At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Du Feng, the person in charge of Cao's caravan, replied to Guo Peng.

Du Feng, the actual head of the Cao's caravan, and Ma Yuan, the actual head of the Mi's caravan, were both war orphans adopted by the Linzi Camp.

They grew up in the Linzi camp since childhood, received the education of the Linzi camp and grew up. They have superior talents, strong abilities, and are also loyal to Guo.

Aware of the importance of large caravans to the country, while choosing to support the Cao's and Mi's caravans, Guo began to mix various Linzi camps into the Cao's and Mi's caravans. The excellent seed players who came out.

A certain Guo cannot completely control the affairs outside the Linzi camp, because he is not the real emperor.

But within the Linzi camp system, someone Guo is their master, their god, who can decide everything.

All in one word.

From the initial germination to the present large secret organization with tens of thousands of people, Guo spent unimaginable money and energy in creating Linzi Camp.

The finally established Linzi Camp, headquartered in the Taihang Mountains, is no longer a pure intelligence spy agency.

The intelligence organization that Yan Rou is in charge of is just an executive agency of the Linzi Camp.

The training camp inside the Linzi camp is the real core part of the Linzi camp, and it is also the most important part, the part that Guo invested the most.

Taking advantage of the gap between years of wars, Guo collected war orphans on a large scale, brought them up, educated them, and then became a high-quality spare talent team in his hands.

The institutions that raise and train these war orphans are training camps.

After having the idea of ​​establishing the Linzi Camp, in order to expand his power and to overthrow the gentry by playing games with them in the future, Mr. Guo came up with the idea of ​​secretly cultivating talents.

For this reason, Guo Peng also superficially announced the implementation of the policy of teaching without discrimination, using the bait of educating Li Shu to read and appointing Li Shu as grassroots bureaucrats, and using Cai Yong to turn the attention of the scholars.

He wants the scholars to focus on Taixue and Luoyang to buy time.

And one of the real purposes of doing this is to hide the existence of the training camp.

The training of orphans in the training camp did cost a lot of money.

Guo's small treasury is basically prepared for them. He earns a lot of money, but also spends a lot of money.

It was Guo who raised them, and Guo was their parents. This is true, and there is no adulteration.

The Linzi training camp and the secret workshop are both located in the Taihang Mountains and are well hidden. For convenience, they use paper and books to study.

Not only learn some Confucian classics, but also accept the knowledge education of agriculture, commerce, military affairs, law and intelligence formulated by Guo for them, and move towards the direction of practical clerks.

Through years of experience gained from wars and governance, Guo personally took the time to guide the relevant personnel of the Linzi Camp to compile teaching materials for the children in the training camp.

Then use the excellent orphans cultivated earlier, select a group from them, and stay to continue to educate the new orphans, so as to form a continuous education model.

The training camp fully adopts the class system and subject system, which is infinitely close to the modern education model, and incorporates high-intensity loyalty education and a certain degree of military training. Depending on the age, each person needs at least five years of study to learn Be sent out to take up a position.

The size of the training camp gradually expanded as the unification war progressed.

The number of people ranges from small to large, from a few hundred people at the least to more than 5000 people living in the training camp at the same time at the most.

Compared with the increasing number of orphans in the past, it has been much better recently.

Because of the unification of the country, the number of war orphans has decreased, but there are still orphans due to various reasons.

Someone from Guo will still arrange someone from Linzi Camp to pay attention, and once they find out, they will adopt them and put them in Linzi Camp for upbringing.

After successfully graduating from the training camp, talents will continue to be exported inside and outside the Linzi camp.

Either enter the army as a low-level officer, or serve as a low-level official as a normal Li Shu, or enter the intelligence system of the Linzi Camp, or join the two major caravans of the Cao family and the Mi family.

Mainly to enter the intelligence system, work for the internal and external intelligence systems, and maintain Guo's control over the empire, which requires a lot of manpower.

Only a few with special talents will be released to do other things.

From the Qingzhou era to the present, in more than ten years, apart from the intelligence system personnel used by the Linzi camp, only more than [-] people have been released.

After all, not every war orphan can join the Linzi camp, and whether they can join also needs to be screened.

There are many war orphans, but the only ones who can be rescued are those who are healthy, disease-free and mentally normal. They are only a small part of all war orphans.

Someone Guo wants to do charity, but the reality does not allow him to do charity.

His purpose of doing this is to need these orphans who eat and wear him to work for him when they grow up, become his most loyal pawns, and carry out his will to the end.

Those with physical problems and mental defects were not allowed to enter the Linzi camp, and those who could enter were those who were in good health and had a bright future.

This is an investment, not charity.

The people who come out of the training camp are collectively called the training camp children. The training camp children who have made achievements in various fields will be personally interviewed by someone Guo, rewarded in person, and assigned more important tasks.

Du Feng and Ma Yuan are the best of them.

When they did small things in the caravan, they showed their business talents and courage to travel far and wide, so they were noticed, and then they stood out and got promoted continuously, and finally won the favor of someone Guo, and were appointed as the actual management of the two major caravans. right.

Chapter 946 .950 Six huge joint caravans

The Cao family and the Mi family had long known that the actual control of the caravan was already in the hands of the emperor.

Cao Hong and Mi Zhu are only nominal owners, endorsing the emperor and becoming the emperor's white gloves, and even they cannot have the most profit share.

Mi Shi resigned to her fate early in the morning.

Stand obediently and accept the guidance without any objection, just lie down and take the money.

Cao Hong also obediently lay down after experiencing some ups and downs, gave up struggling, handed over control, and became a pawn of the emperor.

There is nothing wrong with saying that Cao's caravan and Mi's caravan became the royal caravan in the hands of someone like Guo.

Adhering to Guo Peng's will, Du Feng and Ma Yuan brought Cao's caravan and Mi's caravan to all over the world to do business, but wherever Guo needed them, there were traces of the two caravans.

Now is the time when Guo Peng needs them.

"I have invested a lot of money in the training camp, and you all know that money is needed in all aspects right now. I also plan to build an inland waterway from Luoyang to the south. This requires more money. The national finances are already stretched. If you don’t want to open source, you can’t do it.”

Guo Peng sighed and said: "You should know the importance of the Silk Trade Road to me and to the State of Wei. Whether you can successfully open up this trade route, sell the goods, and earn more money is a matter of great importance to me and the state of Wei." For Wei Guo, they are all very important."

Du Feng and Ma Yuan nodded again and again.

"Your Majesty, I will understand."

"Well, the four counties in Hexi have been restored now. I have sent people back to Liuzhong City to garrison. You can start preparing, bring more goods to the Western Regions, contact and trade with the Western Regions, and in the process, carefully inquire about the Western Regions. The actual situation, domestic and foreign affairs, etc.”

Guo Peng gave them another important person.

The two understood, and nodded again and again.

"In addition to the Western Regions, you'd better get in touch with some countries other than the Western Regions."

"Beyond the Western Regions? Your Majesty is talking about countries like Guishuang Kingdom and Anxi Kingdom?"

Ma Yuan asked.

Guo Peng nodded.

"Although there are many countries in the Western Regions, most of them are small. Relatively, the population is also small, and the ability to buy products from our Wei Dynasty is not very large. From the historical materials of the former Han Dynasty, we can probably know that the Anxi Kingdom and the Guishuang Kingdom are very large. A large country has a large population and covers a large area.

So if you can trade with them, you should be able to sell a lot of things. After Banchao occupied the Western Regions, he once sent envoys all the way west, crossed the Anxi Kingdom, and went to the Great Qin Kingdom. It is said that the Great Qin Kingdom is bigger than the Anxi Kingdom. In addition, there is such a big country, how can we not see it? "

Guo Peng smiled.

Ma Yuan and Du Feng were also excited about this.

Far country?

For a long time, Huaxia has not explored the outside world.

Among the courses they study in the training camp is a subject called geography.

It not only tells the famous mountains and rivers of the land of China and the climatic conditions of various places, but also tells the stories of the Western Regions and some countries further west of the Western Regions.

From this, they construct a world view different from ordinary people. They know that the world is big and they are small.

And these textbooks talk about the history of Ban Chao's subordinate Gan Ying crossing the Anxi Kingdom to the Great Qin Kingdom.

Then the Great Qin State also sent missions to China twice, one was during the period of Emperor Han He and the other was during the period of Emperor Han Huan. They also traveled thousands of miles to China.

Probably also want to open up business routes, right?

Mr. Guo did not know the situation of the Roman Empire during this period, and he was not an all-knowing and omnipotent person.

He knew that this Great Qin was the Roman Empire, and that the Parthian Empire would soon be replaced by the Persian Empire.

Others, he really doesn't know.

They all have strong national power and a huge population. Naturally, they also have strong consumption power.

He didn't know what emperor the other party was, what system it was, or what the military, political and economic conditions were like, and he didn't even remember the other party's customs.

The documents of the former Han Dynasty would not leave such sensitive records for him-which envoy would say that his country has internal and external troubles?

Therefore, you still have to see it yourself, explore it yourself, explore it, and live there.

Where the army cannot reach for the time being, merchants can go there. This is the greatest value of merchants, and it is also one of the reasons why Guo pulled up two imperial merchants.

To explore, to understand, to make money!

Du Feng and Ma Yuan accepted Guo Peng's order and began to organize their respective resources and energy to form a joint caravan.

This will be a journey of an unprecedentedly large number of joint caravans and joint westward expeditions, an unprecedented large-scale western expedition of merchant groups.

In order to ensure the safety of the joint caravan, someone Guo mobilized two squads of the imperial guards with a total of 100 people to join the joint caravan, and then mobilized eight teams with a total of 400 people from the guards to join the joint caravan.

Someone Guo equipped the caravan with a military force of ten teams of 500 people.

Such a large-scale military force is really not small for a caravan.

With the strength of the Wei army and the actual national strength of those small countries in the Western Regions, an army of 500 people is enough to wipe out more than half of the small countries in the Western Regions.

As the head of the joint caravan, Ma Yuan will personally go to the Western Regions to open up commercial routes in the Western Regions, and then go all the way west to the Anxi Empire and the Guishuang Empire to contact them and inquire about the news of the "Great Qin", that is, the Roman Empire.

Military forces will follow Ma Yuan's command.

In addition to the 500 professional soldiers who have a full set of land combat equipment, every business traveler participating in this operation will be assigned a ring-sword for body protection.

The business road is long and unpredictable, so everyone must be armed. Once encountering an enemy situation, they will fully enter militarization and accept the protection and command of the army.

Ma Yuan has received professional military training in the training camp. The 500-man army is also led by its own officers, and military strength can be guaranteed.

Then there is the large number of caravan entourages.

This time the joint caravan marched westward, except for relatively large quantities of gold and silver, they mainly carried the most readily available commodities in the Central Plains.

For example, a large number of porcelain, pottery, lacquerware, bronzes, and bronze mirrors are all great works of art, both artistic and practical. There are also famous Shu brocades, silk script paintings, gold, silver and jade wares.

Then there are all kinds of men's clothes, women's clothes, hats, shoes, tableware for eating, cups for drinking, utensils for barbecues, iron pots, unique musical instruments in the Central Plains, bamboo slips and books, etc.

It is all-encompassing, not to mention the local products of Zhongyuan, and even the leather and bone products of the nomads—the tribute from Nanlou.

A considerable share of each item was prepared for Ma Yuan to sell along the way according to the actual situation, but some should be reserved for use when entering the Parthian Empire or the Guishuang Empire.

Small countries in the Western Regions were once vassal states of the Han Empire, and they did not need any respect in the legal sense, but countries like Guishuang and Anxi with millions of people and hundreds of thousands of troops are not so easy to be vassal states.

This is the significance of Guo Peng's establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These relatively large countries need to live in peace and equality, do business peacefully, make money peacefully, and maintain a relatively normal long-term trading partnership.

Anyway, Mr. Guo never thought about sending troops to destroy Guishuang and Anxi.

Unless they fight over, they need to fight back. As long as they don't move, Guo doesn't want to move either.

The distance is too long, the logistics are too difficult, it is better to do business.

As for some production and construction corps and the like, it may be quite meaningful. Someone Guo intends to try in some places.

Looking at the goods of these caravans now, the quantity and variety are astonishing, but none of the goods is superfluous.

To show the affluence of the Central Plains Empire and its rich products, it depends on them.

A large number of mules and horses and a large number of carts, so the entourage exceeded 4000 people.

In addition to the main personnel such as soldiers and businessmen, Guo Peng also set up doctors, cooks and some miscellaneous staff to accompany the team.

The total number of Lin Lin totaled more than [-], which is quite a large scale.

There are not too many people, but if you count the cargo transport vehicles, the scale is quite terrifying.

Since the former Han Dynasty communicated with the Western Regions, there has never been a caravan of this scale departing from Luoyang to the Western Regions.

This is the first time, and it is worthy of being recorded in history books.