Anecdote I heard about "Ancient Tea-Horse Road"
However, when I was visiting a friend's house, I met an old man in his nineties who claimed to be Huize. Before the liberation of New China, he walked on the ancient tea-horse road from the age of fifteen. He is an old horse gang, mainly taking JD.COM, Myanmar to Shuifu, Zhaotong City. His caravan experience completely subverted my impression of the ancient tea-horse road.
When the old people saw my interest in the ancient tea-horse road, they immediately came to Kan Kan. I am curious to ask, was the caravan of the ancient tea-horse road mainly carrying tea?
The old man said that the caravan that had been running for more than ten years before liberation had never seen anyone carrying tea, but there were many smoking places. The caravan was rich at that time. A caravan led by a horse pot head has about 200 to 300 horses. Two people are in charge of three horses. From Huize to JD.COM or Fohai (now Menghai) in Myanmar, back to Yibin, Sichuan. It took almost seven months to go back and forth. Along the way, they had to go to the post station to replenish Lazar, and everyone was equipped with a gun. Officials and bandits must manage three horses, and each groom must be paid.
Besides, tea is everywhere south of the Yellow River in China, and even Tibetan areas in Sichuan are tea-producing areas. At that time, the profit was not so high, and only imported products would have high profits. It's easy to say that I have the necessary goods here and you don't, so as to raise the price and earn a high price difference.
From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, there were four things with high profits on the ancient tea-horse road, namely iron, salt, western industrial products and smoked soil. Iron is an important raw material for daily life and production tools, such as hoes and iron pots. Production and life can not be separated from it, but many places do not produce by themselves, so they can ensure high profits. Salt is an indispensable thing in people's daily life. It is as important as food and a necessity of life. Every family has grain, but salt-producing places are not everywhere, which is monopoly profiteering; Although western industrial products are not necessities of life, they are scarce goods, and many things in our country cannot be produced yet. On the other hand, some national capitalists and local tyrants and squires in the mainland who can enjoy life can afford many industrial products such as western watches and phonographs as necessities of the upper class, so they make considerable profits. The transportation of industrial products benefits from the train track from Yangon, Myanmar to JD.COM. At that time, Myanmar was a British colony, and Britain built several train lanes to plunder Myanmar. Rangoon to JD.COM is one of the important passages. Western industrial products come to Yangon by boat and are transported to JD.COM by train. Many China businessmen use caravans to transport games in JD.COM, along the "Ancient Tea-Horse Road" to Kunming and Yibin, and then transfer to Chongqing by water.
Of course, the most profitable is smoked soil. Yunnan's smoky soil is the most famous, collectively known as "cloud soil". Its quality beat the invincible hand in the world, and smoking opium was a luxury of the upper class in China at that time. Even if opium can be grown all over the country, the quality is not a little worse than that of yuntu, and the price of yuntu is ten times more expensive than that of other places. The cloud picture is a noble in the cloud picture, which is produced in northern Myanmar and parts of China, south of Ninger House. Just like Cuban cigars have been famous at home and abroad for nearly 65,438+000 years, they are very particular about smoking.
In modern times, the export volume of opium in Shanghai beach accounted for 70% of the world, and various gangs monopolized the export resources, bringing a steady stream of wealth to Shanghai. As an aristocrat in opium, Yuntu brought inestimable profits and attracted tycoons from all walks of life to fight. Du's Sanxin company is all-powerful in Shanghai, but when it comes to delivering the best products in the world, Du Boss himself is also very vigilant and has had the experience of being robbed of goods.
What did the popularity of cloud images bring to southern Yunnan? The answer is great changes in society. Opium cultivation in southern Yunnan was before the first opium war between China and Britain. The British brought opium to northern Myanmar, and northern Myanmar introduced opium cultivation to southern Yunnan.
Northern Myanmar and southern Yunnan are mountainous areas. Many ethnic minorities have lived a slash-and-burn and primitive self-sufficient life here for generations, and there is almost no commodity society. Barter is basically barter. The use of coins remained in the "shell" in ancient China. The Chinese civilization has been extinct for almost three thousand years, but it is still in use here. For example, Hani compatriots are a people who like to wear money on their bodies, and now they will also use shellfish as decoration in their national costumes. At that time, the currency of shellfish today was equivalent to the exchange of buying and selling goods, just as Tibetans like to wear precious agates and dzi beads on their bodies and show their wealth by expensive items.
At that time, northern Myanmar and southern Yunnan were a closed society. They have nothing to communicate with, and nothing outside can get in. It is a closed society. However, as the British tried to plant opium in northern Myanmar and found that its quality was excellent, opium cultivation also spread to southern Yunnan, which borders northern Myanmar, awakening this land that had been sleeping for thousands of years. The best opium in the world can naturally attract merchants from all over the world. It has been isolated for thousands of years and can only be transported by caravan. The caravan transporting opium brought silver, which destroyed the ancient closed system of barter and shellfish as currency for thousands of years. With silver, this ancient system will fall apart, because they now use the same currency as the outside world, which will attract many outsiders to earn silver. Caravans without silver brought salt and iron products to the village for silver. The appearance of iron products directly improved productivity, and the use of iron hoes and iron knives changed the mode of slash-and-burn production. The appearance of iron pots has made more and more cooking methods and changed the production mode and lifestyle. The high profits of smoky soil have attracted civilizations here and outside.
? The caravan team that transports the cloud soil is generally large, with at least three or four hundred horses. Everyone on the team is equipped with a gun. When they come to the south of Yunnan, they will take money with them immediately. When they arrive in southern Yunnan or northern Myanmar, they will find a place with a market day, because a place with a market day is conducive to sending news to the surrounding villages. Others are fixed somewhere every year. When the season comes, people will trade at the appointed place. Caravans usually stay for two to three months, receive enough tobacco soil, then return, go to Yibin along the ancient tea-horse road mentioned today, and then transfer to Shanghai by water.
The caravan crossed mountains, rivers and rainforests. Diarrhea and plague are rampant, and bandits are everywhere. It can be said that it is dangerous to walk once, and it is a narrow escape. However, the huge profits are considerable. From southern Yunnan to Yibin for seven months at a time, a groom can earn 500 yuan alive.
The old man's family is too poor to boil. He has been running a caravan for several years, but he has survived every time. His family still has 500 acres of fertile land, married a virtuous wife, built the best quadrangle in Fiona Fang within a few tens of kilometers, went out by rickshaw, and hired a rickshaw driver specially. He also bought two foreign cows at home. Every morning, the whole family has fresh milk to drink and bought a phonograph and a foreign clock. It's all about transporting clouds and soil.
However, in the war-torn Republic of China, warlords changed, bandits raged, people were in dire straits and starved everywhere, and wealth could not be kept in a stormy society.
After a robbery, the old man lost his grandparents, parents and a child, and his house was destroyed. He and his wife ran away when they went out to work, and they began to run away. It was not until the national liberation that he returned to his hometown. The environment is peaceful and he is educated. In the 1980s, his youngest son was assigned to work in Banna. In recent years, with the improvement of living standards, transportation is very convenient. He often takes his children's private cars and walks around to see the local customs.
He felt that he had been desperate all his life before liberation and wanted to die, but now he wants to live a few more years. In these decades, this country has changed with each passing day. The history of China has developed for thousands of years, but the dynasties have changed constantly, and the foundation of the country has hardly changed. After the liberation of China, it was different. It has changed the whole society, and the society is no longer turbulent. Especially after the reform and opening up, people's lives have become richer.
The changes in traffic are earth-shaking. With planes, trains, private cars and highways, going out before was a narrow escape, which was simply a dead door. It's different now. Going out now is a pleasure, not a trip. The "Tea-Horse Ancient Road" also ended the mission of transportation and gradually disappeared into the dust of the years.
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