Like many cities in Jiankun, Stone City has a main street that runs from one end of the city to the other, and is flanked by many large residences and gardens.On both sides of the street there are the dwellings of artisans, who work in their own shops.In order to maintain their livelihood, people come and go, and the river is endless.It seems impossible anywhere to feed this large population and sustain them.But as far as I can see, on the day of the market, the market is crowded with merchants, who fill the ground with wagons and camels loaded with all kinds of goods, and all the goods can find buyers.In the case of spices, for example, if we know the amount of spices, we can calculate the amount of wine, meat, groceries, and this type of food that the city dwellers need here.I learned from one of the officials of their Jiankun Khanate that there were nearly twenty taels of spices such as thyme, oregano, and cinnamon on the market every day, and each of them weighed two hundred and twenty-three pounds, and these spices were extremely expensive.The inhabitants of this city are Taoist idolaters, and the currency is different from the Solitus used by our Romans, which is divided into gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins, and there is a square hole in the middle of the copper coin, on which the title of Emperor Seris is written in the Chinese characters used by the Jiankun people.No, I didn't see a single Seris official.Like the big cities of Jiankun such as Broken Leaf City, Connecticut City, and so on, the men and women in Shicheng are just as handsome and graceful as women.Because there is a lot of silk produced locally, and merchants bring silk from other places, so the residents also wear silk clothes on weekdays, hey, His Majesty Heraclius and the expensive silk that only nobles like us can wear, here, even ordinary people can afford to wear it, this is the gap!
I noticed that twelve of the handicrafts operated by the Tenkun people were recognized as superior to the rest because of their more universal usefulness.There are dozens, if not hundreds, of workshops for each craft, and there are ten, fifteen, or twenty workers in each workshop.In a few workshops, there are even thirty people working.These workers were at the mercy of the owners of the workshops, the wealthy owners of the handicrafts who did not work themselves, and who put on a gentlemanly demeanor and put on a show.Their wives are also very untaught, and as I have already said, they are both very beautiful and pampered from an early age.Their satin clothes and jewellery were unimaginably expensive.It is said that the Sogdian monarch had issued a law that although everyone must inherit their father's business from generation to generation, as long as they had money, they could hire workers to run the ancestral business without having to work themselves.The residences of the people of Stone City are carved with beams and columns, and the buildings are gorgeous.Because of their penchant for this kind of decoration, they spent a considerable amount of money on painting and carving.It is said that Stone City was already very wealthy from the time of the Sogdian rule, and the inhabitants of the city were born merchants, who ran their own businesses with fair and loyal qualities.They live in harmony with each other, and the men and women who live on the same street are as close as family because of their neighborly relationship.As for the family, men show considerable respect for their wives without any jealousy or suspicion.If a man says something inappropriate to a married woman, he will be seen as a disrespectful person.Even if they are traveling from other places, they are always courteous, inviting them into their homes as a sign of friendship, and they will also give them kind advice and help in business matters.When I came to Stone City, I felt this very deeply, especially when they learned that I was an emissary from the Roman Empire, they all showed me respect, a few lovely gentlemen, and discussed with me the possibility of business cooperation.Although the business atmosphere is very strong, I have also noticed one point, that is, most of the Jiankun people, including the people of Shicheng, identify with their Great Khan from the bottom of their hearts, and the powerful combat army they call "Zi Bing", I have seen more than once the merchants and people of Jiankun carrying pigs, cattle and mutton, as well as all kinds of delicacies, and clothes to the barracks to work in the army, and even many women in Jiankun will help the soldiers sew clothes, even children think that these soldiers are their idols, They think that these soldiers are their protectors, speaking of the army, after I arrived in Stone City, I learned that in Jiankun, all the soldiers are only loyal to the Great Khan in Broken Leaf City, the Great Khan provides them with food, drink and clothing, they fight for the Great Khan, they are not at all like us, and they have to hire barbarians, hey, if I return to Constantine, I will definitely persuade His Majesty Heraclius to learn this military system from the Jiankun people, the system of military districts and governors that Your Majesty is now implementing seems to be successful, but compared with the Jiankun people, It's a bit far off, and we Romans are not as good as others in this regard.Like Shattered Leaf City, all the streets of Stone City are paved with stone and brick.The same goes for all the major roads leading from here to other cities, so travelers can walk everywhere without getting their feet dirty with sludge.However, if the Great Khan's post men wanted to gallop on horseback, they could not take this kind of stone road, they took a special dirt road made of stone grinding and huge stones, it is said that this kind of road will not have much silt even on rainy days, and there are few opportunities for rain here in Stone City, maybe they designed it this way to cope with possible floods?
The streets of Stone City are paved with stone and brick, ten paces wide on each side, with sand in between, and arched gutters to drain rainwater or sewage into underground drains, so that the streets are kept very clean.There is a kind of public transport called the street car, which is rectangular in shape, covered with silk and satin on all sides, and has a cushion stuffed with silk wool, which can accommodate six people in my ride, and it is very comfortable.Like our Roman four-wheeled car, this kind of street car also uses a steering device and a shock absorber, the middle of the common shaft of the front two wheels has a pivot device connected to the chassis, the common shaft of these two wheels can rotate around this central hub at a large angle, and the steering is very convenient, in addition, in order to improve the comfort of the ride and reduce the bumps of the passengers, the Jiankun people did not use cowhide to absorb the shock, they made a spiral-shaped device with bronze and installed it on the car, and the effect was not bad at all, The engineers and craftsmen of Cynkun were in no way inferior to us Romans.Men and women who like to play often hire it to get around, so there are often large numbers of cars passing by on the streets.Some of them went to the gardens on the outskirts of the city, and when they arrived, they were led to a shady place by the gardeners who took care of them.This is set up by the management staff especially for tourists.Men and their female companions play here all day long and do not return home in the evening in a carriage.The lives of the common people are so rich, even if they are sick, there are special doctors who can treat them, if they are too poor to see a doctor, the missionaries of the Taoist sect will help them, after I came to Jiankun, I found that the development of medicine in Jiankun is far beyond our imagination.What amazed me the most was that the Tenkun people were able to resist smallpox, and God, why didn't we Romans come from such technology?
”People are dying like flocks.The sick wandered the streets naked, looking for water to drink until they fell to the ground and died.As a result of eating human corpses lying everywhere, dogs, crows, and eagle owls also died of the disease.Those who survive either lose their fingers, toes, eyes, or have lost their memories. ”Thucydides' Histories clearly records the horror of the plague and the fact that during the reign of His Majesty Emperor Antony, a smallpox epidemic killed a third of the citizens of the empire.My grandfather once told me that in 541 AD, during the reign of Justinian the Great, there was a plague in which forty percent of the inhabitants of Constantinople died.A large number of corpses, men and women, young and old, noble and low, covered nearly 100 layers and buried together.The plague continued to rage for half a century, with a quarter of the empire's population dying from the plague.It was this plague that interrupted Justinian the Great's efforts to revive the empire.The plague was so terrible, but the physicians of the empire were helpless, and with the depth of responsibility for the empire, I wanted to explore this mysterious medical technique to see if I could bring it back to Constantinople, but I was told that in order to obtain the ability to resist smallpox, I had to convert to Taoism and become a Jiankun to obtain this ability.Oh, don't these damned Kenkun heretics have any mercy?
This is the life of the rich and comfortable people of Cenkun, who lived carefree like the Roman citizens of the republic, and compared to them, we Romans are simply regressing!!