Gitak was the leader of a medium-sized trading house, and his caravans traveled back and forth between the central and northern provinces of Persia all year round, buying livestock, jerky, wool, and dairy products from the northern steppe people and selling them to the central Persians, and then buying grain, textiles, iron tools, and other daily necessities from the Persians to sell to the northern steppe people, making a profit.

By the way, Gitak is not a Persian, nor a steppe man, Gitak is just his Turkic name, his real name is Ammuli, a Sogdian.

The An family originally belonged to one of the nine surnames of Zhaowu and lived in the territory of Anxi in the Tang Dynasty west of the Green Ridge.

The Sogdians were good at business and controlled international trade on the Silk Road for a long time.

At that time, the Tang Dynasty was still implementing other policies of the Hu and Han dynasties from the Sui Dynasty, and the Han people were able to produce fine silk and porcelain, but they were limited by this policy and could not do business far away from the place of household registration, so that the Sogdians were cheaper and allowed the Sogdians to accumulate huge wealth by selling these precious goods.

It's a pity that such good days are gone, hundreds of years ago, Gitak or Ammuli's own family produced a guy named An Lushan, who used the family's wealth to bribe the officials of the Tang Dynasty, bought an official position, and became the general of the Tang Dynasty Anxi.

As a result, this guy didn't have a good brain, he actually wanted to be the emperor, rebelled in Anxi, killed a lot of Han people, and even once came to Chang'an.

The Tang Dynasty was so easy to defeat, the Han people were more numerous than the stars in the sky, and An Lushan's own family eventually failed, although it took nearly a hundred years for the Tang Dynasty to regain control of the Western Regions, but the Sogdians' commercial privileges had long been lost.

Not only that, after the Tang Dynasty regained control of Anxi, it also launched bloody revenge, and those Hu tribes who followed An Lushan's rebellion either resisted and then killed them all, or escaped from the Tang Dynasty's sphere of influence, especially the Sogdians, except for a few tribes such as the Kang clan and the An clan, the others were either exterminated by the Tang people, or fled from Anxi incognito. Gitak's family is one of them.

"Hey... How good do you say to do business, what kind of war do you have nothing to do? All blame An Lushan's warlike Turkic blood, which provoked a rebellion and angered the Han Chinese. Otherwise, we Sogdians would have been able to continue to sell precious silk and porcelain. ”

Although most of the fleeing Sogdians used Turkic names, they would never marry the warlike and brutal Turks again, and in Gitak's words, the brains of the Turks were filled with swords, and the blood was full of the desire to kill, and even the most astute Sogdians would become stupid if they were stained with their blood.

Shake off the mess in his head and walk with his caravan buddies towards the north gate of Gilholtz, he has a big business to do today.

Thinking about today's business, Gitak couldn't help but grin - the profits from this business may be worth a year's harvest.

A few days ago, Gitak was in a tavern in the city, and met a few Turks who were eager to buy large quantities of supplies for the winter.

The steppe people of Khanzar Province will move to the pastures near the Xinhe (Panyang River) every winter to spend the winter, and at this time, it is the most prosperous period for the commercial cities on both sides of the Xinhe River, and merchants like Gitak will always come with a large number of winter goods to exchange a large amount of wealth from the steppe people at a low price.

The steppe people that Gitak met this time seemed to be even more anxious, and the goods they were ready to exchange were actually the most precious horses, cattle and sheep for the steppe tribes!

Gitak secretly speculated that these Turkic tribes were likely to loot other tribes, and that these horses, cattle and sheep were likely stolen goods, and this kind of thing was completely done by the Turks.

It doesn't matter if it's stolen goods or not, it's better if it's stolen goods, so that he can keep the price down as much as he wants.

In the end, this batch of 'stolen goods' was taken down by Gitak at a very low price, but the other party proposed that he must trade in Gilholz City, and Gitak thought about it, and the other party may be afraid that his tribe would be found by the enemy, so he made this request, so he agreed, and also promised to personally come forward to settle the garrison of Gilholz City.

In the past two days, Gitak has successively hosted several captains of the garrison to dredge the joints to ensure that today's transaction can be successfully completed.

Gitak swaggered to the top of the north gate, but the soldiers defending the city ignored this, and Gitak ordered his men to climb the watchtower and take the place of the defenders to look north, while he himself talked to the captain of the guard who was in charge of the defense of the gate.

The two chatted for a while, and the guy on the watchtower shouted.

"Chief, I see people in the north, and there are many cattle and sheep."

After hearing this, Gitak looked at the captain of the garrison, the captain of the garrison had eaten several banquets in the past two days, and had also suffered a lot of benefits, and Geetak was an acquaintance, of course he would not turn his face and deny people.

The captain of the garrison lazily gave orders to the soldiers

"There's a caravan coming, open the gates quickly, and don't ring the alarm bell."

At this time, the people on duty on the city wall near the north gate were all the guards of the captain, and after the captain of the garrison gave the order, several soldiers immediately went to open the door, as for the alarm bell... The only alarm bell was on the watchtower, which was now empty - the wind was too strong on the top, and when the men came down, the soldiers in charge of the sentry took the opportunity to desert and hide under the city to make a fire.

By the time the city gate finally opened with a squeak, the 'caravan', which was still in the sky, had already arrived less than half a mile away from the city gate.

The captain of the garrison glanced at it, and found that there were only about a hundred people on the other side, so he was completely relieved, and ran to make a fire himself—the weather was getting colder and colder in winter.

There were only a few soldiers on duty on the city wall, huddled at the base of the women's wall to hide from the cold wind blowing from the north, and not a single person glanced at the 'caravan' outside the city.

Gitak had already run to the city gate with his men, and he was happy to take stock of the wealth that was about to belong to him.

The 'caravan' was getting closer and closer, and it was already more than a hundred meters away from the city gate, and Geitak had already seen the Turk who had traded with him, and the other party was at the front of the line on horseback.

A few of the Turks' companions who had remained in the city came behind Gitak at some point, and they had been mixed with Geetak's men.

But Gitak didn't care about that, he was now all focused on the 'goods', and he looked at them and complained to the Turks beside him

"These cattle and sheep are too thin, and all the fat has fallen off, how can they survive the winter! The negotiated price must be reduced by another tenth, or you will give me some of your own horses..."The horses ridden by the Turks were all very good, and Gitak could see at a glance that these horses were all excellent war horses.

Steed...

Gitak shuddered, his mind suddenly cleared up from greed, and he turned his head to meet the fierce eyes of the Turks behind him, and saw the short knife in the hand of the other man.

When it was too late, Geetakfu fell to his knees, raised his hands and shouted loudly

"I surrender, I surrender, don't kill me! Everyone surrenders! ”

The sound of hurried horses' hooves sounded behind Geitak!