Zhao Weiwang in the Warring States Period

Dirty water was flowing, and various kinds of excrement and feces were filled in people's sight. There were huge cages everywhere, and in the cages were all human beings with dull eyes.

Not far from the cage, many cavalrymen with fierce expressions were sitting or standing, talking and laughing loudly. From their accents, it could be heard that they were from the Xiongnu, Yiqu, Wusun, Qiang people and many other tribes.

There are several tents behind the cavalry, and women's screams and men's laughter can be heard from time to time.

Lu Qing looked at all this with a very calm expression.

This is the status quo of the active slave hunting group on the border of Zhao State. This is not the first time for Lu Qing to come, so it is naturally commonplace.

Lu Qing walked into this camp, and suddenly stopped in front of a cage, and gasped, "How dare you detain Zhao Ren?"

There were obviously several black-haired and dark-skinned people in the cage in front of Lu Qing.

Yizhi trembled, and quickly apologized with a smile: "The master is joking, we are also the king's obedient citizens, how dare we treat the people of Zhao as slaves? These people are all from the Longxi of Qin, and they are going to flee to the Western Regions, and then they were arrested by us. The slave team caught it."

"People from the Qin Kingdom." Lu Qing looked a little better, and then said: "You may not know that the Qin Kingdom has been conquered by the king recently. From now on, there will be no more Qin people. You are from Zhao, do you understand what I mean?"

Yizhi smiled and said: "I understand, I will send them to the master later."

Lu Qing hummed and continued to move forward.

With the continuous development of the State of Zhao, the demand for young and middle-aged labor has gradually increased. However, due to years of wars, the proportion of young and middle-aged men in the Central Plains countries is very low, so slaves have become a very good choice.

So on the border of Zhao State, various slave hunting groups began to prevail.

Most of these teams are from various nomadic barbarian tribes beyond the border of Zhao State, and their targets are usually other grassland nomadic tribes and many small countries in the Western Regions further west.

However, everyone in these slave hunting groups knows that there are two iron laws that cannot be violated. The first is "If a Zhao person dies, he will be paid with the life of a hundred Hus", and the second is "A Zhao person cannot be a slave." "".

Generally speaking, once it is discovered that a Zhao people have been killed or captured as slaves, the cavalry troops stationed in Wuwei City will be dispatched to hunt down and kill tribes who dare to violate the rules.

If Lieutenant Wuwei feels that his own army is not enough to succeed, then he can apply to his superiors for more troops.

After Zhao’s Northern Frontier Cavalry Corps attacked several times in a row and wiped out several large tribes that did not obey the order, the bloody fact of tens of thousands of human heads made all the slave hunting groups consciously abide by these two orders .

That's why Lu Qingming didn't know Yizhi before, but he dared to walk into Yizhi's camp with a few guards.

Because Lu Qing is an out-and-out authentic Zhao countryman.

Now that Zhao Dan has announced the fact that the Qin people will become the people of Zhao in the future, then the Qin people will naturally become a member of the Zhao people, so these lucky Qin people will naturally be able to obtain freedom from the slave traders up.

Of course, if these people from the state of Qin are still unwilling to become citizens of the state of Zhao, then this kind of freedom will still be lost at any time, but it is up to Captain Wuwei to decide, and it is not up to Yizhi, a slave trader, to dictate.

Lu Qing continued to follow Yizhi, until he walked into a cage that looked quite remote, and then Yizhi smiled and pointed at Lu Qing: "Please look, master, this is the stuff I was talking about." An envoy of the Ryugu Kingdom."

Lu Qing walked to the front of the cage, and took a look at the situation in the cage.

In fact, there were more than a dozen people in the cage, all of them had blond or brown hair, deep eye sockets, and a high nose bridge, somewhat similar to some Yuezhi people Lu Qing had seen.

Among the dozen or so slaves, an old man was obviously respected, which can be seen from the fact that all the slaves surrounded the old man and protected the old man in the middle.

It seemed that these people had been tortured very miserably, they were all tied together, and each of them hung their heads weakly. Even after hearing the footsteps of Lu Qing and his party, no one raised their heads.

Lu Qing nodded, and said to Yizhi, "Can they speak Zhao language?"

Yizhi smiled, and suddenly yelled a few times into the cage in the Xiongnu dialect.

These words finally attracted the attention of the people in the cage, and several people raised their heads at the same time.

A person in the cage chattered.

Yizhi chattered again.

Then the caged person shook his body, looked at Lu Qing with incredulous eyes, and then said a word.

This time, Lu Qing understood what he said.

"Are you an official of Zhao State?"

This sentence is not Zhao language, but elegant language, which is the "Zhou Dynasty version of Mandarin" used in the countries under the Zhou Dynasty since the founding of the Zhou Dynasty.

Compared with Yayu, Zhaoyu, which was born out of Jinyu, is more like a local dialect. Although there are similarities between the two, there are also many differences.

Of course, after the Zhao Kingdom unified the world, the Zhao language would become the official language in the future, and the elegant language would disappear in the long river of history.

As a businessman traveling the world, elegant language can be said to be an essential skill, so Lu Qing understands it as a matter of course.

Lu Qing nodded and said, "I'm not an official of Zhao State, but if you and the others are really missions, then I can take you out from here."

When this guy translated this sentence to the other caged people, all the caged people visibly commotioned.

The old man surrounded by other people said a few words in a hurried tone, and then took out a piece of parchment from somewhere in his arms.

Then the man in the cage who could translate held up the parchment, and said in a somewhat proud tone: "We are indeed from the Seleucid Empire, and we hope to go to Handan, the capital of Zhao, and the great The king of Zhao made a covenant to jointly fight against the invasion from the Huns."

"Hun?" Lu Qing was stunned for a moment.

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

"Hun?"

When Zhao Dan heard the news, he was also stunned.

Ever since Li Mu defeated the allied forces of the Huns and Wusun in a big battle, let the main force of the Huns escape Mobei, and recovered the tribes of Monan and merged Monan into the territory of Zhao State, the news of the Huns has not spread to Zhao Dan for a long time ears.

This does not mean that Zhao Dan does not pay attention to the Huns as an enemy. It is really difficult for Zhao Guo Hu Yiwei to investigate the intelligence of the Mobei Huns across the vast Gobi desert.

In the past few years, Hu Yiwei has sent several groups of more than a hundred people to Mobei, hoping to obtain information about the Huns through these people, but so far, no one has brought back any information.

This is enough to prove how helpless this vast desert is in this era.

However, at this moment, Zhao Dan was surprised to hear the news of the Xiongnu from the envoy of a country whose territories were mainly in Central Asia and West Asia.

"The Huns went west?"

Zhao Dan keenly felt that this was definitely big, big news.

Zhao Dan pondered for a moment, stood up, and walked to the map hanging on the wall beside him.

Compared with the world map of later generations, the map in Zhao Dan's hands can be said to be super crude.

Except for the territory of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period in China, the other places are almost blank. Large areas are only marked with the names of certain tribes and countries, and even the locations of cities may not be accurate.

In terms of the Western Regions, there is also a large blank area, but the names of a few tribes and small countries that are currently relatively close to the Hexi Corridor in the northwest of Zhao State are marked. If you go further west, they are basically hearsay names. When the Western Regions were originally a chaotic place full of small countries, many of the names above might not even exist.

"Western Regions!" Zhao Dan let out a long breath and remained silent.

The Western Regions must be taken down.