The day after the competition, Guo Nuan got up early. At the gate of the temple courtyard, a king's special driving servant drove a gorgeous carriage to pick Guo Nuan up to meet the king.

"Well, it's too early. I usually like to drink afternoon tea, not morning tea." Guo Nuan smacked his mouth, and he shook his head helplessly. Under the smiling eyes of Aina and Dela, the old businessman, he Embark on a gorgeous carriage.

It is said that he had just taken a shower in the morning, and the temperature in the desert oasis was quite high. He had lived in Niya for almost a month, and he followed the Romans and bathed several times a day in the pool next to the temple. Interestingly, he and the monks were in the stream pool. When bathing, everyone covered their bodies with a piece of cloth. After landing, they were used to carving a game similar to the five-square grid on the ground. Sometimes everyone would gather in twos and threes to write and draw on the wall with charcoal. Guo Nuan had seen it. After reading the content on the wall, I couldn't help but marvel at the extremely precise counting of these steps by the Niya people from the Western Regions.

In the center of the small town is a tall hillside, on which stands King Niya's palace with large stone pillars. Under the leadership of his attendants, Guo Nuan quickly arrived at the marble steps of the palace.

The sun was shining brightly, and I walked into the porch on the outer edge of the palace. The jade handrails were surrounded by flowers and plants. Several maids were diligently wiping and cleaning the various stone statues on the railings. Their careful work made the stone carvings smooth and spotless.

Entering the house, Guo Nuan smelled the delicious aroma of cooking beef and mutton from afar, mixed with the fragrance of herbs, which drove away the stinky smell of the meat. Guo Nuan's mouth immediately started to salivate, and he swallowed subconsciously. one time.

"Thank you, (Niya language)" Guo Nuan nodded politely to the King driver who drove him all the way. After living there for a while, he also learned a lot of simple daily Niya expressions.

While talking, Guo Nuan took out a silver coin from his arms with a statue of King Niya III on the front and Niya's national flower Lithospermum on the back.

"You're welcome (Niya language)" The king's driver politely accepted the guest's generous reward. In this Western culture, giving coins to friendly service is an affirmation and respect for the value of his labor, so Guo Nuan directly paid Giving money to a servant is not an insult in Niya etiquette. Because the Silk Road allowed for frequent exchanges between people from the Western Regions and West Asian cultures, the Western Regions culture has a strong integration of Middle Eastern Bactria and Persian culture, which is somewhat different from the Eastern Central Plains culture. .

Guo Nuan walked into a large hall with many large stone pillars supporting the roof beams of the dome. The hall was ventilated on all sides and made of fences. There were also stoves, exquisite Middle Eastern carpets, and hot water pools, all of which were used to ward off the cold at night. As for the east corner of the main hall, there is a double-layered mahogany bookshelf, which is densely packed with many linear books. Guo Nuan also saw a shelf with parchment books and even bamboo slips from the Central Plains of China, which are probably very old. Bamboo book.

On one side of the hall, King Niyaz of Niya was lying on a beautifully carved pearwood lounge chair, fanning himself leisurely with a palmetto fan. A charcoal stove was placed on the stone table next to him. The meat is boiling hot in the kettle, and it turns out that the aroma comes from here.

"Hello, Guo Nuan, a native of Tang Dynasty from a magical country, (Chinese)" In Guo Nuan's surprised expression, King Niya slowly opened his eyes, smiled and greeted in stiff but fluent Chinese.

"Dear His Majesty the King, I didn't expect you to speak Chinese. This really surprises me, haha." At the king's signal, Guo Nuan sat on another lounge chair next to the king, with the outside of the palace behind his head. The flower pond on the railing exudes refreshing fragrance of flowers.

Guo Nuan took a sip of light tea, but he didn't expect it to be Biluochun from the Central Plains. The familiar taste of his hometown made him miss it greatly.

"It's strange, why I can speak Chinese," King Niya chatted with Guo Nuan in the most peaceful and friendly terms. For example, he did not use the noble title of king, but used the word "I" in spoken language.

"Well, yes," Guo Nuan took the slices of boiled meat that a servant next to him brought up on the charcoal stove. Although when inviting guests to chat, it is not usually a matter of drinking tea in his hometown, but the custom here is rather strange, and guests are also received while chatting. Eat meat.

"I saw a row of bookshelves in the corner. The people of Niya live a comfortable and prosperous life. The entire small country has not had any turmoil in the past ten years. As a king of Niya, government affairs are also very leisurely. In my free time, I will read books in the palace," Niya King Ya pointed to the bookshelf in the corner, and Guo Nuan nodded in understanding. He tasted a piece of mutton slices. It tasted really good and left a lingering aroma in his mouth.

"I am very curious and interested in many foreign cultures, such as the Buddhist culture of Tianzhu, the gold and silver craft culture of the Kushan Dynasty, and the architectural technology of Rome. Of course," King Niya talked eloquently. This is a very talkative person. The old man glanced at Guo Nuan and then said: "Of course, I also like to study Chinese culture, the mystery of the East, which is profound and profound. It's a pity that as the leader of a country, I can't leave. I can't bear to leave the people of Niya. Otherwise, I really hope to become a leader one day." An ordinary businessman travels to Datang,"

"Because of his strong interest in Chinese culture, His Majesty probably taught himself Chinese," Guo Nuan suddenly realized.

"Well, in fact, I am more suitable to be a traveler. Guo Nuan, you are a stranger traveling to the Western Regions and experiencing the beautiful scenery and customs along the way. Aren't you the kind of person I hope to be, haha," King Niya praised Guo Nuan laughed with his round beer belly. Guo Nuan felt very comfortable chatting with this naive and cute little old man. He knew that this king with a cheerful expression actually had a hint of loneliness in his words. Could it be that after being able to lead the people of Niya to live a prosperous and happy life, he was sad that he had lost the ideal pursuit of his heart? Guo Nuan was not sure. Maybe he didn't like being a king.

"Well, actually being the king of Niya was not my original intention. Originally, I was just an ordinary prince in the Niya royal family who was not favored by his father." Niya sighed quietly, and Guo Nuan realized that he had a long history. The story needs to be told to one person. Perhaps it was Guo Nuan's subtle identity as a foreigner that allowed him to find a breakthrough point for him to talk to. If he were a Niya person, he might not be able to understand the loneliness of this king from the perspective of an insider.

The story begins more than ten years ago. When the ninth King of Niyaz was still a prince, his father, the seventh King of Niya, married a member of the royal family of another oasis country more than a thousand miles away. The woman was the queen, and she had eleven concubines. The Niya Kingdom at that time was much more powerful than the current Niya. It had an oasis as the center and a territory of more than 1,500 miles in radius, including four oasis cities. , with more than 300,000 citizens and more than 80,000 troops, this is an oasis country with the strongest strength among the hundreds of oasis countries in the Western Region.

The Seventh King was an ambitious but willful tyrant and war-mad. Although after taking over the scepter from his father, the Sixth King, the territory of the Seventh King had increased several times due to the aggressive expansion of territory. However, Years of wars and fierce political struggles among ministers in the palace. The Niya Kingdom under the rule of the Seventh Dynasty was under a harsh military camp-style management. The whole city was full of soldiers and laborers. Under the pressure of battles and heavy construction projects, the Niya people Living a hard life under the iron-blooded rule of seven generations.

When Niaz was young, he often heard outspoken and loyal ministers outside the main hall, persuading his father not to launch military wars to invade other countries, but to focus his energy and thoughts on building a happy life for the people of his own country and city. However, the violent seventh generation was completely If Niyaz could not listen, all the ministers who insisted on admonishing him were tied to the gallows. Although the kind-hearted Niyaz wanted to persuade his father to pardon these courtiers who loved Niyyar's motherland and were extremely loyal, he was powerless because Niyaz The Yaz people said softly that he was just an ordinary prince among more than fifty princes. He was not born to a direct queen, and he did not have the support of a powerful noble elders backstage.

Later, in a confrontation with Tuyuhun, a powerful oasis country in the Western Regions, the seventh generation's ambitious plan to lead 80,000 troops across the country to capture Tuyuhun in one month was ruthlessly destroyed by reality. More than a thousand royal guards risked their lives to protect the seventh king and fled back to the Niya Kingdom. At the same time, Tuyuhun took the opportunity to devour nearly a thousand square miles of rich land in his own Niya Kingdom.

During the journey, the seventh generation, who had never suffered a defeat in war and was arrogant, vomited blood repeatedly. After persisting to the Niya Palace, he was dying. Before his death, the seventh generation on the throne handed over the throne to the queen's legitimate son. The eldest prince, who later became the Kingdom of Niya, was Nicholas VIII, the eldest brother of the current king Niyaz.

However, the tempers and personalities of Nicholas VIII and Nicholas VII were exactly the same. He was also a proud, arrogant, bad-tempered and arrogant prince.

After the seventh generation hurriedly passed away, the newly-promoted eighth generation king was unwilling to be humiliated by Tuyuhun, but he forgot that it was his father who first provoked the war and invaded Tuyuhun. However, the eighth generation, who was in blind anger, took another step. On the same wrong path as his father.

In the country of Niya, in order to prepare for the three-year war of revenge against Tuyuhun, the eighth generation implemented a more harsh and ruthless national policy of military slavery than his father. All urban residents between the ages of thirteen and sixty-five were Citizens had to join the army. Almost all children, husbands, and elderly men were forcibly recruited into the army for brutal training. Women over ten years old were drafted into building military strongholds and fortifications. In short, in order to launch an expedition within three years, the Eighth Emperor tormented the entire country of Niya to the point where the people were in dire straits. .

"Next, during the more than three hundred years since the founding of Niya, we Niya people were dragged into the most serious and tragic situation by my royal brother, and the country was almost destroyed..."
Chapter completed!