A conspiracy against the trade of blood horses is brewing in Jinyang. Aristotle IV, one of the parties involved, is still completing his "Journey to the East". Although the countries of East Asia are considered barbarians, he is the "first" Greek to arrive here. In the small garden next to the inn, he sat on a temporary chair, took a sip of tea and said:

"…The Chuni people have black hair, black eyes, and skin that should be white if they are nobles. If they are citizens or slaves, they are yellow or brown. If a man is over twenty years old, he will wear a hat and wear a sword. I have to emphasize here that all the Chuni men I have seen wear swords, and some citizens without a title will carry a Chuni sword.

It is said that this tradition has emerged hundreds of years ago. Swords are not just decorations, but also weapons of self-defense, and even tools of judgment. In the outskirts of the capital of Chuni, I witnessed two people who had been arguing over a decade of a small vegetable field to let the judge - perhaps not the judge, and the jurors in the open-air court did not know how to make a judgment. In the end, the judge asked them to compete, and the victors would gain ownership of the vegetable field.

The gods are above me, I don't know what the basis for the judge to judge this way, and it is very unequal to decide the ownership of property by force. The Chuni people are happy to do this. During the competition, the whole village comes to watch. One of them wins, he gets the small vegetable field, and the other fails, and he leaves there in shame..."

Aristotle IV only said that his follower Porus was responsible for recording. When he said ‘there’, Porus raised his hand. This passage Aristotle IV said too quickly, Porus could only raise his hand to make Aristotle IV pause a little.

"Yes, the loser was ridiculed by the villagers, and he left there with shame." Aristotle IV continued his narrative. "Wuji explained that this was the throne of Chuni hundreds of years ago. Even if the previous king had appointed an heir, if the kings (public tribes) elect another heir to the throne, they would compete, the winner ascends the throne, and the loser would be killed. If the descendants of the loser surrender to the victor, they could change a name to get pardoned."

Speaking of this, Aristotle IV suddenly hesitated. He felt that this was a manifestation of the mercy of the Chuni people, and few people could tolerate the families of the losers. If the Macedonians were as kind as the Chuni people, the emperor's wife and son would not have been poisoned to death.

"I can't praise the barbarians." Aristotle IV said after hesitating, "delete the 'descendants of the losers...'."

"Yes." Papyrus has carried some quiver since it was produced. Porus found the sentence to be deleted, and smeared it heavily with black ink, covering the letters.

"Chones..." Aristotle IV watched him delete, but at this moment he found that his thoughts were disrupted. After a while, he said, "I changed my mind, Porus. As one of the most profound and wise scholars in the world, I cannot do this. Please restore that sentence. Then..." He thought about it again, and then said, "Previously before the 'loser': 'Based on the rumor of uncertainty'"

"Yes." Porus had no expression. He rewrites the deleted sentence and finally adds "according to uncertain rumors."

"... The Chunitis who made the Chuni sword were far better than the Seris iron. The iron smelting factory was just north of the Chuni capital. There was black smoke and loud noises every day. Boats of ore were transported into the factory, and then sets of armor were made. Now I understand why King Chuni agreed to the Sogdian merchant's request to exchange for thirty sets of armor. The Chuni citizens only cost two hundred yuan to buy Chuni armor, which is five Drakmas.

The gods are above, I have to say that the Chunis are cunning merchants and smart craftsmen. In Greece, a pair of the same armor requires at least three hundred drach horses or more. Heavier bronze armor requires two hundred drach horses if exquisite. If it is ordinary bronze armor, maybe one hundred drach horses can be bought. The lowest linen armor costs at least ten drach horses. The Chunis' five drach horses need to sell to other countries a hundred twenty drach horses, and if it is sold to India and Seleucid, it requires three hundred drach horses…”

Aristotle IV spat out a series of numbers, and he wanted to express that the Chunis were cunning merchants comparable to the Sogdians, but before he finished speaking, Wu Ji ran from a distance, and he could only stop and see what he was going to say.

"Teacher, Chuni's sailing boat will be back to the shipyard for repair." Wu Ji said, following his follower, Jago Vala. Both of them were panting, and they rushed over from the north gate.

"Sailing?" Aristotle IV smiled. He looked down on Chuni's shipbuilding technology since he saw the Greek three-ocket warship. But he was happy that he mentioned the sailing ship. He would write a brilliant story about shipbuilding technology in "Traveling East".

"Yes. Sailboat." Wu Ji didn't know what the teacher was thinking, "It is a Zhuque-level, with a total of about 200 tons of Chuni's ocean-going sailboats. They had just returned from Seleugu, and everyone in Yingdu went to see it."

Tons are unique units of Chuni, and one ton is equal to thirty-eight tarants. A sailboat of more than 200 tons is a large ship even in the Mediterranean. It is said that the Chuni sailboats sailed very fast, and the journey of more than 60,000 tonnes can only be completed in three months. You can travel between Chuni and Seleucid or India within one year.

Aristotle IV immediately instructed Porus to put away the draft and he would go to the north pier of the city to visit the two sailboats that had just returned from Seleucid. Aristotle IV moved quickly, but unfortunately when he arrived at the north pier, there were already crowds of people outside the city gate. Two sailboats with sails that had never seen before were towed by more than a dozen large-winged warships toward the north pier.

The crossbar on the mast of the sailboat faces the cold wind blowing from the northeast. The bulging sails slowly move forward with the ship. Once the sailboat deviates from the channel, the large-winged warships towed forward and back will drag the ship back to the correct position according to the instructions on the ship.

"The gods are above, I swear in the name of Poseidon, these are really two beautiful ships." As soon as Aristotle IV exclaimed this praise. Beauty is the ever-changing pursuit of the Greeks. Just as he loved the beautiful King Chuni, he was completely conquered by the beauty reflected by these two Chuni sailing ships.

The sea boats produced by the Zijinshan Shipyard usually enter the sea from the Yinglu Canal through the Yangtze River. The sea boats return to the port of call in Chu in Zhufang, and no sea boats docked directly in Yingdu. The arrival of the two Suzaku-class ships left Yingdu empty-handed, and Aristotle IV's carriage barely squeezed to the dock with a carriage in front.

Of course he was not the protagonist of the incident, but just a loyal bystander standing on the roof of a carriage. Some barbarians (witches) danced and sacrificed two boats before a noble woman in white fox fur boarded the ship surrounded by servants. Everyone on the boat saluted her, and some slaves even crawled to her.

"Who is she?" Aristotle IV couldn't help asking.

"She?" Wu Ji also saw a noble woman boarding the boat surrounded by everyone, but he didn't know who it was. After asking around, he said: "That's Chuni's princess, she owns these two sailboats..."

"Oh, gods!" Aristotle IV said something at this time. When the two servants moved a heavy wooden box from the boat, one of them accidentally fell, and then the wooden box fell on the dock. The familiar and seductive golden light scared his eyes: it was a whole box full of Greek gold coins, with at least four Tarrants.

Aristotle IV couldn't help but cry down, and the onlookers also shouted down. Everyone had seen gold, but such a whole box... No, there was a bunch of such large wooden boxes on the ship, and so much gold was really enviable.

"Teacher, that is Princess Chuni's sailboat. It is said that most of the princesses' dowry are used for shipbuilding." Wu Ji saw Aristotle IV come back to his senses and immediately told him who the noble woman was.

"No need, no." Aristotle IV suddenly became a little vicissitudes. He looked at his follower Porus and said, "Porus, I want you to record it."

"Yes, sir." Porus quickly took out the paper and pen.

"The Chuni people are the smartest craftsmen and the most cunning merchants. Their sailboats can travel between Chuni and India and Seleucid within one year. The cheap Chuni goods are sold to the known world at twenty times and fifty times the price. At the same time, gold and silver from the known world are transported into Chuni. On one of the sailboats alone, more than one hundred and twenty tarantes of gold coins were transported back to Chuni's capital..."

Just as the Roman historian Pliny, the Elder, lamented in "Natural History" more than two hundred years later, "The lowest estimate is that India, Ceres and the Arabian Peninsula will take away 100 million silver coins from our country every year. This is our luxury goods and the total amount spent by women." Aristotle IV also felt a similar feeling when he saw those Greek gold coins.

His originally confident and optimistic tone became sad at this time, as if the gold coins were not obtained through trade, but were deceived by the Chunis using some unknown method. After Porus recorded his words carefully, he said, "Let's go back."

"Go back... back?" Wu Ji was a little weird, "Teacher, the sailboat might be sent to the shipyard today."

"In the name of the Greeks," Aristotle IV shouted, "I must meet the envoys of Seleucid immediately."

"Silanus?" Wu Ji looked at him even more strangely. Seleucus and Bactricia were enemy countries, and he couldn't understand why the teacher wanted to meet the enemy's envoys.
Chapter completed!