At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 590: Ptolemy's Rich Disease

Agricultural technicians also led these indigenous people to transform the land. In relatively fertile areas, they built karez to store water and reclaim fields, while in barren areas they led them to plant alfalfa.

This is a forage grass discovered by farmers in the Western Regions. It grows fast and is nutritious. It is the most suitable forage for cattle and horses, and people can also eat it as a vegetable. More importantly, alfalfa is a legume, which can effectively replenish nitrogen in the soil. That is to say, after growing alfalfa for a few years, the land will become more fertile, and the wasteland can be slowly transformed into fertile farmland.

The lower the level of civilization, the more they worship the use of force. When the natives found that they could not rob the Han people at all, they discovered that the Han people had the ability to change the world and bring them a better life. These people were very willing to directly surrender to the Yanzhou Governor's Office. Now, one or two tribes come to surrender to the Yanzhou Governor's Office every few days.

Ding He settled these people outside the Governor's Office, and then the farmers and the soldiers of the Han Dynasty led them to build square grass, fix sand and soil to transform their homes, and plant alfalfa in the Gobi area. They turned the Gobi into their own new pasture, taught them how to build pastures, how to make silage, and use more efficient fixed-point breeding technology to replace free-range technology. The cattle, sheep and war horses raised by these herdsmen were traded by the Yanzhou Governor's Office with cloth, salt and various industrial products of the Han Dynasty, and the Yanzhou Governor's Office also received nearby logistical support.

Thanks to this mutually beneficial cooperation, a large number of herdsmen's villages emerged outside the Yanzhou Governor's Office, leading to the scene Zhang Pijiang saw now.

Ding He led Zhang Pijiang to the meeting room of the Governor's Office. Then he said helplessly, "You are finally back. Go to Ptolemy State and take up your post. If you don't come back, I am worried that one day I will lose my temper and shoot these corrupt nobles."

"What's going on?" Zhang Pijiang asked in surprise.

"The nobles of Ptolemy treat our Governor's Office as a market. They come to us at any time and say they want to buy our goods. But they don't have any money. They always ask for slaves to pay off their debts, or they say that if we don't give them goods, they will take the slaves back. I haven't seen such greedy and shameless faces for many years. If I didn't know that Yanzhou Governor's Office still needed the support of Ptolemy, I really couldn't help my temper and wanted to hang a few nobles."

At this time, a soldier came in and said, "General, the Prime Minister of Ptolemy is here again, and he wants us to prepare a sumptuous meal."

When Ding He heard this arrogant remark, he clenched his fists and wanted to teach him a lesson. But Zhang Pijiang pulled Ding He and said, "Leave this matter to me."

Zhang Pijiang asked the cook to prepare a roasted whole lamb, a stewed beef with potatoes, and an egg soup. He also added some vegetables and a bottle of sugarcane wine, and a simple meal of four dishes and one soup was ready.

Theodos, the court minister of Ptolemy, was not polite either. He used a wooden spoon and a wooden fork to eat and drink. It was obviously an ordinary dish. It was also a simple roasted whole lamb. Ptolemy also had it. They also copied the recipe of the Han Dynasty, but it was not as delicious as the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty's authentic recipe made him eat three times more than usual. Every time he ate this kind of food, his appetite would be opened.

It can be said that in this world, except for the Han people, the only function of food is to fill the stomach. Don't even think about delicacies. They didn't have delicacies thousands of years later, let alone now.

On the contrary, it was because of Xu Fan's plug-in that the iron pan appeared thousands of years earlier in the Han Dynasty. MSG was also invented by him. There were hundreds of kinds of spices used in food in the Han Dynasty. Now all kinds of Han food have appeared, but the varieties are not as rich as in later generations. But as long as there is another one or two hundred years of accumulation, maybe the Han Dynasty will have more than eight major cuisines in the future.

After having a good meal and a good drink, Theodos looked at Zhang Pijiang who had disappeared for more than half a year and said, "Are you Han people really like the sons of God in the legend?"

Zhang Pijiang felt puzzled. They hadn't seen each other for half a year. Why were these Ptolemaic nobles going crazy again?

But in fact, Theodos and even Ptolemy's nobles were shocked by the organizational ability of the Han Dynasty. At the beginning, they gave up this land and allowed the Han Dynasty to establish the Yanzhou Governor's Office here. In addition to the fact that the Han Dynasty gave enough money, it was directly related to the fact that this area was extremely desolate and there were many barbarians from the periphery who often invaded.

In the eyes of Ptolemy's nobles, this land is not a positive asset for the country, but a negative asset. It is constantly consuming the country's wealth. If the Han people build a base here, it will help them isolate the barbarians from invading this area and save the country's military expenses.

But these Han people seemed to have supernatural powers. In less than two years, they built a big city with tens of thousands of people in such a desolate place. He could see the wind blowing the wheat waves through the window. Those who didn't know would think that this was a field beside the Nile River. The lush wheat seedlings showed the tremendous vitality of this land. In September, there would surely be a scene of a good harvest here. It all looked so beautiful, but in fact this field was just a wasteland two years ago.

Moreover, the Han people actually created a specialty from this poor place, which is high-quality white salt from South Korea. Now not only the nobles of the Ptolemaic Empire cannot do without the Han people's fine white salt, but also the nobles and kings of dozens of countries in the entire Mediterranean cannot do without the Han people's white salt.

As the Han Dynasty promoted globalization, various technologies spread at a speed that was unimaginable in thousands of years. The Han Dynasty's salt-drying technology spread from the Han Dynasty to India, and then from India to the Xiongnu Kingdom, from the Xiongnu Kingdom to Parthia and the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and then spread to all the Mediterranean countries. Of course, the price of salt in Daqinzhou did not drop much, but the production efficiency did increase dozens of times.

However, sun-dried salt can only be refined into coarse salt, and after decades of technological accumulation, the Han Dynasty produced snow-white salt with no bitterness, which is the best salt. The nobles of the entire Mediterranean buy the best fine salt here.

In addition to salt, there is another luxury item here. Alfalfa is not only a high-quality pasture, but also has beautiful flowers. Farmers also have the technology to cultivate honey. In order to increase the income of these herdsmen, farmers teach them to cultivate honey. Although the production capacity of honey is not high due to the short teaching time, honey is a high-end luxury item and is generally transported back to the mainland of Dahan.

After the prices of high-end luxury goods such as white sugar and rock sugar were brought down, honey, with its extremely complex reproduction and extremely low production capacity, once again became a high-end luxury product in the Han Dynasty. The nobles and wealthy businessmen of the Han Dynasty preferred to eat honey, and the price was also more expensive, with one pound selling for more than two or three thousand coins.

A barren land was transformed by the Han people into an unprecedented fertile land. Everything that happened in Yanzhou Governor's Office was almost like a myth to the nobles of Ptolemy.

"Our country wants to buy more iron pots, sugar, spices, refined salt, silk, tea, and mirrors. For the sake of the friendly relations between our two countries, we hope that your country can reduce the prices of these goods further, preferably to less than 30%." Theodos said this very sincerely, his eyes full of sincerity, and he had the sincerity of asking you to agree to it in your daily life.

Although they were surprised by the power of the Han people, they still wanted to live a good life, and to live a good life, these goods of the Han people were indispensable items. Now even the queen had to change her silk clothes in front of the Han people's half-length mirror. The various colors of silk clothes in the wardrobe made the noble ladies of Ptolemy envious.

Although Zhang Pijiang had no expression on his face, he couldn't help shaking his head in his heart. The Roman Empire and the Seleucid Empire both made some machines that could produce and use farm tools to expand agricultural production. Although they also had luxury goods such as silk, the nobles of these countries at least knew how to create wealth.

But the nobles of Ptolemy only knew how to buy these luxury goods to satisfy their own extravagance and debauchery, but they never thought about how to develop the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Zhang Pijiang had a feeling in his heart that the Ptolemaic Kingdom might not last long.

"Our country will not interfere with the trade of merchants. If you can negotiate a price with the merchant, you can trade at that price without the approval of our governor's office."

Theodos's face turned unhappy when he heard this. If he could have talked those merchants over, he wouldn't have come to the Yanzhou Governor's Office.

After the Han people came to the Ptolemaic Empire, they brought a wave of wealth. Slaves shipped from the West to the East and goods shipped from the East to the West had to pass through their country. Just think about how the Ottoman Empire built a great empire spanning three continents by collecting tolls.

Although Ptolemy was not so exaggerated, after all, the Seleucid Empire occupied this part of the profits of the Silk Road, but even only half of the profits of the Maritime Silk Road would be unprecedented wealth for the Ptolemaic Empire.

But there is a famous saying in later generations: when you can no longer control the wealth, it will be lost again in other ways.

This wealth can change the fate of a country, but the premise is that the country uses this wealth in a reasonable place. Otherwise, it will suffer from rich diseases, and wealth will become a deadly poison.

In history, the Ming Dynasty almost sucked all the silver in the world, but this cannot change everyone's view that the Ming Dynasty was a dynasty that died of poverty.

This is a very strange phenomenon. When people talk about the Ming Dynasty on the Internet, they think of it as an extremely poor dynasty. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang, Song, Yuan and Qing Dynasties, in more than two thousand years of feudal history, everyone remembers that the Ming Dynasty was a beggar dynasty. The founding emperor was born a beggar, and the emperor who destroyed the country, Chongzhen, was so poor that he could only wear patched clothes and had to borrow money from his ministers. The poverty of the Ming Dynasty has become a mental imprint in everyone's mind.

But when people discuss the plot of the Age of Discovery, they will say that all the silver, gold and silver that Spain burned, killed and looted flowed into the Ming Dynasty. Many people do not realize the conflict between these two views.

Or is it that such a conflict is not discussed much on the Internet? How much money did the landlords in Jiangnan absorb? Why was this money not used for industrial development?
Niu Niu only earned a little bit of money from Spain, plus the money earned from pirate robbery. This amount of money is probably not even one-tenth or one-hundredth of what the Ming Dynasty earned. But they opened the door to industry and embarked on a new path. It seems that few people discuss such a controversial matter online.

The reality is that after the huge amount of silver poured into the Ming Dynasty, it was not invested in reproduction, but was melted into 800 kilograms by the landlords, or was annexed in their hometowns, causing more refugees, and eventually the Ming Dynasty collapsed. This so-called bud was once again buried in the ruins of the Ming Dynasty and crushed to death.

The Ptolemy dynasty was a Western dynasty. They did not have the means to hide their wealth like the Eastern landlords, but they learned the means to show off their wealth like the Spanish nobles.

The establishment of the Yanzhou Governorate of the Han Dynasty and the excavation of the Suez Canal directly brought enormous wealth to the Ptolemaic Empire, not to mention the Maritime Silk Road.

Faced with this wave of wealth, the Ptolemaic nobles chose to use the fortune to buy Han luxury goods such as silk, tea, porcelain, spices, etc. They learned the exquisite lifestyle of the Han people, including having afternoon tea with their three meals a day, and using authentic Han porcelain for tableware, and they would not use anything other than high-end bone china.

The means by which these nobles flaunt their wealth are constantly being upgraded. When they discovered that everyone owned Han bone china, some business genius came up with the idea of ​​engraving Ptolemy text on the bone china, promoting the idea that such special customization was in keeping with their sacred status as nobles.

At first, the Queen of Ptolemy ordered a set of customized high-end bone china. Of course, the price increased more than ten times. Later, such customized goods became a necessity for the nobles of Ptolemy to show off their status. Each noble family went to the Han Dynasty, thousands of miles away, to customize bone china with their own family emblem.

Porcelain is only a small part of the competition among these nobles. If your family buys high-end silk, my family will buy two pieces. Your family held a barbecue party to entertain the nobles and also prepared 13 incense sticks. The aroma of the incense sticks can fill the whole city.

Then my family's barbecue banquet will have 26 spices, and the aroma of the spices will spread for 10 miles. Your family hired a big chef, and I will hire two or three, one who cooks Guanzhong cuisine, one who cooks Luoyang cuisine, and another who cooks Jiangnan cuisine.

Ptolemy's nobles held crazy banquets and competed with each other for wealth. Part of this huge amount of wealth flowed to other Mediterranean countries, and most of it flowed back to the Han Dynasty.

As a result of this competition for wealth, the nobles of the Ptolemaic Empire soon found that their family's wealth was not enough for their daily expenses. The exquisite silk clothes for the noble ladies' dinner parties were no longer available, and there was not enough money for daily expenses. The banquets that were held once every three days could now only be held once every half a month, and the spices, tea, sugar and other luxury goods they used had to be calculated in quantity.

Life suddenly became difficult. The nobles of Ptolemy did not want to lower their quality of life, so they could only find ways to find the Han people to lower the prices of some luxury goods. In the eyes of these nobles, the Han people were allies with them, so this should not be difficult to do, which led to the scene today.

(End of this chapter)