The zitra hung on the girl's chest, low chords were plucked, and the whole hall was filled with beautiful music. In the spring light of the month of Elafpopolion (the ninth month of the Athenian calendar, that is, the month after the third month of the Gregorian calendar and the first half of April), the twenty-five-year-old governor Etidemus seemed to sigh from the depths of his soul, and before the song could be heard, his heart drifted to the Mediterranean Sea beyond the 200,000 Terraces, to the city of Pera, to the boulevards and the great theater.

It's just that he can't be like General Cretos (. Black, a close confidant of Alexander's father, Philip II, who was killed by a half-drunk Alexander with a spear during a quarrel in Maracanda (Samarkand) in 328 BCE, would rather starve to death on the streets of Macedonia than show off in an oriental costume in Asia. He was the governor of Sogdiana, and although Bactria had gained independence from the Seleucid Empire twenty years earlier, more than 200,000 Greeks lived here.

It was the easternmost point of Alexander's empire, the outpost of the great Greek civilization, and if the Sakha nomadic barbarians north of the Syr Darya River could not be stopped here, then they would probably destroy the civilized world that had been established at the expense of countless Greek soldiers. This is unacceptable to any Greek, not to mention that he is the son of a Greek general, the son-in-law of the previous king Diodortos I, and the brother-in-law of the current king Diodortos II.

In addition to this, Sogdiana was a land of abundance. Not only is lapis lazuli supplied from the entire known civilized world, but also silk from the East, gold from the North (Siberia), agate from India, spices, iron, and ivory.

Two hundred years ago, Darius I, who unified Persia, united the Sogdianas, Parthians, Flowers, and Arians into the sixteenth province of the Persian Empire, and stipulated that a tax of 300 talientes should be paid annually (1 talient = 6000 dramak = 26.22 kilograms), and in fact the Sogdianas could pay 300 talients or more alone.

Thinking of the richness of the Sogdiana, Eutydemus furrowed his brow and moved his body. He wore a beautiful bronze cuirass under his red cloak, and the sound of the metal belt sliding on the cuirass was clearly audible as he moved. Just as he pondered how to collect more taxes from the Sogdians to guard against the growing Parthians, several men broke in.

"Oh. His Excellency ...... Doge: "In came Decayópolis and Aristotle IV, and there was also a man of Sogdiana, who as soon as he came in and bowed down to Euthydemus—all non-Greeks." Dicayópolis held a sword rather than a sword in his hand, and when he saw the shining blade, Eutydemus could not take his eyes off it.

"Is this ......," asked the young governor, his hand gripping the hilt. It was then that he noticed that the handle was inlaid with gold leaf, agate, and blue lapis lazuli. This is a common technique used by the Sogdianas, and the careful secondary processing makes the goods more noble and can be sold at a better price.

"Honorable lord, this is the sword of the Chuni people." Said the Greeter, who was kneeling at the feet of Uttidemus. His servant Hu Tansa brought back the Chunitie and the Chuni Bao Sword from the east, and the whole Marakanda was shaken. The merchants of the city gathered together to discuss how to make the business bigger. Iron is related to weapons, weapons affect the military, and huge profits bring huge risks.

"And the armor of the Chuni." He was holding a piece of chain mail, one of the ten he had brought back.

"Armor?" Uttidemus smiled, the sword could be concluded to be a sword just by seeing the blade, but the so-called armor was too inconspicuous. In this era, in the Mediterranean world, where even chain mail did not appear, chain mail only existed among the Celts. It wasn't until the end of the Gallic Wars, more than 180 years later, that chain mail became popular in the Mediterranean world.

"My lord, no weapon can pierce the armor." He stood up and unfolded the chain mail, and Hu Tansa brought back many things, but this armor was the most magical. Hearing this, Eutydemus stabbed him in the chain mail he was holding, and the blow was so hard that he only took a few steps back, unscathed.

"Oh." Taken aback, Eutidemus swung his sword and slashed at the candlesticks on the table. The candelabra is Greek, cast in Corinto bronze in the shape of a girl holding an oil lamp. With a slash, the girl was cut in two from her chest.

"It's too sharp." Eutidemus sighed. "I'm willing to pay five Talientes to buy it." After that, he looked at the chain mail in his hand, "And him, I am also willing to buy it for five Talientes." ”

"Your Excellency," said Gyphar, when he was about to speak, but Decayópolis stopped him. "He said that because of his respect for you, the sword and armor will be given away for free, as long as ......"

Ten Tapentes equaled sixty thousand drachmas, while one drachma could pay a skilled craftsman a day's wages, and ten Tapentes could pay a craftsman sixty thousand days' wages. The sword could only be bought for one gold, and if a skilled craftsman's daily salary was twenty-five yuan, then he could only pay three hundred and eighty-four days. Sixty thousand to three hundred eighty-four, this is the profit of trade.

"Just what?" Eutydemus calmed down, he knew the Sogdians, they would never suffer.

"As long as the Lord gives us permission, we will deal with Chuni Weapons and Chuni Iron." He bowed. Seeing the twinkle in his eyes, he added, "We are willing to contribute a tenth of the profits of the business as a tax." ”

"Where's Chuni?" Eutidemus didn't think about profit.

"Your Excellency the Governor, Chuni is a very small country to the south of Qinni, and I have never heard their names before, except for these two years." Aristotle IV replied. He was not a descendant of Aristotle, but on the edge of barbarism, he deliberately chose such a name to claim that he came from civilized Greece and was the most knowledgeable scholar in the civilized world.

"How many swords and armor do the Chuni have?" Uttidemus asked again.

"Honorable lord, the Chuni people have a lot of swords and armor, but the distance is too long, and there are too many nomads and bandits on the trade routes, so we can't trade too many swords and armor." He explained. "We'd better trade in Chuni iron, and the sword smelted from Chuni iron is better than the sword smelted from Seris iron."

"How many Chuni Tie are there?" Maracanda is the center of Central Asia, and Serisian iron trafficked from India is scarce and expensive. A piece of Seris iron sold for a quarter of a talient, but it weighed only twenty-fifth of a talient, six times more expensive than silver.

"Innumerable." He bowed again.

"Myriad?" Ultidemus found it incredulous, and he looked at the self-learned Aristotle IV, who responded by shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands. Greece is the greatest civilization in the known world, but it is inferior to the Manchu barbarians in the East in smelting metal, inferior to Seris at first, and inferior to Chuni now.

"Yes, my lord. Countless. I can swear by Ahura Mazda's name. "O Pala Dao." And the price is low, a talient chuni iron to Maracanda, maybe only half of the talient silver. ”

"That's great news!" Uttidemus looked at Gyoga carefully. He knew these Sogdianas, who were treacherous, but Ahura Mazda was pious to their gods. "In the name of the governor of Sogdiana, I grant you permission to deal in the troll, but when it is shipped to Marakanda, the price of one talient thuli cannot be higher than one-half of the talient silver. Also, you have to pay one-tenth of your profits as a business tax. ”

After saying this, Uttidemus did not immediately bow down and thank him, but looked at the pen and paper on the table. Uttidemus didn't mind his indifference, and shouted to the secretary behind him: "Draft the document and write on it what I just said." ”

After the "Chuni ......" was gone, Uttidemus remembered the unfamiliar name.

"Your Excellency, perhaps we can go to this country ourselves and conquer her, so that she will offer her sword and armor every year." Decayópolis said that he was the keeper of Maracanda, a close confidant of the governor Etidemus, whose name means righteous city-state. Of course, only the Greek city-states were just, the rest were barbaric. "I think it will take about 20,000 soldiers to complete this conquest. There are also ...... Qinni and Zhao Ni, which is actually another India. ”

"We can't do it!" Before Eutidemus could express his attitude, Aristotle IV spoke out against it. "We can't do it. To the east is the boundless desert, and without those who are familiar with the situation, our soldiers will die of thirst in the desert. To the north are the Sakha nomads, who, as soon as they see us, unite to attack us. ”

For more than ninety years, Alexander conquered the entire Persian Empire, but the resistance of the entire empire was not as fierce as that of Sogdiana. The citizens of Babylon threw flowers to the legion, but the Sogdians greeted the legion with arrows and hatred.

Maracanda was captured, then recaptured by the Sogdianas, then occupied again, ......then rebelled, and finally Alexander had to send an army through the Sogdiana, killing every Sogdiana they saw, destroying everything and leaving the town completely deserted. Twelve Alexandria cities were built, and hundreds of thousands of Greeks were resettled, but the Greeks who moved in also rebelled, they did not want to live in Sogdiana, and they wanted to return to the safety of Greece.

In addition to the Sogdianas, there were the terrible Sakha cavalry, which haunted the north of the Syr Darya River, and only the Sogdiana merchants could pass through their territory safely.

"If the Legion is ordered to go east," said Eutidemus, holding up an amphora with a picture of the banquet: a naked female musician falling into the arms of a young man wearing an ivy wreath on his head. He took a sip of the Cypriot wine in his glass before saying, "My friends, the Parthians will occupy this place, and although they are nominally our allies, they are not Greeks, they are barbarians. Let the Sogdianas go, they know how to do business, and I'm sure they'll bring back countless cheap chunites. ”