In the spring and February of the fourth year of Tian'an, the envoy of Tuntian in Chigu City came to Khotan, and now it is no longer Khotan, but Khotanese under the protection of the Western Regions of the Han Dynasty.The Wei Chi clan, which has been established for more than 100 years, was revoked by the Han court for an inexplicable reason: according to the legend of the Khotanese royal family, they were the "princes of the East", and the son of Ashoka, the king of poison and worry-free, took root here.After the calculation, the time happened to be in the Qin period, and under the temptation of Ren Duhu, the Khotanese royal family thought that they could be related to the Central Plains, and they stupidly admitted that they were surnamed Ying.Poor King Khotan didn't know that in the Han Dynasty, "after the tyranny of Qin" was the original sin, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty wanted to match the two kings and three Ke for the Han Dynasty, he directly skipped Qin, first sealed a descendant surnamed Ji Zhou Zi Nanjun, and let Kong as "Yin Shao Jiahou".Sure enough, after the destruction of the Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty used this as an excuse to relocate the Khotanese royal family collectively and appended it, rewarded a liehou, and Khotan set up a road."
The puppet is not guilty, but he is guilty."
Zhong only said this sentence at that time, as an important supplier of the imperial family's noble relatives and jade, Khotan is like a golden mountain, and it is good for the king of Khotan to save the life of his family.The first governor of Khotan was none other than Zhao Yannian, who followed Li Guangli, the general of the Second Division, to conquer Dawan forty years ago, and was stranded in Khotan due to injury, and later became a jade miner Jia.He married a Khotanese woman, and he was fluent in localization and language, which was much better than the airborne officials of the Central Plains.After the abolition of the country in Khotan, under the jade fever deliberately instigated by Ren Hong, it attracted a large number of people from the Central Plains to come, and Khotan used to have 3,000 households and a population of more than 10,000, and now it has soared to more than 20,000.Jade diggers from the Central Plains poured into Khotan, searching for beautiful jade everywhere in the Baiyu River and the Moyu River, and the contradictions with the locals increased day by day, and even bloody conflicts broke out."
Jun, in the past year, Khotan's account has risen by another thousand."
As soon as he saw loyalty, Zhao Yannian complained bitterly.The increase in the number of county households in the mainland is a political achievement that makes the officials happy, but Daoist Zhao Yannian has no intention of being happy.Serious people, who will come to the Western Regions?
Most of those who arrived in Khotan were too lazy to honestly farm and do business, and they were idle, hoping to get rich overnight.Vermin!
Baneful influence!
It is really more difficult to control such a group of people than to ascend to the sky, but fortunately, their energy is buried in the search for jade.But every time a fierce conflict is found in the jade mine, the Protectorate has to station hundreds of garrisons in Khotan to suppress it, but even the soldiers can't resist the temptation of beautiful jade, and there are often thefts of official jade, which makes people have a headache.In addition to the troubles, the jade rush also brought unimaginable changes to the Western Regions, not only in Khotan, but also in Shache and other places, and the colonists who spontaneously left the Yumen continued to pour in.But as far as Zhao Yannian knows, in the past six or seven years, there have been very few people who have really found beautiful jade and returned to their hometowns, but it is the merchants and workshops who provide clothing, food, housing and transportation for jade diggers to make a lot of money, and Khotan is indeed more prosperous than in the past.As one of Ren Hong's cronies, Zhong is the one who knows the prince's plan, and said with a smile: "Therefore, the Marquis of Xi'an has a saying that for Khotan, the real wealth is not beautiful jade, but jade diggers!"
”This time, Ren Hussar rode westward, took the southern road, and specially passed Khotan, in order to pick the fruit on the fruit tree he planted many years ago, and the sour and poisonous fruits in the eyes of others!
The life of a jade digger is indeed not easy.Zhang was tired and leaning on the shack, he was originally from Henan County, and the reason why he was given such a name was because his father was a prisoner and gave birth to a son.When Zhang was young, he fooled around with the county chivalrous in the township, and even killed people by mistake, but because he escaped in time, he was not arrested and put in prison.Later, he served for others, and he was not famous in his twenties, and no one in ten miles and eight towns was willing to marry his daughter to him, so he was naturally unwilling.Just when he was hesitating whether to go to Jianjing to rob money, he heard rumors about Khotan Meiyu.It is said that it is a poor boy of Sanfu who has been in the middle of his life for a long time, and has achieved nothing in his life, followed the second division to the west, and stayed in Khotan, but he stepped on a piece of mutton fat jade, sold it for millions of dollars in Chang'an, and became rich overnight.There are also some other stories, such as the white jade river in Khotan, you can pick up a piece of beautiful jade by bending down, such as the jade picking song of the Khotanese people, which focuses on describing the ease of stepping on jade, which makes people think that I can do it after listening to it.Zhang was moved at that time, he didn't want to farm, he had no capital to do business, the Huns had been destroyed, and there was nowhere to go to earn the first merit as a soldier, so he just wanted to pick up a piece of jade and get rich overnight.So he sold all his possessions and set off with an ox cart with the village party in the same situation as him.After arriving at Hangu Pass, there were people from the Western Regions who organized jade diggers to go west, and they did not check their resumes, as long as they were in good health, they all wanted them.After that, it was a months-long trek, when they first started on the road, everyone had a longing, not only to get rich in Taoyu, but also to yearn for a foreign land, and when they arrived at Bailongdui, they also felt that when they returned to their hometown, they could brag in front of people who had never seen the desert.For those who are not willing to be lonely, this is a wonderful and magical adventure, and it is worth a trip!
But this enthusiasm, this hunger for adventure, did not last for an hour in the desert sun before it waned.The vast desert was dotted with only clusters of dusty camel thorns, and their convoy was like a swarm of ants, wriggling in the middle of the endless wasteland, dragging billowing smoke behind them.Cows, horses, and people were thickly wrapped in a thick layer of yellow sand, and large chunks of dust stuck to their eyebrows and beards like snow piled up on bushes.The scorching sun scorched people, even if they wore felt hats, sweat still gushed out from every pore of people and animals and evaporated, and people were sunburned and peeled off and even fainted to death in the desert.After this, the painful, difficult, and monotonous journey went on day after day, endlessly, occasionally passing through the oasis towns, but not even letting them in.Many people fell along the way, but most of them reached Khotan along the beacon and post roads.The Khotanese Oasis is blessed with unique geography: the Baiyu River, the Yulong Kashgar River, the Moyu River and the Karakash River from the Kunlun Mountains flow parallel for hundreds of miles before converging into the Khotanese River and flowing north into the Taklamakan River.The people of Khotan live in a narrow strip in the middle, and do not have to worry about the attack of wind, sand and drought, and the southern province is the largest country.The location of jade mining in Khotan, in the middle reaches of the Baiyu River, is the top of the Kunlun Snow Mountain in the distance, just looking at the cold of the majestic glacier can feel the cold, the river bank is full of gravel, can not be cultivated at all, but there are many tents and reed houses.Before Zhang's guilt, many Han Chinese had arrived, and all sorts of accents filled the room, but you could tell the old and the new at a glance.The group of people who came earlier had lost their spirits, and were as silent as death, only silently drinking the wine they had bought at a high price, and living one day at a time.And the newcomers were in high spirits and talked loudly about all kinds of miracles.For example, someone in Hedong County sold a piece of black ink jade for 400,000 yuan, and he arrived here six months ago without a penny.A Jingzhao man stepped on two pieces of jade with one foot, made a profit of 600,000 yuan, and went back to the Central Plains to reunite with his family.A native Khotanese woman with her eyebrows drawn in a line also made a fortune, dressed in silk and silk, and she couldn't even afford a felt hat last spring.Yesterday, the jade diggers who couldn't drink a glass of turbid wine on credit in any small wine house in Khotan, but today they are full of wine, and they are as strong as cattle, and they hug their friends in the city.The good jade is taken away by the government, and every month there is a whole car of beautiful jade, under the personal supervision of the deputy lieutenant of the Western Regions, it is accepted by carefully selected soldiers and transported to the Central Plains.And so on, wherever you go, from dawn until late at night, there are similar rumors, bombarding the ears of the newcomers every day, and immersing Khotan in frenzy and excitement.Even if the saints come, they will go crazy and crazy with them.Zhang Cheng is like this, he just arrived in Khotan, he followed his fellow villagers to join the Yulong River jade search team, the late autumn flood receded, the river became clear, this is the best season to go down the river to fish for jade, but Zhang Cheng blamed them until the river froze and found nothing."
Good jade was trampled away as early as summer!"
Experienced people told him so.It turns out that the jade in the riverbed is mostly the snow that melts in summer and autumn and merges into a rolling torrent, which washes the jade in the deep mountains into the river.The experienced Khotanese people have such a skill, they walk in the river, their feet can distinguish which is jade and which is stone, and they will never miss it.Zhang is guilty, he has to bend down to pick up every hard object to see, half the effort, in the past few years, only picked up a small piece of jade with a general texture, in exchange for a little money, but because he does not farm and weave, he has to spend a very high price to buy tools and food.Unless you get rich once, you can't save money in Khotan, but everyone thinks that they are the lucky ones who step on the beautiful jade.In the fourth year of coming to Khotan, Zhang was a little impatient, and they began to set their sights on the source of beautiful jade, the Kunlun Mountains.New rumors are circulating: "How can seed material be as good as mountain material?"
In the Kunlun Mountains, there is a hole in it, and it is full of jade!
”They used all the money to buy felt clothes and hoes, and marched to the mountains with madness and courage to attack the mountains and mine jade.Heavy snow in winter and spring covers the mountains, and the jade pickers can only enter the mountains after April, and they have to endure the impermanence and life and death test of the alpine climate, and climb Osaka at higher altitudes, and there is no road, sometimes they have to climb up along the stone cracks and grab the ropes, and the two fellow villagers who are guilty of Zhang accidentally fall into the abyss.But after collecting their troubles, they continued to climb to the rumored jade spot, climbed the mountainside, and burrowed through the bushes, rocks, and snow, until they were so tired that they could fall down at any moment, chewing on hard naan.Day after day went by, and sometimes they would find holes that had been dug a few feet deep on the slope and had apparently been abandoned, and sometimes, they would see one or two of their listless peers still digging, but there was no sign of jade.Sometimes there would be a shout of joy in the mountains, and someone would find the jade, which would cause countless people to hear the news, and then there would be a fierce fight, and finally the people who returned to Khotan, and the jade handed over would always be stained with blood.And officials and businessmen don't care what happens, as long as there is jade, they will accept it, human life is not valuable, jade is valuable.Zhang Cheng didn't even touch a piece of jade, only after digging for a few months at a time, he went out of the mountain with a stone that looked like jade, and he firmly believed that in this stone, there was a round and beautiful jade!
But when he handed over the stone to the jade collector like a treasure, and the sharp steel knife cut it little by little, Zhang Cheng had to face the cruel reality."
It's just a rock."
Dajia threw the "jade" to the ground in disgust, just like them, it was just a stinky and hard stone, not a beautiful jade.Zhang walked out of Khotan with a cut stone in his arms, and he could still see that there were constantly able-bodied and well-born Han'er who was similar to him surging through the desert and pouring into Khotan, his eyes full of hope to change his life and fate.And Zhang Cheng is now the old jade digger he saw when he first arrived, with his eyes lost their lustre, his feet purple from the cold, and his scarred hands, and all he got was another stone.I closed my eyes, and I had to laugh at what evil I had fallen into, and I came to Khotan thousands of miles to suffer.He also followed the old path of his predecessors, and in the extreme depression of not being able to get rich for a long time, he indulged in gambling and alcoholism, and roared in and out of the female lu to vent his hatred, and gave all the money he had saved with great difficulty to others.It's just that Zhang Cheng has been carrying the half of the "jade" in his arms.On this day, he was lying in the shack, there was no more than half a drop of inferior sour wine left in the wine bag, and a hairy samon carried food and came to Buji to give this group of jade hunters who had lost their spirits, were full of disappointment in jade picking, and could not even return home.After putting down the food outside each shack, Lao Shamen folded his hands together and recited some nonsense, which is said to be a belief called "Futu", to persuade people to abstain from evil and turn to good, so as to have a good birth in the next life, which is the superficial understanding of Buddhism by the Han miners.But when that kind-eyed old Shamen put a piece of Hu Cake outside Zhang's stinking shack and smiled at him, he didn't know where he angered this former evil boy in Henan.Or was the charity unhappy for him, or was the look on Lao Shamen's face that seemed to see through everything reminded Zhang of something?
He suddenly held up the half of the stone, threw the old Shamen to the ground, and scolded: "I will be rich and rich in this life, and I can't wait for the next life, otherwise what will I do here in Khotan?"
”Lao Shamen didn't have any words, and he was smashed to death before he could scream a few times, but Zhang Cheng's eyes were already red, and he held it up and smashed it again and again, until it was drenched in blood and red and white all over the ground.After committing this atrocity, Zhang Cheng seemed to have exhausted his anger, and hurriedly left under the blank gaze of everyone, plunging headlong into the icy Jade Dragon River, where there were still many miners walking in rows, and let the clear and white ice water wash away the blood.If it is in the inner county, there must be officials to investigate the matter, but this is the Western Regions, it is Khotan, it is the wild west, it is a land outside the law, every day people die, or murder, or accidents, but no one cares who the murderer is, everyone only focuses on who will be the next lucky one, holding the beautiful jade, and getting rich overnight.Since no one is being held accountable, Zhang has no guilt as an extrajudicial fanatic, at least on the surface, as far as he is concerned: "I just killed a Hu man, and I still want my factory name?"
”But he has also given up the expectation of Taoyu, and the Central Plains can't go back, so he only secretly sharpens his knife at night, pondering that he will not do anything and take a group of township parties to rob houses on the Silk Road, which may be more enjoyable.There are not a few people who have the same idea, tens of thousands of jade diggers who are guilty of the same crime as Zhang live in Khotan, struggle, and regret, but after they embark on the road to the west, there is no other way back except to find beautiful jade clothes and return to their hometown.It wasn't until March of the second year of Tian'an that the man who tricked them into coming to the Western Regions came back and pointed out a way for everyone to win wealth and nobility.On the banks of the Yulong River, which was scarred and ugly by the jade diggers, tens of thousands of jade diggers were gathered together, looking indifferently at the hussar general and the army that came with him to conquer the west.These Sanfu athletes and sons of good families are self-contained, and they feel that they are heroes who are captured by the thieves on the expedition of the Han Dynasty, and they are all scanning the jade workers with disdain, and they know very well what kind of origin and goods they have.In the past ten years, there have been tens of thousands of Han people who have gone to the Western Regions, and only a very small number of them have really made fortunes and made meritorious contributions, and most of them have become leeks struggling in the Western Regions.Ragged and exhausted, he clutches on what he had left: a hoe and shovel for digging jade, and nothing else.No, there's still something.Ren Hongneng saw it from the guilty eyes of Zhang, who was standing in the front row with his head held high, and the eyes of countless jade hunters.It was undisguised desire, it was despair with no way out.They have gone far enough, paid a huge price, have abandoned everything, and even have no worries in the Central Plains.This is the person who can stay in a foreign land, this is the person Ren Hong wants.Desperate outlaws, pests, dregs, and "poison" abandoned by the imperial court.It's funny, but many times it is up to them to create new paths in history.It was Ren Hong's story that deceived these people into Khotan, so that they sank in the pit and found nothing, and now, Ren Hong is going to pull everyone out of the pit."
Do you want to be rich?""
Do you want to sit on the vineyard and become the lord of the city, the lord of the city, or even the prince?"
Ren Duhu's hand pointed to the west, pointing to the west of the towering green mountains and snow-capped mountains, the fertile soil where sweat and blood galloped, the brilliant treasure on the barren land, the pearl inlaid on the edge of the Western Regions, the Ferghana Basin is the treasure jade that Yu Han needs to find the most in his hands."
Come with me!"
PS: Chapter 2 is before 0:00.In addition, I recommend this history book Water Margin New Order, written by readers, and if you are interested, you can Kangkang.