How come there are officers and soldiers here! ?
Pu Shiwen was so shocked that he quickly reined in his horse.
This horse has a temper, and it can't be reined in just by trying to rein it in.
He immediately shook his neck and head, screamed and stood up with his hoof raised.
Probably Pu Shiwen's riding skills were not very good, so he was immediately thrown off his horse and fell to pieces.
The accompanying guards on the side controlled their horses in time to avoid it, otherwise they would be another puddle of Pu's flesh.
Pu Shiwen scrambled to his feet, remounted his horse in a panic, and tried to escape in another direction.
However, he heard a sharp sound of breaking through the air passing by his ears, and a guard nearby screamed and fell.
At the same time, there were shouts and shouts from the mountains on the right side of the official road and the paddy fields on the left, which meant that this place was surrounded and there was no way to escape.
Pu Shiwen's body trembled and he did not dare to move anymore. His guards simply rolled off their saddles and dismounted, indicating that they gave up resistance and escaped.
Zhao Mengqi, who was fifty feet away, shrugged, "The shot went wrong... Fortunately, the horse was not hurt. Go and bring those guys over."
The bow in his hand was left behind by the assassin from Gusu City.
Zhao Mengqi's strength could easily draw the bow to its full range. It took him more than a year of practice to become more accurate. Although he was still far inferior to the assassin, he could still be considered a good archer.
Just now he saw that Pu Shiwen's horse was quite a horse, and he felt cherished, so he planned to shoot the man on the horse first.
He missed, but he was too scared to run away.
Soon, Geng Zhi led the guards and escorted back the men and horses.
"Please spare my life, young general. If I can be spared my life, I am willing to let my family spend 100,000 yuan to redeem me..."
Pu Shiwen also had some foresight and saw that Zhao Mengqi was the one who made the decision, so he couldn't wait to use money to redeem his life. In his opinion, no one could refuse the temptation of 100,000 yuan.
But before he could finish his words, Geng Zhi kicked him in the crook of the knee, causing him to kneel to the ground, "What little general!? Your eyes are really blinded. In front of you is His Highness King Yan!"
"King Yan?...Why is King Yan here? Isn't he...in Mianting Ridge?"
Pu Shiwen was confused. Could this King of Yan be able to fly? He actually rushed to the front to intercept him.
Of course, Zhao Mengqi didn't need to explain to him, so he asked instead, "Are you Pu Shiwen or Pu Shisi?"
At this time, Pu Shiwen realized that Liu Qingzhu was kneeling aside in despair, and realized that it was really King Yan in front of him, "Despicable...sinner Pu Shiwen, my third brother Pu Shisi is dead..."
"Dead? It's an advantage for him." Zhao Mengqi raised his eyebrows, and then looked at Pu Shiwen carefully.
In the original time and space, this guy was responsible for massacring the clan, and he did so with extremely cruel methods.
Most of the clansmen who fell into his hands had their hands and feet cut off and were bled alive. They died after enduring painful torture. Even women and children were killed.
Moreover, this beast also dug up all the graves of the Quanzhou clan, plundered the burial objects, and threw the corpses into the wild to be eaten by wild beasts.
So Zhao Mengqi didn't intend to let him die a good death. He was thinking about what kind of punishment should be used to deserve the sins of this bitch, so his eyes couldn't help but become very scary.
Pu Shiwen knelt on the ground. Although he could only see King Yan's feet, he could still really feel the hatred and murderous intent that was overwhelming like a mountain.
The cold air rushed from the soles of his feet to the sky. Pu Shiwen was extremely frightened and murmured and begged, "Don't kill me, I don't want to die. I am willing to use all my property in exchange for one hundred thousand guan, no, five hundred thousand guan..."
"Haha, exchange money for life?" Zhao Mengqi was amused. "As expected of a merchant, you think you can buy everything with money... But your Pu family is the leader of Tibetan merchants. It controls the spice trade. It is said that it is as rich as the capital. I’m being conservative. I heard that your father Pu Shougeng often boasts to others that ‘eight hundred dendrobium of pepper is not enough’. As the eldest son of Pu, your life is worth only one hundred and fifty thousand?”
Pepper was just a common seasoning in the kitchens of ordinary people in later generations, but for a long time in history it was a very expensive luxury product. It was often worth as much as gold, and was even a symbol of wealth and could be used directly as money.
In the Tang Dynasty, there was a super corrupt official named Yuan Zai. Of the 109 lanes in Chang'an City, his family occupied only three.
After the fall of Yuan Zai, the most dazzling and shocking property among his confiscated properties was not the gold and silver treasures, but the eight hundred stone peppers.
Since then, "eight hundred stone pepper" has become a meme, used to represent shocking wealth, and frequently appears in literary works such as poetry.
Coincidentally, during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, when Qian Ning, a senior official of Jinyiwei, had his property confiscated, thousands of stones of pepper were also found.
Being so eagerly hoarded by the rich and powerful shows that pepper is not only expensive but also easy to convert into cash. Just like Moutai in later generations, it is the favorite of corrupt officials...
In the Song Dynasty, thanks to the prosperity of maritime trade, the import of pepper and other spices increased significantly, but they were still expensive.
During the reign of Emperor Zhezong of the Song Dynasty, Guangzhou paid tribute to the court of two thousand kilograms of sandalwood and fifty kilograms of pepper every year. However, Zhezong felt that this amount was too large, so he reduced the sandalwood to one thousand kilograms and the pepper to twenty kilograms. It can be seen that pepper is more powerful than sandalwood. Still in short supply.
Until the early Ming Dynasty, a pound of pepper could still be sold for more than ten taels of silver. During the Yongle period, the imperial court directly distributed pepper as a salary, with a discount of sixteen guan per pound. This was because Zheng He brought back a large amount of pepper from his voyages to the West. Under such circumstances, the subsequent sea ban led to a reduction in imports. During the Xuande period, each kilogram of pepper cost fifty guan, equivalent to nearly seven shi of rice.
People in the Song Dynasty loved spices very much and they were indispensable commodities in daily life. However, the spices imported through normal channels were very expensive and only a few powerful people could afford them. Therefore, large-scale smuggled spices were used to fill this huge market. Spices such as pepper have changed from luxury goods to 'medium consumer goods' with a wider audience.
Originally, the country should have received considerable tax revenue from this trade, but due to improper policies and official corruption, smuggling was frequent and a large amount of benefits were transferred to the hands of officials and powerful officials.
The Pu family, which controls the spice trade, has gained countless wealth from it.
So Pu Shiwen only wanted to buy his life for a few hundred thousand yuan. Isn't this just sending a beggar away?
When he realized that King Yan was not that easy to fool, he hurriedly made amends, "Your Highness, Your Highness, the guilty people were wrong. It was not 500,000 yuan, but all the property of the Pu family! All the property is dedicated to Your Highness. I only ask for Leave me a dog's life, no matter what you want me to do, from now on I will be your highness's slave, a dog at your highness's feet. I can recruit sea merchants for your highness, and manage the fragrant medicine trade for your highness. The criminals will live better than death. It will be more useful. Killing me will only dirty His Highness's hands, but keeping me can help His Highness earn a steady stream of money..."
"Ha... wouldn't it be better if I kept your father?" Zhao Mengqi disagreed.
Pu Shiwen quickly argued, "No, no, my father is rebellious, treacherous and greedy. He has hidden his rebellious heart for a long time, so he made the reckless move to murder His Highness. He values money more than his life. How can he be sincere?" To serve His Highness, even if he is willing to be used by His Highness, he is already old and can still do the work for a few years, so he should stay as a criminal..."
Tsk tsk, what kind of weirdos are these Pu family? They are inhumane and shameless, worse than jackals, wolves and beasts.
Zhao Mengqi was very disgusted, but the Pu family had too much influence among Tibetan merchants, and arrangements had to be made before dealing with it to avoid misunderstanding and fear among other Tibetan merchants, who would not dare to trade again.
Since Pu Shiwen cherishes his life so much, he still has some use value, so let him live a few more days.
After making a mental calculation, Zhao Mengqi showed no comment on his face and stopped paying attention to Pu Shiwen's plea. He walked around him and walked to the captured horse.
One of them was so black that it caught Zhao Mengqi's gaze like a magnet.
What a beautiful horse!
The horse's head is delicate and handsome, and its short ears are constantly moving around, making it look very alert. Its particularly large and protruding eyes are full of light, deep and agile, its neck is graceful and slender, its shoulders are strong, its waist is short and straight, and it is light. The tail is raised high, and the limbs are slender and straight but full of strength.
Zhao Mengqi couldn't help but get closer and found that the horse's shoulders were about the same height as his own, which was about 1.6 meters. This was definitely the tallest horse he had ever seen.
In an instant, an inexplicable possessiveness surged out of his heart. He had not felt this way for a long, long time.
He couldn't help but stretched out his hand to touch the horse's long, slightly concave face, "Little beauty, how about you follow me in the future?"
The horse did not avoid his touch, but instead nuzzled obediently and stuck out its tongue to lick the palm of his hand.
"Do you mean to agree?" Zhao Mengqi smiled heartily, "Then let me give you a name, um...it is darkest before dawn, just like your darkness, and it will be bright after the night...How about I call you Jinye? ?”
The horse sniffed and snorted. Unfortunately, he couldn't speak, so he could only happily accept this bad name.
Zhao Mengqi's mood became very beautiful, and he looked at the other twenty or so horses. Most of them looked similar to Jin Ye, but they were not as tall and powerful.
"Are these all big food horses?"
Seeing that King Yan was in a happy mood, Pu Shiwen immediately thought that there was hope for life, and quickly explained, "Most of them are big food horses, some are Tianzhu horses, and that horse Jin... Jin Ye was just shipped last year, and it cost 6,000 guan to buy." The others that have come down are one or two thousand guans, and the Pu family still has more than three hundred horses. If your highness likes them, I will dedicate them all to you, and I can buy more for you in the future."
"Oh? It's really a big food horse." Zhao Mengqi thought thoughtfully and asked, "Are these transported directly from big food?"
Pu Shiwen hesitated for a moment, and Zhao Mengqi smiled contemptuously and said, "Why, you still want to keep it a secret? Doesn't anyone know about it except you?"
"No, no, no, His Highness misunderstood." Pu Shiwen hurriedly defended, "The villain is just straightening out his thoughts."
Zhao Mengqi glanced at him and said, "I'll give you a chance to tell you in detail."
Pu Shiwen did not dare to be scheming, and said it honestly, "The horses that are shipped out from Dashi are usually shipped from Ganmei. The horse boats used are larger than commercial ships. The bottoms are weighted with frankincense and other substances, and hundreds of horses are loaded on them. , first transported to Julan, Tianzhu, and then to Gulifo."
"Gulifo has become the largest horse trading market and is sold to all parts of Tianzhu. In the past, it was generally no longer transported to the East. After all, it was not profitable to transport it to the Song Dynasty. It was better to transport spices. It was not completely non-existent, but only very few. ."
"Later, the Champa people and the Jiaozhi people often fought. They used to fight on elephants, but accidentally found that riding horses was more suitable for fighting. So starting from 80 years ago, the Champa people secretly bought horses from the Jiyang Army in Qiongzhou. As a result, Within a few years, the imperial court discovered that our Song Dynasty was already short of horses, so how could we sell them to them? So the imperial court issued an edict, 'Chinese horses are not allowed to leave the outside world.'"
"The people in Champa have already tasted the benefits of cavalry. Since the Song Dynasty could not buy horses, they tried to buy them at high prices from maritime merchants. Then some people continued to transport horses from Gulifo, Tianzhu, to sell them."
"My Pu family ancestors have lived in Champa for several generations, and they still maintain a relationship with Champa. It is naturally not difficult to buy a horse."
After hearing this, Zhao Mengqi understood that Ganmei was probably somewhere in Iran or Oman in later generations, Gulifo should be in southern India, and Champa was at the southern end of Indochina. This is equivalent to dividing the distance of more than 100,000 miles into There should be three major sections, among which there should be many small sections, which coincides with the segmented transportation that I had thought about before.
However, there are still very few horses that can be transported in this way. It is feared that there will only be a few hundred horses in a year. Facing Mongolia, which has hundreds of thousands of war horses, it is simply not enough.
But, it would be good if it was used as a stallion or to improve local horses.
In fact, starting from the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty has used horses from Central Asia and the Food Region to improve horse breeds. Unfortunately, the damn gelding habit has prevented the good horse genes from being passed down.
Now that Zhao Mengqi wants to do this, he can't help but feel a little improvised. After all, it will take a long time, but it is better than doing nothing.
If you really want to expand the scale of horse buying, you probably have to build a 'Zheng He Fleet' first.
Some people died, but not completely...
