In the cabin, the bearded man sat cross-legged, with his hands on his legs, staring at Chen Ke, and started talking..././
"There is a famous saying in the Song Dynasty, which is to open the skylight and speak frankly." The young man translated: "Let's talk openly and honestly."
"Okay." Chen Ke nodded and said, "Let's start with self-introduction." After a pause, he said loudly: "I'll come first. My surname is Chen Mingke, an official of the Song Dynasty who manages Qinzhou Port."
"..." It took a long time after he finished speaking before he heard the bearded voice speak in a low and authentic voice. The young man translated: "Abdullah Jabbar, an official in black clothes, representing the great Caliph, came to pay a pilgrimage to the Song Dynasty.
His Majesty the Emperor..."
"Humph..." Chen Ke sneered: "While saying that we need to be honest, we are still lying!"
"Where did we lie?" The young man obviously lacked confidence.
"I know if I'm lying." Chen Ke lowered his face and said, "I won't hold you accountable. Just wait until you get to Bianjing and confront the Seljuks!" After saying that, he stood up and was about to leave the cabin.
"Wait!" It was not the young man who spoke, but the bearded Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Liu Yue'e looked at him in surprise, but Chen Ke laughed and said, "You can indeed speak Chinese."
Jabbar nodded and said solemnly: "How did you see the flaw?"
"Your acting skills are actually really good. You can even fool an old fox like Wang Han." Chen Ke smiled slightly and said, "It's just unfortunate that I happen to know that the Abbasid dynasty no longer exists.
Food is part of the Seljuk Empire, and all domestic and foreign affairs are decided by the Seljuk Sultan. The caliph is just a spiritual leader, so how can he have independent diplomatic power?"
Hearing what Chen Ke said, Jabbar showed a calm expression. He said in a deep voice: "Mr. Chen, there is actually no Seljuk envoy, right?"
Chen Ke smiled and said, "How do you know?"
"Those arrogant barbarians, who think they are the king of the world, would travel thousands of miles to send people to pay homage to the Emperor of the Song Dynasty." Jabbar said in amusement.
"That's right. The Seljuks didn't come." Chen Ke nodded and smiled.
"What are you going to do, sir?" After a brief silence, Jabbar said quietly: "Expose us and send us to court?"
"If I want to expose you," Chen Ke spat, "Why should I get on your boat?"
"What do you mean, sir?" Jabbar said in a deep voice.
"First tell me your whole story." Chen Ke said coldly: "Although I am not afraid of dealing with liars, I can't be kept in the dark."
"Hahahaha, why should I tell you!" Jabbar laughed ferociously: "I can kill you and then escape overnight!"
"You're just talking nonsense." Chen Ke also laughed loudly and said, "You pretended to be the messenger of Dashi and spent a lot of money, right? You came from thousands of miles away and came back empty-handed. How can you explain to your debtor? Oh.
By the way, I'm afraid you don't need to wait for the debtors to hunt you down. The mercenaries on your ship will throw you into the sea to feed the sharks because you can't afford the commission."
"Devil..." Jabbar was hit hard by Chen Ke. His face turned livid and he said: "You are the devil who peeps into people's hearts!"
Chen Ke pretended to smile profoundly and did not answer.
After a while, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sighed dejectedly and said, "Okay, I'll tell you the truth."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abdullah-Jabbar is his pseudonym. His real name is Aziz. He is not a cannibal, but a Persian.
Of course, the Song Dynasty couldn't tell the difference between Persia and Dashi. After all, the people of the Song Dynasty were still arrogant and were only interested in the Xixia and Liao Kingdoms that posed a threat. Other neighboring countries, such as Japan, Jiaozhi, and the original Dali, were not
They didn’t know much about Dashi, let alone Dashi thousands of miles away. In the official view of the Song Dynasty, Persia and Dashi were basically the same thing.
In fact, it is not the same thing at all. Persia is an ancient empire with a civilization of 1,200 years, but it was conquered by the emerging Arabs 400 years ago. The Persian Empire disappeared and the Persians became a ruled nation.
The Arabs established a new empire, the Umayyad dynasty, which the Tang Dynasty people called the "Great Food in White Clothes".
However, because of the struggle between Shias and Sunnis... in short, the struggle between the acceding sects and the hereditary sects, the empire was always in a fierce civil war. Finally, less than a hundred years later, in the Tang Dynasty
At the end of the Anshi Rebellion, the Shia Abbas overthrew the Umayyad dynasty and established a new empire. However, ironically, after becoming the caliph, Abbas quickly turned against Sunniism and accepted Sunniism as the orthodoxy.
Cracked down on the Shiites and established the second Arab hereditary empire.
Because the flag of the Abbas family was still black, people in the Tang Dynasty called it "The Great Food in Black".
The first 100 years of the Black Clothes and Eclipses were the peak period of the Arab Empire, which was not inferior to China's Tang civilization.
Territorially, it is a large empire spanning Asia, Europe and Africa. Economically, it is the center of world trade. Arab merchants have footprints all over Asia, Europe and Africa, monopolizing maritime trade and international markets. Baghdad, Basra,
Searaf, Cairo, Alexandria, Oman and other waterway trade ports have become world-famous big cities.
In terms of culture, to put it bluntly, they wanted to overpower the Tang Dynasty. Although the Tang Dynasty was graceful and graceful, it was still a rut for literati to entertain themselves. The Abbasid Dynasty vigorously advocated and sponsored academic culture.
With its development, libraries, observatories, various schools and hospitals have been established in major cities across the country, and with the Baghdad Wisdom Museum as the academic center, the most ambitious "Century Translation Movement" in human history has been launched.
The so-called 'Wisdom Museum' is a comprehensive academic institution that integrates book collection, research, and translation. The Abbasid Dynasty sent people around the world to collect ancient books. They brought them together in Baghdad and hired translators from the East and the West with large sums of money to translate Greek and Roman books.
, philosophical and scientific works from Persia, India, Syria and China, translated into Arabic to absorb advanced cultural heritage and enrich and develop Islamic culture.
The books translated by Arabs cover the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. The content covers language, literature, astrology, religion and philosophy, history, art, politics, law, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, logic, and nature.
The discipline... brings together the essence of three thousand years of human civilization.
Islam, which has fully absorbed its nutrients, has become extremely powerful. Under the strong promotion of the Abbasid Dynasty, the Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, and Persians in the territory have been completely Muslimized, or Arabized.
There is no difference at all.
So it is not wrong for Aziz to say that he is an Arab.
Of course, no time lasts forever, and any empire will decline one day. Excessive comfort and enjoyment caused the Arabs to degenerate rapidly. In order to maintain the huge empire, they had to reuse Turkic slaves. As a result, the Turkic slave generals took advantage of the situation and seized the empire.
The military power of the caliphate was arbitrarily killed, and the caliphate was deposed, which caused the imperial power to decline incomparably, and governors from various places were replaced one after another. By a hundred years ago, the only area under the direct jurisdiction of the caliphate was Baghdad and its surrounding small areas. It was soon replaced by Bai Yi.
The dynasty was annexed. The caliph lost all rights and was reduced to a spiritual leader.
Just the year before last, the Seljuk dynasty established by descendants of Turks overthrew the Buyid dynasty and controlled Baghdad in the name of 'Sultan'. The caliph was still only a spiritual leader. He did not have any rights, let alone send envoys to pay tribute...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aziz claimed to be of Persian aristocratic origin and had served as an official in the Abbasid dynasty for generations. Later, after the Buyid dynasty annexed Baghdad, the family switched to business. During the one hundred years of the Buyid dynasty's rule, although the Arab world was still in chaos
, but it did not affect their commercial trade... Conquest is a costly activity, so all parties have a tacit agreement to protect trade routes and grant immunity to merchants.
Especially at sea, the Arabs' navigation technology is unparalleled in the world, allowing them to conduct ocean voyages that other peoples are afraid of. They are embedded in the middle of the East-West trade route. For hundreds of years, they have made huge profits by reselling goods between the two places.
Profits. In this era when Sinbad traveled across the seven seas, the Aziz family, although they entered the navigation industry late, still grew and grew.
But after the rise of the Seljuks, the situation took a turn for the worse. Speaking of which, the Seljuks were a group of Turks who were defeated by the Tang Dynasty. They migrated to Central Asia and settled there, and later converted to Sunni Islam.
, henceforth known as Seljuks.
Decades ago, the Seljuks overthrew the Buyid Empire, occupied Baghdad, and established the Seljuk Empire spanning Central Asia, West Asia, and Africa. In order to consolidate their rule, they changed the early Islamic attitude towards pagans and foreign cultures.
Tolerance. Not only did he pursue the extreme religious policy of Shunchang and his defeat in the country, he also occupied the provincial capital Jerusalem and banned Christians from going on pilgrimage.
When the news spread to Europe, the Christian world was in a state of excitement. The Pope clamored to launch a jihad. Those fanatical Christians frantically attacked Arab merchant ships at sea. Western port cities also used various reasons to create difficulties and even seize the goods of Arab merchants.
The Aziz family's business suffered heavy losses due to Christian attacks. Ships were robbed one after another, and the family was heavily in debt. The angry creditors sent fierce Mamluk slaves to surround Aziz's home and captured him.
If his wife and children could not repay their debts on time, they would be sold into slavery.
However, even when the trade routes were open, Aziz could not earn enough money to repay his debts through normal trade in a short period of time. When he was desperate, he thought of a way, which was to pretend to be an envoy of Dashi.
Make the most profitable business in the world - pay tribute!
And... (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian to vote for recommendations and monthly votes. Your support is my biggest motivation.)
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