushu Island. From this theory, it is further split that Yamatai defeated Kunu Kingdom and gradually developed into the later Yamato; after Yamatai defeated Kunu Kingdom, the remnants of Kunu Kingdom moved eastward and developed into the later Yamato; and there is also the theory that Kunu Kingdom defeated Yamatai and developed into the later Yamato...
Not to mention that Yamatai was on Honshu Island, Kunu Kingdom was on Kyushu Island, and the reverse hypothesis can both lead to many possibilities, which can be called an enumeration of historical views.
Because there was no detailed history of Tanzhou at that time, the clearest record of Yamatai came from a few words in the "Book of Wei".
As for the later years when Chinese civilization did not specifically record the Danzhou civilization and Yamatai itself was experiencing internal strife, no one knows what exactly happened in Danzhou.
However, Gan Ning's arrival has finally ended Danzhou's Schrödinger state.
No matter what happened before Bai Tu traveled through time, in the world of Cheng Ji, the current situation in Danzhou is that the Western Dog Kingdom is the strongest on Kyushu Island, the Eastern Horse Kingdom is the strongest on Honshu Island, there are dozens or even hundreds of tribal countries of varying sizes, and in Hokkaido, the Ainu people survive.
In theory, the Ainu people were also natives of the four islands of Tanzhou, but their civilization was more backward. They were constantly invaded and enslaved by the Yamato people, and were forced to move to the north little by little...
After listening to several translators introducing the customs and culture of Danzhou to him, Gan Ning directly used his power as "Navy Commander" to give this place a Chinese name, because it was just a translation matter anyway.
Gan Ning had just landed at this time and did not have a deep concept of the area of Danzhou. After all, the Hu people in Danzhou did not have a map and only described it with words. Gan Ning, who had traveled on the sea for a long time, understood best the truth that "geography and location described by adjectives are the least trustworthy." Descriptions of "ten thousand miles" or "hundreds of thousands of miles" were not reliable at all!
However, in the next two months, Gan Ning will be excited - Danzhou is different from Yizhou. Although it is called a "state", Yizhou is not the same as the Thirteen States of Han. Its area is at most a county...
However, Tanzhou...
Compared with Jingzhou, Yangzhou and Yizhou, it is smaller in area, but the four islands together are enough to rival a state in the Central Plains in area!
