The silk shirt, fine cashmere jacket, trousers, silk dome hat, leather shoes, folding fan, etc. worn by Earl Carlton are all standard equipment for the gentry of the Tang Dynasty today.
but!
That's not all!
As a decent gentleman of the Tang Dynasty, he also needs a cloak when going out. When the weather is good, he wears a short cloak, and when the weather is cold, he wears a long cloak. This cloak is naturally the best choice for all kinds of furs, and the price is not cheap.
Earl Carlton is currently wearing a long cloak, but this cloak is not a new one he purchased, but a fox cloak given to him by the Kingdom of Denmark. It is said to be more than 80 years old, so it saves the money.
He spent a lot of money.
This is just what I’m wearing!
If we were in the Tang Dynasty, a decent gentry would have a lot of things to pay attention to when traveling.
For example, in winter, a pair of expensive and exquisite leather gloves is also a must.
In fact, this habit is not something that the Chinese people have since ancient times, because the traditional Chinese costumes are all wide and long-sleeved, and the hands can be retracted directly into the sleeves. People do not have the habit of wearing gloves, but Europeans have this habit.
But the gloves worn by Europeans and the leather gloves worn by people in the Tang Dynasty are completely different concepts.
The wearing of gloves by the Tang Dynasty people came from the army, because for the convenience of combat, military uniforms had tops and narrow sleeves. In order to prevent the soldiers’ fingers from freezing when fighting in winter, they were distributed on a large scale in the early days.
Gloves.
This is not the point.
The point is that starting from the Huangzhushan period, Li Xuan, the great emperor who was greater than the sun, began to wear gloves.
The uniform of the Holy Emperor is unique and the only one in the world.
From the military uniform portraits of the Holy Emperors painted by many painters, we can see the military uniforms of the early Saint Emperors.
The Holy Emperor usually wears a navy blue dragon-patterned double-breasted single-breasted top, straight straight pants, long leather boots, a sword around his waist, white or black leather gloves, and a round top hat.
At the same time, he is often riding a tall horse!
The Holy Emperor all wore gloves on his head, and subsequent generals generally did the same, and later on, it became a common behavior among the entire army.
Then this habit was introduced to the people. Professional attire, which originally imitated military uniforms, naturally included gloves.
A pair of exquisite black leather gloves cost Earl Carlton three Tang Yuan.
Not counting the cloak, Earl Carlton's outfit cost about thirty-five Tang Yuan!
Of course, Earl Carlton is not an ordinary person. The thirty-five Tang Yuan is a large number for ordinary people, but it is not taken seriously by him.
What he valued even more was that he was dressed exactly the same as him, except for a few soldiers from the Tang Dynasty who came to greet him.
This gave him the feeling of being in a civilized world.
After the two parties exchanged simple greetings, the greeters sent by Datang took them into the carriage and headed to the European Hotel.
Although the person who came to greet them was only a sixth-rank official from the Tang Dynasty, Carlton still did not dare to show any contempt along the way, but instead deliberately flattered them with his words.
He even didn’t forget to say the Tang dialect he just learned: “I’ve met the adults.”
Earl Carlton knew that there were nine levels and eighteen levels of officials in the Tang Dynasty, but he knew even better that the magistrates stationed in Ceuta by the Tang Dynasty could only be in the fifth level.
Officials of the sixth rank may not be considered a big deal in their homeland, but in Ceuta and even the entire Europe, they are already considered relatively important officials of the Tang Dynasty.
But this was just Carlton's idea. In fact, Ye Zhoulian who came to greet him had a rank, but he really couldn't say that he had weight, otherwise he wouldn't have been sent to the dock to pick up a so-called person from a mere indigenous country in the cold weather.
Earl.
This kind of thing is only for marginal officials. None of the powerful people in Ceuta would lower their status to take over a small count from an indigenous country.
Ye Zhouyi was not a local official of the Ceuta State Yamen, but a diplomat.
If you are a high-ranking diplomat of the sixth grade, you will naturally have a good status in a place like Europe. If you are placed in an ordinary consulate, you will often be a full consul.
But he also had a difficult time in the embassy in Europe.
He currently works at the Embassy of the Tang Dynasty in Europe as the counselor of the Northern European Section.
In the official organizations of the Tang Empire, the heads of some organizations may use titles such as supervisor, director, co-organizer, counselor, etc. However, they are only different from titles such as director and deputy director.
There's nothing special about it, well, unless it has the word "imperial order" hanging in front of it, such as Qiao Haozhong, who was ordered to supervise European military affairs!
It's also supervision, but it's a completely different concept.
As you can see from this series of sequences, Ye Zhouyan's counselor is ranked fourth. Not to mention that in the entire embassy in Europe, even in the Nordic section, his authority is only ranked fourth.
, and also suffered a certain degree of exclusion.
It's just that Earl Carlton naturally doesn't know about this kind of thing.
He led a few people to follow the Tang Dynasty officials who came to greet him. He first left the dock area, and then everyone got into a four-wheeled carriage. After getting on the carriage, Earl Carlton could tell that the carriage must be from the Tang Dynasty.
Shipped locally.
It's so comfortable to sit on, it must be the use of the highest grade shock-absorbing springs.
Although springs are nothing new now, many European countries and even the Tatars can produce springs on a small scale and use them for military purposes: for the firing mechanism of flintlock muskets.
Even now, even the Tang Dynasty has relaxed export restrictions on flintlock guns. Basically, anyone with money can buy Datang's flintlock guns. Even Tatars can buy Datang's flintlock guns through indirect channels!
However, as a special steel, spring steel is still on the list of export restrictions, and exports require approval.
This is also the same as many industrial products of Datang. It is not that they cannot be exported, but that exports are restricted. In particular, various high-tech raw materials and processing equipment are prohibited.
However, carriages that are equipped with shock-absorbing spring steel can be exported.
Earl Carlton is a man who knows the goods. As soon as he got started, he knew that the carriage he was riding was a high-end carriage produced in the Tang Dynasty, which was much better than the four-wheeled carriage he had in Denmark.
The convoy of carriages moved along the port road. Count Carlton also saw a lot of scenery on the road, but it did not surprise him too much.
Because he had seen many things before, but when the carriage left the port area and entered a route along the coast, he was instantly surprised.