Master Archaeologist

Chapter 51 They Are Young and Old

How good were the merchants in Shuzhong during the Western Han Dynasty?

A few words left in the history books are enough to shock the world.

"Huayang Guozhi" once recorded: "Chengdu County Benzhi Chili Street, Yingguang House, set up salt, iron, city officials and chiefs, and repaired Lichang, and the city Zhang Liesi. Its migrant workers worked in the city and Yijia !"

In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the emperor could not have a junsi, but the generals could ride an ox cart, and the people of Qi had no Tibetan cover.

However, the merchants in central Shu "may steal merchants and take their horses, boys, and cows, so as to make Shu wealthy."

And in the mid-Western Han Dynasty, Luo Lin, a big businessman and usurer born in Chengdu, became a millionaire!

When Luo Po went to the capital, he had to bring tens of millions of dollars with him!

And after several years of traveling between Bashu and Sichuan, he has made more than ten million yuan!

Luo Po even put the loan on the heads of the lieutenants and princes and kings. No one dared to bully the counties and states with loans on credit!
The top aristocrats with feudal kingdoms and fiefdoms don't have any money like him, so they all ask him for loan sharks!

From the Zhuo family and Cheng Zheng family in the early Western Han Dynasty to the Luo family in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, they are all famous businessmen recorded in "Historical Records Biography of Southwestern Yi"!

Even in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Zhexiang family, a wealthy family in Guanghan, "had a fortune of 800 million yuan and [-] children!"

At the end of the Han Dynasty, the rich merchants in central Shu operated a large variety of commodities with a large scale, and once dominated the domestic market.

In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the big merchants in central Shu were mainly engaged in the profit of salt and iron and the profit of mining copper and making money.

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty unified the official operation of salt and iron and minted coins, the merchants in central Shu quickly transformed and began to move towards a large and wide route.

Wine industry, sauce garden industry, slaughtering industry, grain industry, firewood industry, shipbuilding industry, bamboo and wood industry, car manufacturing industry, paint industry, copperware industry, ironware industry, livestock industry, usury, vegetable and fruit industry...

According to historical records and later statistics.

At that time, the business fields operated by merchants in central Shu almost covered the basic necessities of life of the people of the Western Han Dynasty!

From the expenses of the nobles to the livelihood of the common people, there is nothing to do!
Wealthy merchants and great merchants from Bashu circulated all over the world, and they traded everything!
"Shu Cloth, Shu Knife, Goji Sauce, and Citrus" of Shu are the four famous specialties at home and abroad!

Even their products are sold abroad!

The exquisite lacquerware and buttonware made by Gongguan of Shu County and Gongguan of Guanghan County were mostly sold to Lelang County in what is now North Korea, and were loved by the nobles of the Huns on the northern grasslands.

Private merchants, on the other hand, often took risks and conducted border trade along the Southern Silk Road.

"Shu objects" such as Shu cloth, silk, and Qiong bamboo sticks were trafficked by them to Dianyue (now Assam, East India) and Shendu (now India).

When Zhang Qian was on an envoy to the Western Regions, he had seen Shu cloth, Qiong bamboo sticks and other Shu products with his own eyes when he was in the Great Xia Kingdom (now Afghanistan and Central Asia).

After inquiring about the locals in Daxia, he learned that these products from Shu land entered Daxia through poisoning.

It can be seen from this that the industry and commerce in Shu were so developed during the Western Han Dynasty!

Not just for sale!

At the same time, merchants in the Shu region would also buy Western treasures such as pearls, amber, and coral from South Asian countries, and sell them in the domestic market, earning several times the difference in profits.

So far, the central Shu area has become the hub of domestic and foreign trade in the southwest, and the industry and commerce are extremely developed!
Moreover, the merchants in central Shu not only independently developed the Southern Silk Road, but also brought civilization to the entire Southeast Asian region.

The current Southeast Asian countries can become part of the Confucian cultural circle, and this group of Shuzhong businessmen has contributed the most!
When reading historical documents in this area, Chen Han was amazed by the prosperous industry and commerce of the merchants in central Shu during the Han Dynasty.

But lacking some practical feelings, he still couldn't clearly feel the commercial prosperity of that era.

The history book is too big, containing 5000 years of Chinese history.

Turning over a page in the history book and drawing with a pen is a magnificent era.

Standing on the long river of time, overlooking the pale and dry words in the history books, it is difficult for people to empathize with them, and they can only act as a spectator.

However, when Chen Han stood next to Jingzhou in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, he touched these lacquerware from Shu County with his own hands.

Seeing the traces of time accumulated on their bodies with one's own eyes, feeling the bone-chilling coldness coming from the body.

This sense of reality gave him a feeling that he had touched the pulse of the times.

The prosperous handicraft industry in Shu County 2000 years ago seemed to travel through time and space and was engraved in front of his eyes.

Groups of Western Han craftsmen wearing rough clothes made of linen and sweat scarves tied on their heads.

In each of the small workshops, the pieces of wood embryos are methodically manufactured, and after many times of manufacturing, they finally make exquisite wooden lacquerware with black outside and red inside.

These exquisite utensils, which can be called the pinnacle of lacquer craftsmanship in the Western Han Dynasty, then passed through the prosperous business roads in central Shu to pass through the world, entering the grassland in the north and Shendu in the south.

Among them, there is such a batch of exquisite lacquerware, which traveled down the Yangtze River on a merchant ship and arrived in Jingzhou, where it was bought by the owner of tomb No. 168.

This batch of exquisite lacquerware must have been very popular with the owner of the tomb and accompanied him throughout his life.

Even after death, they must be taken underground together and continue to be used.

Although it is not clear how the owner of the tomb lived underground, the batch of lacquerware brought underground by him still maintains the same appearance as when it was first manufactured after being buried for 2000 years.

Still beautiful, still gorgeous, still eye-catching.

It was so far away from us before, but now it is so close.

2000 years ago, their beauty belonged exclusively to the owner of the tomb, and they were regarded as treasures by him.

After 2000, they are still beautiful, and they are still regarded as treasures by people today, but they will no longer belong to anyone alone, but will openly show their beauty to the world.

When your eyes pass over them quietly, you can clearly see the flow of history and the long river of Chinese culture from them.

No matter how detailed the introduction and narration in the book are, it is not as good as seeing it with your own eyes.

Perhaps in a few years, they will appear in an independent exhibition hall of the JZ City Museum, telling their own stories to people after 2000.

Let people of this era witness the beauty of Western Han art 2000 years ago.

Holding a lacquered wooden box in his hand, Chen Han was filled with emotion.

It was manufactured, traveled thousands of kilometers to Jingzhou, and was buried underground for hundreds, thousands, and 2000 years.

Chen Han was amazed by its exquisiteness and beauty, and was intoxicated by the story full of historical weight in it.

For no reason, a strange thought suddenly rose in his heart.

At this time, the lacquerware he was holding in the palm of his hand to look at was, to him, an exquisite work of art carrying time.

But for this lacquerware, perhaps Chen Han, the viewer, is also a work of art being visited?

Thousands of years later, this batch of lacquerware can still lie quietly in the museum, welcoming and sending it off.

Those who have handled it and those who have seen it have changed one after another.

It is both young and old, constantly witnessing the changes of the human world.

At that time, Chen Han no longer existed in this world.

It's hard to say who is the viewer and who is the appreciator.

(End of this chapter)