The first thousand six hundred and ninety-four chapters Central Asia set up the province
In June of the 35th year of Xuanping, when North America's plan to advance inland was steadily advancing, and plans to use barbarians to conquer barbarians in various parts of Southeast Asia continued to advance, the army's punitive operations in India were still going on, and began to spread to the entire Indian Peninsula.
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At the same time, a large number of young indigenous people began to be employed free of charge by Datang's four major labor service companies, and then went to various overseas territories to carry out infrastructure construction.
When the Europeans were still fighting with the Tatars with the support of the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang Army also received good news.
That is, the Western Expeditionary Army captured the last Tatar stronghold in Central Asia, the city of Kuri on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.
This city was purely built by the Tatars in order to compete with the Tang Dynasty in Central Asia. It is a city, let alone a military camp.
In the past, the Tatars relied on this port city to supply supplies through the Caspian Sea.
However, with the disastrous defeat of Ulhan's army, they had to retreat to the Ural Mountains, Ural River, and Volga River areas, and accumulated heavy troops in the narrow strip of land from the Ural River Basin to the Volga River from the southern Ural Mountains to the Caspian Sea, building the so-called
The Ural Defense Line.
At this time, the so-called Curry City actually lost its strategic role.
The eastern coast of the city of Kulli was already surrounded by the Tang Dynasty on land, although they could still obtain supplies and support through the Caspian Sea behind them.
However, the Tang Dynasty's Western Expeditionary Army focused on the main force led by Wulihan and pursued them all the way to the Ural Defense Line.
However, the construction of the Ural defense line of the Tatars began early. When they moved westward to Eastern Europe, the Tatars knew that they could not defend the Western Regions and Central Asia. Those areas were too large and difficult to defend.
But it is different in the Ural Mountains and Ural River area. This place is bounded by the Ural Mountains to the north, the Caspian Sea to the south, the Ural River in the middle, and the Volga River behind it. Moreover, the lower reaches of the Ural River are still a desert!
Although the terrain is still plain, relying on the mountains and rivers, the Tatars can still block the defense line.
After this initial contact, the forward troops of the Western Expeditionary Army found that the enemy was a bit tenacious, and their own logistics supplies were not smooth. The Central Asian Railway had not yet been built to the Caspian Sea.
So I gave up the attack!
Since we don't attack the Ural defense line, we can free up our hands to take down that Curry City.
After taking the city of Kuri, it was also officially declared that the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and all the territories east of the Caspian Sea were under the control of the Tang Dynasty.
After taking over the entire Central Asia region, the Tang Dynasty's Western Expeditionary Army officially reported victory to Jinling!
The victory report said that under the leadership of the wise and holy emperor Sheng Tianzi, the Western Army's 200,000 soldiers lived up to the emperor's favor. After several years of hard fighting, they finally successfully captured and completely controlled Central Asia.
Not only Central Asia, but even the entire Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the area east of the Caspian Sea fell into the hands of the Tang Dynasty.
Moreover, the Western Expeditionary Army can proudly claim that in the entire Central Asia and Siberian Plains, apart from the Tang people, there will never be any indigenous people, and there is no need for localization.
The empire can safely and boldly carry out immigration and establish administrative rule, and directly incorporate these areas into its native territory.
Because all the original indigenous people in the above-mentioned areas have been moved away by the Tatars, regardless of whether they are old, weak or lightly packed, there is not a single one left, which is worse than moving ants.
This has also led to the fact that there are only less than a million people in the vast Central Asia and Western Siberian Plains today!
Excluding Ebob Prefecture, which was merged into Tumi Province, the remaining Central Asian region only has hundreds of thousands of new immigrants along railway lines and inland rivers, and about 200,000 troops.
As for the vast West Siberian plain, there is not a single immigrant, and at most there are only a few Tang cavalry activities.
The vast Central Asia and the West Siberian Plains have become the empire's latest ruling areas. The terrain here is flat and the environment is not too bad. No matter how bad it is, you can still engage in animal husbandry, and the minerals are also good.
For this reason, the empire's top officials have officially decided to establish provinces in Central Asia and the West Siberian Plain.
The military doesn't care about this aspect. Anyway, they only need to acquire territory, and the rest, such as immigration, development and province creation, have nothing to do with them.
The only thing that matters is that Li Xuan decided to enfeoff nobles in this area.
The nobility enfeoffment policy before the Tang Empire did not include the local area and was mainly enfeoffed overseas.
But this has changed since Beihai Province was incorporated into the mainland, because the Beihai area was enfeoffed by nobles.
Although they were all enfeoffed before, they are still local now.
With the expansion of the Tang Dynasty's territory and the increase in the number of nobles, Li Xuan realized that it was not reliable to enfeoff purely overseas territories.
Always enfeoffing nobles overseas will actually cause certain problems for the internal governance of the empire, that is, the power of civil servants in the local areas will inevitably gradually increase.
Moreover, some shabby land is always divided into enfeoffments, and many nobles also have some objections.
After all, not every noble can be entrusted with land in North America. Most of them are actually entrusted to the point where they have nothing to gain, and there are many savages who ruin the land.
However, Li Xuan, the core area of the mainland, still does not plan to enfeoff, but only plans to entrust some areas farther away from the core area.
For example, the current Central Asia and West Siberian Plains and even the future Eastern European Plains are all possible. These places are too far away from the core area of the mainland, and the places are not bad. They can still be used to balance the conflicts of the nobles.
Anyway, in the current aristocratic system of the Tang Dynasty, although the aristocrats had fiefs, they only had fief salaries and private land, and did not have the many powers of traditional real fiefs.
At the same time, the development of Central Asia and other regions also requires the support of nobles.
Now that we have decided to enfeoff, we must make preparations in advance, such as establishing provinces.
Set up provinces first, divide the regions and then implement enfeoffments.
Regarding the administrative division of Central Asia and the West Siberian Plain, this is very simple. Central Asia is directly established as a province, and its name is Haidong Province.
This name comes from the ancient name of the Caspian Sea. The Tang Empire called the Caspian Sea the West Sea based on the ancient name of the Qin and Han Dynasties. The vast Central Asia region is located to the east of the West Sea, so it is called Haidong Province.
The West Siberian Plain area in the north of Central Asia, east of the Ural Mountains, and west of the Yenisei River also has a province, called Sib Province.
This name is taken from the transliteration of the Tatar name for this place, "Sipol". Of course, most people think that Li Xuan's name is easy to pronounce.
If we really want to talk about the Sibol region, it actually includes a large area of Siberia. Basically, from the Ural Mountains eastward to the Bering Strait, it belongs to Siberia.
The current Sib Province only includes the plain area between the Ural Mountains and the Yenisei River. To the south, it borders Haidong Province in Central Asia, and to the southeast is Lake Balkhash (Lake Ebo).
On the north bank, it borders Yibo Prefecture and Yili Prefecture in Tumi Province. In the east, it borders Hexi Province and Northeastern Province.
Whether it is Haidong Province in Central Asia or Xiberia Province in the West Siberian Plain, they are both very large provinces.
But the population is naturally not that big.
Excluding soldiers in Central Asia, there are only hundreds of thousands of new immigrants to the empire.
Not to mention Siberian Province, there are not many immigrants in its large area of West Siberian grassland, and there are only a small number of cavalry troops stationed and patrolled. There are only a small number of immigrants near Lake Balkhash. Originally, these places still belong to the territory.
The province is located in Mississippi, but in order to establish the West Beginning Province, some areas, especially the copper mining areas, were directly included in the West Beginning Province.
Some people have even considered merging these two provinces into one province before, but Li Xuan still considered that the area is too big. The two areas add up to millions of square kilometers. It is too nonsense to be regarded as one province.
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And it is not like Northeastern Province, which is a bitter cold land and cannot be developed.
The situation in Central Asia is still good. Even in Sib Province, there is nothing to say in the central and northern areas, which are all tundra zones. However, the southern area near Haidong Province, especially the area near Lake Balkhash, is still good.
After the establishment of these two provinces, it is natural that a series of subsequent immigration developments will be carried out.
In order to attract more people from the empire to live locally, the Immigration and Reclamation Department began to expand its campaign again.
As long as they immigrate to the local area, the land will be distributed free of charge and in sufficient quantity.
If you go to the local area to invest in the development of mining, animal husbandry and other industries and commerce, there will be a series of policy support, such as tax exemptions and so on.
Although the investment cost is a bit high in new places, the competition is small and tax incentives can be enjoyed. Some courageous companies are still ready to try new things in Haidong and Xibei Provinces.
Of course, their investments basically only focus on railway lines and inland areas with convenient transportation, and not other places.
Such a large place cannot be covered by horse-drawn carriages alone without trains and steamships.
This also forced Datang Railway Corporation to accelerate the construction of the Central Asia Railway.
Hey, in order to repair the Central Asian Railway, both the army, the railway company, and even the central government will spend a lot of money.
Even if the areas where railways are built are in plain areas, it is easy to build railways, and the railways built are single-track military railways with relatively low standards.
At the same time, the military's supplies to and from Central Asia are basically transported by rail. In order to subsidize the railway company, the military's freight charges are relatively high, which can be regarded as the army's compensation or subsidy to the railway company.
However, even so, Datang Railway Corporation is building the Northwest Railway and the Central Asia Railway, but it is all a waste!