Spring in the Western Regions is much later than in the Central Plains. The season has reached the end of March, but the apricot blossoms are still not blooming, the willow branches, and the greenery is only faint. However, the camel bells of the caravans, since mid-February, have been "tinkling" throughout the field.

Last spring, Suo Ge launched a rebellion, first united with the Turks to break through the broken leaves, and then went all the way south along the Bali River, burning and looting everywhere he passed, and doing all kinds of evil, the traders of various countries naturally did not dare to gamble with their lives, and the rebels would simply let themselves go. In the entire Western Regions, natural traders are extinct.

And this year, I heard that Suo Ge had been killed, and the Tang Dynasty re-established the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, which governed the four towns of Shule, Shaye, Khotan, and Qiuzi. Well-informed traders from various countries naturally drove camels, gathered into a team, and embarked on the ancient silk road to Chang'an.

In fact, there are three ancient silk roads in the Western Regions. The shortest one is the middle line. This road, from the Geluoling Pass into the Tang Dynasty, first to Shule to change the customs clearance documents, and then along the north bank of the Chihe River all the way to the east, take the mouth of the three rivers, through the canal Li all the way to Pu Changhai, and then from Pu Changhai straight to Dunhuang.

After Dunhuang, the traders can rest assured. Not only were the bandits extinct along the way, but the merchants of the Central Plains could also "take over" most of the goods in the hands of the vendors, allowing them to make a lot of money.

In the past, traders from all over the world went to Chang'an, and more than ninety percent of them liked to take the middle line. Although there are more levels on the road, it is safe and convenient. This year, however, two out of ten vendors with the most keen sense of smell chose the northern route. That is, after entering Shule, first go to the broken leaves and turn around in a big circle, and then return to Quli and continue to the east.

The reason is very simple, in just one winter, in Broken Leaf City, a kind of goods called wool appeared out of thin air. It is not as comfortable to wear as silk, but it is softer than kudzu cloth, more comfortable than linen, and does not have any strange smell. After being made into clothes, it is also very stylish. And there are many colors of this thing, from rose red, sun yellow, willow leaf green to pomegranate purple, as long as the vendors have seen the color of silk and satin elsewhere before, the craftsmen of Broken Leaf City can almost dye it!

The traders are all unprofitable species, and if they don't have enough benefits, they won't go north for thousands of miles. Buying wool from Broken Leaf City, not only can you go to the Central Plains to sell, but all the tribes along the way can become their sales targets, maybe you don't have to go to the sandbar at all, you have already earned back the capital, and the rest, no matter what price you sell in the Central Plains, is pure profit.

The people of the Central Plains have plenty of money, and they have never seen wool before, so the price they are willing to pay should be higher. Even if the people of the Central Plains don't like the feeling of wool tied to their bodies, the goods are "pressed" in their hands. The wool is lightweight, and it will not rot, after the autumn, the traders will transport it back to the big food with the Central Plains goods to sell, and still do not delay making money!

"Making money is a trivial matter, the key is that we need to take a closer look at whether this business route is likely to go long." As a respected caravan leader, Audre Sabah relies on more than just a keen sense of smell. Walking on the road, he whispered to several young leaders around him, "If the new Broken Leaf City Lord can sit firmly." We can even divide into two teams, one team will continue to Chang'an with the goods, and the other team will return to Jiling with wool. In this way, everyone will have one more Tang goods in the future, and they will not walk more than half the distance. ”

"The new city lord can kill Suo Ge so quickly, he should be able to sit firmly, right?"

"It's true that the road can be taken in half. But if it's just a one-way trip, it doesn't seem to be very cost-effective. Shattered Leaf City is so big, we definitely won't be able to sell much. ”

"The point is, how much wool can Shattered Leaf City provide? If we only produce a few thousand horses a year, we may not be able to buy stock. Then it's not worth running! ”

"It's one thing for the new city lord to fight. Whether you can sit still is another matter. Datang is no better than elsewhere. Elsewhere, the city lord relies on his strength, but in the Tang Dynasty, the emperor can give up the broken leaves and lead his troops back to Chang'an with a casual order! ”

……

Several young vendor leaders, from different families, with their own life experiences, responded with a gossip on the side. The vast majority of them feel that this time they went to break leaves, and everyone just made a quick money on the way, and they didn't expect to gain more.

The Western Regions are too chaotic, and for more than 20 years, they have basically not stopped. The Turks, the Tibetans, and the Great Cannibals all wanted to bring the land under their control, and then take control of the most critical section of the Silk Road, from which they could extract huge tax revenues. And some local tribes that were originally subordinated to the Tang Dynasty, with the support of Dashi, Turkic or Tibetan, have started to dream of turning their tribes into countries. In such a situation, it is normal for a city to suddenly change owners, or suddenly die.

Therefore, Suo Ge has only been the master of Broken Leaf City for a few months, and no one will feel strange when he is in a different place. Similarly, it is normal for the new controller of Shattered Leaf City to be transferred away by the Tang Emperor, or to die in a tribal rebellion. Businessmen, on the other hand, pursue not only high profits, but also maximum security. An area that changes owners frequently, even if it can provide high profits, should not be regarded as a long-term business goal.

"That's why we need to look at it more carefully this time! There is an old saying in the Tang people that if you hear someone say it a hundred times, it is better to see it with your own eyes. We'll have to look at it before we can decide what to do next. Apparently hearing the objection in the words of some of the young leaders, the leader of the caravan, Audre Sabah, was not annoyed, but smiled and dropped a few more words, closed his eyes, and shrunk his body between the camel's twin peaks to pretend to sleep.

Several skeptical young vendor leaders looked at each other and stopped talking, however, everyone saw obvious disbelief in each other's faces.

The caravans that traveled the Silk Road usually did not belong to a single family. Rather, it is an alliance formed spontaneously by many businesses with the same direction and not too far from each other. The leader of the caravan is usually not officially appointed, but by several of the strongest merchants in the group.

Therefore, the leader of Audre Sabah has very limited power. When you need to make a big decision, such as a temporary change of route and destination, you can only persuade everyone to follow you, not force orders. Obviously, Audre Sabah was not very successful in convincing the group to take a detour to Broken Leaves, although he agreed to go with him on the detour. There are several powerful young leaders in the team, but unlike him, they have too high expectations for this trip.

The spring breeze in the wilderness was warm and cold, and the atmosphere in the team was also a little cold. Some old traders, who were older but only average in strength, looked at Audre Sabah and their eyes were suddenly full of sympathy. And some pure apprentices who have just been sent to the caravan by their families do not know which side to trust, and they look around unwillingly.

When it's warm and cold, the surrounding scenery is monotonous and repetitive, and it's really not worth seeing. However, it is better to look around than to accidentally get involved in the conflict between the old and new forces in the caravan.

However, looking at it, there were a few apprentices who discovered new landscapes. They all pointed to the wilderness in front of them on the right and shouted in a low voice: "Uncle Sabah, Uncle Sabah, look, what is that?" There was no carriage on the carriage, and there seemed to be two large knives dragging behind the carriage. ”

"A chariot with a knife?" Audrey Sabah pouted, opened his eyes from the camel's back, and looked around. Sure enough, in the wilderness about a mile away from him, he saw a strange-looking, but extremely large carriage. It takes four horses to be towed. The wooden wheels on both sides were seven feet high. There is no carriage on the axle between the wheels, but two simple chairs, and it will be fine.

Behind the chair, two of the wheels poked back. Between the thick wheels were two huge scimitars. Each one, which looked to be three feet wide, was bent to the ground, and it was dazzling and cold in the sun.

"No wonder the new city lord was able to defeat Suo Ge, it turned out that he used this powerful chariot!" Almost instinctively, Audre Shaba linked the odd-looking carriage to last year's war. However, before he could say his guess, the two Mito, who were sitting in the carriage, suddenly stood up at the same time and pushed together to push a crossbar in front of them. Immediately after, with a "bang", the two scimitars dragged behind the car landed at the same time, and the tip of the snow bright knife pierced into the bottom for a few moments, and was dragged by the carriage to continue to move forward, and in the blink of an eye, two deep and long ditches were turned up in the wilderness! (Note: Horse-drawn ploughshares, there is a related video on Youku.) The advantage is that it is fast, and the disadvantage is that it must be flat on large plots of land. ）

"Not a chariot!" A well-informed [pencil www.qbxs.xyz] old merchant sat up straight on his camel and loudly denied, "It must be a new utensil for ploughing the land, like a ploughshare......

"Hehehehe......" laughter immediately sounded around him. Many of the vendors shook their heads one after another. Walking on the Silk Road all year round, they have traveled through dozens of countries and hundreds of cities, and have seen more than a dozen kinds of ploughshares. However, no one has ever seen a ploughshare make such a look.

Not counting the horses, the horses are not worth much in the Western Regions, and if they are tired, they can be killed and eaten directly, and then replaced with new horses. How much iron is needed to build those two "big knives"? Even if everyone is far away and don't see clearly, the "big knife" is actually mainly made of wood, and the blade and tip of the knife must at least be iron, right? And it has to be very strong iron, or even good steel!

How much does that cost? There are so many good steels, you can make hundreds of scimitars! Take the cost of two or three hundred scimitars to make a pair of ploughshares, what kind of loser can you do?! In those small countries west of the Green Mountains, even if the emperor or the king's own son dares to do this, he will be beaten to death by his father, not to mention the Tang Dynasty, which takes thrift as a virtue!

However, before the laughter fell, many people's eyes turned into eggs. I saw that the two furrows were stretched longer and longer, and in just seven or eight breaths, they were stretched out hundreds of paces. However, the royal hand on the carriage was still not satisfied, and actually shook the rope, and issued a series of reprimands in his mouth, "Laos, Laos, Laos......". Soon, the four horses were spun in circles, and walked briskly in the opposite direction, and in a short time two more straight furrows were pulled.

"A hundred steps, at most half the time of the incense stick back and forth." Audrey Saba sat on the back of a camel and gasped incessantly.

All around, the laughter stopped abruptly, replaced by a series of snorts.

If that weird-looking thing running not far in front of you is really a ploughshare. Ploughing a wasteland of a hundred paces in length and width takes at most a morning. In this way, the land that could be ploughed in a day was eighty acres, more than ten times faster than any ploughshare they had ever seen!

Casting a sword into a plow, Audre Sabah suddenly understood the meaning of this Tang saying. If it is this kind of plough, it is said that it is cast with the iron of 300 scimitars, that is, 500 scimitars for a plow, it cannot be said that it is wasted! Eighty acres a day, no matter how short the spring in the Western Regions is, there are more than ten days for farmers to plough the land!

Two farmers, four horses, more than ten days of hard work, immortality, how much to open and how little to grow, how much grain to plant. If this plough can be bought and transported to some sparsely populated countries, what kind of sky-high price should it be sold?! Especially in the small countries around Tianzhu, which is also mainly based on agriculture, if a large number of farmers are saved by imitating and using the giant plough in front of them, and then the idle farmers are armed into soldiers, their national strength can be increased several times in a blink of an eye!

"Buy this! Uncle Sabah, buy this! A young trader leader who had not been convinced by Audrey Sabah before suddenly admired him so much. With a red face, he urged the camel to come to him and whispered to him, "Uncle Sabah, we must buy a copy of this giant plow." As long as you can buy it, my goods will be given to you at the original price. I took this and the wool with me and immediately turned back. ”

"Uncle Sabah, buy this, buy this plow, at any cost. My goods are also given to you, and I will only take one home! Another young vendor leader also lowered his voice to discuss with him, his dark gray eyes full of madness.

"Buy, I guess it's hard to buy. Even if you buy it, it is estimated that you are not allowed to take it out of Datang. However, if you think that at any cost......! Audre Sabah nodded mutteringly, and then quickly turned his head to his companions, asking for the advice of all the vendors.

The vendors did not answer him, but nodded in unison. Everyone's eyes flashed with the same madness, whether young or old.

No need to ask, Audrey Sabah already knows what everyone means. Shaking the reins of the camel slightly, he prepared to go to the vicinity of the plough cart to get close to the farmer.

However, before he could get out of the caravan,. Suddenly there was a stirring horn in his ears, "Woo woo, woo woo, woo woo ......". Immediately after, a group of heavily armed cavalry flew in. The officer leading the team held a short crossbow in his hand, pointed it at his choked throat from afar, and shouted: "Stop, where did you come from?" Can you have tax deeds and customs clearance documents? ”