Panhan is not a city, there is only a solitary sentry tower, standing at the intersection of Li Shui and the river. But at least it is not made of rammed loess, but built with stronger black stones. Looking up, Hei Fu can
I glimpsed a few faces with messy beards peering out from between the battlements.
They were the guards left by Li Xin after he took control of the Taoxi area a year ago. There were not many of them, fifty people per group. However, when the leader of the group came to see Li Xin, he said that there were only forty-eight people left.
"Five days ago, the two of them went out hunting together and never returned. A group of subordinates went to search, but found nothing. They either encountered wild beasts or encountered Qiang living in the Huangzhong, and were captured and killed..."
Li Xin said nothing and nodded to Qiang Huang.
Qianghuang was so angry that he stopped the village chief from telling the story: "No need to guess, one of them did fall off the cliff and died. As for the other one, he deserted!"
Saying this and waving his hand, the soldiers brought up a Qin soldier who had his hands tied behind his back and was covered in filth.
It turned out that this man was timid when he saw his companion accidentally falling off the cliff and died. In addition, he had been guarding the cold border area for nearly a year. He couldn't stand it anymore, so he had the idea of escape.
While walking along the river, they unexpectedly encountered Li Xin's team. Seeing that he was acting suspiciously, the scouts captured him and soon judged from his clothes that he was a fleeing Qin soldier.
According to military law, deserters die, and according to the law of continuous sitting, if one person escapes, the penalty will be increased to four of his companions. The remaining three of his companions will also be whipped, and will later go to the deserter's home to hold him accountable.
His parents and family...
It was precisely because of this strict military law that most of the Qin soldiers guarding the border did not flee.
Li Xin also knew the suffering of the border guards, so after giving them a slap in the face, he immediately gave them a sweet date to eat.
"I am here not only to give you food and clothing to reward the soldiers, but also to replace the garrison soldiers."
Hearing that the hard days of guarding the border would soon be over, the forty-eight people in the entire Tunhansai village cheered.
After letting the army set up camp outside the outpost tower, Li Xin told Heifu about the difficulty of setting up outposts and garrisoning outside the border areas.
"Puhan is one hundred and eighty miles away from Didao. There is no road along the way. We can only walk slowly along the Tao River. The soldiers are garrisoned here and rely on Didao's monthly supply of food and clothing. Although I send people here every month
, but there are always times when relief is not available, especially after winter..."
Or because he felt that southerners could not understand the horror of winter in the Qiang region, Li Xin asked the village chief to come over and show Heifu the result of the cold winter: a rotten ear.
"There is also a toe. The subordinate's injury is considered minor. The deserter lost two fingers due to frostbite and only a ball of flesh remained on one ear!"
Although it was already summer, the village chief trembled when he thought of last winter. At that time, Huhansai had just been built and had poor protection against the cold. Due to the heavy snow blocking the road, Didao could not come here for three months, so they had to save food.
They lived frugally, relying on hunting to satisfy their hunger, covering themselves with animal skins, and huddled together around the fire to keep warm.
Hei Fu nodded. He could understand that the further west, the higher the altitude and the harder the winter. In midsummer, it can only be considered cool here. After autumn, you have to put on winter clothes. Wuhan is already on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
On the edge, you can occasionally see plateau species such as yaks. Cattle need thick fur to keep out the cold, let alone humans.
Under such harsh conditions, there are Qiang and Rong tribes who cannot understand each other within a radius of a hundred miles, and life is extremely boring. If you stay there for a long time, you will indeed have a mental breakdown.
Heifu also asked about his confusion: "There are many fertile lands north of the Didao Great Wall and east of the Taoshu River. Although there are some pastures in the west of Taoshan, most of them are mountainous and cold places, making it difficult to grow grains.
It’s not easy to garrison an army, so why did the general insist on building a fortress at Panhan?”
From the perspective of Heifu, a later generation, the area west of the Taoshui River, until more than 2,000 years later, was also the autonomous county of various ethnic groups where Tibetan and Qiang people gathered. It was not the only way to enter Hexi, and it was not a pity to abandon it.
"This inhospitable place must be built!"
But Li Xin then taught Heifu a good lesson.
"You Shuchang may have heard that the origin of the Western Qiang comes from Sanmiao, which is the difference between the surname Jiang. The four evils of Shun and the three dangers of migration. The territory of the Qiang people is from the west of Longshan to the head of the river.
The land stretches for thousands of miles, bordering Shu in the south, the Han and foreign barbarians, and the Yueshi in the northwest. The place where we live is impermanent, relying on water and grass, and the land is short of grains, and the industry is animal husbandry."
Heifu drew a map in his mind and discovered that this area would be half of Gansu in later generations.
The history of the Qiang people in the Yin and Zhou dynasties, their deep connection with the Siyue surname Jiang, the love and murder of the royal family of the same Zhou Dynasty without accountability, and the entanglement between the Qiang people and Qin, all have to be told from the time of Duke Li of Qin two hundred years ago.
.
At that time, the Qin State had dominated Xirong. Due to the lack of working population, it launched a massive attack on the Qiang tribes west of Longshan and captured many people to be slaves in Guanzhong.
One of the Qiang people named "Wu Yi Yuan Jian" was a subordinate of the Qin people. "Wu Yi" means slave in the Qiang language. His wife was a woman who had been tortured and had her nose cut off.
of Qiang women.
Later, Yuan Jian mobilized a group of people from the same clan and fled back from Guanzhong. They were pursued by the Qin people and set fire to the mountain in order to burn them to death. They hid in caves and survived.
After fleeing to Longxi, the Qiang people heard that Yuanjian had survived the fire. They were surprised and thought that Yuanjian was blessed by the gods, so they elected him as a chieftain. Because he had lived in Guanzhong, Wuyi Yuanjian learned the advanced skills of the Qin people.
He taught his farming techniques to the Qiang people, and gained their respect and trust. The number of people who defected to him increased day by day, and they became the largest tribe.
But the good times did not last long. When the great grandson of Yuan Jian, Ren Ji's father, became a powerful chieftain, Duke Xiang of Qin was established. He wanted to restore Duke Mu's legacy, so he sent troops to Wei, wiping out the remaining troops, and also violently attacked the increasingly prosperous Qiang people.
Strike and break it into pieces.
"Since then, the Qiang people have been divided into three tribes."
Li Xin asked the village chief to spread out a map engraved on a parchment scroll, pointed to the northeast corner of the map, the area east of the Yellow River, and said: "Some Qiang people live here mixed with other soldiers. This is one of them. This is what the right commander proposed to seize."
The place."
This was the Lanzhou area in later generations.
Li Xin then pointed to the waterway and the Great Lake Road in the northwest corner of the map: "This is Huangzhong and the West Sea. The powerful Qiang chief Ren Ji's father migrated here with his tribe. The largest number of Qiang people are in Hehuang."
His finger then pointed to the south: "There are also a large number of Qiang people who did not go to Huangzhong, but chose to move south, thousands of miles west of the Cizhi River, and entered the west of Shu County. They lived scattered in the mountains and deep ravines, or they were yak breeders.
Qin called them Yue Qiang; some were white horse breeds, and Qin called them Guanghan Qiang; some were ginseng wolves, and Qin called them Wudu Qiang...these are three of them."
After listening to it, Heifu only felt that, to describe it in one word, that was: miserable!
The history of the Qiang people is almost a history of blood and tears in which they were enslaved and chased by Qin. However, they were forced to flee their homeland and migrated to the west or south. It was simply a "road of blood and tears".
After talking about the three major areas where the Qiang people live, Li Xin clicked on the black box in the center of the map and said: "Huhan is here to guard the corridor between Lishui and Taoshui."
"corridor?"
"However, there are high mountains to the west of Lishui and Qinsai to the east of Taoshui. They are blocked by the Great Wall. However, the terrain between the two rivers is low and it is the north-south hub for the Qiang people's migration."
Heifu understood now: "The general has set up a fort in Wuhan. In addition to monitoring the Qiang in Huangzhong, he also wants to prevent the Qiang people from the three places from communicating with each other!?"
"Of course!"
Li Xindao: "I have no interest in Huangzhong, but I think there is nothing to fear if the Qiang people are divided into pieces. But if they unite under Wu Yi Yuanjian and fight against Qin like they did two hundred years ago, the Western Qiang will be in danger."
, no less than Yiqu back then!”
His judgment is correct. As far as Heifu knows, although the Qiang people seem harmless now, in two hundred years' time, by the time of the Han Dynasty, the Qiang people will become a serious problem. The whole of Longxi and even Guanzhong will suffer from it.
bitter.
And if we could build more Pahansai and turn it into a city, or even extend the Great Wall here, it would be equivalent to isolating the Qiang people in three places.
Hei Fu handed over his hand and said, "The general does not look down upon the Qiang people because they are divided and weak. You really have the style of a calm general."
Li Xin shook his head: "How dare people who believe in defeating the army and humiliating the country dare to be arrogant and arrogant again?"
However, Li Xin is also worried at the moment. The existence of Huhansai is very necessary, but how to maintain its existence and improve the life of the garrison soldiers to prevent them from fleeing again is another difficulty.
Furthermore, the garrison soldiers in this garrison finally got familiar with the local environment, and they were replaced with new ones every year.
"I do have an idea that may solve this problem."
After carefully understanding the local situation, Heifu also lost no time in coming up with an idea that was not considered novel.
Having seen the benefits of high saddles and stirrups, Li Xinting looked forward to Hei Fu's endless ideas, cupping his fists and saying, "I'm willing to hear it!"
"It's very simple."
Heifu pointed to the open valley by the waterside outside the Paohan Sai and said: "Grow the fields!"
