If Qin Dong was here at this time, he would definitely admire this official who spoke very much, in this era, it can be seen that he is using economic aggression to deal with the Eastern Roman Empire, which is definitely not an ordinary role, at least it proves that this person is very good at and very researched in the economic field, but the fact is that this official is not a big official in the Eastern Roman Empire, nor is he a close confidant of Emperor Leo I.

As this official said, although the Xiongnu Empire under the control of Qin Dong maintained good relations with the Eastern Roman Empire in diplomatic friendship and peaceful borders on the surface, secretly Qin Dong had been using the economy to invade the Eastern Roman Empire. On the one hand, he organized caravans and merchants to sell beer, wool textiles, leather clothes made of inferior leather, dried cheese made of inferior cheese, and very fine glass ornaments to the Eastern Roman Empire, all of which were consumables and luxuries, but what he bought back from the Eastern Roman Empire were fine flour that could make people eat well, as well as ironware, pig iron, tin ore, copper ore and other strategic resources and materials, which he ordered to be forged into extremely sharp weapons after being transported back. The combat effectiveness of the army has been greatly improved, and he even introduced horse breeds from Arabia to cross-breed new war horse breeds with the Hun horses on his territory, and after many experiments, the new generation of horse breeds bred by cross-breeding not only has super endurance, but also has a strong explosive power, tall stature, and strong cold and heat resistance.

While dumping a lot of consumables and luxury goods into the Eastern Roman Empire, he harvested a large amount of real money, using the real money brought back from the Eastern Roman Empire to build his own monetary system. The minting of those Roman coins into their own currency led to a massive exodus of coins from the Eastern Roman Empire, and the people had fewer and fewer coins in their hands. Gold and silver coins, in particular, became more and more valuable, and at one point there was a situation where 1 dinar could be exchanged for huàn to 100 as, which made copper coins less and less valuable.

Although coins were minted every year in the Eastern Roman Empire, they were not minted every day, so the rate of outflow of coins was much higher than the rate of minting, and later in order to meet the needs of the market. In order to be able to circulate enough gold and silver coins to the market in a timely manner to stabilize prices, the Eastern Roman Empire had to reduce the amount of gold and silver coins minted in gold and silver coins, and it became less and less. In order to maintain the weight of the coin, the content of other metals had to be increased, so that the quality of gold and silver coins became worse and worse, and the gloss was much worse. But the populace is not stupid. They could see at a glance that the fineness of the newly minted gold and silver coins was much worse, so the value of the coins themselves in the market automatically decreased, and over time, the economy of the Eastern Roman Empire began to be in turmoil.

In many areas, people have no money to use, and in many areas there are gold and silver coins that are less valuable than scrap iron, after collecting the gold and silver coins of the Eastern Roman Empire, Qin Dong set his sights on copper coins, which are the basic currency with the smallest face value of the Eastern Roman Empire. The copper content is relatively high, and Qin Dong sent people to dump commodities and collect a large number of copper coins. Swap copper coins for copper coins, and then ship the copper coins back to the furnace to make your own copper coins, and make a lot of money from them.

After more than a year of financial wars, the Roman Empire's coins became less and less, and in the absence of national currency, the people of the Eastern Roman Empire had to use the currency of the Xiongnu Empire.

Qin Dong not only dumped consumables and luxury goods into the Eastern Roman Empire and other countries, bought strategic resources such as iron tools and grain crops and hoarded them, and carried out a war of financial aggression against other countries, but also dumped high-quality goods at low prices in the Eastern Roman Empire and other stock prices to hit the economies of other countries. For example, table salt, the salt eaten by the people during this period is basically the salt produced by the seawater boiling salt method, and a small amount of mineral salt is dug out of the salt wells, but since Qin Dong made the seawater salt drying method, a large amount of refined salt was produced, and then Qin Dong organized caravans and merchants to sell the excess salt to the Eastern Roman Empire and other surrounding countries through various channels, which was not only cheap, but also much more refined in quality than the salt made by the seawater boiling salt method. The people of various countries naturally prefer fine and cheaper salt, and the original high price and low quality salt is not popular, this situation not only makes the salt made by the salt people in the surrounding countries of the Mediterranean cannot be sold, and there is no source of livelihood, but also makes these countries lose the salt industry, an important source of tax revenue, and the economy of various countries is unbearable, and in this era, few people can see the danger of this to the country.

Although this danger is real to the Eastern Roman Empire, and some officials saw this and said it in court to remind Leo I, there are still people who oppose the severance of diplomatic relations with the Xiongnu Empire and the closure of border trade routes, and some officials said: "Dear Augustus, the minister has to admit that the words of Lord Jacquire just now are reasonable, severing diplomatic relations with the Xiongnu Empire, closing the border trade routes can certainly prevent the outflow of important strategic materials in our country, and of course can limit the development of the Hun Empire. But if you do, the danger may be even greater! ”

Leo I was shocked and immediately asked, "Go on!" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty!" The official agreed, and continued: "We all know that the north is a bitter cold land, the more north the climate is more severe, and it is difficult for grain crops to grow, so every winter there are many Huns, barbarians and livestock frozen to death and starved to death, in order to prevent this from happening, the Huns will organize tribal warriors to go south to plunder in the autumn of each year to solve the problem of lack of grain and grass, which is why the Huns have to go south every year to fight grass valleys, but after we have established diplomatic relations with the Huns and opened up commercial exchanges, The Huns were able to buy grain from our country, and they solved the problem of lack of grain and grass, so in the past few years, the Huns have not once invaded the south to plunder the land of our country, these are the wisdom of His Majesty, if it were not for the secret agreement between His Majesty and Qin Dong, how could there be a border tranquility in recent years, Your Majesty, your great achievements will definitely be recorded in the history books, after all, it will be remembered by future generations. But now, if His Majesty must sever diplomatic relations with the Xiongnu Empire and close the trade routes, then the Xiongnu are likely to invade our border in the south again, and the losses caused by that time will be even greater, which will damage His Majesty's reputation, please think twice."

The war of words between the officials of the two factions in the court of the Eastern Roman Empire brought the atmosphere of the meeting to the climax of the reception of the two envoys from afar, but the situation on the scene was very unfavorable to the side that established the Xiongnu Empire to sever diplomatic relations and close the trade route. ”

The official just now was also a high-ranking official of the Eastern Roman Empire, so he was loudly reprimanded by a barbarian envoy, and he was immediately annoyed, and now this is the court of the Eastern Roman Empire, not in the barbarian tribe, Barrick is obviously a little too arrogant to scold the officials of the Eastern Roman Empire so loudly, which also caused Leo I to be a little unhappy, he coughed twice and said: "Ahem, messenger Barrick, there is something to say, our Eastern Empire is a country with a glorious civilization, it is a country that talks about etiquette, and there is naturally a set of rules above the court." If you rebuke our officials like this, Augustus will kick you out! ”

Seeing that Leo I was angry, Barrick hurriedly said in fear: "Your Majesty the Honorable Emperor forgives your sins, the foreign ministers come from the barbarian tribes, and they have received little influence from etiquette since childhood, if there is any violation of the etiquette of your country, please forgive the respected Augustus!" ”

"The reason why the foreign minister disagrees with this lord's point of view is actually because this lord only sees the present, and does not see the future, the border of your country has been much more peaceful in recent years, and the Huns have not gone south to plunder because of lack of food, but don't you know that the Huns are farming by themselves? Once they could meet their own food, there would be no need for the food of the Roman Empire, what do you think would happen to the Huns? ”

Immediately, an official said, "Wouldn't that be better?" Since the Huns are able to grow their own grain and meet their own needs, not only do they not have to buy grain from our country, but they will not go south to plunder us! ”

"Wrong!" Barrick retorted: "It's just wishful thinking on your part, my lord, would the Huns think so?" Since they are no longer short of food, what is the use of your country? In the past, the reason why they tolerated your country's storage was because they needed your country's food, but now they are not short of food, do you think the Eastern Empire still needs to save your country's food for them? Since they are not short of food, are they not short of other things? For example, they lack women, gold and silver, so they can only continue to go south to rob your country, rob women, gold and silver from your country, and Attila has not done this kind of thing before! ”

"That's nonsense!" At this time, another official stood up and shouted at Barrick, "Could it be that the role of the Eastern Empire under the leadership of my great Augustus is only to provide food and grass for the Huns? The Huns don't need grain and grass anymore, so isn't there a need for our Eastern Empire to save it? Bold Barrick, you are insulting the honorable Emperor Xià and insulting my Eastern Empire! ”

There was a sudden condemnation from the top, but soon there was a group of people singing against each other, and the two sides quarreled, and just when the two gangs were arguing, Leo I suddenly said loudly: "Augustus has decided to restrict the flow of important strategic materials such as coins, ironware, cloth and silk fabrics to the Xiongnu Empire from now on, but any merchants who sell these kinds of strategic materials to the Huns will be severely punished once caught!" (To be continued......)