Chapter 674 Huang Shengguan Tea and Horse Trading Office

Life in the Tongzi Camp was far worse than Chen Ding imagined, especially during inspections along the route.

As mentioned above, Songfan has a complex and changeable geographical environment. This city happens to be located at the border of the Sichuan Basin and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The geographical environment is changeable and complex. It is definitely more difficult to inspect along the route than on Sakhalin, Northeast, and Tropical rainforest areas are larger.

Now a team that has gone through untold hardships is gradually approaching a local checkpoint set up by Tongziying - this is a checkpoint that has just been set up, right at the Xiyuan of Minjiang next to Huangsheng Pass. The Minjiang River originates from Songfan, and its east and west sources are all within the territory of Songfan.

Its eastern source is the Zhangla River, and its source is Longbangou at the southern foot of Gonggangling Mountains in the Minshan Mountains in the north of Songpan County. The pass is 3,690 meters above sea level. Gonggangling is named because its ridge is like the bar of a bow. Its cockfighting platform has the origin of Baihe River (the upper source of Baishui River, a tributary of Bailongjiang (Dianjiang), the largest tributary in the upper reaches of Jialing River). Longbangou at the southern foot is also the birthplace of the Minjiang River. It is a water-dividing pass. Longbangou, the upper source of the Minjiang River, flows out from the pass. From north to south, it connects the Naqqu Rangke River and Ayonggou on the left, and the Nazayigou on the right. "Shui Jing Zhu" states: "The edge of the cliff is scattered, and there are hundreds of small streams, but they have barely begun."

The Xiyuan originates from Langjia Ridge in the Minshan Mountains of Songpan County. The upper source is called Huolong Valley. It turns south and flows eastward, leaving the Nadatama Valley; turning southeast and crossing Gaotaizi, leaving the Nayangdong River; then turning south to the mouth of Lianghe River, and flowing to the right Naremazong Valley; turning south-east and right It leads to Dalong Valley, then passes Huangshengguan, and then reaches Nayayi Valley. This section is also called Huangshengguan River. Then pass through Dongbei Village, go to Laoxiong Valley on the right; go southeast to Zhanglaying, Chuanzhusi Town, and meet Dongyuan. Hereafter it is called Minjiang River. Although Xiyuan is not easy to walk, it is much easier to travel than Dongyuan. It is an important channel for Songfan to communicate with Qinghai and Yushu areas.

This is not a pleasant journey through the mountains and rivers. A group of people are going to replace the troops at the Huangshengguan Scout Station. They are accompanied by a large number of pack horses, each carrying a large wooden box. The team shuttles through high mountains and fast rivers. Among the mountains and valleys. As the border between the plateau and the basin, there is a huge drop, dangerous peaks and deep valleys, and the terrain drops thousands of meters in an instant, just like riding a roller coaster. There are cliffs, deep ditches and waterfalls everywhere.

Chen Ding's Laozi once said that the Hengduan Mountains in the southwest are like "looking up at the mountains to the sky, looking down at the rivers forming a line." Songfan was not even close to the Hengduan Mountains, but now Chen Ding feels that this sentence can also be applied here.

Fortunately, the Millennium Caravan's passage has opened up a route to Qinghai in the complex geographical environment. This passage of Chen Ding and the others saved a lot of effort.

Starting from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Tibet began to have a close connection with the Central Plains. Qinghai was mostly the territory of the Mongols during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but many Tibetans also lived here.

Qinghai is too big, but its population is too small.

The latter is a situation formed by the joint promotion of science and technology, politics, economy and other aspects. Difficult living conditions are also one of the factors that must be ranked at the forefront.

Due to the high cold and hypoxia of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Qiang, Tibetans, and Mongolians who have lived here for generations have always led a nomadic life, with tsampa, milk, butter, beef and mutton as their staple foods. Firstly, they only have these to eat, and secondly, in the cold local climate, they must eat these high-fat and high-calorie foods to survive. However, people cannot stand eating these greasy foods for a long time! Zanba is hot and dry, and excess fat is not easily decomposed in the human body!

Look at traditional Chinese medicine and the Han people. Among the middle and upper classes with a guaranteed quality of life, they have long advocated a combination of meat and vegetables. The most common way to resolve greasiness is to eat vegetables and pasta. But highland barley is too different from rice, white flour, millet and millet. Much different. On the plateau, the climate is too cold, and highland barley is one of the few plateau plants of this era. Ordinary vegetables simply cannot grow. Even in later generations, people on the plateau wanted to solve the problem of not being able to eat vegetables, so they had to build their own greenhouses. They could not grow fruits directly in the ground, but put soil into pots and then put things into the pots. Only in this way can we survive... As you can imagine in this era.

Therefore, tea has become a necessity that people of all ethnic groups in Tibet cannot live without. This thing can not only decompose fat, but also prevent dryness and heat. "Supplementary Notes on Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "Pu'er tea paste, as black as paint, is the best for sobering up, and green is better; it can digest food and reduce phlegm, clear the stomach and promote fluid production. Pu'er tea is made by steaming it Tuan, from Xifan City, is the best tea for dissolving substances. It has a bitter taste and can relieve the toxins of greasy cattle and sheep.

Therefore, the tea trade that originated in the Tang and Song Dynasties and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties became a magic weapon for the Central Plains Dynasty to check and balance the various ethnic groups in Tibet.

Because tea is not produced in the high and cold Tibet, so they can only 'import' it!

In the hinterland, civilian services and military campaigns required a large number of mules and horses, but the supply exceeded demand. Tibetan areas and the Sichuan and Yunnan border areas produced excellent horses and draft horses. As a result, the complementary trading of tea and horses, the "tea-horse mutual market," came into being. In this way, mules, furs, medicinal materials, etc. produced in Tibetan areas, Sichuan and Yunnan border areas, and tea, cloth, salt, daily utensils, etc. produced in Sichuan, Yunnan and the interior, are constantly flowing between the high mountains and deep valleys in the north and south of the Hengduan Mountains. It has become increasingly prosperous with the development of social economy, gradually forming an "Ancient Tea Horse Road" that lasts for thousands of years.

After the establishment of the Chen-Han Dynasty, various canned fruits, dehydrated vegetables, and seafood were also gradually imported into Tibet. The local food was meat tsampa, and vegetables and fruits were very scarce. This was due to the lack of many vitamins required for human growth and metabolism. For Needless to say, the popularity of canned fruits, dehydrated vegetables and various seafood products is needless to say.

It is said that long before Han tea entered Tibet, Tibetans collected leaves from trees or rhizomes of certain plants and boiled them with soil alkali to make tea instead. In the middle period of Tubo, tea from the Tang Dynasty began to enter Tibet one after another, and then all ethnic groups in Tibet could no longer live without tea.

In particular, the nobles and manor slave owners of various tribes showed an inestimable enthusiasm for canned fruits. The pickled fruits, which only retained a little of their original taste, were the most perfect gifts for the middle and upper class nobles in Tibet to visit others in recent years. Even tea bricks and salt are not as precious as canned food. Even if tea bricks give people more than just taste, they can dissolve fat and help digest meat and dairy foods. This also makes Tibetans never forget tea once they come into contact with it. Moreover, the air pressure on the plateau is low, the water evaporation effect of the human body is strong, and the turgor pressure of blood vessels increases. Drinking tea can also enhance the pressure resistance of blood vessels. Therefore, there is a catchphrase among the Tibetan people that "one day without tea will cause stagnation, and three days without tea will cause illness." The Han people also have records of "the barbarians love cheese, and they will be sick if they don't have tea" and "the heat of barley can only be relieved by tea."

As the saying goes, where there is demand, there is a market, and where there is a market, there are economic people.

Because tea is an important guarantee for the survival of plateau ethnic groups, since the Tang Dynasty, successive regimes in the Central Plains have opened "tea-horse trade" to exchange tea for horses. Tea was even used as an important political bargaining chip, so strict policies were formulated for the production and sale of tea, and a planned economy of unified purchase and sale was established. Not only did they monopolize the profits of tea, but they also used tea to govern the border, so there was a saying that "it is better to control it than tens of thousands of armored soldiers." This phenomenon has huge benefits for tea farmers, tea workers, tea merchants in Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as porters and mule gangs, and certain intermediary agencies, all those who make a living and profit from it. The Tibetan plateau ethnic groups who love tea are completely their "parents of food and clothing." Therefore, no matter how the regime in the Central Plains changes, the "Ancient Tea Horse Road", a green ancient road connected by life, will always be endless.

The same is true for the connection between Songfan and Qinghai. Teams of horse caravans shuttled through the dangerous mountains and ridges to communicate the closest connection between Tibet and the Central Plains.

It is the highest and most difficult plateau civilization ancient road in human history. In one day, you can experience heavy snow, hail, scorching sun and strong wind at the same time, and the temperature changes greatly. The climate changes more dramatically in a year. The folk proverb says: "On the second and third days of the month, the mountains are covered with snow; on the fourth, fifth and sixth days, you will cry when soaked; on the seventh, eighth and ninth days, it is a little easier to walk; in the tenth day of the winter, you will crawl like a dog." The difficulty of traveling can be imagined.

For example, now, it is noon, and the valley that was previously covered with heavy snow has suddenly become sunny again. The sun shines through the gradually whitening clouds and transmits golden beams of light. The horses carrying a lot of goods excitedly shook their heads to shake off the water droplets left after the water splashes melted. A fist-sized bell was hanging on their necks, making a ding-dong sound as their bodies swayed.

These horses are all southwest horses that are good at climbing mountains, but the rugged mountain roads and the complex and changeable geographical environment still make them all exhausted. They are sweating all over and panting. The guide who leads the team is an old man in his fifties. At this time, he said: "Stop and unload everything. The horses are tired. Let them have a good rest."

It's the same whether people carry things or horses carry things. The horses are tired, and people are not relaxed. The long-term crossing of mountains and ridges makes people and horses feel extremely tired. And the destination seems to be so far away.

Before setting off, the guide was called by the leader of the Boy Scout Camp to give a special lecture, saying that he should pay attention to safety, take a good rest, and never have an accident when crossing mountains and ridges.

Although the boxes on the horses' backs are filled with very precious things, for ordinary herdsmen, the value of a box is enough to buy their entire home, but all the boxes on the horses here are not as much as a hair of Chen Ding.

These children of the rich and powerful who came to the Boy Scouts, including Chen Ding, could be injured or even die during the mission, but they must not suffer losses during the "indifferent" march, so the chief officers of each Boy Scout camp set the longest exercise time for them. Even if there were orders from above, requiring the Boy Scout camps in various places to strictly treat the training groups, who would dare to do so? There are not only countless descendants of the rich and powerful in Nanjing, but also the eldest prince.

This team has fifty or sixty people, half of whom are ordinary Boy Scout soldiers, and the rest are all children of the rich and powerful headed by Chen Ding. At this time, everyone was unloading the heavy boxes on the horse's back, including Chen Ding. The boy scout who was in the same group with Chen Ding was only fourteen years old, but he was even stronger than Chen Ding and had great strength. He exerted his strength and directly moved a box down. Then another wooden box filled with medical substances was gently placed on the ground by the two of them.

It has been the third day since we entered the mountain. Huangshengguan is not too far away from the map, but it is not easy to reach the place by walking.

Chen Ding's appearance is much better than Chen Ming's. At least his skin is very fair and his clothes are kept neat. In addition to the long gun on his shoulder, he has a double-barreled pistol hanging on his waist and a short knife. The leather sheath looks gray and inconspicuous, and there are no gems or pearls embellished, but in fact it is absolutely crocodile leather, not old cowhide. The double-barreled pistol on his waist is also a fine product with ivory handle.

Chen Ding was not good along the way. He did not ride a horse. He was also very good-tempered and had no airs. At least he was much better than these scouts imagined.

"Da Mao, at this pace, can we reach the camp today? We should be able to enter Huangsheng Pass tomorrow afternoon."

"Report to the corporal," corporal is Chen Ding's current military rank, "We may not be able to reach the camp today. The weather is unpredictable, which has a great impact on our progress. It is estimated that we will have to walk for two more days." Da Mao, that is, Mao Yongsheng answered truthfully based on his own experience.

It is also fortunate that the superiors slowed down the time point the most, otherwise it would really be impossible to reach Huangsheng Pass in three days this time. Yes, the normal journey time is only three days in the Boy Camp. If it is not exceeded, the leader will be miserable.

"Two more days? Then it should have taken us five days to reach Huangsheng Pass." Chen Ding is not a fool, how could he not know that five days is not right? It is someone else who is taking care of them. In his opinion, it should be at least one day earlier, but now it is the standard five days. Chen Ding looked a little unhappy, he knew that he had actually lost this time.

"Report to the corporal, you don't have to be discouraged. This road is not easy to walk in winter, and July, August and September are the easiest time. There is an old saying among the horsemen here: On the second and third days, the mountains are covered with snow; on the fourth, fifth and sixth days, you will cry in the rain; on the seventh, eighth and ninth days, it is slightly easier to walk; in the tenth day of winter, you will crawl like a dog. Although we spent a lot of time on this road, we can all arrive at Huangshengguan smoothly within the specified time, which is the biggest victory." Mao Yongsheng hurriedly comforted Chen Ding.

To be honest, Mao Yongsheng and his team already admire Chen Ding and his team very much. Being able to climb mountains and ridges for several days in a row without complaining is definitely beyond Mao Yongsheng and his team's expectations.

You should know that there is also a tea-horse trading office in Huangshengguan, which was the former Tea-Horse Department and Tea Tax Department. The power of tea-horse trading has been controlled by the court in all dynasties. The adults in the tea-horse trading office complained about the first time they walked the Huangshengguan Road. Now a group of young men of the same age as them have come to Nanjing City. They don't complain or feel tired. This is the biggest exercise.