Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 666 Great Voyage ([-])
When the Republic withdrew its troops from Shandong and Empress Wu Zetian began to take control of the government, a talented poet in the Tang Empire went to Jiaozhi to visit relatives, passing through the Tengwang Pavilion in Yuzhang.

Tengwang Pavilion was built by Li Yuanying, the king of Teng, and it was rebuilt by the governor of Hongzhou this year.

In fact, the buildings that can be preserved for hundreds or even thousands of years have been rebuilt and repaired in the past dynasties. There are almost no ancient buildings that are truly original and never repaired.

The Tengwang Pavilion is so carefully built, it has been dilapidated in the past few decades and needs to be repaired.

When Wang Bo was born, it was the time when the Yan Dynasty was in turmoil and the Tang Dynasty was in full swing. When he became an adult, the Tang Dynasty was still the overlord of the world.

Living in such an era when the Tang Dynasty was in full swing, Wang Bo's poems seemed a little out of place.

Other poets in this era are more inclined to write frontier poems, war poems, and poems about making meritorious service and seeking official positions.

However, Wang Bo's poems are more inclined to the traditional style of diction in the Southern Dynasties.

That is to pile up many gorgeous and beautiful words, each sentence is very amazing, but overall, it seems a little incomprehensible, it seems to express something, but it seems to express nothing.

Wang Bo's grandfather, Wang Tong, was a great Confucian in the Central Plains. His father, Wang Fuzheng, was an official in the court of the Tang Empire. Ba Tao's 20 cavalry killed the entire army.

The ancestors led the army to burn, kill and loot, and then there was a grandfather who was a great Confucianist, and a father who was a little famous and was an official, and he liked Confucianism.

Very similar, really similar!
At the beginning, the Liaodong Wang family followed such a development path, and it could even be said to be a high-profile version of the Wang Bo family.

May I ask which aristocratic family in the Central Plains has no ancestors who burned, killed and looted?This is just an inevitable stage in the development of a powerful family!Or the period of primitive accumulation of family capital!
The fact that the ancestors were bandits and robbers does not prevent the descendants from being great Confucianists, poets, and weak scholars.

However, the royal family of Liaodong went a step further. From the situation of the Wang Bo family, it further developed into a prince, and finally even became so powerful that it turned against the Central Plains to compete for orthodoxy.

But Wang Bo's family can only stop here, because the imperial power has become more vigilant towards families like the Liaodong Wang family.

The Tang Empire would never allow a second Liaodong Wang family to appear in the Central Plains. As an aristocratic family, after step-by-step development, it has become so powerful that it can rival the entire Central Plains.

The strength of the Liaodong Wang family has far surpassed the concept of aristocratic family, and it is inevitable to develop independently from the Central Plains.

As a country, the strength of the Republic is still very weak, and it is far from being the opponent of the Tang Dynasty. Not on the Liaodong Wang family.

The governor of Hongzhou invited a group of literati, dignitaries and wealthy businessmen from the Yuzhang area to participate in the celebration of the completion of the renovation project of the Tengwang Pavilion.

Wang Bo, who passed by Hongzhou (Yuzhang/Nanchang), also received the invitation.

Literati such as Wang Bo came to the high-rise of Tengwang Pavilion to participate in the banquet. Standing at the Lanshan of the pavilion, looking over the past, it is the emerald green Pengli (Poyang Lake).

At the beginning, Wang Yun, the ancestor of the Liaodong Wang family, wiped out tens of thousands of rebels here and maintained the rule of the later Han court. However, he was imprisoned by Emperor Shun of the Han Dynasty for the crime of "disobedience to the monarch".

The Yellow Turban Uprising was never sudden, because in the later Han Dynasty, since the period of Emperor Han'an, rebels began to appear continuously, and the scale of tens of thousands, even 10,000+, also occurred from time to time.

There were also many uprisings like Zhang Jiao who relied on religious mysticism during the period of Emperor Shun of the Han Dynasty.

The Yellow Turban Uprising was only larger than the previous uprisings. Apart from that, it was not much different from the uprisings that had occurred before the Later Han Dynasty. This was also an important reason for the northern paralysis of the rulers of the Later Han Dynasty.

Because before Zhang Jiao's uprising, Dahan had already experienced many peasant uprisings, and the emperors and ministers of the Later Han Dynasty were used to it.

"Peng Li is still here today, and I don't see Layman Wang."

Wang Bo sighed, Wang Yun is his idol, and he also wants to have his own theories passed down to the world like Wang Yun.

At the beginning of the banquet, musicians played the lute and sheng, dancers danced lightly, and a group of Kunlun slaves with brown and black skin served tea and water for the guests.

These Kunlun slaves were captured by the Baiyi Dashi/Umayyad Dynasty from a more distant place (East Africa), and then sold to merchants in the Western Regions, and then sold to merchants in the Central Plains by merchants in the Western Regions, and finally sold to rich and powerful by the merchants in the Central Plains them.

These Kunlun slaves are strong, honest and timid, and dare not resist, so they are very suitable as slaves.

Kunlun slaves (black Africans) and maids from the Western Regions (beauties from Xinjiang) were the most popular male and female slaves in the Tang Dynasty.

The dancers in the Western Regions have an exotic style, so that the aristocratic families in the Central Plains can feel a different kind of freshness.

Ordinary dancers from the Central Plains, the dignitaries are already tired of playing with them, so it's fresh to have some dancers and maids from the Western Regions.

The main expansion direction of the Umayyad dynasty was the west (North Africa, Spain, Asia Minor), so there was no conflict of interest with Datang, and the two sides were more about business cooperation.

On the one hand, the Tang Empire prohibited the spices of the Republic from entering the Central Plains market, and on the other hand, it imported a large amount of more expensive spices from Baiyi Dashi.

The spices of Baiyi Dashi are mainly imported from South Tianzhu.

The production of spices in South Tianzhu is second only to the Spice Islands of the Republic, which is enough to meet the needs of the dignitaries of the Central Plains.

The big cannibals/Arabs, as middlemen, made a lot of money on the Silk Road.

However, because Hongzhou is far away from Chang'an-Luoyang, the center of imperial power, it is also far away from the Silk Road, and is closer to the sea.

Therefore, the rich local merchants are more willing to engage in smuggling trade with Xingfanguo, secretly importing spices from Xingfanguo, and then pretending to import them from the Western Regions, so as to avoid the punishment of the Datang government.

In order to completely stifle the commercial economy of the Republic, the Tang Empire strictly prohibited any products from the Republic from entering the Central Plains.

As the saying goes, where there is demand, there will be business.

Because of the need for smuggling, a special "empty shell Western Region merchant" was born in Jiangnan.

The so-called "empty shell merchants from the Western Regions" refers to some merchants who, in order to conceal that their spices were smuggled from the Xingfan Country, and in order to make others believe that their spices were imported from the Western Regions, will actually arrange caravans to go there once a year. Trip to the Western Regions.

However, due to the long distance, the import volume is very small, the cycle is very long, and the transportation cost is also high.

The purpose of doing this is just to convince others: You see, these spices of mine are really imported from the Western Regions, not smuggled from Yan, because I send caravans to the Western Regions every year.

Some businessmen are so smart that they simply treat this behavior as a business to earn money from those spice smugglers.

"In the name of your caravan, I go to the Western Regions every year to import spices for you and provide cover for you to smuggle spices from the Yan Kingdom, and you will pay me a certain amount of money."

The spices at the banquet in Tengwang Pavilion were almost all smuggled by Hongzhou merchants from Xingfan National Guild merchants.

But in name, these spices were imported from the Western Regions by Anne, a businessman from the Central Plains, and they are "big food spices".

The Central Plains did not know that Dashi did not produce spices, and the spices of Dashi were actually imported from southern Tianzhu, so the spices imported from the Western Regions were named "Dashi Spices" to distinguish them from "Yan Kingdom Spices" that were banned from trade.

Wang Bo was so talented that he had long been famous in the Central Plains, so the governor of Hongzhou invited him to write a poem for Tengwang Pavilion.

"My lord, do you have Yaxing to write a poem for this Tengwang Pavilion?" The governor of Hongzhou wanted to see if this Wang Bo was really talented, or was it blown out.

After all, it is impossible to know whether you have talent or not without seeing it with your own eyes. There are many scholars in the Central Plains who know how to engage in "personal design marketing" and deliberately create an image of a hermit who is an "outsider expert" for themselves, hoping to win the favor of the imperial court. High officials' attention.

But when these "hermits" really entered the court and became officials, the governance of government affairs was a mess. Many "hermits" couldn't even understand the household registration of ordinary people. They could only write poems and nothing else. I don't even know how to look at the household registration of ordinary people, and I don't even know how to deal with the poll tax for corvee service and military service.

There are examples of this. In the early and late Han Dynasties, "outsiders" and "hermits" were popular. Many scholars in the Central Plains created the image of "hermits" for themselves, making it magical. It seems that as soon as they come out of the mountains, the world will be peaceful and peaceful.

Then, the Taifu Chen Fan at that time personally invited these "hermits" to come out of the mountain, hoping that they would come out of the mountain to become officials and save the big man.

In the end, these "hermits" came out of the mountain to become officials, and quickly handled local government affairs in a mess, and the already bad Han Dynasty became even worse.

Many "hermits" and "superior people" have the reputation of treating money like dung, benevolence and integrity, but when they really become officials, they are more greedy than eunuchs.

The governor of Hongzhou was also very puzzled as to whether Wang Bo was a marketing "hermit" or a real "hermit", so he took this opportunity to explore Wang Bo's reality.

"Since it was the request of the governor, Bo, it's time to make a fool of yourself!" Wang Bo did not hesitate, thought for a moment, and immediately began to write a fu.

"The old county of Yuzhang, the new mansion of Hongdu. The stars are divided into wings, and the ground is connected to Henglu. The three rivers lead the five lakes, the wild thorns are controlled to attract Ouyue... The high pavilion of King Teng is adjacent to the river, and the jade is singing and dancing. The painted buildings fly towards Nanpu clouds, and the bead curtain rolls in the rain on the western mountains at dusk. The shadows of the leisurely clouds and lakes are long, and the things change and the stars move for several autumns. Where is the emperor in the pavilion now? Outside the threshold, the Yangtze River flows by itself."

(End of this chapter)