Dagon Shwe Yar - Chitthwey Empress

Note: The novel is one of my personal favorites.

As it is, I wanted to name the novel "Moe" as the original author had given it. However, the publisher said that the name was too harsh, so the name of the reigning queen was added to the title, "Chitthwe Ekri" to convey the concept of love.

The following events are excerpts from the travelogues and letters of the Chinese civil servant Jianbo. Jianbo was a native of Pinglin, Shan State, China, and was a senior official in the Chinese administrative system, with the eighth rank of the gold star.

The time was near the end of the first century AD, and China had become a very powerful country under the Han Dynasty, and it was a time of great economic and artistic development.

Soku City

Morning

The hotel I was staying in was completely different from the more than one hundred hotels built by General Pan Naw along the Northwest Road in China. The builders of this hotel were foreigners. The hotel was a two-story structure made of a type of clay that was hard and durable in the dry season. The roof was made of logs, with reeds on the logs, and on the reeds a layer of earth with grass on top.

This morning, I looked out the window and saw beautiful daisies blooming on the rooftops of nearby houses. It may seem strange to a green-eyed person, but it is a sight to behold.

It was good. The bed I was lying on was not the kind of bed you usually see in hotels in our country, but a strange piece of furniture with square wooden frames. The blanket was also a long-haired blanket, not the cotton blanket used in our country, and it was expertly woven.

True, but the colors and patterns are very wild in my opinion. It is known that the people living along the border region are particularly fond of these blankets and treasure them.

“According to a letter sent by my school friend, “Ngam Phu,” who is now serving as secretary, General Pang will receive me at noon. I arrived in this town yesterday evening, and was quite surprised to hear that the General himself was in this neighborhood. This is because the General’s headquarters are located quite a distance east of this town.

It has been exactly one hundred and twenty-six days since I left Luoyang, the capital of China.

Of these, eight were spent on unavoidable external matters, and the remaining one hundred and eighteen days were spent in travel. I have covered a very long journey, almost from the easternmost part of the world to the westernmost part. My mind is very tired, but my health is in excellent condition.

I couldn't imagine why General Pan Chou wanted to see me. He was a very close friend of my father's. I still remember sitting on his lap when I was a child. He didn't seem to have forgotten me. If he was interested in my career, I was sure that with his help I would have the opportunity to advance in the ranks.

As I reflect on all that I have learned during this extraordinary journey, one of the most striking and remarkable things is the trade in silk and silk products. The quantity of silk and silk products exported from China to foreign countries is astonishing. Two-thirds of the goods carried on the mule carts that traveled from east to west were silk products. The remaining third were furs, porcelain and bronze, hooks, jade, spices and other small goods. These goods were carried only by mule or ox cart, and not by camel.

I had a very long journey, and, to relieve myself of the weariness of the journey, I spent my time in estimating the quantity of the goods exported from our country. As I was a man of great journeys, I passed by numerous camels, some standing by the road, others moving about. Some of them numbered from fifty to seventy-five, and some from two to three hundred. In the camps where I stopped, I found them laden with their burdens almost every night. Many times, as I rode among the great camels, or sat on the litter, I would travel for days and nights, and I would look forward or backward. The long line of camels seemed endless and endless. Almost every camel was carrying only silk and silk products.

As I looked at the huge row of camels and other goods, various thoughts ran through my mind. So many

Which country can buy the products?

During the reign of Emperor Wu of China, the Heian Nu people, who had to build the world-famous Great Wall to protect themselves from their enemies, were so numerous even when the sun and moon shone brightly.

Not to mention the products that are sold, even a tenth of them can be purchased.

I had no strength. And the edge of the world is now where I am.

It is only forty days' journey from the city of Doku. As I write, I have spread out a map of the world before me and carefully surveyed it. How can a people so powerful and populous live in such a narrow area? Why have we not previously received complete information about them?

That country is said to be Rome.

That evening, Wang Fu arrived this morning, and I had to cut off my handwritten notes in pieces. Wang Fu had changed a lot. He was no longer the always smiling and funny Wang Fu he had been when he was a student. He had become a cunning, strict, and strict officer. He had come to take me to the General, and after meeting the General, I had arranged to go to his house for lunch.

I was particularly pleased to see that the carriages that would take us to the General's "Haw" were the blue carriages that are common in China. The carriages in this region have wheels that are barely high enough for a person to ride, making them very noisy and unpleasant to travel in. The walls of the Great Haw were decorated with dragons and dragons, making it look as neat and tidy as the buildings that are common in China.

The General did not treat me as an ordinary secretary, but as a very close friend, so his hair and beard were still disheveled. However, he was not stooped or bent, and not only could he stand erect, but he moved quickly and spoke with such authority that I could not help but respect him. The General, adorned with a flower-studded robe, with a ruby ​​almost as big as my thumb on his hat, and a peacock-like mountain slung over his shoulder, looked very majestic.

The General sat near the left wall, and Wang Fu and another secretary sat on the other side of the General. I, as a special guest, was seated on a long bench with a cushion. After a long conversation, the General, holding a cup of tea, looked at the two secretaries, who, unable to resist, bowed to the General and left. I could not help but feel a little sad when the General showed me more confidence than his two secretaries. However, after trying to keep the happy expression from appearing on my face, I bowed politely to the General in gratitude for this trust. That moment was a very happy moment for me.

The General himself began -

"I heard that Maung Yin is quite proficient in foreign languages. Is that true, Maung Yin?" he asked.

I didn't immediately answer the general's question, but I remembered the wise man's advice, "Good people don't mince words." After a while, I said -

"I had the opportunity to learn a little about the languages ​​of the Heyonnu and San peoples."

- “Those languages ​​aren't that different from each other, are they?”

"That's right. It's pretty different. From the consonants to the word formation methods, they're all quite similar."

"Cool, I've heard the same thing."

After he said this, the general suddenly stopped talking and looked at me intently. He seemed to be studying me. Then -

“I have chosen you to give me an important task. Just as a craftsman must first sharpen his tools before beginning his work, I believe that you will first need to learn the language spoken in the country of the Bolakas. You will find that the language is not very different from the language of the people of the country. One thing that is remarkable is that the language of the Bolakas contains many expressions of a people called the Romani.

"I will send a teacher to Maung Rint this evening to teach him the language of the Balkans. I will ask him what he needs and study and memorize it diligently."

I let go of my head with great composure.

"Now...let's leave these things aside, Maung Yin, let me ask you about the journey you took."

"It was a trip that increased my local knowledge."

"Ah... yes, what was the thing that interested you the most during the milk journey?"

"It's a fact that a large number of silk goods are being transported to the West. It is said that the people called Romans bought most of these silk goods."

"Yes....as Maung Yin said."

"One thing I don't understand is that there's no room on our map for such large countries to exist. And the countries aren't shown on our map."

"Yes"""

The general smiled and said -

“There are many countries over the mountains, Maung Yin. There are many things we don’t know and don’t understand. Now…. Let’s leave it at that. If you look at Maung Yin’s comments about silk products, you can see that Maung Yin is a man of great curiosity. Yes, Maung Yin – the silk trade is the foundation of our country. Without silk, my army and Kyaik’s army would not be here. The Northwest Highway would be just a footpath as it was before. There would be no inns or anything like that. The income from selling silk is so great that any other country in the world except ours could now survive on the income from selling silk alone. We don’t need any other income. And we are the only country that knows how to raise silk, how to raise it, how to produce it. No other country knows. So we control the entire world silk industry. We have a monopoly. The Balinese and other countries have tried many times to learn the secrets of silk production by various methods. They believe that silk is produced by a certain tree. Others believe that it is extracted by scraping the fibers attached to a certain leaf.

When I arrived here, I was so surprised that I could not control the expression of astonishment on my face. The general's words were both surprising and interesting. The general continued, "

So, Brother Yin, you understand how important it is that our secrets about the silk industry are not leaked to foreign countries. Once Westerners start operating the industry on their own, it will seriously damage China's economy, making it impossible for anything else to replace it. Therefore, when it comes to the silk industry, we must not discuss it in front of people at the border, even if we do.

The death penalty has been ordered. Their spies are everywhere, Maung Rin. It is not easy to distinguish the ethnic people from the Baw Lak people on this border. So, Maung Rin, it is important to be careful and discreet in everything. If you are a liar, don't believe me, especially

"The task that Maung Rin will be given may soon become an important matter, so we need to be more careful."

``When he finished speaking, the General took the teacup. So I obediently stood up from my seat, bowed to the General, and said -

"Confucius once said, 'Don't use your eyes, ears, mouth, or physical movements without being controlled by your inner mind.'"

"That's right, Maung Yin. There's reason to believe that the responsibilities you'll be undertaking will be interesting. Besides, the climate of this highland won't affect Maung Yin's mood or health."

"Confucius once said, 'Good people prefer to live in places with abundant forests and mountains.'"

“Well... why do you do that? Good people never get nervous, right?” the general said, as if to remind me, and then he turned to me, reciting another of Confucius’s teachings. I didn’t have anything else to say, but left the general’s presence in high spirits.

Outside the hut, I found Wang Fu sitting in his carriage, waiting for me. He seemed very curious about the reason the general had called me to see him. I climbed into another carriage, which was equipped with curtains, and sat alone, riding through the city, thinking about how to deal with Wang Fu as I continued on.