Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 595 Joanna Good Antiques

"In that case, what exactly do you plan to do?" Tuohuan continued to ask.

"Just refer to the ancient times." Guo Kang told him: "The consensus in Seris was not formed overnight, but also developed slowly. Why not take a look at how they did it."

"At first, people only roughly believed that the will of heaven was a warning from heaven to the monarch. This theory existed in the Spring and Autumn Period. Later, the theory was gradually improved. In the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu absorbed the theories of Ming ghosts, yin and yang, and established the image of heaven."

"Although it is nominally called 'Zhou Li', this whole theological system was not truly completed until the Han Dynasty. Most of the documents we see now were compiled by Han Confucian scholars." He introduced: "Nominally, they claimed to be reviving Zhou Li. But in fact, the gods, sacrifices, and rituals they talked about were all what they wanted."

“Isn’t this just like those people in the church?” Tuohuan commented.

"Almost the same." Guo Kang said, "I see that in Europe, people inside and outside the church pay more attention to whether the scriptures are in their original state. They believe that the earlier the version is, the more it was created in the apostolic age, the more orthodox it is. So, at least on the surface, everyone claims that their scriptures are original versions."

"But in fact, counterfeiting is almost a daily occurrence. For many things circulating now, it is better to ask whether there is any real thing rather than how much it is counterfeited." He added casually, "And their counterfeiting technology is quite poor. Those people from the church university told me that their counterparts in the West can't even make things look old. None of the physical evidence they provided is credible..."

"They themselves seem to understand a lot." Tuohuan said in surprise.

"A lot of people are doing this themselves." Guo Kang told him: "The Vlahos we went to find last time came to me to surrender. I asked someone to count his assets and found that he also had an antique warehouse, which was quite large. However, all the items in it were fake."

"Is it fake?" Tuo Huan asked, "Doesn't he brag that he knows a lot?"

"He does know. He made those fake things himself." Guo Kang said, "I was also very curious, so I asked him what happened. He said that more than a decade ago, after the port of Dadu was expanded to allow more people to join, his family's business was squeezed by the Jewish merchant group doing maritime trade and began to have difficulties. But in order to maintain face, he couldn't just reduce expenses and scale back the show, so he could only increase his efforts to intervene in the black market trade while looking for new ways to make money."

"So you started selling fake antiques, right?" Tuohuan probably understood.

"Yes." Guo Kang nodded. "Merchants from other countries often come to him. He told me that after a few conversations, he found that in the barbarian-controlled areas, commerce and handicrafts are gradually recovering from the plague and war. In Italy, France and Alemanni, there are many places with emerging cities and wealthy citizen groups. These people have brought a lot of new demands."

"What do they need?" Tuohuan asked curiously.

"All kinds of artworks, luxury goods and so on." Guo Kang shook his head and said, "As the saying goes, if you don't have it, you pursue it. They are not real nobles, so they always want to imitate the nobles' pomp and circumstance. They always want to recruit some writers to sing their praises; or get more fame by donating to the church; they will also hire various artists and buy their works to show their taste. These nouveau riche suckers provide people like Vlahos with new opportunities to defraud money."

"With the demand, the rest is easy. Vlahos knows this business well and knows which craftsmen have good skills and which merchants are good at talking. So, after he personally took action, he quickly formed a team, found a farm outside the city, and rented a site."

"In recent years, Western Europeans have admired the artworks of the classical era, the Greeks and the Romans, and think that these things are very... cultured and respectable. He caters to their tastes and makes all kinds of fake antiques in his workshop and sells them specifically to these people."

"He often told others that he was traveling to other places. Sometimes he said he was going to Armenia for an inspection, and sometimes he said he was going to Sicily to meet someone. Others believed him and thought he really had a wide range of friends and smooth trade routes. In fact, he often hid in the workshop and took people to make fake antiques. The money he earned from disappearing for a while was not the gifts given by nobles or the deposits from overseas merchants. It was the money he earned by selling fake antiques..."

"...It's okay." Tuohuan held his breath for a moment and uttered a comment.

"I roughly know why they are so proficient in counterfeiting antiques." He thought for a moment and then said, "But how did you think of asking him so many questions? Do you also think this market is huge?"

"I didn't think so much about it at the time." Guo Kang replied: "It was a couple of days ago that a businessman named Joanna gave me a gift."

"This must be Qiao Feng's sister." Tuo Huan said, "How did you remember her name?"

"It left a deep impression on me." Guo Kang said frankly, "She said that I lived too simply. Even if I didn't want to appear extravagant, I could prepare some low-key but stylish exhibits. Poor people won't think I'm too ostentatious, and rich and powerful people won't look down on me for being too plain. It just so happened that she made some money recently, so she bought me a gift worth collecting."

"Those are just excuses. You don't need anything to decorate yourself..." Tuohuan scratched his head and suddenly realized something: "No, did she give you an antique?" "Yes. I spent a lot of money to buy it from Vlahos." Guo Kang stated honestly.

"..."

Tuohuan was silent for a moment.

"No wonder it made such a deep impression. You must have some feelings that prompted you to say all this, right?"

"Money is really magical." Guo Kang sighed and said, "The Jewish businessman squeezed out Vlahos, Joanna killed the Jewish businessman, and Vlahos cheated Joanna again. The circulation of money is really magical..."

"That's not what I'm talking about." Tuo Huan reminded him, "I'm talking about the fraud. Did it give you any inspiration?"

"Yes, because this is a very common phenomenon in all civilizations." Guo Kang nodded and returned to the topic: "There is a very interesting phenomenon: the fake antiques made by Vlahos are not really 'imitations'. On the contrary, the real antiques in his own collection do not look the same as these fakes."

"I asked him why, and he told me that although customers like antiques, what they are really keen on is not the real style of the antiques. On the contrary, these people prefer the perfect antiques in their imagination. For example, the real antiques are the ones with patterns and color blocks well preserved, and the clearer the pattern, the better; but the barbarian nouveau riche like the original color of marble and will even scrape off the precious patterns."

"Their retro style is also a kind of...Joanna-style hobby. They say they are promoting ancient things, but in fact they are still following their own ideas. Of course, whether this is good or bad depends on the specific situation. In this regard, Europeans and Seres are actually similar."

"Even the description of the gods themselves is obviously changing. In the earliest times, the sky and the emperor of heaven who represented the sky were personal gods, and there was often more than one. Different places seemed to have different understandings of who the emperor of heaven was. These statements can still be found in the documents handed down from generation to generation." He introduced: "However, Han Confucianists did not like these myths very much."

"At that time, Xunzi's followers had a great influence, from Li Si of the Qin Dynasty to Zhang Cang of the early Han Dynasty. Xunzi's attitude towards heaven was 'It is better to think about the great heaven than to keep it as an object and control it.' He thought that even if this god existed, we should not just worship and admire it, but find ways to keep it as an object and control it."

"If the people here saw this kind of idea, they would probably go crazy." Tuohuan shook his head.

"People who want to control gods would probably be super villains even if they appear in literary works." Guo Kang also agreed: "But at that time, this was a popular doctrine. The teacher said so directly, and the students' attitudes can be imagined."

"In fact, at that time, all kinds of ancient and strange gods were still widely spread among the people. The gods in ancient books were actually closer to this setting. But Han Confucianists believed that these statements were obviously not "elegant" enough and needed to be adjusted. Moreover, these people's methods were also very crude. The more important classics were just forged and rewritten. Some books were simply named after ancient people and compiled from scratch."

"With such continuous efforts, Heaven gradually lost its early colors and was no longer a deity with a distinct personality. The names and stories of Heaven and the gods corresponding to Heaven were no longer important, but became an abstract concept; various primitive gods were also attributed to part of history, or even directly regarded as ancient sage kings. The entire divine system was constructed in this way."

“This system is much more complete.” He compared it to: “During the Spring and Autumn Period, some people began to advocate that humans were more important than gods. After the Han Dynasty, how divinity was created and how it was bestowed was already very clear.”

"In comparison, the ideas that Dong Zhongshu introduced to Emperor Wu of Han were relatively mild. However, he still insisted that Heaven was the ancestor of all things, and Heaven created all things to feed humans. Moreover, the structures of humans and Heaven fit in with each other, because humans were originally created by Heaven in its own image. Therefore, humans are the center of the world and have the ability to interact with Heaven."

"In this way, the change of heaven's will actually becomes a reflection of the change of people's hearts. Dong Zhongshu hopes that in this way, a cycle can be established in which the people are ruled by the emperor, the emperor is controlled by heaven, and heaven represents the people, so as to maintain a balance among all parties. The emperor can gain a high degree of divine recognition, and the people can be free from harsh rule. Ideally, it is a win-win result."

"Emperor Wu of Han himself did not like this idea. At that time, the Han Dynasty was at its peak, the emperor's prestige was extremely high, and Emperor Wu of Han himself was capable, and he obviously did not want to be controlled by external things. Not long after the countermeasures were put forward, Dong Zhongshu was driven out of Chang'an and sent to serve as prime minister to the princes with bad tempers. Although he survived, he was away from the core of power for a long time, until he resigned and returned home, and was never reused again. However, the emperors who followed were not as strong as him. This divine system was gradually adopted and eventually became the mainstream."

"This is what I just said, the legitimacy system of the Central Plains. The most interesting thing about it is that humans have divinity." He concluded: "On the surface, it is the heaven that bestows divinity and legitimacy on the emperor, but the heaven itself is closely connected with humans, and the heaven's own divinity is obtained by representing the people. By the Song Dynasty, the two Cheng brothers simply believed that there was no need for this unity argument, because humans and heaven are originally one."

"I think this seems to limit the scope of the church's interpretation of the scriptures and the freedom of the monarch to act, but in our world, power and responsibility are equal. What you pay for is extremely high legitimacy. So despite these restrictions, everyone has done this throughout the ages, competing to promote themselves as responding to the will of heaven and the will of the people. This is because everyone knows the benefits of it."

"Although it seems far away, there is no lack of content to be explored in the doctrines of our God Worshipping Church. We are monotheistic, just like the state religion of Seris. It is not too difficult to imitate their interpretation." He suggested: "I dare to say this, and I have also consulted many classics and consulted several theologians to reach this conclusion."

(End of this chapter)