MTL - Chastity Layman-Chapter 1351 sunset

  Chapter 1351 Sunset

  Qin Lang stood on the balcony on the third floor of the Qin Family Commercial Building in Port of Mulla, watching the sunset over the Salween River in the distance.

  The sun is setting, the red sun is half covered by the hills and ridges, and half of the sky is red with the setting sun, which is very beautiful. Between the city and the mountains, there is a wide and calm water.

   That is the Salween River, and the people in the Qin family business house call it the Nu River.

   This is the river that the Southwestern Yi people call the Nu River. It originates from the southern foot of the Tanggula Mountains on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The local people call it Nagqu. This big river spans an extremely wide area and is nearly five thousand miles long.

   On the plateau, the water surface is winding and calm, but in the middle reaches, there are high mountains and deep valleys, and the water flow is turbulent. After entering the downstream, there is a lot of rain, large mountains and open mountains, forming a fertile farming area.

   It has been flowing south into the sea.

  Because the Nujiang River enters the bay here, it also makes this place one of the four major ports in the south of the Pyu Kingdom, and it is also the royal city of Baduwa Kingdom, which is the strongest among the Pyu Kingdom's feudal clans.

  But now, this southeast port of the Pyu Kingdom, which was more than 1,200 miles east to west from Michen Port, has also been captured by the coalition forces.

  The Qin family has established a business here for many years, and has collected all kinds of information here. When the coalition forces took the lead in capturing the southwestern Michen Port, the Qin family also began to act here.

   "It's so beautiful here!"

   "Actually, the sunset is beautiful everywhere." Qin Lang hugged the queen to enjoy the sunset together, the sun was setting and the sky was full of colorful clouds.

  I am in a foreign country, but looking at the sunset and sunset, I always feel familiar and kind.

  Compared to Bochen Port, which is more than 200 miles away from the coast, Mora Port is by the sea.

Located on the east coast of Motama Bay in the Andaman Sea, at the confluence of the Nujiang River, the Jiying River and the Arante River, it is located in the alluvial plain, backed by the Bilau Mountains, and Bilu Island is a barrier in the southwest of the port. It is an excellent safe haven. There are two entrances to the sea.

  Shipping is smooth.

  Mola is also a powerful vassal of the Pyu Kingdom. He also advocates Mahayana Buddhism, but there are also many Brahmans and Hinduism in the territory. With the Qin family building a business here, they also built Taoist temples and Confucian temples.

   "What a great place!"

  Qin Lang sighed, compared to Bochen Port, Mora Port is not bad.

  One side is a hilly ridge with a towering pagoda, one side is a blue sea, and the middle is full of Buddhist temples and dwellings.

  Here is just like a beautiful landscape painting.

  Qin Lang stood here, looking at the Nu River, and even felt like he was standing on the Bund in Shanghai.

   "Unexpectedly, this big river flows southward from the Xichang Road on the plateau. The plateau, snow-capped mountains, glaciers, and then canyons, rainforests, and plains rush into the sea." The queen thought of Qilu Lake in Yunnan, which leads to the sea.

   "How can there be no wine in such a beautiful scenery? Have a drink?"

  The queen smiled and shook her head.

   "This scenery is so intoxicating, I should have a cup of tea. I will get what kind of tea Saburo wants to drink."

   "Let me come, I'll make two cups of **** and osmanthus tea."

  Ginger osmanthus tea is also simple. In this humid Pyuyue, a cup of **** osmanthus tea is quite good.

  Slice the ginger, wash the real cinnamon from the Lion Kingdom, then take the black tea, put it in a teapot and boil it together, wait until the water turns red, remove the tea, ginger, and cinnamon.

   "Would you like sugar?"

   "This brown color is really pretty, I want some brown sugar."

  Add a piece of brown sugar, and a cup of **** and osmanthus tea is ready.

  A cup of tea like this can dehumidify and warm the stomach, and can also dispel cold and relieve pain.

  Queen Fan Lin took the tea and felt extremely warm in her heart. He remembered that he was always uncomfortable on those days every month, and he was always so considerate.

  Qin Lang raised his glass and smiled at the Queen.

  Tea entrance is really good, although for Qin Lang, he actually prefers to drink green tea, but this kind of tea with added ingredients is also good to drink occasionally.

   Of course, such a cup of tea is now popular all over the world. In the West, even the aristocratic class can enjoy a fashionable lifestyle.

Seemingly simple tea, but first of all, there must be a set of porcelain tea sets from the Eastern Tang Dynasty, and the nobles also pay attention to blue and white porcelain from Jingdezhen in the Tang Dynasty, followed by celadon from Yuezhou and white porcelain from Xingzhou , and the third is porcelain produced in Luoyang, Changsha, Taiping, and Luzon bone china.

  A set of the best Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain, the price is more than gold, especially those customized limited edition, it is a luxury among luxury, some of which are jointly produced by famous calligraphers and painters, it is even more rare.

  It is not enough to have a good porcelain tea set, and tea, ginger, osmanthus, and sugar are not cheap.

  Tea is also divided into many grades. For example, the most popular black tea comes from Jiangxi and Wuyi Mountain in Fujian. The most precious variety is more than ten times more expensive than gold of equal weight.

China and Tianzhu are the first areas to grow ginger. In ancient China, **** was not only used as a seasoning but also as a medicine. The ancient Tianzhu even called **** a panacea given by the Buddha, and the Arabs described **** as heaven in the Koran. Holy drink.

  In the Nanyang region, they also firmly believe that **** has an aphrodisiac effect.

  So in ancient international trade, **** was a commodity with a large volume of trade, both as a spice and as a medicinal material.

  Especially in the northern European regions, **** cannot be produced by itself, so it has become a spice for Saijin, which has the same status as pepper and cinnamon.

   Moreover, the storage and transportation of **** is not easy. In many cases, **** is made into **** powder or dried ginger, which is transported and sold, and the price of **** will naturally rise to a higher level.

  Cinnamon is even more fried.

The cinnamon in Qin Lang's cup of tea is cinnamon from Sinhala, also known as real cinnamon, to distinguish it from other places or China, because only cinnamon from the lion country has a more unique taste, while cinnamon from China The cinnamon flavor is stronger.

Lion country cinnamon is light brown, with thin skin and many layers, and has a mild and sweet taste. It is suitable for making desserts, milk tea, etc. In contrast, Chinese cinnamon is dark brown, with thick skin and few layers. It has a pungent and spicy taste and is more suitable for stew cooking. , generally called cinnamon.

  In the west, the cinnamon of the lion country is still being marketed and hyped by those sea merchants, and many myths and legends have been made up, which makes the cinnamon covered with a veil of mystery.

From ancient Egypt to ancient Rome, cinnamon is very popular in the West, not only for seasoning, but also for medical treatment, cosmetics, anointing oil, incense, and even Egyptian mummies, while the ancient Romans popularized cremation, Cinnamon is also used in funerals.

The use of cinnamon in their cremation is also related to that marketing legend. For ancient Westerners, the source of cinnamon was a mystery. In order to keep the cinnamon channel secret and maintain high prices, merchants carefully made up a story, saying that there is a magical bird called Immortality. bird.

  They feed on frankincense. Five hundred years after their birth, they land on the top of a palm tree to build a nest for themselves, and then go out to collect spices such as cinnamon, pine, and myrrh, put them in the nest, and lay them on their bodies. When it exhales its last breath, it dies quietly, and at the same time, a new phoenix will fly out of its body, which also has a life span of 500 years. When the phoenix grows strong enough, it will fly its parents' nest from the tree, carry it to Heliopolis, Egypt, and place it in the Temple of the Sun.

And people want to get cinnamon, only when the phoenix flies to Egypt with its nest, when they are tired, they will choose to rest on the cliffs, so when the merchants find out, they will offer cattle to lure the phoenix to the cattle. Bring it back to the nest, the live cow is struggling in the nest of the phoenix, the heavy cow will destroy some of the nest of the phoenix, and let some materials of the nest, such as cinnamon, fall down the cliff.

   Merchants can take risks to collect these cinnamons at this time.

  So these cinnamons were said by the merchants to be miraculous, so that the Egyptians used cinnamon to make mummies, and the Romans used cinnamon in cremation. They all believed that cinnamon had the rebirth of the phoenix.

Many Westerners are very superstitious about cinnamon. They add **** and pepper to cinnamon to make a decoction. They believe that men can stay strong after drinking it. They even rub it between the legs of a girl, which can help both parties to be happy like a fairy, so cinnamon is also used in the West. Become a just-needed commodity for a brothel.

In fact, more than 70% of the cinnamon exported to the west comes from the lion country, and 30% comes from Southeast Asia and China. Some businessmen deliberately fake the lion country cinnamon, also known as fake cinnamon, and the cinnamon from the lion country is also called real. Cinnamon.

  At the time when it was the most expensive, cinnamon was sold more expensive than gold, but in recent years, due to the increase in the volume of maritime trade, cinnamon has increased the amount of imports and the price has dropped a lot.

When Qin Lang met in the maritime alliance before, in addition to discussing the tariff agreement, he also took the lead in proposing a spice export agreement, that is, to distribute the output of spices, negotiate a unified spice export price, and control the export quantity to ensure the high-end spices price, to safeguard the common interests of all.

   In fact, whether it is cinnamon or pepper, cloves, cardamom, ginger, etc., it is not really a rare thing, it is just a matter of supply and demand.

In the past, Westerners thought that all the spices came from India, but in fact, most of the spices came from Southeast Asia or the Indochina Peninsula. India only monopolized the spice trade a long time ago. In the eighth century, the Arabs began to monopolize the spices. trading.

   Later, in order to break through the blockade and find new spice trade routes, the Age of Discovery came about, and because of the Age of Discovery, it triggered the spice wars in Central and South Asia among Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

  Where there is demand, there will be commercial interests. When there are enough demands, the benefits will be large enough.

In the age of great voyages, with the arrival of western colonists, they occupied and controlled many spice producing areas and planted them on a large scale, which made the production of spices excessive, so those spice merchants directly burned a large amount of spices, and then continued to maintain sky-high price.

   Pouring milk has existed since ancient times.

In the final analysis, spices are mainly not produced in the west, and the demand is high. They have the needs of marinating fish and seasoning, and at the same time, some people deliberately market and hype them, so they also have functions in medical treatment, health care, and even makeup, which naturally lead to demand. The volume remains high.

  Not to mention the far west, even in ancient China, things like pepper were very expensive. Even in the Han and Wei dynasties, they were mainly imported from the Silk Road in the Western Regions, making a big detour.

  Even in the Tang and Song dynasties, pepper and other spices were still expensive. Even in the Ming Dynasty, the emperor monopolized the spices sold in his own hands through the tribute trade, and then sold them at high prices, or used them as currency and distributed them to officials as salaries.

If Qin Lang can pull the Nanyang countries to establish such a spice supply organization, then he will be able to control the output, control the price, distribute shares internally, compete in an orderly manner, cooperate with each other, avoid vicious competition, seize the market disorderly, and lead to excessive production capacity , the price crashes.

  This is like the oil organizations of later generations. They have the final say on how much to produce and what price. If the price is low, they will reduce the production and supply to drive up the price.

  Pepper is sold by the piece, a cow is exchanged for two catties of cardamom, and a horse is exchanged for one catty of saffron...

  Black pepper steak, white pepper pork belly chicken, delicious.

In fact, limited by maritime shipping, coupled with the previous wars in Persia and Dashi, the trade route from Nanyang to the Mediterranean was not smooth, and it had to travel by sea and land, and even had to pass through the war zone, which greatly reduced the supply of spices. Prices have also remained high.

  Nowadays, the Great Food Civil War has started again. From the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean, there are wars everywhere, and the trade roads are not smooth. The price of spices in the markets of Western countries continues to rise.

Many businessmen are looking for new trade routes. Some people try to cross the interior of Africa and bypass the Red Sea. Some people try to take the northern line of the Arabian Peninsula. Some people see the power of the Tang Dynasty and try to sail eastward to the southeast coast of the Central Plains. Then go west through the land silk road and take the northern line through the Western Regions, without passing through Persia, directly into the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, to Rome, Frank, and then to the Mediterranean.

  Of course, there are also merchants who try to enter Jiannan, Yunnan through the Red River in Jiaozhou, and then enter the west of the Guanlong River, or land directly at the mouth of the Indus River, cross the Khyber Pass, enter Tocharia, and go west through Zhaowu...

  (end of this chapter)