To Four Thousand Years Later

On the fifth day after Satan's attack, the officials of Tire reported the progress of the previous day to the regent **** C as usual. According to the rules of Tyre. During the period of non-war or disaster, these Cyprus officials only need to go to the central clerk or the central high priest to report the work progress once a week. As for the specific business arrangements, the two will sort out the priorities and the relationship between events. Then it was handed over to the king of Tire for disposal. This can effectively reduce fatigue when dealing with government affairs, and also speed up work efficiency to a certain extent. If the central high priest is wise enough, he can also discover the hidden letters through the connection between events... and these are things that the King of Tire rarely notices.

And there are instances of this too. More than 80 years ago, during the reign of King Sharman I, his central high priest was keenly aware that several mayors in the south complained that papyrus was becoming increasingly difficult to buy. He immediately realized that something was wrong, and deduced that it might be that the Egyptians had consciously reduced or even cut off the supply of papyrus to Tire. Papyrus was bought and long poems were written and sold overseas.

On the one hand, Egypt has increased the purchase of various works from Tire, and on the other hand, it has reduced the supply of papyrus, and it is the nature of businessmen to seek profits. It is conceivable that the merchants in Tire will not reduce the production volume of books, but buy papyrus from other small merchants at a high price, and then sell it overseas at a higher export price . Because a monopoly market is formed, their income will increase instead. It makes them less likely to stop the behavior.

This directly made the monthly supply of papyrus to Sephorus more and more difficult. Ling Qiyi, the Wangli Chamber of Commerce bordering Egypt, needed to buy papyrus from those merchants at a higher price, and the high priest of the central center noticed something wrong. Wonderful, report this matter to King Sharman I immediately. And Sharman I was also a very wise and wise king. After he found that the export of cloth from Egypt had also decreased, he guessed that this might be a signal that Egypt was preparing to launch a war against Tire. And it is determined that this will be a protracted battle.

When Tire discovered that the nation's meager stocks of papyrus were exhausted, the bureaucratic system, which had already relied entirely on the letter courier model, would quickly collapse. The transmission of various intelligence and orders from bottom to top and top to bottom has either degenerated to the extent of relying on word of mouth, or replaced it with equally scarce and more expensive cloth. Even as long as Alexander IV sends troops to continuously harass Tire, it will soon drag Tire, which has lost a large area of ​​land and lacks strategic depth, into a desperate situation. This is undoubtedly a very long-term layout. But fortunately Sharman I discovered it early enough. He immediately sent a large number of craftsmen to secretly develop something that could replace papyrus. His luck was also good. After a month and a half, he got the parchment.

On the other hand, he consciously increased the export price of his works to grab money from the Egyptians. Wait until three years later, when the Egyptians completely cut off the supply of papyrus. Sharman I immediately spread the news. Scholars in Tire claimed to have developed a "better and cheaper paper" that could completely replace papyrus. Its name is "soft paper" to distinguish it from "hard paper" such as papyrus.

Of course, this is a bluff. The cost of parchment is still very expensive...but the Egyptians didn't know that the real name of this kind of paper was parchment. Alexander IV realized that his strategy had been seen through, and immediately withdrew his troops and canceled the strategy without hesitation.

And Shaman I relied on the most secret part of the wisdom handed down by Solomon to judge the situation. Because these wisdoms are so precious that they can even easily become a virtuous king, they were called "King Solomon" by the King of Gaza. Thirty-six kinds of secrets taught by the emperor" were only circulated in the royal court of Tire.

A Sharman I merchant in Egypt pretended nothing happened. When re-start selling papyrus the price was inflated. He in turn sold large quantities of parchment to the Egyptians that had been hoarded for more than a year and was intended to be used in times of war. But he sold it for a very low price. It is even lower than papyrus, but the quality of the paper is even better. In a word, the soft paper feels "like a girl's skin and bones", and papyrus is easy to be damaged during transportation, so only Suitable for water transport. If it is damaged during transportation, the loss will be borne by the buyer, which increases the actual purchase price of papyrus in disguise, so no one will buy their papyrus.

But Alexander IV was very cautious.

He speculated that this may be when the king of Tire completely replaced papyrus due to its excellent performance, and even used "soft paper" which is more common in published works. He finally realized that something was wrong.

His decisions were also decisive. Because papyrus can be produced in large quantities every year, but it becomes meaningless to accumulate too much. It even stagnated the circulating wealth in the hands of merchants and confined them near the border of Tire. Moreover, if Tire sold a large amount of this kind of parchment to neighboring countries, it would undoubtedly reduce or even cut off the tax revenue generated by Egypt's export of papyrus, a specialty product. That's not a small amount. Especially when the Persians were ready to move, Alexander IV did not dare to die.

So he relaxed the controls on merchants, and changed the commercial tax from "circulation tax" to "holding tax".

That is. In the past, no matter how much you sold, you would get one out of five; but now, the more wealth equivalents you hold. Paying taxes is more—it can fluctuate from one-tenth to one-third. Those merchants who sell goods with less profit, resulting in less income, will receive corresponding protective taxes in addition.

This has greatly encouraged the emergence of small businesses and retail businesses, and lowered the threshold. Encourage the emergence of merchants who sell all kinds of grain, meat, vegetables, and melons with small hoards, and let them be responsible for sending these perishable and difficult-to-transport things to the whole of Egypt.

Originally, this kind of tax was a more reasonable relief for businessmen... But only that year, it made them have to pay more tax.

Because they bought a large amount of papyrus before, hoarded it in the warehouse, and waited until the end of the war to hit the paperless Tyrians all over the country for a fortune—or sold it to them at an astonishingly high price during the war. Instead of typing, the Tyrians invented better paper. Not to mention that these hoarded papyrus can't bring them higher profits... If they can't sell it, it means that they don't have money in their hands, and they will pay more taxes instead. The influx of these papyrus that are too cheap and only higher than the cost line has brought down the price of parchment. This forced them to sell unsalable papyrus to the Tyrians at a cheaper, or even loss-making price, in order to reduce taxes for themselves.

But when half of the Egyptians used parchment, the Tyrians suddenly stopped selling parchment. They only sell books written on parchment...of course, much more expensive than papyrus editions. Originally Alexander IV thought it was some kind of revenge. He immediately asked the priests to stir up rumors among the people, saying that this kind of paper was "made by peeling off the skin of a young girl" and was an evil paper. In order to make people stop buying this kind of paper.

But he later found out that Tire wasn't just selling to Egypt... it wasn't selling to Rome either. And the use of parchment was also closed in Tire, as a privilege that only Solomons could use.

At the same time, the people of Tire also announced the production method of this kind of paper, which is made of sheepskin.

at this time. Only then did Alexander IV truly understand that the people of Tire really had no paper—the actual cost of the paper was not as cheap as the people of Tire had advertised.

Although the existing sheep in Tire were much more than those in Egypt, after Egypt acquired the old Israel, the area of ​​the pastures would not be much worse. As a result of this announcement of the manufacturing method, the Luo people also greatly reduced the amount of papyrus they bought from the Egyptians. Even the Egyptians themselves started experimenting with parchment...and papyrus just kept getting cheaper. After the people of Tire obtained a large amount of cheaper papyrus in one go, they successfully avoided the chaos caused by the cut off of the information media in the country. In the end, neither Egypt nor Tire achieved particularly great benefits...the Romans benefited instead.

However, Tire’s large-scale cheap sale of high-quality products to occupy the market has re-opened the blocked market and taken out the stocks hoarded by Egyptian merchants. In the end, because the wisdom of the two kings came from the inheritance of King Solomon. This bloodless but thrilling war is praised as "King Solomon's parchment of wisdom". It was also recorded as the "War of Two Papers". Since then, this ability to connect different events has been included in the basic ability assessment of the central high priest. But after **** ascended the throne, he never summoned the Central High Priest and Central Secretary. The two of them were locked in a separate room—not a prison, but next door to Jesus. The monthly regular meeting was also changed by Jesus.

It can't be regarded as changing the rules. It should be said to be more retro. Beginning thousands of years ago, King Solomon would summon all the nobles and ministers in Jerusalem every month to report to them what was done this month, what was being done and what was going to be done. Regular meeting days are completed together. In addition to reporting on work that day, he also had to deal with important events in public.

By the way, the day Andre was kicked out by Sharman III was the regular meeting day of this month in Tire. Because of a month's major events, it can't be dealt with in one day. Therefore, who can speak will be judged by the high priest of the central government. In this way, the king of Tire can be much more brisk, and the ministers and nobles have plenty of time to rest.

certainly. Because everything is settled in January, this also gives the executor more room to fish.

One is like a student who always backlogs homework until the last few days during the winter vacation. But most people overestimate their ability to do things. Just as most of these students can't finish their homework. It is inevitable that various projects, audits, R&D, and training tasks will not be completed sometimes... then it can only be delayed for a few more days. And these days, the bottom line is another month. As time goes by, the whole of Tire has gradually become lethargic. The empire of the former golden age has fallen to this point, and it is inevitable that there is also a reason why the King of Tire has relaxed. But **** changed this rule back to the rule of Solomon's time, and the ministers and nobles couldn't say anything. After all, they also know that although everyone agrees to this kind of behavior, it is actually against the rules. The regent was in a hurry, and there was a new progress every day. These ministers cannot deal with the new king "the same as yesterday" every day. If the top is in a hurry, they also have to be in a hurry... so the executors below also started to work. **** assigned various responsibilities to people, and these responsible people would send people to repeatedly supervise the work every day when they went back. Under the newly implemented New Deal, the progress of disaster relief, appeasement, and reconstruction has steadily increased. Although these aristocrats suddenly started to get up early every day and were not used to it, but at least they didn't have to worry about what **** would do to them. However, this day is different from ordinary. The central high priest and the central clerk did not appear. But two new faces appeared on the slightly lower seats next to Jesus' left and right hands. The person next to his right hand was none other than Peter, the priest of Sida they knew well. He was wearing a white robe with gold trim like Jesus' white robe. He was wearing black shoes and a golden sheepskin belt around his waist, which was exactly the same as Jesus' clothes except that he didn't have the white jade crown. Those were not the clothes worn by the high priest. Coupled with the fact that he is sitting, it should be the position of the central high priest... People will understand what this means. But someone else, the one who sat in the seat of the Central Grand Secretary, confuses them.

The man was wearing a double-layered robe with pure black chest and white sides, which was similar in shape to Peter and Jesus, but black and white. His shoes are white and he wears a hood that hides the upper half of his face. None of them could have imagined that that person was actually the "fake Jesus", the young boy who claimed to be John! Now that he was sitting with Jesus, everyone realized how similar the two were. Like brothers, or siblings.

Except that Jesus' hair is longer than Baimon's, his expression is gentler than his, and he looks a year or two older than him, the two are almost the same! So is he actually Jesus' brother? Is it because of this that he became the Central Secretary? No, it should be said. Did **** mean to show them that the new central high priest and central clerk were directly appointed without informing them, or even the priests and clerks? The atmosphere in the hall gradually became anxious, and the voices of people's discussions gradually became louder.