Han Shizu

Chapter 1692 Spice Road Wei Wang Memorial
The Chongzheng Palace is extremely quiet. Exquisite palace lanterns are arranged everywhere, emitting soft light, and the air is also filled with a little refreshing incense. The main raw materials come from Nanyang, and are carefully prepared by the master incense maker in the palace.

Dahan's incense culture has a long history, and has entered a mature stage in modern times, embodying the connotation of a state of etiquette, and the market is quite prosperous.

The spices of the Han Dynasty, except for musk produced locally, basically come from outside the region. In the past, they were mainly imported through the Silk Road business road in the Western Regions. During the ten years of peace between Han and Hei, a large number of spices poured in. In other words, it was a golden period.

Spices are also one of the few goods that the big man needs to obtain from the outside. Due to their scarcity, the benefits of them are naturally considerable.Fragrances made of spices are necessities for courts, nobles, bureaucrats, religions, and sacrifices, and have always been luxury goods.

At the same time, some spices also have medical and food value, which complements the food culture of Dahan.With a wide range of uses, the market will naturally increase. At one time, the supply was in short supply, and the price was quite high.

The great prosperity of the Dahan spice market, the most prominent sign is the development of Nanyang. A large number of spices of various colors were produced in Nanyang, which were discovered by the colonizing merchants who went south, and then imported into China.

This greatly enriched the types and quantities of Dahan's spices, and the market was able to usher in a big explosion.At that time, Tao Gu compiled a "Qing Yi Lu", which is an encyclopedia of the Han Dynasty. In subsequent supplements, 56 kinds of spices were added, and by the 21st year of Kaibao, the number had reached 72 kinds.

Nanyang specialties such as cloves, nutmeg, and pepper have also begun to integrate into the spice and food culture of the Han Dynasty, and some rare spices are sought after by the upper mainstream society.

With the import of a large amount of Nanyang spices, Dahan's hunger for spices in the past has also been relieved, but at the same time it has completely stimulated the entire market and stimulated the consumption of spices by Dahan's people.Subsequent developments have caused demand and supply to present a spiraling state.

In the past few years, the price of spices has even risen instead of falling, and various fragrant products have begun to enter thousands of households in the Han Dynasty, making their use no longer limited to nobles, bureaucrats, giants and rich people, even ordinary people, tightly pursed , can also use the things enjoyed by high-ranking officials and nobles, even if there is a difference in quality.

In the prosperous overseas trade, spices are one of the most important commodities. It is not a big problem to say that the Nanyang route is the spice road. Even the sea breeze cannot blow away the fragrance floating in the ocean.

There are hundreds of spice ships traveling between Dahan and Nanyang every year, but even so, Dahan's annual demand for spices is still growing.

Most of the people who use spices are in towns, and in the past 30 years, the urbanization of Dahan has progressed extremely fast. Obviously, it will take time to fully fill this market.

And around the spices, a whole industrial chain has also been formed, and gradually expanded, a large number of merchants and private merchants participated in the spice trade, and spice workshops sprung up like mushrooms. In the past ten years, a number of spice workshops have even emerged in various places A master of incense making with superb skills, those who are famous all the way to the capital, are sought after by the upper class.

The court has always been a large consumer of spices, and has high requirements on specifications and quality. A large amount of the annual court expenditure is spent on this matter.

Because Emperor Liu was so light, the incense made by the court also tended to Liu Emperor's preference, which also triggered a trend of small freshness.

At this time, the fragrance lingering in the nose highlights a fresh and elegant, refreshing and refreshing effect.

In the hall, Emperor Liu sat on the imperial case, holding a memorial in his hand, and immersed himself in reading it. It has been a while, and the crown prince Liu Yang, as usual, stood by him respectfully.

After a while, Emperor Liu put down the memorial, raised his head, and said thoughtfully, "What do you think of Liu Min's memorial?"

The war in the Western Regions basically entered a truce period after Yang Yanzhao advanced into Shule and captured it easily. Liu Min took the initiative to stop the pace of the Western Expedition and suppressed the voice of continuing to attack.

So far, it has been almost three months. Although there have been some incidents of black sweaters going south to harass them, they are innocuous. Under Liu Min's defense, the black sweaters' harassment has been blocked.

In addition, after being invaded by the war, the area east of Qiuci was in a state of desolation. Even if the Black Khans harassed them, they did not have many valuable attack targets. If they went deep, they might end up with no return .

During this period of time, Liu Min's main energy was to appease the morale of the army and the people and organize the resumption of production.Building fortresses, repairing cities, reclaiming acres of land, dividing pastures, and the population of the Uighur and Moman tribes were all forced into the ruling order of the Han army. On the basis of limited people's strength, Liu Min also achieved considerable results.

However, a few months later, it also reached a bottleneck. The territory was too large, the population was too small, the means of production were insufficient, and the organizational capabilities were insufficient, especially the lack of officials.

Regarding the long-term strategy of the Western Expedition, Liu Min has already played it before. After the discussion of the court, the approval is approved, and it is better to take it easy, especially for some ministers who do not agree with the crusade against the Black Khanate. If it can end here In war, it would be even better if Hei Khan admits the current driving and results.

And Liu Min can take the initiative to consider the consumption of the country and the difficulties of the court, which is even more recognized. Many ministers are praising that King Wei has the country in mind and the overall situation in mind.

As for Liu Min's visit this time, apart from systematically and detailedly explaining the situation in the Western Regions and his strategy of consolidating frontiers, the purpose is very simple, to ask for help from the imperial court.

However, it is no longer a military supply for the army.With all the supply, transshipment and battlefield seizures in the past few months, plus Yang Yanzhao's extortion of a sum of food from Khotan, the reserves of the Western Expeditionary Army are enough for them to survive a whole year.

Judging from the basic needs of food alone, the current western expedition is not under great pressure.However, in the whole of Anxi, it will be difficult to complete those operating reserves, and it will take time for the newly cultivated areas to usher in the harvest.

There are three main things Liu Min asked the court for this time: first, all kinds of production materials, mainly agricultural tools, ironware, and seeds, and livestock and so on, but secondary. The Western Regions lack everything, and the animal power is still developed.

The second is the grassroots officials. Along with it, there is a copy of Liu Min's construction and division of the newly occupied land, which needs many officials to fill in, so as to improve the imperial court's ruling system over the local area.

The third is population, which is the most scarce in the Western Regions. There are thousands of miles from Yizhou to Shule, and the population is less than one million. Even though there are a lot of desert quicksand, the elite areas are still sparsely populated. Liu Min urgently needs population. Filling, this is the most effective way to digest and absorb these lands.

Regarding these requests from Liu Min, Emperor Liu was unclear at this time, but asked Liu Yang instead.As for Liu Yang, he was clearly prepared. Hearing the question, he said almost without thinking:

"My son thinks that although the sixth brother's strategy is aimed at conquering the Black Khan, it is still a way of long-term stability. If it cannot be consolidated, even if it expands thousands of miles, it will be like a castle in the air. There is a slight disturbance, and it may be possible. Collapse, gained and lost.

The sixth younger brother can calmly view the war between Han and Hei, in order to reduce the burden on the court and protect the land and borders, this is worthy of recognition.Therefore, Er thought that the performance of the sixth brother could be approved and supported! "

Hearing Liu Yang's attitude, Emperor Liu showed a smile on his face, and said, "My son has indeed come out of practice!"

This is not only a compliment to Liu Min, but also a compliment to Liu Yang.Of course, Emperor Liu approved of Liu Min's strategy for the governance of the Western Regions. Perhaps in his opinion, Liu Min could calmly make judgments and put them into action based on the actual situation of the Western Regions and the court, which was more advanced than him. Two thousand miles away is even more gratifying.

In fact, it was not only Liu Min who calmed down. After such a long time, Emperor Liu's feverish head finally sobered up, and rationality once again occupied the high ground of decision-making.

Under the current conditions, setting off a war of annihilation of the country thousands of miles away does not seem like a rational behavior.What's more, today's Western Regions is not, after all, the discrete state where small countries stood side by side like a thousand years ago. The slogan of regaining the homeland is not so convincing after all.

For the vast majority of Han scholars and civilians, they didn't care about the Western Regions at all, and the progress since the Western Expedition and the blood flowing under the city of Kucha forced Emperor Liu to change course.

Judging from the current results, Xizheng is obviously losing money, and the loss is very large. Timely stop loss is also an acceptable result.

It's just that at the beginning, he talked too much and acted too resolutely, which made him eat his own words, and he couldn't bear it. Therefore, he never issued an edict to withdraw troops.

Therefore, when Liu Min started to slow down the pace of war in the Western Regions, Emperor Liu did not conduct micro-management thousands of miles away to urge war orders or something.

Even Emperor Liu was noncommittal about the proposals put forward by some courtiers so far.After Liu Min's political and military strategy about the Western Regions was heard, it actually met Emperor Liu's wishes.

At least, this Western Expedition has expanded the land for two thousand miles, south of the Tianshan Mountains, and it is all owned by the big man. It is good-looking enough, and it can be satisfied.

"War and build at the same time, it seems all right," Emperor Liu said.

(End of this chapter)