Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred and Eighty-Five The messenger goes south, the ship goes west
"Escort out of the city! Send a message to the south..."
"Let go!"
After the messenger in the cloud delivered the letter, in the evening of the same day, another group of messengers ran out of the craftsman camp and quickly ran south along the straight and wide stone road.
From the royal capital of Qincongcan to the south, more than a hundred miles along the way is the heart of Gyeonggi, with rich farmland, manors, villages and market towns everywhere. Thousands of military nobles and senior warriors, or emerging military landlords
As the basic foundation of the kingdom's rule, they were concentrated and enfeoffed here, and a large number of new fields were continuously cultivated.
"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! The Kingdom's transport team!..."
The roads in Gyeonggi are well maintained, and there are a large number of business trips. Among the teams along the way, the most special one is the transportation team from the Black Rock City Mining Area.
A squadron of hundreds of warriors, each fully armed, led several times the number of civilian laborers to transport goods, marching towards the capital. The peasant laborers were panting, pushing rows of loaded wheelbarrows. Most of the carts in the front row were covered with waterproofs.
There are straw mats, but from the faint golden luster and the heavy wheel marks, you can tell that these cars are full of valuable... bronzes equivalent to one-third of the weight of gold!
Yes, after several years of copper mining and bronze smelting, the price of bronzes in Gyeonggi has finally dropped to one-third of gold, which is significantly lower than that of the surrounding states and ministries, but it is enough to drive the countries of the Old Continent crazy. And the entire
The price of bronze in Central America, although also slowly declining, is still almost two-thirds of gold.
Therefore, before Mexico's southern expedition to Yunzhong, there would be many long-distance merchants from Yunzhong who would bring gold to buy bronzes, and then transport them back to Yunzhong to sell them in exchange for twice the gold...
“In all parts of the world, golden and durable bronze vessels are more sought after by nobles than heavy and soft gold vessels!…”
Through the trade of bronzes, copper ware, lake gems and Mayan turquoise, the gold reserves of the entire Mesoamerican world are constantly tilting towards the Kingdom of the Lake. And under the instructions of Shulot, the Apocalypse also began to mint coins.
Research and try to mint a standard equivalent of gold, a so-called "gold coin".
As for the specifications of the "gold coins", Shenqi Institute's skills are limited and it is difficult to make them too thin. Therefore, there are only two types of "gold coins" initially decided. One is a square gold charm weighing one pound, with the hummingbird emblem of the Lord God engraved on it.
Used for the purchase and sale of bulk commodities. There is also one tael (50g) of golden cocoa from the Kingdom, which is in the shape of a sacred oval and is used for daily consumption by nobles...
Well, the weight of a kingdom's gold cocoa is ordinary, that is, fourteen Venetian gold ducats. As for a gold talisman, it is even more unusual. According to the exchange ratio of one gold and fifteen silver at this time, it is the Ming Dynasty gold ducats.
Just 240 taels of silver...
"Lord God! What are those black stones? They look very evil..."
"Ha, are you from a foreign country? That is the burning underground black stone, which has the evil power of the dead, but has been purified by the priests in the mining area of Black Rock City through rituals... The old priest in the village quietly told me that these
The black stones are actually unbelievers who fell into the abyss of the earth, turned into solidified sculptures, and then were dyed black by the underworld... And then, they will be made into honeycombs, burned and dedicated to the Lord God, and also make those unbelievers
The soul gets a chance to be redeemed and converted!…”
"Hiss! It's terrible, it's really terrible! God bless you! I am your most devout believer. Please guide my soul after death and don't fall into the abyss..."
The uncovered wheelbarrows in the back were piled with dark coal and stone, which made the villagers who saw it very uneasy. Soon, low prayers sounded from the mouths of the passing villagers, spreading
Fear and fear-driven beliefs.
In fact, these black fuels must be supplied to the nearby Black Rock City mining area for smelting, and then transported to the craftsman camp in the royal capital. Only a small part of the coal will flow into the market and be made into honeycomb-like briquettes, used by warriors and nobles.
…
"The Blackstone City mining area has been expanded again, and more and more mine slaves are needed!...I don't know where to add another batch..."
"Last year, the commander of the Monkey Army attacked the Northern Tekos people and sent thousands of mine slaves, which should be able to last for two or three years... and now the commander of the Zicao Army is attacking the Mixtec seaside, and he should also bring back a lot of mines in the clouds.
slave…"
"Don't mention it! The Black Rock Mountain Iron Mine on the seaside is also expanding... The mining slaves captured by the Lithospermum Corps are all sent there first... You haven't seen the iron farm tools from the South. Now they are shipped in baskets and then sent to
Are there various manors and villages?…”
"Ha! That kind of useless iron tool will break after just two swings. How can it be compared with the bronze produced in our mining area..."
"Witness the Lord God! Things are different now! The iron tools shipped from the south are very durable now, at least they are easy to use as farm tools. The key is that they produce so much, so fast... Who knows when they will be replaced
The bronze produced in our mining area is..."
"Haha! Hard-to-use iron will replace easy-to-use bronze? You are really like a parrot, talking nonsense..."
"You blind rat fish..."
"Hush! A messenger from the royal capital is coming! Hurry! Let the civilians make way and let the king's messenger go first!..."
"Praise the Lord God! Praise Your Majesty!..."
As the transport team prayed, the messenger ran past. He ran through the villages in the lake area, across the flat county roads, and arrived at the border of Zicao County. Then, entering the rugged mountains, the secondary county road turned into a
The dirt road has turned into dense mountain forests on both sides. In the mountains and forests, you can often see hunting tribal flag teams, and villages where the flag teams hunt, gather, and farm and log trees.
"Hey! A group of pedestrians is coming! Quick, gather the flag team, bring goods and weapons, and trade with them!..."
"Idiot! Keep your eyes bright!... That is the messenger of the great chief, carrying the most noble flag! Those elite warriors are all directly subordinate to the great chief. You must not offend... Get out of the way, get out of the way! Prepare water.
, dedicated to messengers and warriors...No messy things allowed!..."
"Ah! Yes, Flag Head!..."
The messenger only stopped for a while, drank some water, and then continued running south. This mountain road continued for another one or two hundred miles, until the terrain became lower and lower and flatter. The streams in the mountains gradually gathered into
Rivers in the valley. And canals began to appear in the south, along with increasingly dense villages, eventually leading to a large sparkling lake...
“Atoyak Lake in Zicao County has finally arrived!…”
The messenger took a long breath. The continuous running almost exhausted his strength, and even the escorting warriors were exhausted. Soon, they found a post station by the lake and recruited three canoes and sailors.
Start paddling along the big lake towards Purple Grass City in the east.
"Huh? Those strange big ships actually set up such big sails? They have no oars, no oarsmen, and they transport so much wood, how can they still travel so briskly?"
"Ah, that's the shipbuilding company's new ship! What's it called... oh... water god sand boat!... They carry a lot of weight, ten times as much as a canoe, and they are very stable. They are very good cargo ships... but they are not really fast!... They are really fast.
There are only two large ships in the shipbuilding department! I have seen them sailing in the wind, just like arrows! I heard that they are blessed by the wind god, and the divinity of the wind is bound in the ship..."
The station sailor on the boat looked in awe, and pointed to the shipbuilder who was not far away outside Zicao City. He looked at the shipbuilder from a distance and prayed yearningly.
"Witness the Lord God! It is a fast ship like the wind, with high sails and a deep bottom, like a sharp shuttle of weaving cloth, and like long string beans in the field..."
"Look at those two ships, right there! Their names are the Fengshen Shuodou Ships!..."
The messenger's eyes widened. Among the many sand ships and galleys coming in and out, he saw two tall multi-masted ocean boats at a glance. One of them was old and slightly smaller, while the other was obviously larger and had a new hull.
Many. And some sailors are busy on the boat, skillfully handling the cables and sails...
"Ah! This is the wind god's ship that the director said, with a stable speed three times that of a galley ship! And such a never-before-seen fast ship was actually built under the guidance of craftsmen from the Xihai tribe! For this reason, the god
Qisuo directly conferred the title of two master craftsmen and sent samurai to protect him..."
The messenger blinked and looked at it in awe for a moment, then tightened the letter from the Divine Enlightenment around his waist and sighed piously.
"Blessed by the Lord God! Only in this way can the Wind God's ship be valued by His Majesty and the director, sail to the end of the endless West Sea, and support the brave and fearless Chief Priest Zuvalo!..."