A few minutes later, the worker Cao worked in Huanjie and led Ma Jun and a group of strange Westerners from brown to blonde hair and blue eyes to meet Li Su in an orderly manner, with a total of about seven or eight.

However, some of them are not technicians, and they are just waiting for Xuanshou in Tangxia for a while. If there is no problem, they will not be called.

Before bringing these people in, Li Su had already given some instructions to Huan Jie. Huan Jie was also a smart person and specially beat these foreigners in advance to avoid bragging and even if they were too arrogant, both sides were not good-looking in the end.

If the awesomeness is exposed, Li Su just wants to give them a chance to regret, there will be no way out.

The arrogant Sikong sees through foreigners' lies but does not punish them severely. So where is the majesty of the court? So it is best to force them not to lie from the beginning.

Huan Jie warned the few businessmen who knew Chinese and translated people in the crowd:

"Sikong was the most wise man of the Han Dynasty, and he was rarely compared to the three generations. He had a brilliant idea, foresight and knowledge, and knew everything in the world. Even if it was a foreign land thousands of miles away, he had heard of it.

So, you must think clearly before talking after a while. Don’t think about who you can deceive. If you talk nonsense, don’t blame Sikong for not giving him a second chance.

Sikong has planned to reopen the Western Regions four years ago. You have also seen the achievements of the past few years. Many business travelers come to Dunhuang and Jiuquan traders are constantly coming.

Sikong is eager to seek talent and knowledge. Whenever he encounters Kushan, a merchant who rests in peace comes to the country, as long as it is a work that was originally not in the hometown of China, he will give gold as much as sheepskin or papyrus pages for the first time.

Let the clerks sent by the court copy the copies and then send them to Chang'an Lantai for collection. This year, we will have to rest and renovate the Lantai in Luoyang and save another set of copies - so you are definitely not the first batch of Western literati summoned by Sikong. Don't bet on what you said, Sikong would not know, and exaggerate it!”

A group of Western Regions people hurriedly said that they would never dare to deceive anything and would make it open and honest.

Huan Jie's early criticism was half true and half false. What was fake is the boast of Li Su's eagerness to learn, and it was really the Li Su organization's policy measures.

Longxi was pacified in 195, and the remnants of Guo Si and the four counties of Hexi Corridor were completely pacified in 196. After the reopening of the Western Regions trade.

In 195, Li Su set up some private academic institutions in Lanzhou City. It was built in 196 and welcomed the first wave of Western Regions merchants. It has been three years since the calculation time.

That academic institution is a half-school institution and half-library.

On the one hand, we charge high tuition fees to teach some knowledge about business and industrial technology, such as how to build water trucks, how to build cofferdams and water conservancy to provide stable river water energy, property information in the Western Regions and northwest of the Han Dynasty, how to communicate with each other, and how to organize a workshop for spun cotton yarn and weaving cotton cloth...

In short, it is a professional "industrial college", with the Four Books and Five Classics all being secondary, mainly teaching industry, international trade, and water conservancy. It can also be regarded as incubating and stimulating the subsequent development of the Western Regions trade and the Northwest water conservancy and cotton fabric industry.

On the other hand, this institution also assumed the responsibility of "asking foreigners entering the country to ask for books, and asking for copying and backup books" reposted by Huan Jie, which is somewhat like the "Alexandria Library" established by the Greeks during the conquest of Alexander the Great, or similar to the actions of the Arabs during the century-old translation movement.

After three years, we have actually collected more than a hundred volumes of books from Western civilization, mainly obtained in more than a year. Because when the reward was announced in 196, Westerners were not prepared, and even if they heard that there was a heavy reward, they had no books on hand.

At least one person who is interested should go back and search again, and only bring him with him next time he comes to do business, so he basically succeeded after 198.

Moreover, after copying, it was impossible to show it to the Han Dynasty officials immediately because they were just copying in a simple way, and they had to spend a lot of money to ask the Western Regions who were familiar with Chinese and original languages ​​to learn translation.

So far, even Zhuge Liang hasn't learned these books yet. He said that Li Su had read them, but he just made a time difference to scare the foreigners.

...

"Biography of Sikong, the nobles of the Abnormal Kingdom, Paodorus Manduo, general translation, Zestalameni, the 'senate' of the Great Qin Kingdom, Gaius Valerius, the famous craftsman Titus Markford, and his subordinates brought him, please ask Sikong for inquiries."

When Huan Jie introduced these foreigners, the title was a bit confusing, and the name was difficult to read, and he was a little stuttering at the registration that had been prepared in advance.

The main reason is that he does not understand classics and does not know how he called his domestic title when he contacted the Ahshen. The people of the Qin Dynasty never dealt with him directly.

Obviously, among these major Western visitors, there were Parthian Empire, Roman, small lords and small nobles, and merchants and engineers who were vassals. This was really a weird combination.

I guess I have suffered a lot, and some of them were even forced to go to foreign countries to do business and travel.

However, after Li Su only heard the name, his strangeness and surprise decreased a little. At least the name is completely fine, it is a Latin or Greek name.

During the Persian Empire, the names of the Persians were mainly named Persian.

But in the Parthian period, because the Parthians conquered Alexander the Great and died, and after Alexander drove away the rule of the split Seleucid Empire, the rebuilt Persians took power.

Therefore, Parthia was much Hellenistic than the more ancient Persians, absorbing many advantages of Greek civilization. There were also many generations of Parthian kings who specially married beauties stolen from Greece as concubines, so the names of the upper class were Hellenistic.

This was common in other areas that Alexander conquered at that time.

For example, the rule established by the Seleucid Empire in later Syria and Türkiye was Hellenistic, and the people were still local Syrian Turkish people.

In Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty was also the upper class of Alexander from Greece, and most of the generals were kings, and they reproduced from generation to generation, but the people below were Egyptians (the "Cleopatra" when the Ptolemaic dynasty finally perished, which was an alien from Greece, so when Caesar eliminated Anthony and Cleopatra, the rulers of Greek foreign Egypt were actually the rulers of Greek foreign Egypt)

The name of this resting nobleman, Paodorus Manduo, was once heard of as a Hellenistic Persian high-ranking nobleman. The translation he brought did not have as many Greek names as used syllables, but instead had some local Persian, which should not be fake.

As for those Romans, they are all typical Roman names, and there is nothing wrong with it. Li Su played so many generations of Roman battles in his previous life, and Assassin's Creed is not wrong.

In order to establish his authority, Li Su asked condescendingly: "Oh, Mr. Manduo, listen to your name, you should be the Hellenistic Lord of the Abdul-Sabre nobles, and the translation you brought was the Persian."

The noble businessman Man Duo also speaks Chinese. After all, he has been doing business in the Han Dynasty for so long, but he has not understood everything. His general translation, Rameni, understood it instantly, but was so surprised that he didn't translate it to the master, and directly subconsciously answered Li Su's question:

"Your vision and knowledge, noble Sikong, are truly like the sun shining on all things, and you can hear from the name that I am a Persian, and my master has Greek ancestry."

After answering, he realized that he was rude and quickly explained and translated the master next to him with a bad face. Man Duo was very dissatisfied at first, but after hearing Rameni's retelling of Li Su's insight, he was also shocked and did not dare to have the desire to control "You can say whatever I ask you to say."

There are such knowledgeable people in the East who know the internal differences of Western civilization very well.

So, Man Duo basically answered questions and explained the purpose of this group of resting people, what business he had done before, and what he had participated in before, all of them were explained.

However, among the group, Gaius Valerius, wanted to keep some secrets and believed in his remoteness, was the Roman nobleman.

It was not that he deliberately resisted, but that he was just down and down, rushing to the reward of Li Su today's "Design fee plus survey fee of 1,000 kilograms of gold". He was really carrying a tragic and ugly past and didn't want to be revealed again.

Moreover, he also heard from the merchants of Anxi that the merchants and envoys of the Han Dynasty had never been to Rome directly. After coming to the Han Dynasty, he also deliberately paid attention to the degree of understanding of the Han people about the "Qin Qin".

So, when Li Su asked Valerieus the next time through the translation, he chose the seven true and three false, and covered it up slightly.

The translator told him: "...Reporting to Sikong, Mr. Valerieus said that he was once the lord and nobleman of Sicily, the Great Qin Kingdom, but his family was known for his maritime business, so he personally led a fleet to the Aida Kingdom for business. Later, he heard that he had the opportunity to come to the richer Han Dynasty to see it, so he planned to spend a few years with the Aida people to take a look."

There is no flaw in these words. Li Su was not guarding against the other party as if he was a thief at this time. After all, these Western Regions people were very cooperative at the beginning. Li Su asked casually:

"Aren't you Romans an enemy of the Parthians? How could you come together to do business? You don't know how much profit the great man will make, so you dare to have such courage?"

After Rameni helped him translate, Valerieus actually said in a not-so-proficient Chinese: "Even the original pronunciation of our Great Qin is similar to 'Rome', and the sound of 'Pathia' is similar to that of '. It is really admirable.

We, Rome, weren't... we have been fighting with Parthia all the time, and I'm a marshal, and in your words, we are in business. I heard that the great man's silk and, well, and cotton cloth are all very cheap.

The lottery was more expensive than waiting for the heavy gold when I arrived in Rome, so I wanted to buy it myself. There were still those Parthians who stopped us, but fortunately, Mr. Manduo was very righteous and he was done..."

When Li Su heard this, he immediately regained his vigilance. His eyes rolled for a moment, half of them making a false reminder:

"You Romans don't know, don't show off what you have learned in a little bit of knowledge? Your words are not verbal and mixed with words. Shu brocade is Shu brocade, why is it called Shu brocade?

I will give you another chance to speak well. Here is a foreign country, no one cares about what you are like in your country. Even if you are a dilapidated person, you can say it now and do your best to do things in the future. I will give you a bounty. Otherwise...

Our Han Dynasty used people only to select talents and appoint talents, and did not see the origin. In China, there was no system of hereditary government officials more than four hundred years ago. Don’t use your aristocratic system to guess!”

Valerieus was a little surprised, but he thought he could still control the situation. After all, he was not a great prince or noble person. It was impossible for anyone to find it out. People all need face, and he still had so many people to cooperate with.

He explained in a hurry: "I didn't learn Chinese well..."

After a while, I had to go through translation again, which was nothing more than emphasizing that when he was in Lanzhou, he had read some books and learned Chinese language, but was not used to the huge gap between the spoken and written language of the Chinese people.

Li Su sneered: "It's just that I haven't learned Chinese well? You said that the Parthians blocked your interactions with the Han Dynasty to prevent you from buying lottery tickets? After acting, why does this look like it is seen from "Book of the Later Han Dynasty. Biography of the Western Regions"?

Don't try to deliberately figure out how we Han people think of you Romans! No one in this world can predict my predictions."

There is no doubt that Li Su suspected that the Romans had concealed it and had to hit it.

The reason why he suspected was because the Romans tried to say some excuses that "he thought the Han people would feel it was reasonable after hearing it" to prove his purpose.

That feeling is like a foreigner in the 21st century who wants to come to Chinese self-media to make money, and then read some guides.

When I learned that "I just need to eat some Chinese cuisine with a white face on the live broadcast platform, and then exclaimed, "Oh, it turns out that Chinese cuisine is so delicious." It is best to promote myself that I love spicy food. Chinese spicy cuisine is the spicy food the most spicy and the most delicious." Then I can harvest the proud traffic of Chinese people.

Then, I really acted too hard according to the strategy.

But this acting skills definitely won't work with Li Su.

He is neither inferior nor arrogant, and he is neither humble nor arrogant. Such a person is almost unable to use his personality weakness to deceive.

More importantly, Li Su heard the statement that Valeries said that "the Parthians obstructed direct exchanges between Han and Rome to monopolize the trade in color" too well.

That was compiled based on the "Dongguan Han Ji". In the past two years, with the completion of the "Book of the Later Han", this statement has also been adopted.

The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that about a hundred years ago, Ban Chao sent Gan Ying to a mission to the west. When he arrived at the Persian Gulf, he was deceived by the Parthians.

The Parthians said, "It is only possible to cross the sea to the Qin Dynasty. It can be several months at a fast speed and two years at a slow speed. There are unknown dangers in the sea that may cause people to collapse." Then Gan Ying went back to report his life. Many years later, the Han people learned through other channels that it might have been exaggerated by the Parthians.

But Li Su knew exactly how to write this historical material - because it was written by his wife Cai Yan after sorting it out!

One day two years ago, Cai Yan wrote a book at night and sorted out the material "Dongguan Han Ji" left to her by Cai Yong. When he saw this information from his predecessors, he also discussed knowledge with Li Su.

At that time, Li Su and his wife discussed that "the transaction volume of silk trade a hundred years ago was too small, so there was no need to undermine diplomatic relations for this matter."

Moreover, in the past two years, Romans have gradually appeared among the tourists from the Western Regions. After investigation, they have confirmed that there are very few silks there and there is no special trade in buying silk.

The biggest possibility is that the Parthians did this for other purposes - Li Su felt that it was entirely possible for military and diplomatic purposes.

After all, the Parthians had many years of war and vendetta with Rome, and when Ban Chao sent Ganying to go, Ganying didn't know the hatred between Rome and Parthia. Maybe the Parthians told Ganying that "Rome is a peace-loving merchant country and has no combat power."

The Parthians are very likely afraid that the Han would have greater ambitions for the Western Regions. What if they learn that Rome and Parthia were beaten to death and killed, they felt that "there was an opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity, and they could fight far and near, and join forces with Rome to attack Parthia"? Then Parthia would be done.

Of course, this is just one of Li Su's conjectures, but no matter what, in order to deliberately cater to Valerieus, he directly stated the views written by Cai Yan, which is too fake.

...

Valerieus was completely shocked by Li Su's questioning, but he could not realize what he was wrong. But his expression had already revealed more and more flaws.

Even Zhuge Liang couldn't stand watching him. After all, he was also a well-informed person, and he was good at observing and comprehension. Zhuge Liang said:

"Li Sikong has given you a chance, so why not cherish it? Don't you think you deliberately cater to that passage just now and acted too badly? You shouldn't know that "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" was written by Li Sikong's wife, he didn't know what."

Man Duo, Valerie and others were further shocked: How profound is Li Sikong?

Li Su saw it and took the opportunity to differentiate and establish his authority.
To be continued...