China has a long history of thousands of years, and many major events that have changed the world have occurred in history, some of which are beneficial to us, and some of which have caused heavy losses to our country. We need to learn from these things.
With the expansion of the Silk Road of the Han Dynasty, the exchanges between China and Western countries have become increasingly close, and many countries at that time paid tribute to the Great Han Dynasty. In ancient times, there was a way of communication to barter nature is also indispensable, they come with the world's strange treasures to communicate, and our country out of hospitality of course do not refuse, but also will take out a lot of Central Plains treasures to give back to them, the most famous of which is silk.
In that era, silk was very valuable, many countries wanted to obtain China's silk technology, there was a foreigner who stole a bamboo pole from our country for this purpose, evaded layers of barriers and brought it back to China, resulting in heavy losses in our country.
Silk was already a luxury for the Han people at that time, generally only high-ranking officials or rich people can wear it, and this is still the case in China, and for Western countries, silk represents endless wealth. They proposed many trading schemes in exchange for silk-making technology, but all of them were rejected by the Han, and after a long time, other countries thought of stealing the technology.
At that time, our country had close contacts with Rome, and the Roman emperor Caesar once wore silk products to attend various conferences, causing a sensation in the Roman aristocratic circles. At that time, the Western countries were relatively backward in all aspects, and they were very eager for the gorgeous material of silk, and later learned that this material came from China and spent a lot of money to buy it.
According to historical statistics, at that time, the Romans had to spend 400,000 gold a year to purchase silk, which was not crazy, and the Roman emperor was very unhappy to see such a huge amount of wealth flowing abroad, and ordered a forcible prohibition of the silk trade, but it was too late.
A large number of underground transactions are still carried out in secret, there is a demand for the market, many Romans see this situation have moved to think carefully: since the price of the regular transaction is too high, and the Romans love this fabric very much, then why not smuggle to the East and steal back the production method, so that not only can ensure the stability of domestic funds, but also make their own silk to sell to neighboring countries, so they reported this idea to the Roman emperor, the emperor also acquiesced to this way after hearing the news, so a round of smuggling began.
At that time, the silk making technology was still very secretive, and the Romans at first did not understand its principle at all, and even did not know how to steal, but after repeated inquiries, they learned that the raw material for this silk was spit out by a bug called a silkworm. So they began to plan to go to China to steal some silkworms and take them back to the country for cultivation, but the difficulty of this method was very high, because although silkworms were very common in China, they were not easy to preserve, and all aspects of technology in that era were not developed, and the Silk Road was even more dense, and it was even more difficult to bring silkworms back to the sky.
However, the solution is always more than difficult, and the Romans came up with a solution after a period of discussion, they first arranged for personnel to find some bamboo in China, and then opened the middle of the bamboo to make the shape of a crutch, and then put some stolen silkworms and mulberry leaves in the middle of the bamboo, so that the silkworms could eat, the bamboo could ensure ventilation, and the long journey would not lead to its death.
This method naturally looks very simple today, but there was no high-end detection method in that era, and most of the checkpoint inspections were also viewed by the naked eye, so the Romans really successfully brought silkworms back to China in this way. Later, after a long period of research, they finally mastered the production method of silk, but due to the difference in regionalization, their silk was fundamentally different from the silk of the Han Dynasty, and the quality was far from the same.
But the biggest advantage is that Rome no longer has to buy from China at high prices, they have their own technical factories, so that China has lost hundreds of thousands of gold for no reason in a year, which can be said to have lost hundreds of billions of yuan today. The Romans learned this method of production and immediately opened a large number of factories, and they sold the finished products to all parts of Europe, establishing a huge silk empire.
If silk technology has always been monopolized by China, even today it still has great commercial value, but when a technology is made public globally, it will be difficult to reach its former glory. The Romans learned silk technology in this disgraceful way, and indeed saved a lot of money for the Western countries and benefited their descendants.
We need to learn some lessons from this matter, taking the United States, which is the most technologically developed in the world today, as an example, they have many high-end and developed technology patents, and at the same time use these technologies to grab benefits from the world, and at the same time establish technical barriers, and other countries have almost no possibility of learning these technologies.
We should have our own spirit of innovation, if we blindly imitate and learn the technology of others, then in the end can only follow behind, can not achieve the ultimate transcendence, the country only continue to cultivate innovative talents, while protecting these technology patents, in order to go farther and farther on the international stage. The same is true in our personal lives, everyone must be innovative, play to their strengths and avoid weaknesses, in order to have a smooth life.
Resources:
Old Book of Tang and Biography of Wei Zheng