In the late summer of the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, in the sea east of the Tang Dynasty, a wooden boat was slowly sailing towards the coastline.
"I don't know where this is, whether it is south of the Yangtze River or north of the Yangtze River."
Several people on the ship were standing on the deck talking.
They passed through an island country earlier and stayed there for a few days to reorganize and clarify their next route.
Therefore, it was determined at this time that the boundary of the Tang Dynasty should be behind the coastline in front of them.
I just don't know where in the Tang Dynasty it is.
After all, there is no satellite positioning system in this era, and their group is obviously not familiar with this coastline.
"Let's go north first."
One of the young people said: "If you go to the south, you will have to go north again and go against the current.
It will be slow and laborious."
"If you go too far north, don't go to Goguryeo."
Another slightly shorter young man said.
The other people also started talking about it: "I'm not afraid even if I go to Goguryeo.
Didn't the Japanese say that in recent years there have been frequent business contacts between Goguryeo and Tang Dynasty, and they have stopped fighting for a long time."
"Then you have to be more careful.
It's already at your doorstep, and you don't want to cause any further trouble."
"In my opinion, this should be the south of the Yangtze River.
You see, the trees on the mountains are so green."
"It's August now, so the trees are naturally green." "" The young men who were talking should look like people from the Tang Dynasty, but they are dressed like foreigners.
In addition, there are people of other skin colors on the ship, including white, brown, and even a few black-skinned sailors.
This ship is not big or small, but there are many people.
"Look over there, Joe!"
At this time, a teenage brown-skinned crew member pointed to the south and yelled.
""The young man who was called Qiao, who was it if he wasn't Qiao Junlin?
At this time, he was seen walking to a high place.
After taking a look, he said to everyone: "It should be a merchant ship, not a bandit."
In fact, people on the opposite boat were also observing them at this time, and both sides were worried about encountering pirates.
After some observations and greetings, Qiao Junlin asked someone to release a small boat, and together with another young man, boarded the other party's cargo ship.
The owner of this cargo ship is a Chang'an merchant.
The person who led the team to run the ship this time is his eldest son, who is also a young man under thirty.
He had also heard about Qiao Junlin and the others' deeds in Chang'an City earlier.
After confirming the identities of Qiao Junlin and others, the other party immediately acted as if they had found a treasure.
Their joy was beyond words and they received them warmly.
Not to mention what kind of rewards Qiao Junlin and the others will get from the court this time when they return from the Western Regions.
Based on Qiao Junlin's relationship with the Luo family, there is no business that they would not want to be friends with.
With the development of the textile industry in the past two years, the status of their Luo family has also increased.
In the city of Chang'an, there is a Luo Shi Machinery Workshop and a Chang'an Women's Textile College, which have always mastered the most advanced new textile technology.
Even the weaving workshops established by the princes and nobles have to purchase equipment from them and hire female workers.
Their shop has also recently planned to set up a new weaving workshop, but they can't buy the equipment.
The orders from Roche Machinery Workshop have been scheduled for two or three years.
They are more advanced in engineering and heard that the Ministry of Industry can also build such equipment, but they don't sell it.
If we could get in touch with the Luo family through Qiao Junlin, maybe the equipment for their workshop would be available.
Therefore, the young owner of the Chang'an company was very friendly to Qiao Junlin and others, and told them a lot about what happened in Chang'an city in recent years along the way.
A few days later, their two ships arrived in Suzhou and docked at Songjiangkou.
There is a port here and there are many restaurants.
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I heard that it was once desolate, but it has just developed in the past few years.
A group of people went ashore to eat and walked on the street next to the port.
In addition to the Nilu restaurant, this street was mostly cloth shops.
The most common ones were white folded cloth and silk, most of which were machine-made.
There were also cashmere products and blankets.
Towels and the like.
Among those who bought and sold goods were Han Chinese and foreigners, wearing all kinds of clothes and speaking various languages.
The environment on the street is relatively simple, but there are a lot of goods coming in and out.
When a deal is concluded, hundreds or even thousands of items are often shipped.
The Chang'an caravan that traveled with Qiao Junlin and the others before wanted to sell goods here.
The reason was that most of the goods they shipped were canned fruits.
Merchants from the north often came to buy from this street.
The information they gave The prices are often higher.
Selling it on the spot saves a lot of time and effort in transporting it to Chang'an City.
In Chang'an City, the price of canned fruits from the south has not been very good in the past two years.
The two parties had a hot meal together and agreed to meet in Chang'an the next day, so they said goodbye.
Qiao Junlin and the others moored their large ship in the harbor and spent money to hire a smaller ship to enter the river.
As long as the money was in place and they made it clear to the boatmen where they were going, there was nothing else to worry about.
They first took a boat upstream along the Songjiang River, then entered the canal, and then boarded the railway track in Xuzhou.
The carriage ran very fast on the railway track, passing through large mountains and fields.
After driving for a few days, it passed several bridges.
The bridges were so high that just looking down would make people dizzy.
Under the bridge When sailing, the mast of the big ship is as high as five or six feet, and it can pass safely.
What I saw and heard along the way was really different from before.
If it weren't for the fact that I could still find some familiar things, I would almost think that I had gone to another world, and it would really be like a completely different world.
Especially those cities with bright lights every night, and the groups of women in colorful clothes flying to and from work on swallows, always make people feel as if they are in a dream.
In September of that year, Qiao Junlin and his party arrived in Chang'an.
The return of their group did not cause a big shock at first.
Mainly with the development of maritime transportation in recent years, people in the Central Plains have learned much more about the Western Regions than before.
The people who returned from the Western Regions seemed to be just that.
It doesn't seem so strange anymore.
Some people even joked that Qiao Junlin and the others had lost their way in the Western Regions, and how could they have been away for so many years before returning?
Qiao Junlin didn't say much to anyone, but just arranged for those in his team to return home.
If there was no place to stay in Chang'an City, they would live with him in the Luo family's county master's mansion for the time being.
There are also people coming to the palace, saying that the saint is hosting a banquet.
At noon tomorrow, Qiao Junlin and other people from the west will be invited to the palace for the banquet.
At the County Lord's Mansion, Luo Yong also had people prepare meals for them.
He sent people to buy almost all the famous delicious food in Chang'an City.
After Qiao Junlin washed up and ate some food, he sat in the main room with Luo Yong and talked.
He said that he had seen many new things while traveling from the south of the Yangtze River.
The atmosphere in Chang'an City was also very different from before.
"Is this what the world you mentioned looks like?"
Qiao Junlin asked.
"This is just the beginning."
Luo Yong replied.
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Qiao Junlin smiled and stopped talking.
I heard that Luo Yong was promoted to Minister of the Ministry of Industry in the first month of last year.
Qiao Junlin had lived in Chang'an City for many years, and he had always wanted to become an official.
In this era of gentry politics, in an officialdom where family background was important, Luo Yong was born in a peasant family.
How can a young man with no foundation get to where he is today?
Qiao Junlin knows that it is not easy.
"This journey must be very difficult and dangerous."
After a while, Luo Yong asked, looking at the long scar on Qiao Junlin's neck.
The scar must have been extremely long, with only a small section exposed.
What was hidden under the clothes looked hideous.
Looking at his hands, there are also scars on the backs of the hands and some small scars on the fingers.
"It's a near miss."
Qiao Junlin smiled.
He took eleven people out at the beginning, and when he came back, there were eleven people, which was enough.
If there were fewer people, he would not know how to explain it to their families.
When we first started traveling, it was mainly because of Luo Yong's relationship that Qiao Junlin became the leader of their group.
When he returned a few years later, he was already the well-deserved leader among this group of people.
This is not only because Qiao Junlin is highly skilled in martial arts and courageous, but also because he is a compassionate and responsible person.
Several people in the team relied on his rescue to complete the journey of these years without any danger, with only one life left.
Now they can return to Chang'an City as a living person and enjoy the glory of being rewarded by a saint. .
"Is there any harvest?"
Luo Yong asked him.
"A lot of harvest."
Qiao Junlin replied.
"That's good."
Luo Yong said.
If the harvest is not rich enough, how can it be worth the arduous journey these people have been making for several years and risking their lives?
Others might not have any clues about the people Qiao Junlin brought back, but Luo Yong only took one look and already had a guess in his mind.
Those brown-skinned men did not look like Europeans or Africans.
They were most likely Native Americans.
The next day, Qiao Junlin and others entered the palace for a banquet.
The saint first rewarded them, and then asked them about what they had experienced along the way.
Especially during the return journey, how this group of people returned to the Tang Dynasty along the sea trade route from the Western Regions was of great concern to the saints and the ministers in the court.
Maritime transportation in the Tang Dynasty has also developed in recent years, but most of them were Hu merchants who came to the Tang Dynasty to trade.
People in the Tang Dynasty rarely went to the oceans to do business.
Most of them only engaged in short-sea transportation.
As for the sea routes and trade routes, People in the Tang Dynasty also wanted to know very much.
Qiao Junlin said: "We are not returning from the west, but from the east."
As soon as he said this, many people present did not understand.
At the beginning, their group set out from Changle County to the Western Regions.
How could they return from the east a few years later?
What a roundabout way to go "I don't know what I mean by returning from the east."
The saint held the wine cup and looked at Qiao Junlin and asked.
"A few of me and several Persian warriors set out from the western coastline of the Persian country, wanting to explore the world further west to see if there are other countries there."
"On the way, we first passed through several small countries, and after several months of sailing, we arrived at a land that was several times the size of the Tang Dynasty.
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There were many indigenous people living there, and it seemed that there were no large or small countries."
"I sailed along the coastline of that land for a long time, from their east coast to the west coast, and then traveled westward from that west coast for several months before returning to the coast east of the Tang Dynasty."
As soon as Qiao Junlin said these words, there was a burst of noise in the hall The Persian Kingdom is to the west of the Tang Dynasty.
If you go west from the Persian Kingdom, you will return to the Tang Dynasty.
How can this be done?
"What Aiqing said, that land without a country, is indeed true."
Li Shimin stared at Qiao Junlin closely and asked word by word.
"I would like to guarantee it with my head."
Qiao Junlin said firmly.
There was another commotion in the hall A land without a country, with an area several times the size of the Tang Dynasty.
What does that mean?
After that, Qiao Junlin and the others showed the people and objects they brought back from that land to everyone in the palace one by one.
Those tall men with brown skin had spent several months on the sea with Qiao Junlin and others, during which they also learned some Chinese.
When people in the palace asked about it, they told them everything about their hometowns.
Once said.
This meal was originally a banquet for rewards, but it eventually turned into a very serious discussion.
The saint and the ministers asked many questions, no matter how detailed they were, and asked Qiao Junlin and others to answer them one by one.
The Persians who were traveling with Qiao Junlin and others also provided additional evidence.
By the time the group of them left the palace, it was already the afternoon of the next day.
I didn't sleep all night, and I was actually a little tired.
Qiao Junlin sat in the carriage, opened the window and looked at the pedestrians and vehicles on the street outside, showing a prosperous scene.
Luo Yong said that all this is just the beginning.
In Qiao Junlin's view, the same is true.
All of this is just the beginning. gd1806102: