At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Page 809

The banquet uses silver tableware, plates, plates, goblets, washbasins, and bronze oil lamps with decorative atmosphere. The tablecloths are very gorgeous. Wang Wei found at a glance that this is not Shu brocade?

Did the Roman emperor use precious Sichuan brocade as tablecloth?

I was a little surprised at first, but after thinking about it, it was still the idea of ​​the heaven and the kingdom at work.

The ostentation and wealth of this Roman emperor are obviously not less than those of his own emperor. Everyone fights for wealth, and the outcome is unknown.

Besides, he is the emperor, so he can do whatever he wants, and he bought the Shu brocade himself, so he can use it however he wants.

Not to mention using it as a tablecloth, even if he uses it to wipe his butt, that's his own business, as long as he likes it.

Not only Shu brocade, Wang Wei also discovered porcelain and lacquerware at the banquet of Emperor Caracalla.

This is more than that, Wang Wei not only discovered porcelain and lacquerware, but even iron pots.

Emperor Caracalla hoisted a large iron pot to cook something like soup, and then let the guests who came to the banquet take it by themselves, ensuring that it was still hot when drinking.

The taste is quite fragrant.

Emperor Caracalla warmly entertained Wang Wei, asked Wang Wei to stand beside him, and brought him something to eat with his washed hands.

They don't use chopsticks, only spoons, but more people choose to eat with their hands, so washing hands is very important.

They also drink, especially wine.

It's not that Wang Wei has never drunk wine. Wine has been around for a long time, but grapes are needed to make it, and fruit is still a luxury, so the price of wine is also high.

Now taste the wine brewed by the Romans, Wang Wei unexpectedly feels good, mellow and delicious, among other things, he has a good winemaking technology.

Seeing that Wang Wei liked to drink the wine he was proud of, Emperor Caracalla was very happy.

Then came the main dish. Wang Wei didn't understand what it was cooked in a big pot, and it looked very wild.

A big piece, these nobles who came to the banquet sliced ​​it with a knife and ate it, and the soup was dripping.

Earlier, Wang Wei also ate boiled vegetables, but later he became a subordinate of Emperor Guo, and when he ate special stir-fried vegetables in the military camp, he immediately felt that the boiled vegetables he ate were a bit bland.

Stir-fried dishes with soy sauce are so delicious that when there are boiled dishes later, soy sauce and various seasonings should be added in an appropriate amount, so that the cooked dishes are delicious instead of the original soup with little water.

The boiled dishes eaten by the Romans today cannot be said to be bland and tasteless. They are very fragrant, and seem to have a lot of spices, but the taste is slightly inferior to that of stir-fried dishes.

Wang Wei still prefers the barbecue here. There are mainly roast rabbit meat and roast lamb, as well as various kinds of grilled fish.

Spices are very valuable, even in the upper echelon of the Wei Empire, they are also luxury goods, and many of them need to be imported.

Emperor Caracalla personally brought a roasted rabbit to Wang Wei, and the interpreter told Wang Wei that Emperor Caracalla hoped to see Wang Wei eat meat to show his masculinity.

Manly spirit?

Of course my Great Wei soldier wants to show his masculinity!

meat!

So Wang Wei took the roasted rabbit with both hands, and began to bite it in front of Emperor Caracalla.

This made Emperor Caracalla laugh out loud and felt very happy, and the dignitaries and men and women around him also cheered and encouraged each other.

Anyway, Wang Wei didn't understand why they were so happy.

Chapter 1382 A win-win situation between the Roman nobles and the Wei Empire

In addition to the seemingly normal food, Wang Wei also saw some things that he couldn't accept.

He saw something dark and baked on a plate.

Pick it up and squeeze it, you can feel a bit elastic, and this thing looks square, but there is a strange bump on it, which looks quite weird.

"what is this?"

Wang Wei looked at the translator.

The translator glanced at it with a strange expression on his face.

Emperor Caracalla came over and asked the translator what Wang Wei asked. After understanding, he smiled and said something to Wang Wei, and then pointed to the chest of a Roman noble woman.

"This, it should be this part of the sow."

When the translator said this, Wang Wei followed Emperor Caracalla's fingers and saw the plump breasts of the Roman noblewoman that were almost overflowing.

The Roman aristocratic woman didn't know if she had her husband by her side. Seeing Wang Wei and the emperor's eyes, instead of shyly avoiding them, she proudly raised her chest and looked up. Wang Wei was stunned by the strange aura.

So Emperor Caracalla laughed, very happy.

After regaining consciousness, he swallowed, and Wang Wei put down the dark food in his hands in embarrassment.

Sure enough, it is a little bit more difficult to expect all the delicious food here.

And the women here...

cough cough.

The taste is a bit different.

After that, the thing that made Wang Wei a little bit interested was the yellowish thing in the white.

Plates of white and yellowish things cut into small pieces, take it up and smell it, you can smell a milky smell, that kind of fragrance, but also a little stinky feeling.

Since it was placed on a plate, it should be edible, so Wang Wei tried to take a bite. Immediately, a strange salty taste filled his mouth, but at the same time, a strong milk fragrance also filled his mouth .

The two flavors are intertwined, making Wang Wei not sure whether it is delicious or not.

Not to mention some other weird staple foods, the taste is not bad, and the taste is also good.

But the more he eats like this, the more he misses the rice made from the rice he ate in his hometown, and the dishes made in a wok.

It was really fragrant and really delicious.

It's a pity that during the more than two months of sailing on the ship, he didn't eat a few meals of rice, and basically used the big pancakes in the army to solve the ration problem.

That thing is full of people, fragrant, and it is not easy to break, and it is easy to make.

So now Wang Wei still misses the rice full of rice flowers.

It is certain to eat delicious and full, but the taste from hometown will always give people a different feeling. No matter how much you eat or how full you eat, the taste of hometown is irreplaceable in people's hearts.

Big fish and big meat are delicious, but even some pickled vegetables from hometown can make some people cry from eating.

Wang Wei now misses the taste of his hometown very much.

The sumptuous dinner banquet was in progress, and many Roman dignitaries gathered around the emperor and Wang Wei.

While communicating with the emperor, he communicated with Wang Wei through an interpreter. Wang Wei was forced to stand with wine and communicate with those Roman dignitaries at close range.

Although Wei Guo’s banquet also has a social function, everyone is somewhat distanced, sitting with each other instead of standing like now, holding a wine glass, someone who comes to touch you, someone who comes to touch you, and then chatter communicate with you.

Wang Wei couldn't understand what they said, so he could only communicate through a translator. It was not easy to communicate, and it was easy to fail to understand what they were saying. I felt that the translator was also in a dilemma.

But in general, Wang Wei can still figure out what these guys want to do.

It is nothing more than a matter of some interests.

His purpose of coming here is simple, to do business.

And commerce means making money.

Rome is too big, and it is difficult for the merchants of the Wei Empire to do business throughout the Roman Empire. They need suitable business partners. Wang Wei needs to find a suitable business partner here to do business together.

To put it simply, while doing business on your own, you must also find suitable second-hand dealers in Rome, so that they can go to more remote places to do business and reduce the cost of the Wei Empire itself.

This is a win-win situation for the Roman nobles and the Wei Empire.

Such a big piece of fat, the Wei Empire couldn't eat it by itself, and it would easily offend the local power faction if it was too tired. Naturally, the Roman dignitaries needed to come forward to help, and everyone made money together.

With these people clearing up the relationship, the products of the Wei Empire will naturally be given the green light all the way, and they may be able to exempt a considerable part of the tariffs, further reducing costs and making more money.

At the same time, some local specialties of the Roman Empire can also be introduced.

For example, wine, although the Wei Empire also has it, but imported wines from the Roman Empire can also attract the dignitaries of the Wei State to invest in buying early adopters.

When discussing issues in more depth, Wang Wei noticed that most of these Roman dignitaries discussed with him about importing silk, porcelain, lacquerware, iron pots and other products of the Wei Empire. They rarely mentioned the export of local products, and did not mention any special features. of.

Wang Wei asked the translator to ask if they had any good things worth buying here. These Roman dignitaries looked at each other and laughed.

The translator said that they thought that the things of the Wei Empire were the best things, exquisite, comfortable, and practical, and they simply blasted the local things in Rome to scum.

They hoped to have more silks, porcelain, lacquerware, and iron pots from the Wei Empire, as well as other more special products.

Wang Wei felt strange, did they devalue the things of their own country so worthless?

But after a period of time, after Emperor Caracalla brought Wang Wei a deeper understanding of the Roman Empire, Wang Wei found that the cultural level of the Roman Empire was remarkable, and there were many interesting things worth learning from the Wei Empire, but the economic level was really lacklustre.

It is hard to say that the economic aspects of the Roman Empire that the Wei Empire may need may be wine, minerals, and slaves.

Slaves, which had been abolished and illegal in the Wei Empire, flourished in the Roman Empire.

Wang Wei noticed that the Roman Empire often sent troops to expand its territory, plundered a large number of captives and wealth, but did not pay attention to governing the region, suppressed when problems occurred, and then acquired slaves.

These slaves existed widely in the empire and were included in the private manors of Roman dignitaries and powerful landowners. Therefore, within the empire, private manors existed very widely.

Wang Wei once asked Emperor Caracalla what he thought of these private manors.

Emperor Caracalla said that he also wanted more land and slaves to run his own manor, providing him with greater and more income for his luxurious enjoyment.

"Owning so many manors and slaves, and occupying such a wide area of ​​land, you will definitely get huge wealth. With this wealth, you can buy more silk and enjoy more luxury. Isn't this the happiest thing?"

Emperor Caracalla said so.

Wang Wei was very surprised.

Because in the Wei Empire, a terrible land clearing movement had just been experienced.

The manors of those powerful landlords in the Wei Empire were almost wiped out by the emperor, and on the ruins of the manors, villages directly under the management of the empire were established.

All lands began to pay taxes to the empire, directly to His Majesty the Emperor, and the empire gained more financial revenue for this, making the empire stronger.

His Majesty the Emperor has more money to do things, and major projects in the empire have been launched one after another, effectively changing the appearance of the entire empire.

The peasants in the village and the soldiers from peasant households in the army were very grateful to the emperor, worshiped him, and regarded him as a god.

And those losers were either killed, or trembled and did not dare to move. The lucky ones who survived by chance were grateful for their existence, while viciously cursing the empire and the emperor.

This polarized attitude was widespread in the Wei Empire.

But at the economic level, the existence of the manor owners has disappeared, and the manor owners can no longer challenge the imperial power. The economic foundation of the empire is the farm.

In the Roman Empire, what Wang Wei saw were powerful manors everywhere and serfs who worked hard in the manors and had no future.

These serfs were not Roman citizens, they did not pay taxes to the Roman Empire, and they were not free. All the economic output they exchanged for their lives belonged to their masters.

It was never similar to the previous Han Empire.

No, this is the previous Han Empire, the Han Empire that was divided into warlords and warlords.

Wait, there doesn't seem to be a separatist melee here... really?

Wang Wei has just arrived in Rome, and he doesn't know much about Rome yet. He needs time.

To be honest, the Wang Wei family also owns part of the land and possesses enviable wealth, but his family's manor fully pays taxes to the empire, and every acre of land has to pay taxes.

At the beginning, there was a heated debate within the family over whether to accept such harsh conditions. It was Wang Weili who insisted that everyone abide by the imperial decree.

What happened later proved that Wang Wei's choice was correct.

The emperor is too strong, and too power-hungry.

But Emperor Caracalla does not seem to be the case.

Seeing Wang Wei's expression, Emperor Caracalla felt a little puzzled, so he asked Wang Wei, didn't Wei Guo have such a manor and slaves?

"There used to be, it was everywhere, but now it's rare, because it was all wiped out by our Emperor, the rebellious manor owners were all killed, the land was owned by His Majesty, and it belonged to the country, even if it still belonged to the manor. They also have to be taxed, and even an acre of land has to be taxed.”

The translator reproduced Wang Wei's words, using words that Emperor Caracalla could understand.

"There is such a thing?"

Emperor Caracalla was obviously very shocked: "There are tens of thousands of manor owners. With such a large number, can your emperor defeat them?"

The same emperor, although the situation is different, but Emperor Caracalla took over the throne from his father anyway.

Not only did he understand the truth of what he had to do to be a good emperor [feed the imperial guards, the others don't care], he also knew the problems of the empire.

Because there were so many manors, the yeoman who had once been the main component of Roman citizenship were almost plundered.