When Mi Xuan and Ying Nan arrived at the general chapter, they found that the Queen Mother Concubine Zhao had just arrived, and in addition to Xiong Jing, there was also a treacherous Hu merchant in the general chapter. Before she and Ying Nan saluted Concubine Zhao and Xiong Jing, Xiong Jing said: "Queen Mother, the child summoned Hu Shang again, and the treasures he carried, but he liked it, although he left." ”

Before Concubine Zhao came to bed, she heard that her son was furious when she looked at the court, and angrily reprimanded the ministers for criticizing the affairs of the royal court, and on the way here, she thought that Hu Shang's things might have to be bought back by her son. Sure enough, as soon as he entered the main bed, Hu Shang smiled and waited on the side. With his son's words, Hu Shang commanded his servants to open the rows of boxes, and the general chapter instantly became bejeweled.

"The villain asks the king to allow the sale of huge iron to the villain." Hu Tansao hurriedly asked the servant to take out all the gems he had brought. These gems are housed in beautiful wooden boxes that sparkle in the sun.

"This is ......" Xiong Jing picked up a piece of Xuanlin, a bright blue gem that seemed to have a blue flame inside. In "The Legend of Mu Tianzi", after arriving at Juluo, the locals offered forty stones of Zhisi. According to the compilation of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" to view the season, Zhisi Stone is Xuanlin.

"Your Majesty, this is Sesser." Hu Tanshaozhi thought that the king of Chu would like white mutton fat jade.

"No, no. This is lapis lazuli. Xiong Jing said a word that Hu Tanshao didn't understand. He seemed to have heard that in ancient times, lapis lazuli in the world came from only one place, and that was somewhere at the foot of the mountain to the west of the Green Ridge.

"Where are you from?" Xiong Jing looked at Hu Tanshaozhi, saw that his eyes were deep and his nose was high, and his eyes were green, and he asked, "Are you a Persian?" ”

"Persia?!" Hu Tanshaozhi's expression became extremely strange, he couldn't imagine how the king of a state in a remote region could know about Persia. The Persian Empire ceased to exist, and after the Battle of Gaugamela, the defeated Darius III fled to Bactria (northern Afghanistan) and was killed, and the Persian Empire fell.

"Does the king know about Persia?" Hu Tanshaozhi's expression changed, no longer as flattering as before, but with more respect.

"I know Alexander." Xiong Jing smiled and talked about the most famous in the ancient world.

"You know everything." Hu Tansuozhi had already heard some rumors about Xiongjing, and there was a rumor that he knew everything.

"You're not a Persian?" Xiong Jing asked again. He wanted to know where Hu Tansuozhi was from, if he was a Persian, he must know about the Mediterranean world, if not, his news might be very closed.

"Honorable King, I am a native of Sogdiana." This was the first time Hu Tansuozhi introduced himself to the people of this land.

"Sogdiana?" Xiong Jing learned his pronunciation, repeated the word in front and back, and said, "You are Sogdian?" ”

"I am a native of Sogdiana, Great King." Hu Tansuozhi didn't understand what Sogdia was, and he thought that Xiong Jing was wrong.

"You're from ......" Xiong Jing dipped his fingers in some tea, and drew on the low table the Amu Darya, Syr Darya, and the Aral Sea in the middle of the river - this is based on the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and the ancestors who compiled the Xishan Classic should have traveled to the middle of the river. …… Here? ”

"Yes, honorable king." Hu Tansuozhi was instantly impressed, as a merchant he also knew the Amu Darya, Syr Darya and the Aral Sea in the middle of the river.

"You know Alexander?" Xiong Jing nodded, he was sure that the Hu man in front of him was the Sogdian, the ancestor of An Lushan.

"Great King, Alexander died more than eighty years ago." "But the Mahadulas rule my homeland, they are a group of greedy and cruel devils, and the god of light is already punishing them. ”

"Mahatula?" Xiong Jing read this word, and after silently reciting it, he realized a little: "Macedonians? ”

"......" Hu Tansuo was at a loss again. Mahatule is the antiphon of the Greek Μακεδονεs, while Macedonia is the antiphon of the English Macedonia. After defeating Darius III, Alexander conquered Bactria and established a vast empire across Europe and Asia, which was divided into several pieces after his death. At first, the empire was divided into the Cassandian dynasty of Greece, the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, and the Seleucid empire, after which the Cassandian dynasty was annexed by Rome, and the Seleucid empire split into the Parthian kingdom (the Sabbatarian Empire) and the Bactrian kingdom (Bactria kingdom).

He was full of hatred for Alexander, Alexander carried out a brutal massacre of the city when he conquered Bactria, and the previous battle of Su against Sana (located on the banks of the Syr Darya River, near the western mouth of the Ferghana Basin), more than 30,000 Sogdians put up a stubborn resistance by virtue of the terrain, more than 20,000 died in battle or jumped off the cliff, only more than 8,000 women and children survived, and the final conquest was through peace, Alexander married the daughter of the leader of the resistance.

Hu Tanshao had come for business, and under Xiong Jing's inquiry, he spoke of the tragic past of the Sogdians. And Xiong Jing also knows the world west of the Kunlun Mountains: the most recent is the Kingdom of Bactria, established by Greek descendants, the king is called Diodortos II, who has been on the throne for nine years, but the situation of the Rest Empire and the Seleucid Empire, Hu Tansuo Zhi does not mention anything. He deliberately did not mention it.

White mutton fat jade, red langxie (agate), blue Xuanlin, as well as some colorful coral, glass beads, these jade are extraordinary, according to the estimation of Yingdu Order, a piece of mutton fat jade is more than ten gold, and the rest of the jade forests add up, when there are as many as three thousand gold. This Hu businessman has brought enough capital.

And the giant iron he wanted, based on the price he sold to Qi Guo, could probably buy 1,500 sets of armor and blades. But the problem is that the state of Chu in the war does not need these jade now, and the state of Chu wants food, cloth, wood, ......, but it doesn't want jade.

Hearing the city order, Hu Tansuo Zhi mentioned the transparent stone again, but a dozen transparent stones are enough, this kind of stone has no size, as long as it can refract the sunlight on a cloudy day. Hearing this, Hu Tanshaozhi felt that his hands and feet were weak, he had never heard of a king who didn't want jade, but unfortunately Xiong Jing was a king who was not a rare jade.

The Zhou people liked jade and compared it to a gentleman; The Yin Shang and even earlier tribal shamans also liked jade, believing that it contained some kind of energy that would help them to sue for their lives. Xiong Jing didn't have a good impression of this thing, he would rather have gold and silver, which was the world's currency. Jade is no longer precious when it leaves East Asia, just as lapis lazuli (Xuanlin) is not popular except in the Mediterranean of Western Asia.

One of the reasons for the existence of the Silk Road is that West Asia and the entire Mediterranean world are hungry for lapis lazuli at the foot of the Green Mountains, while the East Asian world is hungry for nephrite jade from the Kunlun Mountains. The lapis lazuli road to the west and the jade road to the east are connected, creating an important trade route connecting Asia and Europe.

This trade route existed long before Zhang Qian 'hollowed out' the Western Regions, but the appearance of the Sogdians still surprised Xiong Jing, whose fame should have spread in the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty. But the fact is that the Sogdians spread all over the country in the Warring States, and the literal translation of the Sogdian word Humdan (Khumdan) is Xianyang (Xianyang), and after the death of Qin, Xianyang was appropriated to the Han capital Chang'an; At the same time, the Sogdians also used the term cyn (秦) to refer to the Han Chinese, and China and the Humdan region were called cynstn (Qinistan). The Chin (秦尼) in the Geography Book written by the Greeks, and even later China, originated from the antiphon of cyn.

The Qin Dynasty only lasted a short fifteen years, and if it weren't for the fact that he had been doing business during the Warring States Period, and if he hadn't known that the world was unified with Qin, the title of Qinistan would not have appeared. Xiong Jing did not understand the Sogdian language, and his guess was that Alexander's crusade drove the Sogdians into the East Asian world, and then they began to do business, selling broken stones that he thought were worthless.

"How's the good horse?" It's already night, and the place is in Yingdu. In addition to Xiong Jing, there are also city orders, customs officials, Jiyin and others.

"Yes." Hu Tansuozhi nodded without hesitation, "It's just that horses need to be heavily taxed when they pass through Zhao State." ”

"Then Jutie doesn't need to be heavily taxed through Zhao State?" Xiong Jing asked rhetorically. It was now clear to him that although the Sogdians traded with the Qin state, they preferred to go to Handan, and during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, they gathered in Luoyang, which was to walk around the borders of the Qin state.

"Huge iron is no different from evil iron, a pound of goods shipped into Zhao State is not a few tariffs, and the villain of Zhao State is familiar with General Li of Yanmen County......"

"Li Mu?" Xiong Jing suddenly realized that Li Mu had the money to raise soldiers, and it turned out that he relied on the Sogdians. Outside of Qin, all the jade in the world flowed in from Yanmen, and the silk trafficked from Yanmen, of course, he could kill cattle every day to reward soldiers and collect hundreds of gold people.

"Li Mu doesn't want good horses to be transported into Zhao State?" Xiong Jing asked.

"The king, it is the Zhao State that does not want good horses to flow out of the Zhao State, so it collects heavy taxes." Hu Tansuozhi explained.

"King, I don't know if it can be transported from Yan Kingdom." Guan Zhi suggested. "If the king sends an envoy to the Yan Kingdom, the Yan Kingdom will not collect heavy taxes."

"Do you use a sea boat?" Xiong Jing thought about it, and felt that it was not impossible. If the weather is good, the latest large-wing warships can also be transported back and forth on the Bohai Sea. The new type of big wing has 165 people, which is not compatible with the 320 people of one pawn, so the shipyard has improved the big wing warship, and the pulp is still three rows, but the upper two rows of oars are rowed by two people, so that a boat needs at least two hundred and fifty men, plus the armor soldiers on the deck, a boat has more than two hundred and seventy people.

"Yes." Guan said. "The minister heard that the horse tax of Zhao State is doubled, if he can transport the horse by sea, it will not cost it."

"Then the good horse will be transported to Yan Kingdom, is it feasible?" Xiong Jing asked.

"Yes." Hu Tanshao was overjoyed, and he was more familiar with Yan Guo.

"A good horse must be more than two thousand pounds, and a horse under the age of four must be ridden." Ma Yin read the request, "The mare can be less than two hundred catties as appropriate." ”

"The king, this is Huma?" Don't ask for height but only weight, Hu Tanshaozhi suddenly understood what Xiong Jing wanted.

"The king, this is Huma?" Don't ask for height but only weight, Hu Tanshaozhi suddenly understood what Xiong Jing wanted.