Suxu Xiè is one of the five cities of the Sogdians, the Sogdians are good at business, good for profit, men in their twenties followed their elders to other countries to trade, they are porters on the Silk Road, the leader of the trade between the East and the West, where the benefits are tireless.As the "envoy of the king of Su", Shi Bodao was also one of the top businessmen among the Sogdians, and he was the guest of honor of the nobles and the Marquis of the Yue clan, but today, in front of a Han Dynasty squire, he had such a low profile, not without reason.Although the Sogdians also traded in precious stones, spices, and livestock, they relied mainly on the resale of silk for nearly a hundred years to make a profit in trade.Therefore, entering the Han region to buy silk was the most important thing to maintain the Sogdian business, especially the city of Suxu, which focused on silk trade.However, the Sogdians' business in Dahan suffered a fatal blow at the beginning of this year: first, more than 20 Sogdians pretended to be Kangju envoys and used yellow camels to pay tribute as white camels.They were arrested by Fu Jiezi's envoys, and Ren Hong also participated in the arrest operation, and those Sogdians were either killed or wounded, and the rest were all strangled to death in Loulan City.But this matter is not over, after the matter was reported back to Chang'an, it caused the anger of the imperial court.King Kangju helped Dawan fight against the Han army twenty years ago, and he has always been close to the Xiongnu Shan Yu, and now this kind of thing has happened, so it is naturally regarded as an evil country by the Han Dynasty.Sanctions, must be sanctioned!
Da Honglu, who was in charge of the affairs of the princes and vassal states, immediately ordered the expulsion of all the Kangju and Sogdians stranded in Chang'an and Hexi!
Yumen Pass and Yangguan no longer accepted Kangju Sogdian merchants into the country, either in trade or in the name of tribute.Shi Bodao said pitifully: "Herds of Sogdian camels are waiting outside the Yumen Pass, but there is no cargo for them to carry; The bazaars of Kangju and Dawan are less silky, and the people are much deserted; The princes of the rest and the strips sent several times to urge that if there was no silk, the sacrificial robes and banners could only be made of ordinary local cloth. ”"That's not right."
Ren Hong said with a smile: "Although the Han Dynasty banned the Kangju Sogdian merchants from entering the customs, the envoys and merchants of other states, such as Dawan, Yueshi, and Anxi, all entered and exited unimpeded, and they also received a lot of silk as gifts, and they also passed by the mud city some time ago. ”This is the most anxious place, as the Han army regained control of Loulan, the pavilion barriers from Yanze to Yumen Pass were restored one after another.Under Ren Hong's auspices, Shanguo also halved the toll and put an end to the robbery of the Wuqiang people, and instead connected the Wuqiang warriors with the caravan, and the caravan paid a protection fee, and the Wuqiang warriors rode horses and yaks to ensure their safety along the way.The eastern end of the Silk Road had never been so smooth, but the prosperity was not shared by the Sogdians.After half a year, the Sogdians have not been able to get a single piece of silk from the Han Dynasty, as if someone has been stuck in the neck, cut off water and food, can you not be in a hurry?
Shi Bodao was very helpless, but Ren Hong knew that economic sanctions were just an ordinary operation of the Han Dynasty.As early as when Empress Lu was in power, he waved a trade stick against South Vietnam, and banned Guanshi from exporting iron tools and mares to South Vietnam.Zhao Tuo, the king of Nanyue, was uncomfortable with the stuck neck, and in a fit of rage, he went to war with the Han Dynasty, and the two sides fought intermittently for several years, until the Han Emperor ascended the throne and did not make a truce.After that, in order to deal with the Xiongnu, the ban laws were issued one after another, first of all, "Hu city officials and people are not allowed to carry weapons and iron out of the customs", and grain, bows and crossbows and horses are also prohibited.Relying on smuggling alone, the Xiongnu could only desperately squeeze the Western Regions and get what they needed from the cities and countries.The same is true for the states of the Western Regions, once they are disrespectful to the Han Dynasty, they should not think about doing tributary business.What makes the Western world even more uncomfortable is that in these years, only the Han Dynasty stuck other people's necks, and others didn't want to card the Han Dynasty's neck.Heaven and earth are vast and there is no need for foreign things, which is really not bragging.With the capture of Hetao and Hexi by the Han Dynasty, the water and grass were abundant and the livestock was completely sufficient, while the south was vast and rich in spices such as ginger and cinnamon.Thirteen Thorn History Department, more than 100 counties have their own specialties, and the internal exchange of goods and colonies can be.There is no commodity that is related to the lifeblood of the country and needs to be solved by foreign trade.Although Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was very fond of foreign treasures when he was alive, he wanted to fish for the treasures of Hu and Qiang.But now that the general Huo Guang is in power, the emperor is still young, advocates frugality, and does not have much demand for luxury goods west of the Green Ridge.What's more, the ban was only against Kangju and its five Sogdian states, and the blankets of the Dawan horses, poisoned cloths, and poppers were still sent by the states in exchange for silk.As the weaker side, the Sogdians did not dare to condemn the trade protectionism of the Han Dynasty, so they could only send people to negotiate with pity.They went to Yumen to explain the reason: "The Sogdian ministers belong to Kangju, and there are five little kings.
Second, it is said that the king of ink is attached, and the city of ink is attached; 三曰窳yǔ hidden king, governing the hidden city; Fourth, the king of 罽jì, governs the city; The fifth is called the king of Oku, and governs the city of Oku. ”"Previously, the yellow camel was deceived as a white camel, and the one who dug the tomb of the soldiers of the state, attached to the Mocheng Sha surnamed Hu and the evil businessman, what do you have to do with the other four cities?"
It seems that the other four cities were indeed wronged by being implicated, but how could the officials of the Celestial Empire reason with you in detail, and cut it directly with one cut, isn't it.The Sogdians had a nose at Yumen Pass, and their current power in the Central Plains was far less great than that of the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties, and they could not find a way to bribe.However, he went in and out of the Han land several times, and Shi Bodao, who understood the thoughts of the Han people, cleared up the whole thing.He felt that if he wanted to reopen the trade routes, he first had to take a few real white camels to make amends to the Han army, and by the way, pay tribute to the graves of the Han army that had been dug up, or he might be able to get the Han to forgive him and lift the ban.Of course, if they want to do this, someone has to introduce them and connect with Fu Jiezi, the Marquis of Yiyang, who is in charge of the affairs of Yumen Pass and the Western Regions.Shi Bodao targeted two people: Yi Xun Sima Xi Chongguo, and Sima Renhong, who is said to be the heroes of the Battle of Loulan, and the big celebrities around Fu Jiezi, visited them in turn when they returned a few months ago.Xi Chongguo was not polite at all, and directly ordered his subordinates Sun Shiwan and Sima Shu to throw the Sogdians out of Yixun City along with their gifts, and there was no way to talk about it.However, Ren Shilang is more reasonable, and he is willing to see Shi Bodao.But he also rejected the beautiful slave girl offered by the Sogdians, and he was not interested in the gold and precious stones on the plate.At that time, Ren Hong only made a strange request to Shi Bodao, "What I wanted, I brought it?"
”Now that he hasn't seen him for three months, Shi Bodao has gone and returned, and Ren Hong is no longer talking nonsense, his eyes are on the big bag he carried in."
I said at the beginning, within three months, if you can find all of them, this matter still has to be discussed, if it is missing" "Ren Shilang rest assured!
”Shi Bodao showed his signature smile: "The things that Ren Shilang needs are all far away to the west of the Green Ridge, some are still relatively common, and some are difficult to find.But we are Sogdian merchants, and the moon and stars in the sky cannot be plucked, but as long as there are goods that can be bought and sold in this world, the Sogdians can find them!
”With that, he took the first thing out of his bag.They were small bags of seeds, long and narrow, yellowish-green, with distinct light-colored longitudinal ridges in the center of the ventral surface.Shi Bodao took a few and presented them to Ren Hong with both hands.Put it in front of your nose and smell it, and a slightly pungent fragrance rushes straight to your heart!
The familiar taste, this is Ren Hong's long-coveted "benzocele", that is, cumin seeds.A year ago, Ren Hong got more than a dozen seeds from Lu Jiuyu who came back from Dawan, and planted them in Hanging Spring, and Tuoxia Dingmao helped him take care of them, and now they should have grown into a piece, right?
But if you want to eat cumin roast mutton, that bit of cumin is far from enough, you have to let it grow all over the Western Regions and Hexi.At this time, Shi Bodao took out a second thing, and a bag fell to the ground, and twenty or thirty shriveled pale red balls rolled out.Ren Hong picked one up and found that they were no bigger than ears, and after a long journey, these round bulbs had completely dried up, and he had to tear the dry skin on the surface with his hands, layer after layer, until he was almost finished, and the white bulbs that still kept moisture were revealed.He gently cut the last finger-sized bulb with his knife, brought it to his nose and sniffed it, and for a moment it burst into tears.That's right, this taste, this effect, is indeed the onion of later generations!"
Where did you find this shallot?"
Ren Hong wiped his tears and asked.Shi Bodao said: "This product is produced in Anxi, and the people of Anxia regard it as a rune, and the people of Daxia also like to eat it, thinking that it can inspire the courage of the soldiers, well, although the Daxia army has encountered the Sairen and the Yue Clan, and has been defeated repeatedly."
Ren Shilang didn't look at the dozens of them, and they were all purchased at a high price. ”Ren Hong shook his head and focused on the third thing, which was some small purple rhizomes the size of ginseng, which were also very shriveled.Included is a packet of brown seeds the size of a sesame seed.Shi Bodao gushed about it, saying that it was found by Sogdian merchants in the mountains of the Great Yue Clan according to the pictures drawn by Ren Hong, and finally found it in the mountainous area of the Great Yue Clan, and the Yueshi people ground their seeds as spices, but the rhizomes could be eaten after cooking.But even if Ren Hong sniffed it repeatedly after cutting the rhizome, and even tasted it, it seemed to have a bit of an internal taste, but he still couldn't confirm that this was a carrot used with a stick!
After 2,000 years, the appearance of crops is very different from that of later generations, and these primitive carrots are too small.But carotene should be a lot, right?
In recent years, there have been too many night blindness in the army, and if carrots can be introduced into planting and eating, the night combat ability of the Han army in the Western Regions will definitely rise to a higher level.Ren Hong threw it away: "Where is the fourth thing?"
”The above three things, even if they are not introduced, are harmless, but the fourth is related to the national fortune, the sooner it is introduced, the better, Ren Hongzhi will win!
But I saw that Shi Bodao was like a magician who conjured tricks, and pinched a "flower" out of the bag.Ren Hong took it, he had been in the Western Regions for so long, he was used to seeing the red willow flowers that bloomed hard in the desert, the wild flowers that bloomed by the lake in May and June, and when he went to negotiate with the Wuqiang people, he also saw the arrogant snow lotus under the snow mountain.But there has never been a flower as beautiful as the one in front of you!
Let him be fooled.The "flowers" are as white as snow, the texture is like a cocoon, and the silk in the cocoon is like a fine thread.Shi Bodao said: "The poisonous person spun cloth with its wadding, translated into Chinese, and it should be called Bai Diezi. ”"Nope."
Ren Hong laughed: "From today on, its Chinese name will be called cotton!"
”PS: The second chapter is in the evening.