Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 873 Different Roads
Mi Zhen, who was pouring tea for Yuan Xi, heard this. She poured the tea gently, put down the copper pot in her hand, put the tea bowl in her hand, sat back down, and then replied: "What happened a few days ago, at that time. Because there are many diseases in the fleet, I asked the crew to rest for a few days, and also asked the commander of the fleet to write down the situation. I just sent it yesterday, so I didn't have time to tell my husband."

She stood up, found a tube of bamboo slips on the desk, unfolded it in front of Yuan Xi and said, "Husband, please take a look."

The bamboo slips were extremely long, nearly four or five feet long, and were densely covered with words. Yuan Xi took a brief look and saw that there were probably dozens of entries in them, and they were clearly organized. He could tell who wrote the bamboo slips. A lot of effort was put into it.

He thought to himself that it was no wonder it took so many days. He thought it was too slow at first, but now it seems that the fleet commander did his job carefully and reliably, and did not deal with the matter in a hurry.

He read a few pieces and found out from the historical evidence of later generations that the bamboo slips were quite accurate and detailed. This showed that the organizer was very capable, so he asked, "Is this written by the commander of the caravan?"

“It’s quite difficult to write to this point.”

Mi Zhen said: "This is a distant relative of the Mi family. His name is Mi Tai. He is almost fifty years old. He has twenty or thirty years of experience on the sea and has traveled many sea routes."

Yuan Xi nodded, "I will give him an official position, and from now on I will make him responsible for transportation affairs with the Wonu Kingdom. Everyone else will be rewarded."

Mi Zhen smiled and said: "That's good. The sea is dangerous and 10% of the time will not come back. With this kind of precedent, there will be many more people willing to go to sea in the future."

Yuan Xi read each article and found that most of them described the customs and customs of the Japanese slave country, and said that it was extremely backward. There was no established textile technology and there were not many usable goods.

Mi Tai led the fleet and circled most of the Wonu Islands. He found many tribes, but few of them could provide tradable goods. They were very keen on the silk, silk, porcelain and other items in the caravan. , but there are not many things in hand that can be exchanged. Most of the time, the only thing that can be provided is raw mouth.

Mi Zhen was a little confused, "Are you going to do what the First Emperor did and turn it into a future territory through written weights and measures?"

Moreover, wars are frequent, with more than a hundred countries at war for years. Rather than being a country, it is actually similar to the barbarian tribes. Life is very difficult, and many of the tribes are wary of caravans. Due to the pressure of livelihood, some tribes try to rob merchants. However, they were no match for the well-equipped Mi family caravan, and they were all defeated and driven away by the caravan.

But at the beginning, Yuan Xi had specially asked to find a way to find some local people to come back. Since it was an invitation, it was also an exchange, so he took dozens of people back with the fleet.

"If you had written words, it would be difficult to write further, but now it seems that even the words are not formed, so can't we fill in the gaps?"

Yuan Xi smiled and said: "Because this place is almost a blank bamboo slip."

Mi Zhen nodded in agreement. Seeing Yuan Xi's high interest, she asked a little puzzled: "I feel that this place in the Japanese slave country is not suitable for doing business. It is far inferior to the production of the Korean Peninsula. Why are you so happy?"

Yuan Xi smiled and said: "If you get it right in one step, you will save a lot of trouble in the future."

"Language barrier is not a problem, it can all be learned. These people know the style of the Japanese slave country best. Let them learn Chinese so that they can serve as translators for the fleet and communicate with the local people in the future."

The slaves were slaves. At this time, the Japanese slave country was still in the era of slave tribes. The Japanese slave kingdom was just a collective name for these 100 tribes. Mi Tai was not very interested in this kind of raw slave trade. The reason is that these people are very thin and short and cannot do much heavy work. Secondly, the language barrier makes it very inconvenient for them to do things.

"Only by using the same words will they gradually accept Chinese culture."

Moreover, they did not have the ability to value goods from the Central Plains, and often underestimated the value of goods. The two sides had great differences in the value of the goods being exchanged, making it difficult to carry out trade.

However, these people do not understand the language, have difficulty communicating, and are not familiar with life at sea, so many of them are sick and are now looking for doctors to treat them.

When Yuan Xi saw this, he said to Mi Zhen: "Remember to send someone to take care of the doctors and try your best to cure them. Don't worry about the medicinal materials. These people are still of great use."

The language barrier was also a big problem. At this time, the writing system of the Wonu Kingdom was not unified, and the symbols were extremely confusing. It was extremely difficult for both parties to communicate. They only used physical objects to make gestures, which was a great obstacle to transactions.

"Of course, we don't need to use force. We just need to build a seaport nearby and let some people settle and educate them. Those who are unwilling to accept will not be forced, and those who are willing will come naturally."

Mi Zhen smiled bitterly and said, "This seems to be beyond the capabilities and authority of the Mi family caravan."

Yuan Xi said: "So I want to open a government and set up a special official office." "Temporarily named Overseas Protectorate, I will organize a large-scale fleet to go there with materials and food, and grant land rewards to those who are willing to go. Establish settlements along the coast.”

"This is the most important task for the caravan in the next few years or even decades. If it can get off to a good start, it can expand its territory and establish an extremely secure territory."

"By the way, ask someone to make arrangements. I will meet with them in the next few days and arrange for them to enter the free school to learn Chinese characters."

Mi Zhen agreed, went downstairs to find the maid, and asked her to call the shopkeeper of Haixi Trading Company. Yuan Xi looked at the port in the distance, thinking that he had to take the first step after all, and the sooner the better.

He has no psychological pressure on this, just like the Goguryeo countries on the Korean Peninsula. If you don't occupy it, someone will occupy it. If you don't develop the underground mines, others will rob them. Compared with those who treat the indigenous people as dogs, As a pirate country, the Chinese people at least aim at national integration.

Yuan Xi's ultimate goal was to use commerce as a means to expand his territory externally, supplemented by cultural assimilation. At this time, the tribesmen of the Wonu Kingdom and the Korean Peninsula had not formed a systematic writing system. The most important thing for national integration was to directly spread the Chinese language. the first step.

It used to be difficult to assimilate different regions. Qin Shihuang is indeed the greatest pioneer. Books in different languages ​​will not form a stable and consistent sense of regional identity. Cars in different tracks will lead to the isolation of economic activities and commercial trade. The former is culture. , the latter is economics. Only when both of them can be unified can different nationalities gradually integrate.

In Yuan Xi's view, the late Han Dynasty was just the right time for overseas tribes to become curious about Chinese cultural life, but they themselves were in a chaotic and evil process. If they wanted to assimilate them, there were two ways, one was to conquer them violently, and the other was to conquer them by force. It’s cultural assimilation.

The former was a method used by Western colonists, and the latter was a path tried by the Tang Dynasty. Although the Tang Dynasty failed in the end, it learned many valuable experiences and lessons.

The biggest insight Yuan Xi got from this was that the key point is to maintain the absolute initiative of the dominant nation. Whether it is in terms of numbers, technology, culture, or military strength, only when there is a gap, will the backward nation Slowly attach to it.

For example, the people of Bingzhou in Youzhou are fierce and fierce, and the Hu and Han people live together. Whoever has a big fist will be subdued. At this time, military strength is the first priority. If they are invincible, the Hu people will naturally be convinced. But if they can't fight, they can be bribed with peace. Such methods will only be despised by the barbarians, laying the foundation for trouble and causing chaos sooner or later.

In fact, the same is true for other foreign ethnic groups. Even if they have a sense of cultural identity, if the Han government is too weak, while the foreigners envy the Chinese culture, they will have another idea, which is to absorb the Chinese culture, replace it with the Han people, and become the Chinese The orthodox heir of culture.

Therefore, no matter how powerful the Japanese slaves in later generations were militarily, they secretly claimed that they were the legitimate successors of Chinese culture, just to compete for this orthodoxy.

The Bangzi Kingdom is much more shameless. It directly creates history and covers up the fact that its culture was stolen from China. This is related to its region, because once they give up this plagiarism, it will not prove the origin of their ancestors. It is so glorious that it is devastating to the national self-confidence of such a small country.

The national self-confidence of the Chinese nation comes from the glorious cultural inheritance of ancestors from generation to generation. There is clear and conclusive evidence, which makes the Chinese nation pursue ancestor worship because their ancestors did have great achievements.

On the contrary, people who believe in sacrificial gods more than their ancestors have historically been ashamed to speak out, so they choose religion to anesthetize themselves with self-deception.

Just like the first batch of European pirate immigrants to the Americas, most of them were mainly Protestants. There is a reason why they claimed to be Puritans with strict discipline and were unwilling to associate with European Catholics who lived a debauched and degenerate life, so they went to find The new world has gone.

However, in fact, this group of so-called Protestants, even in Europe, which was under high-pressure colonial rule, was considered to be the lowest moral group. What happened later on the American continent also confirmed this.

The reason why these scumbags practice Protestantism is actually very clear to Europeans, because compared to the Catholic doctrine that preaches that bad people can be transformed into good people by doing good deeds, the Protestant doctrine is more inclined to the fact that people are destined from birth, and good people are good people, and they can do whatever they want. That’s right, bad people are bad people, it’s determined from birth.

This kind of Protestant doctrine actually returned to the Jewish Old Testament lineage theory from Catholicism. Therefore, whatever these people did on the American continent was endorsed by their doctrine, so they acted in such a dehumanizing way, which also explains why they are so different from Judaism. They can hit it off immediately, but they will reject the Orthodox Church of the same system.

The external performance of a nation is closely related to the ideology it believes in. The culture of some ethnic groups is hopeless, and what they believe in is the complete annihilation of other different races. Therefore, the Chinese nation wants to have peaceful dialogue with them. Wishes are destined to be wishful thinking.

What Yuan Xi has to do now is to directly replace as many overseas tribes with Chinese culture as possible before they form their own culture, so as to avoid the hidden danger of future conflicts. Although it may not be successful, if he does not try, even that There is no chance at all.

Moreover, in this era overseas, including Southeast Asia and South Asia, the population is not large due to backward productivity. In contrast, if the war in the Central Plains stops, the population will grow rapidly. When there is an upper limit for agricultural cultivation, the excess population will Diversion to the outside is also an extremely useful countermeasure.

A few days later, Yuan Xi and Mi Zhen left the house together to see the caravan returning from the Wonu Kingdom.

(End of this chapter)