CHAPTER 331: CHAPTER 234 MAYBE, REALLY CAN TRY! _2

Mm, back when she and Harano passed by the area around Mount Fuji by sea, Harano was quite eager to show off his knowledge of history, saying that the name "Fuji" was actually given by the Ainu people, and that barring any surprises, the Ainu would probably never see this sacred mountain, which held special meaning for them, ever again.

At the time, Ah Man instinctively questioned him, thinking Harano was just making things up again, but now that she’d learned the Ainu language, she discovered that "Fuji-san" did seem to be named by the Ainu—"Fuji" is a transliteration, and in the Ainu language, it means "fire hearth." Presumably, the Ainu of old watched the active volcano constantly spewing smoke and gave it that strange name.

The old hunter Zha Pingnong’s facial muscles twitched, and for a moment, the scars left by a black bear in his youth turned a bloody red, then slowly faded, and he said dejectedly: "Yes, we can only leave. We... are no match for the Yamato people."

"No match?" Ah Man looked again at that temporary encampment, estimating there were only a couple of Samurai, seven or eight from the Lang Faction, and a few dozen commoners. With the Zair Tribe’s strength—a tribe of over a thousand, it wasn’t hard to rally three or four hundred able-bodied men and women. Killing these few wouldn’t take five minutes.

The old hunter Zha Pingnong knew what she was thinking and shook his head: "Driving out these dozens of people is easy, but more will soon come—those wearing iron armor. We have a hard time killing them and can only give up our land to them."

Ah Man raised a bean-shaped brow, signaling her understanding.

Those with armor killing those without—truly not much harder than killing chickens. In history, it was all too common for a few dozen armored warriors to cut down tens of thousands of unarmed peasants. Nothing surprising, completely different from modern times.

In the era without firearms, or when firearms were weak, humans really didn’t have many ways to deal with a guy wrapped in dozens of pounds of iron. All you could do was run.

As for those who say, "I’d just go up with a hammer and smack them so hard the armored warriors would spit blood and die immediately"... Those people might as well go slide-tackle a tiger; at least that way, they’d die a bit more gracefully.

Ah Man could understand. After all, about a century ago, many Ainu tribes joined forces to drive out the Lizi Family, only to be charged by a few dozen heavily armored Samurai and a few hundred armored Lang Faction. Even with thousands of natives attacking, they failed—just couldn’t win.

But soon she was curious and asked: "Don’t you have any armor? So many years, you never thought of trying to make some Great Armor or something?"

The old hunter Zha Pingnong shook his head, "They won’t sell to us. Even the knives they sell us are only short knives and small arrowheads... According to their rules, the blade can’t be longer than one and a half feet, the arrowhead can’t be heavier than half a tael. If they go over, the blacksmith’s house will be punished."

He paused, then added with a sigh, "Actually, even if they were willing to sell, we don’t have enough to trade for such heavy iron armor."

"Can’t make it yourselves?" When Harano was flat broke, he started making his own armor to outfit his troops—Ah Man felt it shouldn’t be that hard.

"We don’t know how." The old hunter Zha Pingnong shook his head again.

The Ainu have always survived by gathering, supplemented by fishing and hunting, with no real use for armor in daily life—not even leather armor. Wild animals are terrified of getting injured, and even the fiercest beasts won’t usually fight humans to the death. When it comes to trapped boars or bears, whether you’re wearing armor or not, a swipe from those animals—due to their tremendous strength—makes little difference. In fact, it’s better without armor, since you’re more agile.

Wars between Ainu tribes themselves were also rare. Most Ainu settlements were far apart, and except for the occasional scuffle over hunting grounds, large-scale battles were unusual, so there was no demand for armor.

So, the Ainu never developed any armor-making technology whatsoever, nor could they smelt iron. Even tanning hides was something they learned from the Yamato people less than a hundred years ago, and that was only to get a slightly higher price for furs—never even considered making leather armor.

As an ethnic group, the Ainu are really weak! There are plenty of them, but scattered everywhere in groups of a thousand or so at most—otherwise, a gathering lifestyle couldn’t support so many people. No knives, no guns, no armor, don’t know any self-defense skills at all—no wonder they got beaten relentlessly into the icy wilderness.

In a sense, they somewhat have themselves to blame.

Ah Man figured out the situation, looking at Zha Pingnong’s truly disgusted face, but after six months among the Ainu, she also knew these people had their strengths.

Like this old hunter before her—though genial enough, he really could dive through forests and scale mountains, no matter how dangerous, as if walking on flat ground. His wilderness survival was outstanding, and his archery skills were so strong it was scary. He was the kind of man who dared hunt bears and kill wild boars alone—wouldn’t usually risk it, but if he got desperate, he could do it.

In fact, unless it was pitched battle with everyone in armor, if everyone wore plain clothes and hunted each other in the mountains, any Wanjin, one-on-one, probably wasn’t this old guy’s match—nor would other Ainu hunters be likely to beat him.

This was a people who grew up tracking wild animals through snow and ice, shaped by nature’s harshness into the toughest of the tough.

In other words, these Ainu hunters—if only their equipment gap were closed and they got a bit of discipline—were simply top-tier soldiers, not much inferior to Samurai who had trained for war since childhood.

Ah Man mulled it over for a while, felt this was an opportunity, and frankly asked the old hunter Zha Pingnong: "So if you had armor, you wouldn’t have to flee anymore? Or do you need something else? Enough knives, spears, arrows, iron cannon, gunpowder, and food?"