In the sixth century, it was the chaotic era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Xia, Di, Qiang and other ethnic groups in the north took advantage of the collapse of the northern defense line to compete for the Central Plains and claim hegemony.

The Sogdians also followed the Hu people's entry into China, along the Silk Road along the Western Regions city-states, footsteps throughout the Northern Dynasties Hexi Corridor, Guanzhong, Central Plains, mainly to and from the four towns of Hexi, Chang'an, Luoyang, Taiyuan.

In the late Southern Dynasties, Hujia in the Western Regions began to cross the Qinling Mountains through the Guanzhong Plain and along the Han River to Shu and Xiangyang, thus opening up a trade route to the Southern Dynasties.

By the time of the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Sogdians had migrated from the Kangju country in the Western Regions to Guanzhong and the north, and in the process gradually sinicized, exterminating their respective national surnames, and taking the nine Han surnames of Cao, An, Shi, Kang, Shi, Luo, Bai, Mi, and He as their original surnames, relying on the power of the gate lords at that time, and taking root in Guanzhong.

In order to distinguish them, the government often referred to them as "nine surnamed Hu people" or "Zhaowu nine surnames", so far, the Sogdians and the "nine surnames of Zhaowu" were bound together, they were good at business and routine management, and after settling in the Han land, they soon smelled huge business opportunities.

Out of the need to maintain the international situation, although the Sui and Tang governments encouraged the Hu people to come to China, they implemented a policy of separating the Hu and the Han, which was mainly reflected in the fact that the Hu people were not allowed to intermarry with the Han people, nor were they allowed to appear in the places where the Han people lived, and even the Han men and women could not be sold as slaves and taken out of the country.

These bans were indeed not good for them, but there was one thing that did benefit them completely - the government emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, and forbade Han Chinese to migrate long distances and engage in international trade.

Under this prohibition of the separation of Hu and Han, the Sogdians seized the opportunity of the Han people not being allowed to engage in overseas trade, absorbed the spare wealth of the Han people, and acted as agents for their overseas trade.

This opportunity enabled the Sogdians to quickly monopolize international trade including silk, jewelry, curiosities, livestock, slaves, and hoisting, which can be said to cover all aspects of the lives of the people at that time, and to control most of the important Hu markets, if we go further, it is to control the lifeblood of the Silk Road trade.

Under their monopoly management, many Sogdian merchants with huge wealth and wealth began to appear in the north, and the "Chang'an Judgment Collection" unearthed in Dunhuang recorded that "Shi Potuo, a native of Chang'an County, was a wealthy man, with a commander and a horseman, and his garden and pond houses, clothes and utensils were played, and the servants and concubines were more than princes."

Literally, the Sogdians of Chang'an County, Jingzhao Prefecture, are named Shi Po Camels, and their families make a living as merchants and have accumulated more than 10,000 pieces of property.

These records can almost show that the success of Sogdian merchants in business and trade, not to mention the ordinary merchants of the Central Plains at that time, even the well-dressed children of generations of eunuchs, may not be able to compare with the Sogdian Hu people in the accumulation of family wealth.

At least, the Hu people could get a half-official position in the imperial court by attaching to the gate valve and the eunuch, or an honorary idle position.

Under this practice of commercial trade and clinging to forces, the Hu people, including the surname Zhaowu Jiu, lived very well in the Central Plains, and they also knew that their power and wealth came from the recognition of the surname Zhaowu by the gate lord Shieun, in other words, the value of the surname Zhaowu Jiu was valued by the real magnates at that time.

Under this understanding, the Sogdians attached great importance to the transmission of family lineage, and when they went out to do business, they often had to be prefixed with a certain son, and the patronymic name was very important, which represented the family's business reputation and the size of the wealth, but the grandfather and above were not so important.

In this "father-son" model of small families, the Sogdians emphasized independence, and as soon as children were born, their parents would teach them to think in business, and until they reached adulthood, they would leave the family to earn a living and do business.

It is rumored that the Sogdian rite of passage is to take a sum of money from their parents to a foreign country at the age of 20, and until they earn the first pot of gold with the money, they can be regarded as returning to the family with dignity, marrying a wife and having children and becoming a new small family independently.

After this incident, it can be regarded as proving that he has the talent for business and trade, and in the future, whenever the city-state or family matches a trade caravan, they will give priority to cooperating with them and building a platform for each other to do business, if these Sogdian young people do not earn a penny, and they have squandered all the original capital, then they will be completely untalented, and they can only follow the caravan to work with miscellaneous hires in the future, or stay in the family to support their parents, and they will have no profit for life.

From Central Asia, to the Western Regions, to the four towns of Hexi, Guanzhong, and the Central Plains, the Sogdians used their own footsteps to constantly measure the distance between them and wealth, and also spread the Sogdian language along the Silk Road in business and trade, becoming the most popular communication language along the Silk Road.

Song Siyuan had also read some documents unearthed in Dunhuang before, and these things were written down by her, and when she heard that these characters were Sogdian, she immediately became curious: "How could the ancient Nizi use Sogdian, this kind of writing has disappeared, and no ethnic group uses it, even if it has been handed down to the present, it has also been integrated into other languages." ”

Sun Daqiao shook his head: "I don't know this, I only know that the Sogdian text has been lost, and it is difficult to understand it. ”

Yue Guanchao looked at the Sogdian script: "Keli said that these Sogdian scripts are the handwriting of Gunizi, which shows that Gunizi can write Sogdian, perhaps, Keli still retains some relics of Guniz, we might as well take the opportunity to hold a funeral for Guniz, and also Tokeli to see if there is any information about Sogdian, and perhaps, we can also unlock the secrets of these booklets." ”

Two days after going back, taking advantage of the funeral post handed by Keli, Yue Guanchao and they came to the Thousand Buddha Cave, and saw the cliff above the Buddha Cave from afar, gathered a lot of musical instrument masters, they gathered at the tail of the team of Susu flags, knocking and beating, and preaching high-pitched.

As early as after the accident of Gunizi, their family has no relatives, Keli and Nayi moved to the Thousand Buddha Cave, it has reached the point where the six relatives have no support, today's funeral, there should only be two brothers and sisters Keli and Nayi, fortunately, the poor people in the Thousand Buddha Cave still have a little human touch, such a long time of neighborly relationship, it is better to send Gunizi the last journey.

When Yue Guanchao and a few of them arrived at the place, they were already on the verge of burial, they each put incense, handed wreaths, helped Keli send the coffin of Gunizi into the tomb pit to fill the earth and seal the mound, and also set up the inscription of Gunizi in front of the tomb, and when the funeral was over, Keli took them back to the ruin.

Song Siyuan took out a birch bark booklet: "Keli, these words are Sogdian, according to the information we have so far, Sogdian has been lost as early as the ninth century, and now it has become a dead script that no one can decipher, I wonder if your Abba can use Sogdian to remember, then at least it proves that he knows Sogdian, when you were counting his relics, did you have anything about these Sogdians, such as books, books, cases, or picture scrolls." ”

Keli gestured to one of the side grottoes: "At the beginning, my father did not leave much of it, and I sealed all these documents and the like in a large box in my study, and I really didn't find much about Sogdian at that time, you can look for it again, and maybe you can find something new." ”

As they spoke, Nayi came in through the door and saw the Sogdian booklet they were holding, and her eyes became strange: "Sogdian." ”

"Nayi, do you know Sogdian?" Song Siyuan's eyes lit up.

Nayi nodded: "I saw Abba write this kind of writing before, and I asked him why I didn't know these words, and he told me that the Sogdian script has been lost, and now it belongs to some kind of secret text in the Western Regions, which can describe certain things, but there is no way to read it, and if there is any secret, it can be written in Sogdian, which can ensure that no one knows." ”

At the mention of this, she paused: "At that time, I was still young, and Abba also taught me Sogdian, but after a long time, I don't have much impression now, but I remember that he left me a book on Sogdian secret script, and I will find it for you." ”

After a while, she took out the ancient cowhide seal and put it on the table, Song Siyuan stepped forward to see that the book cover had nothing to do with Sogdian, and it was expected that it was also to hide people's eyes and ears and prevent outsiders from knowing what was inside.

Everyone was overjoyed, they thought that they would not be able to understand the content of the booklet in a short time, but now that they had this Sogdian classic, Song Siyuan immediately took it in his hand and looked at it.

In the classics, the Sogdian text only has the function of ideology, and the pronunciation has been lost, but even so, at least the complete exegetical texts, which can be used to decipher the Sogdian written by Gunizi.

"It just so happens that I will first learn about the Sogdian classics, and it would be better if I could decipher Uncle Guniz's booklet."

In her opinion, the loss of Sogdian was entirely due to the decline of the Silk Road trade, not because the language itself was defective, and under the logic of the same language in the Iranian language family, as long as you grasp the logic and meaning of certain words and sentences, you can roughly translate Sogdian, and there is no need to relearn the language.

This is completely different from the decline of the Tangut, Khitan, and Jurchen scripts, which are not produced after thousands of years of reform and application, but by the rulers of the regime at that time in order to consolidate their political power and enhance national cohesion.

These characters are neither pictographic nor ideographic, if it were not for the translation of the common Chinese, it would never be understood, but when the Western Xia and the Khitan Kingdom perished, these words were also abandoned into the pile of old papers, and the people would naturally choose the more pictographic Chinese to facilitate reading and writing.

As early as when the Jurchen script was created, it already had certain defects, and the sentences and chapters formed were mostly obscure and hard, and finally had to fully implement the Chinese language, and even the emperor in the Forbidden City could only speak Chinese in his last years.