Speaking of this ancient city of Loulan, it is really an ancient city. It's only three miles around. The walls are perhaps more appropriately called walls, only one person tall and can be crossed by turning over. Moreover, the only wall is full of openings, and the widest part has been turned into shops.

It's a leaky city, well, the city isn't appropriate, and the town might be okay.

There are only more than 1,000 permanent residents in Loulan City, plus the merchants and escorts from all over the country who come here to transit, they may be able to break through 3,000, but such a base is absolutely unable to block the attack of the Han army.

To the north is the Xiongnu, to the south is the border of the Tushi State, to the southeast is the western foot of the Tianshan Mountains, which is the border of the Han Empire, and to the east is the Yenisei Plain. If it weren't for the fact that there is a small river on the edge of Loulan called the Ganges (not the Indian one), and there is a small salt mine in the upper reaches of the Ganges, it would not have been inhabited at all.

In fact, Loulan had no real ruler at all. The original managers were refugees who mined on the salt mines. Then, inertia was formed in the city, and the salt mine owner Cen Li was simply under his control. After Cen Li's death, the salt mine gradually became the only means of survival for the locals, and the Cen family did not fully control the salt mine, and the mine owner changed from time to time. In the last 100 years, the salt mine has been managed by the El Monte Merchant House of Rome, the Caliph's Puragiri family, the Shi clan of the Tushi Kingdom, the Cai clan of the Cai Dynasty, the Wu clan of Xihai Prefecture, and the Zhang clan of Dayue Prefecture.

As the original manager of the salt mine, Cen Shi can now only be regarded as a foreman in the mine.

Of course. Such a large place is jointly managed by several specialized merchant families in several countries, and most of its managers are not powerful within the family. For example, the Zhang clan of Dayue Prefecture (that is, the current Yue clan royal family Abbas) The administrator here is just a nephew of the side branch who can't fight with Zhang Sheng's eight poles.

The rules of Loulan City have also been fixed by these families after hundreds of years of tacit understanding. In general, there are only three rules in Loulan: merchants buy and sell, Loulan has no taxes, and murderers in the city die.

The extension of these three rules means that Loulan is mainly engaged in commerce. Whether the trade is fair or not depends on itself, and no one collects taxes, and those who kill people in Loulan City must pay for their lives (the Loulan Guild is responsible).

In a nutshell. This is a social order where the strong are respected.

Most of the caravans would come here, in addition to replenishing fresh water and salt, so as to survive the two hundred miles of sand between Tushi and the Han Empire, but more because of the advantages of the lack of order here - sometimes. Where there is no order, there is a place of opportunity for businessmen.

And will come here to do business. The Met hired guards. The number of guards can tell the strength of the business travel. Generally speaking, in Loulan City, a caravan with a hundred guards is considered a large caravan. Now that the Great Moon State is rebelling, the trade routes have not been cut off, and the largest caravan is undoubtedly the El Monte Merchant House in Rome.

The Elmont Comptoir has a large compound with three entrances in Loulan, and there are more than one hundred and fifty guards, and the other families are more or less stationed here, and the guards range from a dozen to a hundred and ten.

At the door of the El Monte Comptoir. A huge "Li" flag is quite eye-catching. I didn't know and thought it was a trading house run by a Han Chinese. And under this banner, a middle-aged man in a brown robe is now standing.

Middle-aged man with blonde hair. The eyes are also blue, and the face of a completely Westerner is recognizable by the outer contour and the height of the bridge of the nose if a Westerner is here, this middle-aged man is actually a Thracian from the Thracian province of the Roman Empire (one of the predecessors of the French Gaul race).

Of course, for the Oriental, there was no point in knowing whether he was a Thracian or a Gaul. As long as they knew that the middle-aged man in front of them was the manager of the Elmont Commercial Bank in Loulan City, this was enough.

The Han Chinese called it the shopkeeper, while the Romans called it the manager, and the meaning is actually the same. In Loulan, Fit represents the El Monte Comptoir.

Fit seemed to have been standing under the banner for a long time, and kept looking into the distance. A small clerk came out of the store and brought him a stool, but Fett couldn't sit for long and stood up and couldn't stop looking.

Finally, a group of people appeared from a distant street corner, still waving flags. Fett finally smiled.

The first to arrive is a knight from the team, riding a horse, very fast, to the "Li" word flag, and pull the reins of the horse, the majestic horse man stood up, the knight jumped off the horse without waiting for the horse to stand firm, a Han warrior suit, similar to the casual military uniform of the Han army, but there is no sword badge, the arms and calves are helped with leather armor, the whole person is capable and full of wildness.

Fit couldn't help but cheer and said in Chinese: "Your Excellency is good at riding!" Presumably he must have served in the first-class regiment of the Han Army?! ”

The knight is a standard Han man, with a wide-brimmed sunhat, lean cheeks, capable movements, keen eyes, and a hard black stubble on the lips that give people a very reliable and stable feeling.

The knight dismounted and clenched his fists, but what he did was not a military salute, but a river and lake salute, and said in a very hard tone: "You are the shopkeeper of Fit, right?" My name is Atletico Marletico, and my shopkeeper will arrive soon, and the caravan has been settled in the freight yard of Breguilet in the west of the city, thanks to the arrangement of the shopkeeper of Fit. My shopkeeper said that he only had half an hour and would return to the yard before dark. ”

For the previous question of Fit, this Atletico Madrid did not answer.

This style, Fitt did not feel unhappy, and still said with a sincere smile: "Thank you Shopkeeper Yan for coming to the shop under the tediousness, I immediately arranged a place to start talking." ”

Atletico didn't say much, but walked into the store - he wanted to check out the place where he would talk later. Fett seemed to understand this very well, and did not stop it, but asked the little guy in the store to hurry up.

After a while, the team arrived, a banner representing the Yan family firm stopped next to the "Li" banner, there were not many people in the team, about ten, all of them were men in strong suits like Atletico Madrid, one of them was a young man in a white robe jumped off the horse and walked quickly towards Fett.

"Haha. This is Manager Fit, right?! Sorry sorry, just settled in, a lot of chores. It's late! The young man was not at all as blunt as Atletico Madrid, and his face was full of smiles - a mercenary and businessmanly smile.

Fei Te also smiled, hurriedly stepped forward, hugged his fists and said to the young man: "It's okay, it's okay, I want to thank the shopkeeper Yan for taking the time to come." I have long heard that the shopkeeper of the Xihai branch of Yan's Commercial Bank is young and promising, and when I see it today, it really deserves its reputation! ”

"Hahahaha, you're welcome! Fett the manager was so gracious! I just accumulated virtue in my last life. Vote for a good person! The young man was still polite.

The two of them were talking nonsense as they walked into the living room of the El Monte Comptoir.

This Fitt not only speaks Chinese well, but also shows the etiquette of the Han people very well. And this young man ...... Fett had a feeling. The young man's speed and tone of speech were a little immature, but the atmosphere of a merchant who treated people was very strong, and he obviously dealt with merchants a lot.

After the two entered the shop, the ten knights who followed the young man immediately dismounted and divided five to guard the door. The rest followed the young man inside. At the same time, consciously or unconsciously, it isolates people other than Fett from this young man.

In this regard, Fit also expressed understanding. After all, now that Dayue Prefecture and Xihai Prefecture are rebelling, it is normal for Han caravans to pay attention to safety issues. It is said that in the past, even if the Han people were single merchants, they dared to swagger sideways on this land, because no one dared to fight the idea of Han merchants. But now it is different from the past, since the beginning of the war, Han Chinese caravans have rarely come to Loulan. Even if they came, they were at least a big merchant group that hired about fifty Han escorts before they dared to leave. For example, Yan's Commercial Bank!

The Zhang family rebelled in Dayue Prefecture, but they did not take the Yan family business house and confiscated all the materials of the Yan family, but all the personnel rushed back without killing anyone. And the team of Yan's Commercial Bank in front of him, to be honest, Fit felt a little happy coming suddenly.

Three days ago, Fite received news that the caravan of the Yan family was preparing to pass through Loulan City to Dingxing Mansion in the southwest, the caravan was not large, consisting of twenty camels, sixteen horses, and twenty or thirty guards, and more than thirty men, and the total amount of goods should not exceed 200,000 eagle coins. However, this was the first large-scale Han merchant travel since the Yue's rebellion, and it was formed by the famous Yan merchant house in the Han Empire. This is even more rare.

Fit, who happened to have a request for the Yan Clan's firm, but couldn't find a way out because of the Yue Clan's rebellion, was of course overjoyed, and hurriedly sent someone to arrange everything, and sincerely invited the caravan shopkeeper to talk about it. When he heard that the shopkeeper of this caravan was actually surnamed Yan, it was even more surprising to Fett. Although this person surnamed Yan may not be the relative of Yan Zhun, the head of the Yan family, it is a little related.

After the two sat down, they were polite for a while, and then got to the point.

"Shopkeeper Yan, I won't tell you, I specially invited you here this time, mainly to discuss with you, whether we can let a few merchants from Loulan go to Dingxing Mansion with your team. We will pay 20% of the value of the goods this time. What do you think? Fit said with a smile on his face.

……

Speaking of which, this kind of business model of walking in teams has existed in the Western Regions as early as the pre-Qin era. No way, whether you go to the Xiongnu or Rome from Loulan, or to the Han Dynasty, there are countless places with uninhabited and treacherous terrain, not to mention the difficult sand sea that can easily devour people's lives. To do business here, you have to be in a group.

Before the Yueshi rebellion, because of the strength of the Han army, those horse bandits formed by broken settlements did not dare to be too nonsense, but they often looted some small caravans, especially those from small countries such as the caliph and Tushi and Cai Xiang. The Han caravan generally did not dare to move, because the Han caravan would be recorded in every city before departure, and once it disappeared between cities, the Han army would inevitably be dispatched to exterminate the horse bandits in this area.

For example, from Broken Leaf City to Loulan, if a Han caravan is missing, then all the horse bandits in this area will be wiped out, and the Han army doesn't care whether these horse bandits who have been cleared out have really looted the Han caravan, in short, if something happens in your territory, it is not your responsibility but also your responsibility. It's so domineering, it's so capricious.

Therefore, for security reasons, few people generally dare to attack the idea of Han business travel.

But now it doesn't work, the Yue clan rebelled, and the Han army in this vicinity has now become a "rebel army", who still cares about the life and death of the merchant brigade. As the saying goes, the most indispensable thing in troubled times is outlaws. Lots and lots of horse bandits have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and they even rob and kill Han caravans - who made hundreds of years of peace the richest Han caravanserais!

At the beginning of the Yue's rebellion. Many Han Chinese caravans were not aware of this, so the losses were heavy, the worst of all. A huge caravan of hundreds of camels was sacked by horse bandits on the banks of the Ganges River outside the city of Loulan, and millions of eagle coins worth of goods were missing, and more than 300 Han Chinese were killed, all of which were exposed to the wilderness. Later, the people of Loulan City gathered their bones and buried them on the edge of the Ganges.

……

And the reason why Fit proposed to let the merchants join the team of the Yan family firm this time was actually not his idea alone. Because of the Yue's rebellion, many caravans were stranded in Loulan City. Among them, there were not only Han caravans, but also merchants from Rome, the Caliphate, Gaoyou in the north, the Xiongnu, the Tushi, the Shiguo and other countries. They all wanted to go to Dingxing, the capital of the state of Saihae. Only when you get there, you can make a transfer. Whether it's crossing the Caspian Sea to Rome or the Caliphate, it's much faster.

The stranding of these merchants caused the number of people in Loulan City to skyrocket from two or three thousand to about five thousand. It's already overcrowded. Not to mention. The longer the stay, the greater the pressure on the hoarding of goods and food, and the Loulan Guild, which is composed of salt mine shareholders, can only come forward to solve this problem.

Fite was assigned by the Loulan Guild to receive the people of the Yan Firm, otherwise how could the freight yard of Bu Luo Jilie let the people of the Yan Clan Firm park the goods. However, it goes without saying that those business travelers are willing to give thirty percent of the value of the goods to the Loulan Guild.

As for why the Yan Clan Firm was chosen, it was because the Yan Clan Firm was the only firm in this land that was still recognized by the horse bandits, and they could safely walk from Broken Leaf City to Loulan. It already speaks for itself.

……

Listening to Fit's words, Shopkeeper Yan was silent for a while. He asked, "Since there are as many as one or two thousand caravans stranded, why don't you form a team and go over by yourself?" There are probably seven or eight hundred of their guards, so why bother with us? ”

Fett smiled bitterly: "Shopkeeper Yan doesn't know, now Xihai Prefecture is about to become the territory of the Yue Clan, just in this year or so, an extremely large gang of horse bandits has appeared around the Ganges, claiming to have numbered more than 10,000, and has looted four large caravans, killing and wounding countless people. Not to mention that they only have seven or eight hundred unsubordinate guards, even if there are thousands of guards, they don't dare to risk their lives. Although this money is good, it's useless to earn it if you don't have a life to enjoy it, right?! ”

When the shopkeeper Yan heard that there were more than 10,000 horse bandits, his face couldn't help but change, and he said, "More than 10,000 horse bandits? Then we don't have enough people! I heard before I came, didn't there also be Han merchandisers looted? ”

Fit paused for a moment before saying, "Having said that, those Han merchants who were looted were not from the Yan family's trading house!" The Yan family firm is famous in this land, and the guards hired are all retired elites of the Han army, who dares to move! ”

Shopkeeper Yan showed a solemn look and hesitated: "I really didn't know that this trade route was so difficult now, I don't know what the horse bandit gang came from?" ”

Fett said: "The leader of this horse bandit gang calls himself the 'King of Qi', and the elite of the horse bandits under his command are all composed of some scattered Han soldiers in Dayue Prefecture and Xihai Prefecture, of course, there are also some caliphs and Romans, and the momentum is extremely huge. The capital of the state of Thursh had sent a letter of request for help to His Excellency the Roman governor of Asia. However, the governor believed that the state of Thushi was not a vassal state of Rome, and was still hesitant to send troops to help. ”

The shopkeeper Yan's brows tightened even more, and said: "Tu Shi is no better than Cai Xiang, Cai Xiang is close to Rome, and it is understandable to ask for help from Rome, but Tu Shi is a vassal of my Han ......."

"But look at the current situation, the monarch of the Tushi Kingdom has sent several letters for help to the imperial capital of the Han Dynasty......" Fett also sighed helplessly.

At this time, Atletico Madrid, who had been standing next to him, seemed to have an uncomfortable throat and coughed. The shopkeeper Yan raised his hand and said to Fit: "Manager Fit, I have to think about this matter carefully, according to what you said, this bandit actually calls himself 'King of Qi', and actually dares to be the son of heaven, I don't think he will recognize the business flag of the Yan family, the imperial flag of the Han Dynasty is almost the same!" ”

"Ahem......" Atletico coughed twice.

Shopkeeper Yan said helplessly: "Manager Fit, I heard it, my head of the guard has something to say, borrow your room for use." ”

Fett was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly realized that in the Western Regions, many times the shopkeeper is not the main person, but the head of the guard, after all, the safety of life depends on these leaders. Of course, a room was vacated for the shopkeeper Yan to have a secret conversation with Atletico Madrid.

Just as the shopkeeper Yan and Atletico were leaving the living room, a small servant hurriedly came in and said to Fett: "Manager, the man who came the day before yesterday who looked like a thief is here again." ”

Fett frowned and said in a low voice, "Why are you here again?" Did you bring the goods this time? ”

The little guy said: "No, he came with a son of the Han family with an extraordinary bearing." ”

Fett muttered, "The son of the Han family with extraordinary bearing? Where are the people of extraordinary bearing in this hellish place? After that, he said to the little servant: "I have an important guest here, you go and tell him, if there is really good tea, bring it quickly, and I will change it for salt." It's okay to have the head of a Hun warrior, but that one has to be traded at night...... Also, don't talk too much to them, I suspect they are the people of the 'Monkey King'!" ”

The little guy suddenly shrank his neck, obviously startled by the name of 'King Qi', and then hurriedly went out to greet him. (To be continued......)