In February of the spring of the fourth year of Tianan, Wen Zhong, the envoy of farming in Chigu City, came to Yutian. Now it is no longer the Kingdom of Yutian, but the Yutian Dao under the jurisdiction of the Western Regions of the Great Han Dynasty.

The Yuchi family, who had been in the country for more than a hundred years, was revoked by the Han court for an inexplicable reason: According to the legend of the royal family of Khotan, they defeated the son of King Son Du Wuyou (King Ashoka) and took root here. After calculation, it happened to be in the Qin Dynasty. Under the temptation of the custodian, the royal family of Khotan thought they could compete with the Central Plains, and foolishly admitted that they were descendants of the Ying family.

The poor King of Khotan didn't know that in the Han Dynasty, "after the violent Qin Dynasty" it was the original sin. Emperor Wu of Han wanted to equip the Han Dynasty with the two kings and three Ke, so he skipped Qin directly, first named Zhou Zinanjun, a descendant of the Ji surname, and then asked Kong as the "Marquis of Yin Shaojia".

Sure enough, after the destruction of the Huns, the Han Dynasty collectively moved the royal family of Khotan on this grounds and gave them the title of marquis, and Khotan established a Taoist path.

"A man is guilty of being guilty of being a treasure." Wen Zhong said this at that time. As an important supply of precious and beautiful jade for the imperial royal family, Khotan is like a mountain of gold. It is good for the King of Khotan to save his family's life.

The first Taoist priest of Khotan was no other person, but he followed General Ershi Li Guangli to Dayuan forty years ago. He was stranded in Yutian due to injury and later became a jade mine merchant Zhao Yannian. He married a woman from Khotan and was well versed in local culture and speech, which was much better than a parachuted official in the Central Plains.

After the destruction of the country and established a road, under the Yuyu Teng ferry deliberately incited by Ren Hong, a large number of people from the Central Plains attracted. The households in Khotan were 3,000 and the population was more than 10,000, but now it has reached more than 20,000.

Jade hunters from the Central Plains flocked to Khotan and searched for the figures of beautiful jade everywhere in the Baiyu River and Moyu River. The conflicts with the locals were increasing day by day, and even bloody conflicts broke out. If officials were not assigned to manage Hu Han, a major event would happen sooner or later.

"Mr. Wen, in the past year, Yutian's household registration has increased by another thousand." As soon as he saw Wen Zhong, Zhao Yannian complained.

The increase in household registration of counties in the mainland was a political achievement that made officials happy, but Taoist Zhao Yannian had no intention of being happy at all.

Who is the serious man? Those who arrive in Khotan are mostly too lazy to farm and do business and work, but are idle and want to get rich overnight. They are not good at saying that...

One is counted as another, it is all the scum of the big man! Pests! Poison!

It is really harder to manage such a group of people than climbing to the sky. Fortunately, their energy is buried in search of jade. But every time they find that there will inevitably be a fierce conflict in the jade mine, the Protectorate has to station hundreds of garrisons in Yutian to suppress it. However, even the soldiers cannot resist the temptation of beautiful jade. There are often incidents of stealing official jade, which makes people feel very troubled.

In addition to trouble, Taoyu Reef also brought unimaginable changes to the Western Regions. Not only in Khotan, but also in Shache and other places, breeders who spontaneously went west to Yumen continued to influx.

But as far as Zhao Yannian knows, in the past six or seven years, there are very few people who have truly found beautiful jade. Instead, merchants and workshops that provide food, clothing, housing and transportation to jadeites make a lot of money. Khotan is indeed more prosperous than in the past.

As one of Ren Hong's confidants, Wen Zhong was a man who knew Junhou's plan and smiled and said, "Therefore, the Queen of Xi'an said that for Tian, ​​the real wealth is not beautiful jade, but jade-seekers!"

This time, he was on the southern road and passed by Yutian in order to pick the fruits he had planted many years ago - the sour fruits and poisonous fruits in the eyes of others!

...

The life of Taoyuzhe is indeed difficult.

Zhang Hunshu leaned tiredly in the shack. He was originally from Henan County. The reason why he was named this is because his father was a prisoner and gave birth to a son because of his crime.

When Zhang Hushou was young, he was fooled by the young heroes in the county and even beat him to death. However, because he escaped in time, he was not arrested in prison. Later, he served for others and was in his twenties and was unknown. No one in the village wanted to marry his daughter to him, so he was naturally unwilling to accept it. Just when he was hesitating whether to cut off the road and rob money, he heard rumors about the beautiful jade of Yutian.

It is said that he was a poor boy with three auxiliary men. He was a bad boy, and he had been in trouble for half his life. He followed Ershi to the west and stayed in Yutian, but stepped on a piece of mutton fat jade, sold it in Chang'an for a million yuan, and became rich overnight.

There are also some other stories, such as the white jade river in Khotan, you can pick up a piece of beautiful jade by bent down. For example, the song "The Picking of Jade in the Khotan people" focuses on describing the ease of stepping on jade, and after listening to it, people think that I can go to me.

Zhang Hushu was moved at the time. He didn't want to farm and had no capital to do business. The Huns were destroyed. He had no place to make the most of his achievements in the army. He just wanted to pick up a piece of jade and be rich overnight. So he sold all his property and set off with the village party in the same situation as him. After arriving at Hangu Pass, the Western Regions Protectors organized the jade hunters to travel westward, and did not check their resumes. As long as they were healthy, they would all be required.

After that, it was a trek for several months. When we first started, everyone was full of longing. Not only did Tao Yu get rich, but also yearned for foreign lands. When we arrived at Bailongdui, we also felt that when we returned to our hometown in the future, we could brag in front of people who had never seen the desert. For the unwilling to be lonely, this was a wonderful and magical adventure, worth a trip!

But this passion, this hungry spirit of yearning for adventure, fell down without maintaining the scorching sun of the desert for an hour.

The vast desert is dotted with clusters of gray camel thorns. Their convoy is like a group of ants, squirming in the middle of the endless wasteland, dragging smoke and dust behind it. The cattle, horses and people are thickly wrapped in a layer of yellow sand, and large pieces of dust stick to their eyebrows and beards, like snow piled on shrubs. The scorching sun is scorching, and even wearing a felt hat, sweat still pours out from every pore of humans and animals and evaporates cleanly, causing people to peel off and even faint in the desert.

After this, the painful, difficult, and monotonous journey took place day after day, endlessly, occasionally passing by the towns of oasis, but not even allowing them to enter.

Many people fell along the way, but most of them arrived in Yutian along the beacon towers and post roads.

The Oasis of Khotan is unique in geography: the Baiyu River (Yulong Kashgar River) from Kunlun Mountain and the Moyu River (Karakashgar River) flowed parallel for hundreds of miles before converging into the Khotan River and poured into the Takramagan to the north. The people of Khotan live in the narrow and narrow area in the middle, and do not have to worry about the harassment of wind, sand and drought. The south is the most powerful country.

The place where Yutian picks jade is in the middle of the Baiyu River. In the distance is the top of Kunlun Snow Mountain. Just looking at it, you can feel the coldness of the majestic glacier. The banks of the river are full of gravel and cannot be cultivated at all, but there are many tents and reed houses. Before Zhang Hushou, many Han people had arrived, and various accents filled it, but you can identify the old man and the new man at a glance.

The group of people who came earlier had lost their spirits and were silently silently drinking the wine they bought at high prices, and they were calculating day by day. The newcomers were excited and talking loudly about various miracles.

For example, someone from Hedong County sold a piece of black jade for 400,000 yuan. When he arrived here six months ago, he was still penniless. A Jingzhao man stepped on two pieces of jade and made a profit of 600,000 yuan. He returned to the Central Plains to reunite with his family. A local woman in Khotan with eyebrows drawn in a line also made a fortune, wearing silk and silk. Last spring, she couldn't afford a felt hat. Yesterday, the jade-drawn man who could not buy a cup of turbid wine in the small wine house in Khotan had no money to buy. Today, he was filled with wine, and was as strong as a cow, and was surrounded by friends in the city.

The good jade was taken away by the government, and there were a complete vehicle of beautiful jade every month. Under the personal supervision of the vice-camp of the Western Regions, it was accepted by carefully selected soldiers and transported to the Central Plains. Some smugglers also took risks and put small pieces of jade into a hidden part of the human body and took it through Yumen Pass and returned to Chang'an for sale.

And so on, no matter where you go, from dawn to late at night, there are similar rumors, bombarding the ears of newcomers every day, immersing Khotan in fanaticism and excitement.

Even if the saints come, they will go crazy and crazy with them.

This is true for Zhang Hunshu. As soon as he arrived in Yutian, he joined the team of jade-drawing in the Yulong River with his fellow villagers. In the late autumn, the flood receded and the river became clear. This was the best season to go down to the river to catch jade, but Zhang Hunshu and others caught nothing until the river freezes.

"Haoyu was stepped away as early as the summer!" an experienced person told him this.

It turns out that the jade in the riverbed is mostly the snow melted in summer and autumn, forming a torrent, rushing the jade from the deep mountains into the river. At that time, the water flows and mud and sand, which is very turbid. It cannot rely on the eyes, but on the soles of feet.

The experienced and experienced people of Khotan have such skills. They walk in the river and can tell which piece of jade is and which piece of stone is never missed.

Zhang Hushu couldn't do it anymore. Every time he stepped on a hard thing, he would bend over and take a look. He would get half the result with twice the effort. Over the past few years, he had only picked up a small piece of jade of average texture and exchanged it for a little money, but because he didn't farm and textile, he had to buy tools and food at a very high price.

Unless you get rich once, Utan will not be able to save money, but everyone feels that they are the lucky ones who step on beautiful jade.

In the fourth year of coming to Yutian, Zhang Hunshu was a little impatient, and they began to turn their attention to the source of the beautiful jade, in the Kunlun Mountains.

New rumors are scattering: "Where is the best seed material than mountain material? In Kunlun Mountain, put aside a hole, and there are jade inside!"

They used all their money to buy felt-coated ore hoes, and headed towards the mountains with madness and courage to attack the mountains and pick jade.

The mountains are covered with heavy snow in winter and spring. Jade pickers can only enter the mountains after April. They have to withstand the impermanence and life-and-death tests of the alpine climate. They cross the high-altitude Osaka, and there is no road. Sometimes they have to climb up along the cracks of the rocks and grab the ropes. Zhang’s two fellow villagers accidentally fell into the abyss.

But after packing up the sadness, they continued to climb to the rumored place of jade, climbed up the hillside, drilled in the shrubs, rocks and snow, so tired that they had to fall down at any time, chewing hard naan. Day after day passed, sometimes they would find holes that had been dug several feet deep on the slope and obviously gave up. Sometimes, they could see one or two listless colleagues still digging, but there was no sign of jade.

Sometimes a cheerful shout would erupt in the mountains. Someone found the jade, which triggered countless people to hear the news. Then there was a fierce battle. Finally, the people who returned to Khotan would always have blood on the jade they handed over.

Officials and merchants don’t care what happened. They will collect as long as there is jade. Human lives are not valuable, jade is valuable.

Zhang Hushu didn't even touch a piece of jade. After digging for a few months, he came out of the mountain with a stone that looked like jade. He firmly believed that there was a piece of round and beautiful jade in the stone!

But when he handed the stone to the great merchant who received the jade as if he had obtained the treasure, and cut it apart with a sharp steel knife, Zhang Hushu had to face the cruel reality.

"This is just a stone."

The big sect threw the "jade" on the ground with disgust. Like them, it was just a stinky and hard stone, not a beautiful jade.

Zhang Husiao walked out of the city of Khotan with the cut stone in a daze. He could still see that the body and limbs were constantly intact. The man who was born similar to him rushed through the desert and rushed to Khotan, with his eyes full of hope to change his life and destiny.

Zhang Hunshu has now become the first time he arrived. When he saw those old Taoist craftsmen whose eyes had lost their magic, their frozen feet and scarred hands, they only got another stone. When he closed his eyes, he could only laugh at the beginning of being infected with something and ran thousands of miles to Yutian to suffer.

He also followed the old path of his predecessors. In the extreme depression of being unable to make money, he was addicted to gambling and drinking. He went in and out of the Nvlu roared and vented his hatred, and gave all the money he had saved up to others.

But Zhang Hunshu's arms still kept carrying the half of the "jade".

On this day, he was lying in the shack, and there was no drop of inferior sour wine left in his wine bag. A hairy monk came to Buji to give these jade Taoists who lost their energy and were disappointed with Caiyu and could not even return home.

After the old monk put down food outside each shack, he put his hands together and recited some Wu language. It is said that it is a belief called "Futu", which persuades people to quit evil and do good, and fortunately they will be born in a good life. This is the simple understanding of Buddhism by Han miners.

But when the kind-hearted old monk put a piece of cake outside Zhang Hushou's smelly shack and smiled at him, he angered this evil boy from the former Henan. Or did the alms make him feel unhappy, or did the expression on the old monk's face that seemed to see through everything reminded Zhang Hushou?

He suddenly held up the half of the stone and knocked the old monk to the ground, cursing: "I will be rich and powerful in this life. I can't wait for the next life, otherwise what would I do in Khotan?"

The old monk said nothing, and he was beaten to death before he could even scream a few times. However, Zhang Fuzui's eyes were red and he held it down again and again until it was bleeding and red and white all over the ground.

After doing this atrocity, Zhang Hunzi seemed to have vented his anger. He hurriedly left under the blank gaze of everyone, and plunged into the cold Yulong River where many miners were still trampling on jade, allowing the clear and white ice water to wash away the blood.

If there are officials in the inner county, they will definitely come to investigate the matter, but this is the Western Region, Khotan, the wild west, and the lawless land. Every day, people die, murder, or accidents, but no one cares who the murderer is. Everyone is only staring at who will become the next lucky person, embrace beautiful jade, and be rich overnight.

Since no one pursued it, Zhang Hunshu, the madman outside the law, had no guilt, at least on the surface, to him: "I just killed a Hu man, and I want my factory name?"

But he had also given up Tao Yu's expectations, and Zhongyuan could not go back. He only secretly polished his knife at night, thinking about not doing anything and taking a group of villagers to rob the family on the Silk Road. That might be even happier.

There are many people who have the same idea. Tens of thousands of jade-drawn workers like Zhang Hun's sin lived, struggled and regretted, but after they embarked on the road to the west, they had no other way out except to return home with beautiful jade in glory.

Until March of the second year of Tianan, the person who deceived them to come to the Western Regions came back and showed everyone a way for everyone to win wealth.

...

Tens of thousands of jade-drawn workers gathered together on the banks of the ugly Yulong River, looking indifferently at the General of the Cavalry and the army that followed him.

These Sanfu Jian, the good-fathered children, were proud of their backgrounds and felt that they were heroes who were expeditioning for the Han Dynasty. They were all looking at the jade workers with contempt, knowing very well what kind of background and goods they were.

Over the past ten years, there have been more than tens of thousands of Han people who have traveled to the Western Regions. Among them, only a very small number of them have made great achievements and made contributions. Most of them have become leeks struggling in the Western Regions. They are ragged and exhausted, and they are relying on their only remaining property: hoes, shovels, and nothing else.

No, there are still some things.

Ren Hongneng saw it in the eyes of Zhang Hunshu who was standing in the front row with a tall belly and raised his head, as well as the eyes of countless jade-seekers.

That is unconcealed desire, that is despair without a way out.

They walked far enough, paid a huge price, had abandoned everything, and even lost their concern in the Central Plains. This is the person who can stay in the foreign land, and this is the person Ren Hong wants.

The desperate desperate people, pests, scum, and the "poison" that the court abandoned.

It's funny, but the new path of history is often created by them.

It was Ren Hong's story that tricked these people into Yutian and made them sink into the pit and gain nothing. Now, Ren Hong is going to pull everyone out of the pit.

"Do you want to be rich and honor?"

"Do you want to sit in the vineyard and become the lord of the town, the city lord or even the lord?"

Ren Dumao's hand pointed to the west, to the west of the towering Palacio Mountains, the fertile soil of sweat and blood, the dazzling rare treasure on the barren land, the pearl embedded in the edge of the Western Regions, the Fergana Basin - that is the most important thing for the Han Dynasty to find the jade in hand.

"Follow me!"

...

ps: Chapter 2 is before 0 o'clock.

In addition, I recommend this historical book "The New Order of Water Margin". If you are interested, you can be healthy.
Chapter completed!