Great time travel

Chapter No.16, Trivia of Crete

Not to mention how Kyrol, Doraemon, and King Minos in the underground palace are messed up in the wind, chickens fly and dogs jump, chickens talk to ducks... In a side hall outside the palace, Wang Qiu He and Ma Tong were sitting cross-legged on a brand new reed mat, playing with a box of Babylonian checkers in their hands.

In the civilized countries around the Eastern Mediterranean in this era, this thing is a puzzle game played by the royal family and the common people.

However, since it is a gift from the Minoan royal family to the "Gods", this set of checkers is naturally extraordinary-the chess box is made of gold, the black chess pieces are polished from obsidian, and the white chess pieces are made of silver. Casting, and some mythological figures are inlaid on the box cover with lapis lazuli, carnelian and other gemstones.Just such a small thing is enough for many low-level ordinary people to eat for a lifetime.

In addition, the Queen Mother also presented them with various Cretan-style gold and silver vessels, handicrafts made of precious stones, pearls and beautiful shells, as well as precious fragrant wood, etc. It is far from being able to repay Doraemon's huge debt of tens of billions of yen-at least an order of magnitude lower than the previous 3000 billion yen debt-and it is not what you Japanese immigrants need to build a colonial town.

Therefore, after giving back some modern commodities such as fruit knives, refined salt, and candy to the Minoan royal family, Wang Qiu and the others naturally proposed that they want to start trade in this seaport city, and hope that the royal family will provide convenience-the main goal It is not only to raise funds for Doraemon to repay debts, but also to buy some "special goods" for immigrants that cannot be provided in the modern world, to be precise, cannot be obtained from legal channels...

For this reasonable and simple request, the Queen Mother naturally has everything - she is also very curious about the goods of these "gods".

However, since today is not a market day, even if there is no one doing business at the market, the royal family must first send someone to notify the caravans in the city to bring their goods to the market to hold an unplanned special market. City... In order to attract as many merchants as possible to come with their goods, so as not to make the scene too deserted and offend all the "gods and men", the Queen Mother even gritted her teeth and exempted today's transaction tax.

However, it turns out that she seems to have underestimated the attraction of the daughters of the Nile and the "men of God" who fell from the sky to those curious people.

——As time went by, even though they were inside the deep palace, Wang Qiu and Ma Tong soon heard more and more noisy noises outside.

Then, a court lady wearing a white linen skirt with high slits came over respectfully to inform them of the news.

"...Reporting to all distinguished guests, all the merchants in the city have been summoned to the market, and the goods stalls have been arranged. The palace steward and the guards have also made preparations for the trip. May I ask if you can move now? Set off?"

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As the world's largest ocean trade center in this era, the commercial atmosphere of Crete is obviously much stronger than that of Egypt, an agricultural country.

For example, the largest market in the capital city of Knossos is set directly on the large square in front of the palace.Looking from the front of the palace gate, there are tents everywhere that can't be seen at a glance, tall and short.All kinds of people crowded shoulder to shoulder, and the sound of hawking and yelling resounded through the sky.

In fact, even the garden-like palace of Knossos was also used as an imperial warehouse and royal handicraft workshops. Except for a few industries such as metal smelting, the pollution of ancient handicraft workshops, It is far less serious than the large industrial factories and mines of later generations, so if necessary, it is completely possible for craftsmen and nobles to stay in the same yard without worrying about the smell.

Unlike other countries, these goods hoarded in the Knossos palace and handicrafts produced by court craftsmen are not just for the supply of nobles, servants and troops, but also put on the market for trade-the royal family is It is the country's largest industrial and commercial group and import and export company, not only to rely on trade to obtain financial resources, but also to control the country economically like the Lee family in Singapore in later generations.

——In other Western countries at that time, because the civil service system had not yet appeared, all countries were theocracy and militarized societies. The king claimed to be the incarnation of God, controlled the people's thoughts with temples and troops, expropriated the wealth on the land, and suppressed the Quartet resistance to maintain the rule of the country.

But in Crete, which lives on ocean trade, due to the high degree of commercialization from the beginning of civilization, the population mobility is very high, and they have never been bound to the land. As a result, the Cretans are open-minded and religious. The beliefs are far less pious than the mainland people, but they are very close to modern Western society, and the status of priests is relatively pitiful, and they even work part-time-that's why Mycenaean spies are so easy to get in.If it was in ancient Egypt, wanting a group of foreigners to control the temple is as absurd as letting a group of blond foreigners in charge of the imperial examinations in Ming Dynasty China.

Not only did the temple system not work very well in Crete, making it difficult to fool the people, the military also had special problems.Although the government of this country is devoting all its efforts to develop a powerful fleet and its sea power is unparalleled in the world, after all, the navy cannot go ashore, it is difficult to expand its territory externally, and it is not easy to suppress resistance internally.The most terrible thing is that the wealth of Crete is not mainly derived from land, but from trade. If you blindly abuse violence and extort money, it will only drive businessmen to competitors, which will lead to the decline of the country.Therefore, the royal family of this island country had to personally participate in trade and industry and commerce, firmly hold the largest share of profits, and rule the people with wealth rather than violence or superstition, similar to the modern Western conglomerates—of course, modern Wall Street has It has developed to use finance to control society, but this kind of thing could not be done in Crete in BC.

In short, the navigators of Crete and the merchants from all over the world brought all kinds of rare goods to the island, ranging from ferocious birds and beasts to delicate rings and earrings... … pottery, food, furs, cloth, ivory, pearls, amber, spices, and dried fruits from far away, exotic blankets, trained slaves, clowns and dancers, all goods that can be found in this era, in It's all here.Most of the merchants with a little bit of status put their goods in front of the tents for the guests who come and go to choose at will, and at the same time only leave a few assistants to look after the business, and they have to find time to go to the market. , purchase those fancy goods.

——In the ancient times before the birth of coins and before the emergence of a wealth society, the social economy of all countries in the world was mainly self-sufficient, international trade was still in its infancy, and commerce was only an accessory and supplement to the production industry.Therefore, most merchants do not aim at reselling to make a profit, but exchange their surplus products for scarce materials that are difficult for the main family to produce, as well as interesting novelty items as the top priority.

For example, the Egyptians have a surplus of food, but lack of wood and metal, so the primary task of the Egyptian caravan is to find a way to find a trading partner who is willing to exchange wood and metal for food, so as to ensure that wood and metal can be exchanged for food, and Don't care about the level of your own profits.

In the same way, those nations that have mines and forests but lack fertile land must also exchange all resources within their own country for food to avoid starvation.Due to the bad traffic conditions in ancient times, in practice, as long as you can find a caravan willing to send food, you are already thankful.As for how much food can be exchanged for, and whether it will lose money, I don't care at all.In the bartering commercial market of these days, most commodities are generally in short supply rather than in surplus, as in the later generations of American big capitalists who let the wheat rot in the ground and poured the milk into the Mississippi River in order to maintain profits, In this era of underdeveloped productive forces, it will never appear.

Therefore, the international trade at this time is really just an enlarged country market, let alone a majestic trading building, and there may not even be a fixed store (the private mansion of a big businessman is another matter ), far less high-end and western style than later generations.Everyone just finds a place with convenient transportation, puts out their surplus products, and sees if an exchange can be reached. Today's Crete, due to its powerful fleet and unique geographical location, is able to play this role. The role of the bazaar, so as to make a profit, but that's all.

In addition, due to the lack of a universal intermediary such as coins, merchants must often complete shipments and purchases at the same time.The most distressing thing for them is often not how much profit they can make, but how to reach a deal with the other party and exchange their own things for what they want...

Under such circumstances, when classmate Wang Qiu commanded a group of Japanese refugees from the zombie apocalypse world of "School of the Dead", they brought the [Automatic Pawn Machine] to the market in front of the palace, and publicly announced their willingness to buy these merchants After holding anything of value in hand, and selling all modern goods from glass, ironware, cotton cloth, matches to condiments, the whole city of Knossos suddenly boiled!
——This is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to clear the warehouse!In the past, those gadgets that could not be sold in the hands can now be sold!
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So, in a moment, locally produced olive oil and polychrome pottery, fresh and dried fish from the Aegean Sea, Babylonian bronze crafts inlaid with filigree, Abyssinian ivory wine cups, Mitanni emerald bracelets, Hollowed out silver vases, ornaments made of shells of various colors, oriental spices that are as expensive as gold, mysterious dried mushrooms that are said to make women youthful after eating, and pickled animal organs that can make men show off in bed ...All kinds of strange or ordinary stockpiled goods have been dug out from every corner of the city by the tireless Cretans and foreign businessmen, and brought them to the travelers. A long line of people squeezed and squeezed, and stuffed into the [automatic pawn machine] in turn.

Then, they took a few stamped papers and small metal round cakes given by the other party, and went to the booth next to them to exchange for novelty commodities of varying amounts: a small wooden stick that can ignite a flame with a stroke; The mellow liquor that burns like fire; the wonderful cloth with bright colors; the sweet "candy cubes" that are as colorful as jewels; the metal knives that are sharper than Hittite iron swords...everything makes them feel fascinated , smiling.

However, there are also people who are dissatisfied. For example, a senior craftsman in a painted pottery workshop cannot accept the high-quality colored pottery pots he has carefully fired with ancestral skills. Not a big crab randomly picked up by a coolie at a certain wharf—but Wang Qiu is helpless in this matter. For this Cretan painted pottery pot that is very rough in the eyes of modern people, [Automatic pawn machine] I spit out a 100-yen coin, obviously not treating it as an antique to value it... This is the difference in productivity between the industrial age and the agricultural age!

So, after a few arguments, the unhappy middle-aged man changed to a fruit candy and took it back to make the child happy.

——In the above transaction, the traversers sold all the goods purchased from the modern world at twice the price to raise funds quickly.

What makes the Cretans even more happy is that these gods who are said to have cured King Minos are willing to see a doctor for each of them!

In the Mediterranean world in the [-]th century BC, although human beings have long since gotten rid of ignorance and established civilization, medical technology is still very primitive. The so-called doctors are actually more like wizards, and sometimes treating diseases is simply nonsense.Even in ancient Egypt, which is known as the most advanced medical science, those Egyptian doctors would make dental caries patients eat raw rats to treat tooth decay, and when they couldn't figure out what was wrong with the patient, they jumped on him and chanted spells to drive away evil spirits... The curative effect of the messy medical skills can be imagined, but the problem is that the medical level of other countries is not even as good as that of ancient Egypt!
Therefore, once most ordinary people in this era get sick, they can only lie at home and stand upright while begging the gods to bless them.If you survive, you will be blessed by the gods, and if you cannot survive, you will be called by the gods to ascend to bliss forever... Now that there are really "gods" descending from the sky to treat everyone's illnesses, anyone who has a sick person in the house, They all rushed to bring their sick relatives over.

At the beginning, Wang Qiu also used the [Automatic Medical Box] to diagnose and treat them one by one to ensure that the medicines were cured, and many people were quickly cured of tuberculosis and rheumatism.But looking at those few rich people, they are quite sensible, and they know that they want to give some gold, silver and jewelry as thank-you gifts.The rest of the poor can't pay for the medicine at all, they just kneel on the ground and kowtow to thank them, causing them to lose money... So they also started to be stingy, only giving the rich people heart-to-heart diagnosis and treatment, and throwing the poor to a few Japanese refugees to deal with. Ask them about their conditions, and give them a few aspirin—this medicine is basically effective in treating common diseases such as headaches, analgesia, and anti-inflammation. Besides, even if the medicine is not suitable for the symptoms and has no pharmacological effects, at least it has psychological effects.As for those really critically ill patients, that is your fate.No matter which world there are poor people who die of illness, we traversers are not here to do charity...