There are many Tang Dynasty businessmen who do business here, and many of them do a lot of business, but there is a strange phenomenon that although the merchants spare no effort to publicize how good and cheap the Tang goods in their hands are, they refuse to recognize their identity as Tang people.

Although Hexi and Longyou were nominally the territory of the Tang Dynasty, they were actually occupied by the Tibetans, who were hostile to the Uighurs, and these merchants from the Tang Dynasty preferred to lie that they were from areas controlled by hostile forces rather than confess their identity as Tang people, which once made Li Mao very puzzled.

But this doubt didn't last long, and Li Mao understood. The Tang Dynasty was an ally of the Uighurs, and the Tibetans were enemies of the Uighurs, and the Tang Dynasty, an ally, was considerate of the face of the allies and treated others with self-denial.

On the other hand, the Uighur enemies were treated relatively fairly in the royal city, and the Uighurs and the Tibetans were in a state of hostility, and the slightest incident could lead to a diplomatic dispute or even a new conflict on the border.

For this reason, the Uighur authorities tried to be as objective as possible in dealing with disputes involving the Tibetans, so as not to give their opponents the right to speak to them.

The attitude of the Uighurs towards the Tibetans was understandable, after all, fighting was not beneficial to either side, and the attitude of the Tang envoys towards the Uighurs was understandable, and it was beneficial for both sides to maintain the alliance from disputes.

But the attitude of the envoys of the Tang Dynasty towards their own business travel is inevitably chilling, for the sake of the so-called overall situation of diplomatic relations, they can ignore the right and wrong, and all criticize their own people to please others, how do people love such a country, it is no wonder that the businessmen refuse to admit their Tang identity, and would rather belong to the Tubo banner to be the remnants of the Tang Dynasty.

Seeing that a street was about to come to an end, Li Mao finally found an authentic shop opened by the Tang Dynasty, which was a shop dealing in bronze antiques and jade, the shop name was "Yushenghe", the owner was from Xuzhou, surnamed Xu Wusi, who had been in the antique business for three generations, and had been doing business in the royal city for more than 20 years, and was very well-known in the royal city, and had the opportunity to contact the middle and high class of the royal city.

Li Mao wanted to be close to him, but Boss Xu was warm and cold-hearted, and he always remained wary of Li Mao.

Xu Shangbai, the Uighur envoy who accompanied Li Mao, had a faint smile on his chubby face, and he stood calmly aside with his hands folded, and became the chief spectator with great interest.

Touching a soft nail, Li Mao was not discouraged, he tasted the antiques in the store with great interest, and decisively bought two copper tripods that are said to be from the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The person who comes is the guest, not to mention that he is still a generous high-quality customer, Boss Xu's attitude has obviously improved, he stood next to Li Mao and patiently introduced the goods in his store to Li Mao, and rarely took out the treasure of the town store for Li Mao to appreciate.

After getting acquainted, Li Mao asked Xu Wusi if the things in his hand were really from Datang, and Boss Xu talked about him left and right.

Li Mao said with a smile: "Xu Xianfeng envoy and also came to the metropolitan governor are well-informed and generous families, and they don't look down on these half-truths in your store, if you tell the truth, they won't mind." ”

Xu Shanghe also came to laugh, and everyone laughed together.

Boss Xu saw that the nobles who came with the luggage were all nobles in the king's tent, and he really didn't look down on this little thing in his hand, so he smiled awkwardly and replied: "The things of Datang are good, but they are not shipped thousands of miles away, and the freight alone is not affordable for ordinary people, plus the heavy taxes levied by the two countries, the value will increase several times." Although our royal city is the land of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but things are also the essence of all countries, and there is nothing missing, and it is not easy to sell this thing when it is expensive. ”

After going around in a circle, Boss Xu still lowered his voice and replied positively: "I bought this thing from a ghost town." ”

Boss Xu spoke in an authentic Shandong accent, speaking lightly and quickly, but no one heard the last five words, someone was trying to ask to understand, but Li Mao had already laughed, and everyone was puzzled and laughed.

After laughing, they asked each other what they were laughing at, and no one admitted that they didn't understand and laughed, saying that they had heard a ridiculous thing, but what was this ridiculous thing, but no one asked again.

The "ghost town" is not inhabited by ghosts, but by the Han people who were abandoned by the Tang Dynasty or abandoned by the Tang Dynasty. They left their homeland and came to the edge of the grasslands and forests, living in the abandoned fortresses of the Tang army, they did not have the household registration of the Tang Dynasty, and they were not accepted by any tribe in the grasslands and forests.

They are like lonely ghosts wandering on the grasslands, they engage in industry and commerce by virtue of their crafts, making wood, iron, and bronze tools and selling them to the grassland tribes to obtain skins, hairs, meat, and various medicinal materials, and then use these grassland outputs to trade with the border towns of the Tang Dynasty to obtain the necessary grain, oil, salt, and iron.

There is no shortage of skilled craftsmen who live in seclusion in ghost towns in ghost towns, and in their spare time, they will occasionally imitate some fake antiques and fake antiques to make a windfall and improve their lives a little.

Xu Wusi's fake antiques were purchased from the hands of a ghost town craftsman, and he was willing to tell such a secret, even he himself was taken aback, and when he saw Li Mao for a while, how could he pour the truth to him.

Xu Wusi couldn't regret it, and really wanted to slap himself twice in public.

Li Mao pointed to Zhang Xiuqing, the accompanying Datang Honglu Temple, and asked Xu Wusi if he knew him, Boss Xu shook his head and replied: "The villain runs a cheap business, and he doesn't know the nobles." ”

After the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs formed an alliance, in order to avoid misunderstandings, the two sides sent envoys to each other's capitals to exchange information and appease their own business trips stranded in each other's countries.

As the supreme administrator of the Tang Dynasty's permanent mission to the Uighurs, one of Zhang Xiuqing's important tasks was to represent the court in the Uighur diaspora.

The word Xuanfu contains the meaning of "appeasement" and "disposal", and Zhang Xiuqing had to mingle with the Tang Dynasty merchant subjects scattered in the Uighurs on behalf of the imperial court.

Although the Uighur royal city was large and inhabited by many Tang subjects, there were still only a handful of high-end antique shops that could open such a high-end antique shop in a prosperous area like Nanguli.

Zhang Xiuqing can not know "Yushenghe" Xu Wusi for more than ten years, and when he says it, he can only make people point to his backbone and scold him. (Dissertation College)