In front of the cover of the horse is a clay pot, which is slightly viscous and unidentified black liquid.

Fang Chongyong looked puzzled and put a chopstick into the clay pot, then dipped the ink on it, and used the chopsticks to write on the white paper.

It seems that the color is darker than ordinary ink, and other advantages are not visible for the time being.

"Is this an ink made with oil as the ink base, grease and water?"

"Hui Fang Jieshuai, it is true."

Ma Beifeng said with a humble face.

"Well, that's good."

Fang Chongyong nodded noncommittally.

Can this ink alone handle the printing of Jiaozi?

I'm afraid that's not the case.

He remembered the sought-after luxuries of his previous life. No matter how many people complain about this thing, it is undeniable that these are called luxury goods, but they are actually tattered things, whether they are useful or not, at least they still look very delicate and eye-catching.

If you only use ink to print Jiaozi, it seems that the force is a bit low!

"Can I use overprinting?"

Fang Chongyong took out the carved plate that had been prepared a long time ago, took it out of the drawer of the table and put it on the table and asked.

"What does overprinting mean?"

Ma Beifeng asked suspiciously.

"First use this set of engraving to print black.

However, it is then colored separately and another engraving plate is used for secondary printing.

For the second printing, a red pigment containing cinnabar can be used.

This is the method of splitting printing, in which different pigments are loaded on several printing plates of the same size, and then printed on the same sheet of paper in separate batches.

It can be printed more than twice.

In the future, you can also add cyan, red yellow, etc., and print the third and fourth times. You can play as much as you want.

What does Ma Langzhong think? ”

Fang Chongyong asked confidently.

In his time, overlay printing was already a rotten street technology, and it had long been eliminated by large-scale industrial printing, which was regarded as "intangible cultural heritage".

And it doesn't seem to have a high technical threshold, but no one uses it in this day and age. The main reason is that there is no necessary use occasion, so it leads to the lack of social demand for the generation of technology.

"Wonderful! Fang Jieshuai is really open-minded, wonderful. ”

Ma Beifeng was so excited that he stroked his palms and laughed, this technique itself is not worth mentioning alone. However, if three or four colors can be printed on Jiaozi, it undoubtedly greatly raises the threshold for anti-counterfeiting, and also makes this kind of "money" look more high-end.

People rely on clothes and horses to rely on saddles, don't underestimate appearance. For a new thing like Jiaozi, whether it looks good or not, and whether the printing is exquisite, often determines people's first impression of it.

For the "flying money" that is still relatively rough at present, the technical content of Fang Chongyong's friendship with Ma Beifeng and others is obviously much higher, and the appearance at that time is even more incomparable.

The quality of the paper used for printing alone is incomparable to the flying money.

"You can really try it, right, this section of the handsome thinks this kind of play is very good."

Fang Chongyong said with interest while playing with the wooden carving plate of Jiaozi in his hand.

Now the wooden engraving in his hand is called the "first edition", which is only used to verify the printed pattern. Even if it is actually printed, it will not produce the effect of "imprinting".

The engraving plate that finally participates in printing needs to be reproduced and finalized with copper after the initial version is modified. Copper is used as the material for engraving, and it can be used many times. It is also easy to create partially embossed patterns.

Whether it is the service life or the use effect, it can be satisfied. If you smelt and process the copper with a broken one, you will be a good man again!

"There is only one million silk in the treasury of Liangzhou Mansion, but whether it is the use of soldiers or the payment of military salaries, at least three million silk Jiaozi can be issued. In addition, in order to deal with the government and the opposition, and to honor the saints by the way, it is also necessary to take into account the circulation of coins in the five states of Hexi.

Therefore, the first edition of Jiaozi had to be printed with at least five million silk, which was only a little less. ”

Fang Chongyong sighed lightly, patted Ma Beifeng's shoulder and said, "If you don't issue Jiaozi, this Hexi Jiedu envoy will not be able to do it." Whether it succeeds or not, it depends on how we operate this wave. ”

Do you want to print so many jiaozi?

Ma Zhifeng was startled, and asked in disbelief: "Fang Jieshuai, this is four times more!" ”

He still doesn't understand what "monetary leverage" is, and naturally thinks that if you save one silk cloth, you can only issue one silk Jiaozi.

"It's all trivial, and it's hard to explain it to you now.

After printing a batch, he asked Yan Zhuang to take it to Chang'an to build the Jinjuan Academy, and at the same time honor the saints.

Yan Zhuang would buy the house next door to the Jinjuyuan, open a jiaozi shop here, and hoard silk silk in the Jinjuyuan to cope with the exchange in Chang'an City.

Jiaozi's engraving should prepare several more sets for emergencies. You should also prepare more spare pieces of paper. At that time, Jiaozi can also be issued in Chang'an. ”

Fang Chongyong said the appalling plan with an understated expression.

"This, this, this......

The lower officials must work hard to print the Jiaozi, please rest assured that Fang Jieshuai is. ”

Ma Beifeng said with a wry smile, understanding that he was completely on the thief ship this time, and he couldn't come down.

The words just now show that if it weren't for the fact that this Fang Jieshuai didn't understand the laws of the Tang Dynasty at all, it was that his courage was so bold that there was no boundary!

It seems that the latter is far more likely than the former.

In Ma Beifeng's impression, Fang Chongyong has been immersed in the Tang Dynasty official mansion case for many years, and he is very familiar with all kinds of laws and regulations, unlike the kind of gentleman who doesn't learn and doesn't know anything.

What is illegal, this Fang Jieshuai should be clear in his heart!

The Fang Jieshuai in front of him, who is said to be deeply trusted by the saints, doesn't seem to be as loyal as rumored outside!

It's just that the careful thinking is very secretive, and the means are relatively high, and the mind is difficult for outsiders to guess.

Zhou Gong is afraid of rumors, and Wang Mang is humble and has not usurped the time! With such a simple truth, how could Ma Beifeng, who has been working by Brother Ji's side for many years, not know?

At this moment, Ma Zhifeng thought a lot in his heart, but he didn't say a word.

"Go ahead, Jiaozi's affairs as soon as possible."

Fang Chongyong called the engraving in his hand to Ma Zhifeng and said.

"Well, don't worry."

The horse waited to be sealed and bowed and retired.

After he left, Fang Chongyong let out a long sigh and paced in the study, thinking about the people's livelihood in the northwest.

In Hexi and even the Western Regions, the Tang Dynasty essentially needs to run the colonization model of reclamation, where the people are the army, and the army is also the people. In the event of the decline of the empire, such a structure could maximize the strategic buffer.

In order to combat the harsh natural environment of desertification, to maintain the irrigation system, and to resist the military pressure of the numerically superior steppe peoples, Hermes-Epitek needed to abandon the small-scale peasant economic model and enter the collective ownership model.

Take the "fort" as a unit to carry out military colonial expansion. Everywhere they went, they killed or drove out the aborigines, so that the Han people from the interior could migrate here. Since the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains regime has been playing like this.

A fort was also a small army, and at the same time a collective farm where people ate and lived together, and helped each other. Currency is not easy to use in such a mode.

Before the Silk Road flourished, this was often the normal organizational model of the Han people in Northwest China. It's just that the parties and those in power are in a state of hindsight. The theory has not yet been summed up, and it cannot be maintained for a long time, let alone carefully studied the pros and cons.

What's worse is that the northwest is too militarized, which will lead to tensions in border relations and a waste of national strength for no reason.

The prosperity of the Silk Road has changed this mode of operation. The secret of the Silk Road's prosperity lies in the commodity economy and free trade. At this point, the Tang Dynasty could not say that it had immigrated to one place and killed or driven away the aborigines of the Western Regions there. In fact, the national power does not allow such play.

Since the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Hexi and even the Western Regions controlled by the Tang Dynasty have been working hard to develop a commodity economy and prosper as a result.

Wuwei, Dunhuang, Zhangye and other places, all the same. The prosperity of the commodity economy has greatly strengthened the control and centripetal force of Datang in the northwest. The cityside tribes here have a loyalty to Datang that is several orders of magnitude higher than that of Youzhou.

Compared with simple immigrants and military camps, this open-border model is undoubtedly much less costly.

In the end, it is to be prosperous, or to the security of the frontier, or to colonize the border to form a permanent basic plate. Sometimes you can have both of these options, but many times it's either one or the other.

There are advantages and disadvantages to any policy, and there is no perfect solution.

At present, the system of the Tang Dynasty is still based on ethnic unity as the mainstream, and the Silk Road as the basis for the development of commodity economy to strengthen its control over the Western Regions.

The number of Han people in the Western Regions was not large, and it was not by iron-blooded and brutal military frontier and colonial reclamation to stabilize the situation.

The Tang Dynasty and the Tang Army relied on the model of "everyone earns money together", relying on commercial prosperity and the export of silk to maintain the dominant position of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions.

However, this model also has flaws, once the Tang Dynasty is not strong, it is inevitable to lose the Western Regions and Hexi. The development of the military tun model can collapse a little slower.

No matter what Ji Ge's starting point was, since Fang Chongyong was appointed by the imperial court as the ambassador of the Western Regions, he could not become a bureaucrat who was messing around. How to stabilize the situation in Hexi and even the Western Regions is a compulsory course for him.

Fang Chongyong feels that Ban Chao, who has put pen to paper, can still maintain "those who commit strong men will be punished even if they are far away" for decades. How can he, a latecomer with thousands of years of insight and countless lessons from the trial and error of his predecessors, keep going?

But in his position, this is easy to say, but when it is really his turn, he feels that the burden on his shoulders is more than ten thousand pounds, and his waist can't be straightened.

Fang Chongyong's eyes were red and swollen from staying up late, staring at the huge map of the Western Regions hanging on the wall.

The "Persian Protectorate" established during the Tang Gaozong period is now the territory of the Arabs, specifically, it is the black clothes and food.

This is the case when power is not enough, even if it has been ruled indirectly, once the power is slightly weakened, it will be lost. This is the reality of the environment that Datang is facing, and it can be reversed by non-human beings.

In the face of these difficulties, Fang Chongyong can only choose to "do something and not do something".

The first big climax of YSL's spread in the Western Regions is now ready to go, just waiting for the decline of Datang's power.

This trend is difficult to interrupt at the moment. The emergence of Arab civilization is due to the internal factors of others at work, supplemented by the influence of the external environment. That is what Sun Tzu said in the Art of War: "You cannot win against yourself, but you can win against the enemy."

Historically, after the Tang Dynasty's forces withdrew from the Western Regions, firewalls such as Tubo, Da Liao, Western Xia, and Western Liao appeared successively, avoiding the complete YSL religion of the Central Plains, which was weak at that time.

The states of the Western Regions to the west of the Green Ridge were the first line of defense against Arab invasion.

Whether Datang was in its heyday or not, it didn't have much spare energy to take care of this area.

In the long run, the agricultural civilization of the Central Plains needs continuous investment to maintain the existence and dominance of the Western Regions. The location of the capital determines the projection cost. In general, the empire with the agricultural civilization of the Central Plains as the core was in a disadvantageous position in the process of competing for the Western Regions, and needed to make up for the geographical shortcomings with strong national strength.

It's easy to win, but it's very difficult to prosper forever, at least Brother Ji can't do it.

Thinking of this, Fang Chongyong felt a sharp pain in his head.

Standing tall and seeing far away is not a lucky thing many times. Only the ignorant can continue to be happy without worry.

Fang Chongyong believes that the current court of the Tang Dynasty, from top to bottom, underestimates the strategic significance of the strategy and operation west of the Green Ridge.

This time, he wanted to lead the Hexi elite soldiers to attack the Western Regions, and the first goal was to break Xiao Bolu and lock the western gate of the Tubo people to the Western Regions; The second goal is to defeat more than 20 countries in the Western Regions west of the Green Mountains, control them, and confront the black-clothed Great Food; The third goal is to issue Jiaozi in the Western Regions and control the upstream source of the Silk Road.

All three of these goals must be accomplished, but there are other things that can be done if you have the spare energy.

Fang Chongyong pondered the mess in his heart, he pushed open the door of the study, and the dazzling sunlight made his vision dazed for a while.

At the moment, his legs were trembling, and he couldn't exert any strength in his body.

Boom!

Fang Chongyong's eyes turned black and he fainted on the ground. In a daze, a gentle and familiar voice faintly sounded in his ears:

"Hurry up, find a wooden plank, carry Ah Lang up, send him to the bedroom, and prepare for acupuncture."

……

Fang Chongyong had a strange dream.

He dreamed that Kego was stranded on a desert island, surrounded by countless warships, throwing bed crossbows and explosives. The defenders of the island had suffered heavy casualties, and the Kego cloaks were shouting in the center of the array, as if they had reached the end of their rope.

In this dream, Fang Chongyong couldn't see his body, he was like an immortal with a "God's vision", seeing the soldiers in the warship landing on the island and brutally killing the defenders who protected Ji Ge one by one.

Strangely, no matter how bloody and indescribable these images were, they were as quiet as if there was no life.

Fang Chongyong slowly opened his eyes, and as soon as he wanted to move, he found that he seemed to have silver needles on his head, and in the corner of his eyes, those silver needles flickered in the light of the candlelight.

Next to the bedside, Anaye was napping with her chin in her small hand. When she closed her eyes, the high bridge of her nose looked particularly charming, delicate as if it were a work of art.

"Ah, needle pull, needle pull!"

Anaya woke up suddenly and saw Fang Chongyong looking at him intently. Although her movements were a little flustered, her hand to pull out the needles was very steady, and she pulled out the silver needles on Fang Chongyong's body one by one in the inherent order.

"Are you coming to Liangzhou alone?"

Fang Chongyong asked in a hoarse voice.

"That's right, that Xiu'er in our family has a bulging belly, saying that he is afraid that the long-distance trip will bump the tire. We discussed, and she simply raised the baby in Chang'an and didn't come to Hexi.

Whoever makes the concubine a native of Liangzhou is familiar with the situation here. ”

Anaye teased angrily.

Is Wang Yunxiu pregnant?

Fang Chongyong was stunned for a moment and recalled. During that time, it seemed that as long as he was free, he would repair the car with Wang Yunxiu, almost without a day off, and sometimes he was not even in bed when he was having fun.

"What are you thinking? Even if an outsider wants to come to our house to steal a woman, it will be stealing from me! Who's going to have nothing to do to steal her!

It's really your child! The concubine is with Xiu'er every day! ”

When Anaye saw Fang Chongyong stunned, she knew that this person was thinking about something strange, and couldn't help but laugh and scold.

Fang Chongyong actually wanted to say that he had made Pei Xiu's belly bigger, and now that he has both of them, he didn't suspect that Wang Yunxiu went outside to steal men.

But after thinking about it, it's better not to say this stubble.

"You're a tiger enough, too."

Fang Chongyong smiled bitterly.

"That's right!

Ah Lang is too weak now, and he has to make up for it.

Otherwise, the concubine will want you to look good tonight. ”

Anaye smiled softly, her eyes fluttered, and she leaned over and kissed Fang Chongyong on the face.

"I'm about to go to the Western Regions, come with me."

Fang Chongyong held Anaye's hand and said.

"The concubine doesn't want to go, I just want to accompany my grandfather in Wuwei City, you can go and get busy yourself."

Anaye broke free of Fang Chongyong's big hand, smiled slyly, and then whispered in Fang Chongyong's ear in a naughty tone:

"There are so many people in the barracks, and in the dead of night, you black bear is pressing on me and tossing around.

The whole camp can hear the concubine's crying and screaming for mercy, how can I see people in the future!

The concubine body won't go with you, there are a lot of Hu girls in the Western Regions, you can find it if you want to find it!

I'm not a show, so I don't mind any of that. ”

"Actually, when I was in Chang'an, I heard about something.

Your mother is not unknown, she may well be the princess of the Sabbatical Land. This time, you accompany me to the Western Regions to see if I can find someone from your mother's family. ”

Fang Chongyong said with a solemn face, the ambiguous smile on Anaye's face suddenly became extremely stiff, his muscles were tensed, his hands were twisted in his sleeves, and his eyes became gloomy.

"...... of the Sabbath Princess? I didn't come out of a stone after all. ”

Anaye let out a long sigh of relief, her eyes full of loss.

"Your biological father is Li Yi, the king of Xin'an. Medical Officer Li is a staff member in his palace, and because of his injury, he was stranded in Liangzhou to take care of you by the way. ”

Fang Chongyong continued to drop a bombshell.

"When I left Chang'an to go to the post station this time, the concubine found that there was a bad old man in a brocade robe following me all the way, looking powerful, but he just looked at me with squinting eyes from afar, and he didn't come up to do anything.

At that time, the concubine was still thinking, could it be that this old man was too old to play, and he just wanted to get over his eyes.

Now that I think about it, could it be that he is the grandfather of the concubine? ”

Anaye asked with a wry smile, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Why are you so stupid. The magnates of Chang'an, but those who can do it, will never watch from the sidelines. That man is obviously your real father. ”

Fang Chongyong couldn't help but hold Anaya in his arms and gently patted her back. And this girl with the blood of the Western Regions put her arms around him and cried.

(End of chapter)