Perhaps the few local Han family patriarchs in Zhangye would not have thought just a month ago that Zhangye would transform from a logistics base in Tyuhun to the center of attention on the entire battlefield. It is undoubtedly the core of the storm.
Yu Wenxin should have expected this the moment he walked out of Wuwei City.
Therefore, looking at the Tuyuhun soldiers and horses rolling in from the city, Yu Wenxin became obviously calmer.
The Tuyuhun people attacked Wuwei to no avail, but Han reinforcements arrived in Wuwei to bring good news. The Wuwei defenders were even more morale-driven. In desperation, Murong Shifu had no choice but to abandon Wuwei like last time and led his army to attack Zhangye.
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Wuwei is just a nail, like a bullet stuck in the throat.
And Zhang Ye just grabbed Tuyuhun's throat with one hand.
If you are congested, just be congested, it is better than death.
The moment Yu Wenxin walked out of Wuwei, he was determined to die. The reason why he was willing to do this was because his previous conversation with Gao Mai gave him a better understanding of the current situation and current trends of thought.
And understanding, since we are now Han people, we naturally have the responsibility to defend our territory. Even if we die here, future generations will remember our names. Secondly, we are naturally grateful to His Majesty for his kindness. His Majesty can ignore the past grudges and still defend the northwest border.
Yu Wenxin was inexplicably grateful for this, so even if His Majesty really asked him to sacrifice for the big man, he would be willing to do so. After all, he had this opportunity because of His Majesty's gift, otherwise he would have remained unknown.
I'm afraid this is how it will be in this life.
As a general, of course, what they pursue is not anonymity. They would rather choose to die gloriously and heroically on the battlefield. At least the brilliance blooming at that moment is enough for their names to be remembered by future generations.
But having said that, Yu Wenxin was determined to die, but that did not mean that everyone was like this. At least the heads of the Zhangye local aristocratic families standing next to Yu Wenxin were trembling in their hands and feet.
Look at the enemies surging under the city. If you were an ordinary person here, you would be a minority without trembling hands and feet. If the martial soldiers had not been accustomed to such scenes in previous battles, I am afraid that the morale of the army would be shaken at this time.
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Although these local families in Zhangye are Han in name, they certainly have no sense of identity with the Han Dynasty. They have lived here for a long time, earned a lot of profits through the commerce in the Hexi Corridor, and used these profits to make friends with Tuyuhun and Turks and other surrounding areas.
Power, as a means of self-protection. The Tuyuhun people and the Turks, etc. are obviously not good at doing business and communicating, so it is certainly a good thing to have these aristocratic people at home to regulate and even help establish trade between the two sides.
After all, a war is a war, and making money is making money. Although there are many disagreements on weekdays, and the top management is eager to annex each other, life has to be passed. The Turks, Tuyuhun and other countries in the Western Regions each guarded their own affairs.
Of course, the land that is not rich can only use its own output as much as possible to exchange for the output of others, otherwise everyone will starve to death.
The aristocratic families in Zhangye and other surrounding prefectures and counties play such a role of having both sides. Therefore, although their status is not very high whether under the rule of the Turks or Tuyuhun, they still have a life and a life to rely on, whether it is
Whoever rules this three-thirds of an acre of land will still need the cooperation of local cowards like them.
Once there is cooperation, there will be benefits, and once there are benefits, the family can continue.
Therefore, these aristocratic families, who have lived in the cracks for hundreds of years, have really evolved to the extreme in how to be a wallflower and how to be mercenary. Tuyuhun led his army to attack Wuwei, which is actually not a bad thing for them.
The trade in the Hexi Corridor has been in their hands for many years, but after the Han Dynasty captured Wuwei, the northwest aristocratic families began to form caravans one after another, transforming themselves from one end of the original trade route to a middleman, and they had very rich capital.
, with the military support of the Han Dynasty, whether it is the size of the caravan or credibility, etc., it naturally surpasses the Zhangye family.
In other words, the Han Dynasty can directly realize trade with the Western Regions through the caravans of the northwest aristocratic families. There is no middleman, that is, the aristocratic families in Zhangye, Shazhou and other places make the difference in the middle. In fact, both the Han Dynasty and the countries in the Western Regions make money.
The more people there are, the more naturally they expect to maintain this state.
As middlemen, families from all over the world have no money to make, so Tuyuhun naturally loses a major financial source - how can the money from herding sheep in the mountains compare to strangulating the commercial throat of the Hexi Corridor?
Speaking from a distance, the reason why Tuyuhun attacked the northwest was because after the fall of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, they felt that the Han Dynasty would definitely attack them next, so it was better to strike preemptively; but from a closer perspective, what the Tuyuhun people really wanted was actually the land of Wuwei.
Only by winning Wuwei can we control the entire Hexi Corridor, frighten the northwest of the Han Dynasty to the east, and frighten the countries in the Western Regions to the west, so that we can continue to act as a middleman who can make a huge profit from the price difference.
This is also the reason why Murong Shifu could actually bypass Wuwei and retreat to Zhangye at the beginning, but still gritted his teeth and attacked Wuwei.
If you can’t take the northwest, at least you have to take the whole of Hexi.
It's a pity that he still failed to achieve this goal. Now he can only pour out his hope of breaking out and the anger of repeated setbacks on Zhangye. If the logistics base in Zhangye had not been raided, which caused the Tuyuhun army to frequently run out of supplies, Murong Shifu would not have needed it at all.
Such a panicked retreat was even a bit embarrassing.
For the Zhangye aristocratic families, it is certainly not a good thing for a big man to occupy Zhangye.
It turns out that when the Turks and Tuyuhun people ruled Zhangye, although taxes were heavy and oppression was common, in the final analysis their purpose was just to make more money. They knew that they had no business acumen. If they went into battle on their own
I'm afraid I won't be able to make any money, so I can only rely on the Han people. In other words, as long as the Han people can pay their taxes in time, Tuyuhun and the Turks will not do anything to them.
Why don't you keep the God of Wealth who can spit out money? Who will make money if you chop him off with a knife?
Therefore, although the life of the Zhangye family is not very happy - it certainly doesn't feel good to be exploited from time to time. They can't even save a little bit of family wealth. Each generation has to work hard to survive - but at least they are still
If you make money, at least they are irreplaceable.
No matter how many people Tuyuhun has, they can't find anyone who can take their place.
But the Han Dynasty was different. The merchants in the northwest had already had many direct conflicts with them before, so of course they were sharpening their knives at this time and had the intention of annexing them all.