Anecdotes I heard about "Ancient Tea-Horse Road"

The "Tea-Horse Ancient Road", which has been heated up in recent years, has become a gimmick for merchants selling Pu 'er tea. I was also "guided" by merchants, and thought that this trade channel appeared because of the need of tea trade and the rise of tea in that era when the world was measured by footsteps.

But once I visited 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 since he was fifteen years old. He was an old horse gang, mainly taking Jingdong in Myanmar to Shuifu in Zhaotong City. His caravan experience completely subverted my impression of the ancient tea-horse road.

When the old people saw that I was interested in the ancient tea-horse road, they immediately came to Kan Kan. I am curious to ask, at that time, the caravan of the ancient tea-horse road mainly transported tea, right?

The old people said that the caravan, which had been running for more than ten years before liberation, had never seen anyone carrying tea, but there were a lot of smoky soil. At that time, the caravan team was very rich. The caravan team led by a horse pot head was about 2 to 3 horses. Two people were in charge of three horses. From Huize to Jingdong in Myanmar or Fohai (now Menghai), they returned 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 each person was equipped with a gun. Officials and bandits had to manage three horses, and each groom had to be paid.

Besides, tea is found all over the south of the Yellow River in China. Even the Tibetan areas in Sichuan are tea-producing areas. At that time, the profits were not so high. Only exotic goods would have high profits. Generally speaking, it is the necessary goods that I have here but you don't have, so as to raise prices and earn a high price difference.

from the late Qing dynasty to the Republic of China, there were four kinds of things with high profits on the ancient tea-horse road, namely iron, salt, western industrial products and smoky soil. Iron is an important raw material for daily life and production tools, such as hoes and iron pots. Production and life cannot be separated from it, but many places do not produce it themselves, so high profits can be guaranteed. Salt is something that people can't live without in their daily lives. It is as important as food, and it is a necessity of life. There are kinds of food in every family, but the places where salt is produced are not everywhere, which is a monopoly profiteering; Although western industrial products are not necessities of life, they are rare goods, and many things in our country can't be produced yet. However, some national capitalists and local tyrants and squires in the mainland who will 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 Jingdong. At that time, Myanmar was a colony of Britain, and Britain built several train lanes for the convenience of plundering Myanmar. Yangon to Jingdong was one of the important passages. Western industrial products came to Yangon by ship and were transported to Jingdong by train. Many China businessmen used caravans to transport the games in Jingdong, followed the "Ancient Tea-Horse Road" to Kunming, Yibin and then changed to Chongqing by water.

Of course, the highest profit is smoky soil. Yunnan's smoky soil is the most famous, collectively referred to as "cloud soil". Its quality beat the invincible hand in the world, and it was a luxury for opium smoking in the upper class of the country at that time. Even though opium can be planted all over the country, the quality is not a little worse than that of cloud soil, and the price of cloud soil is more than ten times more expensive than that of other places. Yuntu is a noble in Yuntu, which is produced in parts of northern Myanmar and China, south of Ning 'er Prefecture, and the price can be doubled. Just like Cuban cigars have been well-known at home and abroad for nearly 1 years, they are very particular about smoking.

In modern times, the export of opium in Shanghai beach accounted for 7% of the world. Various gangs monopolized the export resources, which brought a steady stream of wealth to Shanghai. As an aristocrat in opium, Yuntu brought incalculable profits, which attracted tycoons from all walks of life to fight. Sanxin Company in Du Yuesheng is all-powerful in Shanghai Beach, but when it comes to transporting the best products in the world, Boss Du himself is very vigilant and has had the experience of being robbed of goods.

what does the popularity of yuntu bring to southern Yunnan? The answer is the 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.

North Myanmar and South Yunnan are all mountains and mountains. Many ethnic minorities have been living a slash-and-burn and primitive self-sufficiency life here for generations, and there is almost no commodity society. The exchange of things is basically barter. The use of coins still stays in the "shell" in ancient China. China civilization has been eliminated for almost 3, 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 decorations on their national costumes. At that time, shellfish today's money was the equivalent exchange of buying and selling goods, just as Tibetans like to wear precious agates and dzi beads on their bodies, and rely on expensive items to show their wealth.

At that time, the mountainous areas in northern Myanmar and southern Yunnan were a closed society. They had nothing to communicate with, so things outside could not enter. It was a closed society. However, as the British tried to grow opium in northern Myanmar and found that it was of high quality, 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 an endless stream of merchants from all over the world, isolated from the world for thousands of years, and can only be transported by caravans. The caravans that transported opium brought silver, destroying the ancient closed system in which local people bartered things for thousands of years and used shellfish as money. With silver, this ancient system will fall apart, because they now use the same money as the outside world, which will attract many outsiders to earn silver. Caravans without silver brought salt and iron products to villages for silver. The arrival 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 cooking methods more and more, changing the production mode and lifestyle. The high profits of smoky soil have drawn into the civilization here and outside.

? Caravan teams transporting cloud soil are generally large, with at least three or four hundred horses. Everyone in the team is armed with guns. When they come to southern Yunnan, they will immediately carry money. When they arrive in southern Yunnan or northern Myanmar, they will find a place where there is a market day, because there is a place where there is a market day, which is conducive to sending the news to the surrounding villages. Others are fixed in a certain place every year. When the season comes, everyone will trade at the agreed place. Caravans are usually stationed for two to three months to receive the full amount of tobacco soil, and then they return, go to Yibin along the ancient tea-horse road mentioned today, and then transfer to Shanghai by water.

The caravan passes through mountains, rivers and rainforests. Dysentery 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 5 yuan if he is alive.

The old man was too poor to open the pot at home. He ran for a caravan for several years, but he was lucky to survive every time. He also had 5 acres of fertile land at home, married a virtuous wife, built one of the best courtyards in Fiona Fang within dozens of kilometers, went out to take a rickshaw, and specially hired a rickshaw driver. He also bought two foreign cows at home. Every morning, the whole family had fresh milk to drink, bought a gramophone and bought a gramophone. All this is for transporting cloud soil.

However, in the war-torn Republic of China, warlords changed, bandits raged, people were in poverty, and people were starving everywhere. In a stormy society, they could not keep their wealth.

after a robbery, the old man lost his grandparents, parents and a child, and his house was completely destroyed. He and his wife escaped when they went out to work, and they began to escape. It was not until the liberation of the whole country that he returned to his hometown. The environment was peaceful and he was cultivated. In the 198s, his youngest son was assigned to work in Banna. In recent years, with the improvement of life, the transportation is very convenient. He often takes his children and grandchildren'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 for a few years. The country has changed with each passing day in these decades. The history of China has been developing 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 changed the whole society, and the society was no longer in turmoil. Especially after the reform and opening up, the people's lives became richer.

The traffic changes are earth-shaking. With airplanes, trains, private cars and highways, going out before was a narrow escape, which was simply a death sentence. It's different now. Going out now is a kind of enjoyment, 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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