[Comprehensive History] Clothes are all over the world

Recently, booksellers in Fujian have been troubled.

It has been more than half a month since the official ship of the emperor's grandson arrived at Quanzhou Port. They have also made a lot of preparations. He didn't give up much, his face was almost stiff with laughter, but there was no movement.

People came and went on the official ship every day, and Fujian local officials boarded the ship many times to report. There were quite a few people coming and going, but no one saw the car representing the identity of the emperor's grandson appearing, and no bookseller was summoned.

It's definitely not that they missed it. These booksellers have kept eyeliner on each other, and they are on guard day and night, just for fear that someone will run away. It is precisely because they have performed such urgent marking skills that they can be sure that so far, absolutely no one Summoned by Taisun, everyone is still on the same starting line.

Isn't Taisun coming here to visit the publishing industry?

It doesn't make sense, although everyone got the news from different sources, some were behind-the-scenes bosses, some were loyal readers, and some were secretly contributed by important officials of the imperial court, but it is impossible for everyone to get the wrong news, right?

And I don't know if it's because of superfluous thoughts, but they always feel that there are a lot of young men who come to hang out in the bookstore recently. These people are all extraordinary in appearance, some are handsome and handsome, some are mighty and majestic, but these people all have one characteristic—— Only to read but not to buy, the shopkeeper Ren and the book boy talked about it, these people just listened with a smile, and would flip through the books according to the introduction, but they just didn't buy.

However, these people are about the same age as their grandchildren, which makes them feel very complicated when they see young people recently.

Although this kind of situation would happen in the past, after all, business can never be successful every time, but now this kind of frequency is too high, right?Since you're not here to buy books, don't chat happily with us, hey!Feeling bad about paying for something really bad.

In addition, the shopkeepers always felt that the eyes of those people were a little subtle, which made them feel a little apprehensive.

I always feel like a cat with a fish hanging in front of it.Is this the illusion that I have been waiting for people not to come under high pressure for a long time?The shopkeepers deeply resented.

And the object of their resentment is a little bit reluctant to leave at the moment.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Quanzhou Port, as the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, was well-deserved as the largest port in the world. After the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu, who had his capital in a coastal city, paid special attention to coastal defense.

Quanzhou Port is facing the potential danger of being attacked from the sea at any time. At that time, the world was initially settled, and a thousand things were waiting to be done. Emperor Hongwu, who was at a loss for resources, simply ordered the port to be closed, and this hurdle lasted for nearly 20 years.

In the past 20 years, due to the fact that it is located in a typhoon area and has not been maintained for a long time, the port was once deserted and dilapidated. After all, it is bigger than a horse. Although the 20 years of neglect have hurt the skin of the port, its muscles and bones are still there.

After Emperor Hongwu ordered to try to reopen the coastal ports a few years ago, the first batch of Quanzhou Ports to be opened revived at a very fast speed. Officially dispatched corvees are required to come spontaneously.

However, in just over a month, this place has turned from a wasteland, dilapidated, and barnacle-covered barren land into the maritime gateway of Ming Dynasty again.

Although some functional houses still need time to build, the port can already undertake loading and unloading ships and simple supply and repair tasks.The revival speed of Quanzhou Port surprised the Ming Center of Yingtianfu. Even Emperor Hongwu, who sat on the temple and created countless "impossibles" by himself, expressed emotion at that time.

Now, four years later, this place has become an important window for the international exchange of Ming Dynasty.

Within half a month when the Guangguan ship docked, Mu Bai met three merchant ships from different directions, and they were all big ships.

One is from Ryukyu, and the other is from Japan. Both ships are here to pay tribute. As for why a country in the north has to go a long way to land in Fujian when it is clearly in the north to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty... I understand.

Another was a galleon from a place called Venice.Of course, the name is a transliteration.According to the translation, this country is in the west of Ming Dynasty, and it comes from a place farther away than the Little Western Ocean (Indian Ocean).

The original purpose of this cargo ship was to find the legendary spice island blocked by merchants from various countries in Central Asia. They crossed the Cape of Good Hope through untold hardships, and encountered a storm just after entering the Asian region, almost destroying the ship.

These people had not docked for more than three months before they found Sumatra to dock.

After landing on the shore, after some exchanges with pens and drawings, they realized that they had broken through the blockade of the big food merchants and Persian merchants and arrived at the legendary eastern country.

Afterwards, these people explored all the way along the coastline, and were attracted by the brilliance of the lighthouse of Quanzhou Port in the night, and finally reached the end of the sea, this huge country called China.

From departure to arrival, these people spent two full years. Countless times they thought they would die on this vast and ruthless sea. Fortunately, with the blessing of God, after losing half of the personnel, the remaining people finally made it here.

But the bad thing is that their language is not the same as the country now called Daming, and Venice and Daming have not established diplomatic relations, although the businessman took out a book called "Marco Polo's Travels" to indicate that our ancestors have been here There is no way to prove that he is not a pirate.

In the end, it was a small piece of news they inadvertently inquired about that helped them.

Previously, these people had heard that this eastern country was very interested in exotic grains. Although some could not understand why, grains were a typical ballast cargo, which could help maintain the balance of the ship during the voyage. At that time, enough wheat was piled up in the cargo hold, and they also purchased a lot of local rye when they passed through Africa. These wheat saved them countless times in the process of getting lost.

In addition to serving as food, the grain itself is also a hard currency. They were able to get here all the way by relying on these exotic wheat.

…However, people along the way disliked their wheat grains for being too hard and too thick, and crazily lowered the price of the wheat they brought. This made these businessmen from Venice very depressed, and they all tried to eat their own way of eating in their hometown.

The wheat in their home is hard, but if the wheat flour is crushed and pulled into thin strips, and then boiled, it can effectively resolve the torture of the hardness on the teeth, and after such treatment, the aroma of the wheat will increase sharply, compared to Since the neighbors in my hometown can only bake bread, their treatment is already quite high-end, okay?

This is the cooking method that their predecessor Marco Polo learned from the Silk Country at that time!And this kind of depression disappeared immediately after they ate the local rice noodles sold at the port when they docked. They wanted to ask the old-timers, is this what you ate back then?

Why is it something completely different that you learned and passed back to the native land? ?

Even if the raw materials are different, where does the full soup go?Where did the delicious little ingredients go?The most important thing is that the locals obviously use two small wooden sticks, which are called "chopsticks", which can easily pick up noodles from the boiling soup. Why don't you take this back home?You can also write it in the travel notes without bringing it back.

We had eaten finger noodles for a long time before this!It is also because of the embarrassment of eating like this that this kind of noodles was called the food of the untouchables before the fork was invented.

Although these far-flung traders had 1 alpacas bouncing around in their hearts, the wheat did help confirm their identities.

After finding a local interpreter who could speak Persian, these merchants from the Mediterranean also successfully connected with Daming.

Since it was a country that was in contact with Daming for the first time, the news of the arrival of these merchants was immediately reported to Mu Bai.The local officials in Quanzhou Port are very familiar with the handling and arrangements of these foreign countries, which can be seen from the country introductions submitted to Mubai.

A thin piece of paper records the special products of this country called Venice, the royal family, and the genealogy with neighboring countries, all of which are obtained from inquiries from merchants and sailors.

But I don't know why ordinary people in this country seem to have very limited knowledge of their own country, and most people only know the situation of their place of residence.After collecting information from dozens of people, the accuracy and richness of the information barely reached the level of being readable.

And one of the nouns attracted Mu Bai's attention.

— glassware.

The interpreter said that this [device] was strongly requested by the other party to be added, and the other party insisted that this word is the soul, and it is absolutely indispensable.

So, what exactly is glassware?Mu Bai was still a little puzzled, but soon he understood what the [artifact] these Venetian merchants were proud of.

After being quarantined at the port, they were escorted to take a shower and change their clothes. Finally, these Venetian merchants met the emperor grandson, and presented one of the most important commodities they had brought to Daming all the way—the glass chandelier.

Under the sunlight, this glass vessel, which is half the length of an adult's arm, shines brightly, and its shape amazes the viewers.

People in Daming are no strangers to glass. The official boat on which Taisun traveled was equipped with transparent glass windows. In addition, there are expensive but very useful kerosene lamps whose lampshades are also made of glass.

If you haven't seen these two, then you can always see the Quanzhou Port Lighthouse standing in the sun now, right?The shining top is composed of several pieces of glass, and at night, lights will be lit on the lighthouse.

When the moon is dim, the whole Quanzhou can clearly see the light of the lighthouse.

But the situation of this glassware is different. It is obviously a hard glass, but this chandelier has been pulled out of soft lines, and the slender branches support the trumpet-shaped petals, which is beautiful.

This large lamp, which is as long as half an adult's arm, has nine flowers, each flower has a dewdrop-shaped glass bead, and the calyx has a spike used to fix the candle.

This glassware is top-notch both in design and workmanship. Just by looking at it, one can imagine how magnificent and beautiful it is when the candle is lit.

For this work of art, the Venetian merchants showed great confidence and pride, while the officials of Ming Dynasty saw the glassware being taken out of the wooden box, stripped off the protective articles little by little and spliced ​​together. The amazing eyes also gave them the best feedback.

But they soon discovered that the heir of the empire, the immature and beautiful grandson, only paid attention to the glassware for a short moment, and then turned to the wooden boxes they carried.

That indifferent attitude made the merchant of Venice, who was just a little cocky, a little uneasy. They looked at each other, exchanged a few glances, and tried to mobilize the memory in their brains, trying to add more stories and legends in the process of description.

They know that the value of a commodity never lies in itself, but in the story and uniqueness behind it.

As a result, this glass chandelier soon had a series of stories and legends, and the craftsman who made it also had a lot of deep background and legendary experience that he didn't even know. Even the shape of the flower was said to be Marco Polo. Patterns brought back from China.

The emperor's grandson sitting on the main seat quietly listened to the story of the origin of the chandelier, but did not speak.It wasn't until the merchant's mouth was dry and he raised his head anxiously that he saw that the young crown prince had been playing with the compacted cotton wool.

Seeing them shutting up, the young man slowly raised his hand and squeezed the cotton wool and said a word.The interpreter immediately relayed to them: "Do you know where this cotton comes from?"

The Merchant of Venice: "...Gah?"

The author has something to say: Only, I have not forgotten the theme!

The author will not deviate from the topic!Isn't this coming?

I am no longer the one who deviates from the topic when writing an essay! ! !

humming

PS: Venice was an independent country in the 14th century, not Italian.

Before the emergence of the new sea route, Venice was the richest region in Europe because it was connected to Central Europe.

The noodles in this article are pasta. The pasta is so hard not because of the craftsmanship, but because their wheat is different from the Chinese one. It is hard wheat. One way of saying that pasta was produced was brought back by Marco Polo, and the other is for war preparations. In the early days, they ate it dry. It is said that it was made into baked noodles or baked noodles. Anyway, they don’t use various sauces now, and because there were no forks back then, they were eaten with hands. In the early days it was the food of the untouchables.

Until the appearance of tomatoes and forks.