The Khotan army should be the weaker one among the four garrison troops in Anxi. Each city in the ten states under its jurisdiction has its own garrison and garrison fort. The total beacon strength is 5,000, and the war horses are just close to 1,000.
Yupi. However, the area under the jurisdiction of this town in Qixi is very large. After the entire southern Silk Road leaves Yangguan in the west, the southern end of the Tulum Qixi Desert, which stretches for thousands of miles, is all within the jurisdiction of Khotan.
However, most of these areas are uninhabited areas of the Gobi. Oasis are scattered like pearls in the vast Gobi. What connects the pearls are the desert stations that are thirty miles apart on the edge of the Gobi.
There is a clear boundary between the oasis where Khotan City is located and the Gobi Desert. They are often separated by rivers. The north bank of the river is desert gravel, while the south bank of the river is covered with poplar forests and dense green grass.
Li Siye arrived at the city of Khotan in the afternoon, and was greeted outside the city by the current King of Khotan, General Youwei Wei, and the Governor of the Bisha Governor's Palace, Wei Chi Sheng. After Li Siye dismounted, he went directly to the Governor's Palace as a guest, and the two parties became familiar with each other.
Since he served as the envoy of the two towns, the Tang army in Khotan has been left without management for a year. Deputy envoy Li Zan is already over fifty years old, and the veteran general has frosty temples. He has been suffering in the town for almost thirty years.
, from team leader to brigade commander to school captain, then to guarding envoys, escorting officers, vanguards and even deputy envoys, he can be regarded as a living fossil in the Tang army.
Naturally, Li Siye couldn't do that to others, shouting and talking to the veteran general, and only one old general held his mouth. After all, he had no skills at all, and the focus of his business was Shule. He could only ask this old man to wear more caps for him.
A high hat so that he can continue grinding.
When General Li Zan saw the new envoy, he felt extremely complicated. He lamented that the senior officials of the Tang army were getting younger and younger. The previous envoy Gao Xianzhi was young enough, and this Li Siye was younger than him. It seems that he is such an old man.
You should really rest in bed.
Yuchi Sheng specially held a welcome dinner, lit a fire pot in his hall, and sat in front of a stone table with Li Siye. On the left were local officials from Khotan, and on the right were senior officials from Khotan, holding up jade cups.
Frequently persuaded to drink.
"General Li please."
"Invite Governor Yuchi."
"Generals, please!"
A row of Khotan maids carried melon and fruit bowls on their heads to the stone table, and several women in narrow-sleeved silk skirts danced gracefully. The Buddhist atmosphere in Khotan is very prosperous, and the accompanying music played also has the flavor of Sanskrit music.
The dance performed by the two women was light and peaceful, and the dancing crimson silk was like the flying sky rising from the Dunhuang murals.
After the banquet, the accompanying people retired one after another. Yuchi Sheng, Li Siye and Li Zan came to the stone room next to them to discuss the tax revenue, military expenditures and the amount turned over to the Protectorate of Khotan Town during the year.
The ten prefectures under Khotan Town are all Jisi prefectures. The local nobles hereditary serve as prefecture commanders for self-government, and the Bisha Governor's Office is responsible for managing these prefectures. The hereditary rule of Yuchi Sheng has been passed down for nearly 800 years, and it will continue to be passed down.
It goes on until the fifth generation breaks the millennium record.
Compared with the other three towns in the four towns of Anxi, Khotan Town is considered to have a high degree of autonomy. This may be related to the resistance and geographical situation when establishing the Protectorate in the early Tang Dynasty. The tough ones include Gaochang Ju Wentai, Yanqi, Qiuci, etc.
The country was directly destroyed, but Shule actively surrendered. However, the Khotan royal family survived and continued to manage the local area after receiving the reward.
This is very easy for Li Siye. He does not need to interfere in local affairs. He only needs to manage the army well, and jointly manage commercial taxes and farmland rent with Yuchi Sheng. Part of it will be handed over to the Protectorate, part of it will be used as military expenses, and the remaining share will be used by Li Siye.
Place allocation.
When the Anxi Protectorate was first established, it needed central funds to allocate food to maintain it. Now the 24,000 Anxi troops are completely self-sufficient, which also reflects the poverty of Qixi from another aspect. The narrow Hexi Corridor supports seven people.
Wan Xiliangjun, the gap between them is not that big.
In the past few days, Li Siye, accompanied by veteran Li Zan, inspected several major strongholds of the Tang Army. The situation exposed was the same as that in Shule. It was nothing more than poor logistics and poor food. Waiting for the future logistics rectification of Shule Army
After completion, the same method was applied to the Khotan army.
On the fifteenth day after arriving in Khotan, Li Siye handed over all the burdens to Li Zan again. Although General Li was filled with arrogance, he was still a steady and knowledgeable man.
His promotion and placement as deputy military envoy may also be due to this consideration.
He would eventually have to return to Shule, which was a strategic location where he could hold the barbarians hostage with one town.
"Old general, you must be getting stronger. While your body is still healthy, you can help me stay a little longer."
These words were so nice that Li Zan choked for half a breath but had no way to refute. He wanted me to spend the last part of my life here. He had no choice but to stick up the old white beard on his chin and stand stubbornly at the gate of the city, crossing his arms
The hands neither nodded nor answered.
"Goodbye."
Li Siye gave a solemn fist, turned his horse's head and led the soldiers away along the Gobi Desert.
Li Zan looked at the horse team going away and sighed quietly: "I'm afraid I won't be able to sit in the right seat until I die."
…
It was already November on the way back, and the north wind blew the grass on the ground and brought frost to the ground. Horses' hooves stepped on the hard bare Gobi rocks. White breath came out of the mouths and noses of people and animals. A thin layer of white had accumulated on the crenellations of the female wall in Shule City.
Snow.
There were fine debris floating on the top of the city. At first glance, it looked like snowflakes floating in the sky, but when they fell into people's hands, they turned out to be gray-white ashes.
There was a fire in the city last night. The shed where the herdsmen had piled hay in the west of the city burned down. The fire suddenly raged and burned half of the sky. Fortunately, the Tang army organized manpower to put out the fire and it was not extinguished until dawn.
Several residences were burned down, but the greater loss was that most of the fodder that the herdsmen had worked hard to collect all autumn was burned in the fire.
There are still open fires in this stretch of ashes, and the herdsmen stand in the north wind with empty buckets in tears. Their sheep and yaks will starve to death because they cannot get food.
The wealth you have worked hard to accumulate over the years will eventually come to naught.
This is just the beginning...
Pei Guoliang, the governor of Shule, was furious and sent people to investigate the cause of the fire. Was it someone deliberately setting the fire or was it a fire? Who committed the serious crime?
The cause of the fire was quickly discovered. The officials found a charcoal basin in the ash pile, and based on the location where the charcoal basin was found, they called the herdsmen from each family to identify it.
"Whose hay shed is this? Stand up for me! If we waste our time to find out, you will never get any good results!"
The herdsmen were either panic-stricken or speculating among themselves. Someone soon identified it as the hay pile belonging to Bu Laosan's family, and the culprit stood up with his shoulders hunched.
The herdsmen were silent for a few seconds, and then rushed forward in a swarm: "Beat him to death! This ungrateful thing!"
"You forgetful bastard! You're going to fucking kill us!"
Bu Laosan's wife howled and rushed into the crowd to drag her husband away. She stretched out her hand to block the crowd's fists and said, "Don't hit him! Don't hit him. He didn't mean it! The grass in our house will also be burned up."
Got it!"
The officers of the Dudu Mansion snatched the criminals from the crowd of herdsmen and took them to the main hall of the Dudu Mansion.
Pei Guoliang himself was so angry that he was about to order someone to beat the culprit to death with sticks. However, after asking for the reason, he found out that he was just a confused honest man. He was drunk during the day and did not have time to feed the sheep. At night, he brought a lamp and a charcoal pot with him.
I went to grab some hay, but ended up leaving the charcoal basin in the haystack, which started a fire.
Governor Pei was furious, but when he calmed down and thought about it, the herdsman's unintentional mistake was not worthy of death.
"Come here, lock up this Bu Lao San Zhi Seventy!"
Two officers dragged Bu Laosan out and put him in a cell in the Governor's Mansion.
The culprit of the crime has been dealt with, but the subsequent events have given Pei Guoliang a headache. The herdsmen have no fodder for the winter, and the cattle and sheep have starved to death one after another. People have fallen into despair. If left unchecked, it will cause great chaos.
Those herdsmen who were lucky enough not to be affected by the flames were also frightened and guarded and slept in the haystacks all day long.
People who suffer from disasters can easily collapse and go crazy. Will these herdsmen come to grab fodder? Will they set off fires on impulse? Let's all have fun together. People's hearts are unpredictable.
Pei Guoliang knew that he should make a decision earlier. The longer he waited, the worse the situation would be. But what could be done now? He was at his wits' end. He originally wanted to ask Li Siye to come forward to find a solution, but Ambassador Li Zhen had already left for Khotan for a month.
After returning, there was no backbone in the Tang army who could take responsibility.
He had no choice but to go to Zhao Chongxun to borrow some fodder first. Zhou Ji would wait for now. After explaining the situation to the other party, General Zhao also twirled his beard and frowned: "You want to borrow the fodder of the Tang army to appease the people. It's not that you can't borrow it."
, but General Li is not here, so I dare not make any independent decisions."
"General Zhao! I can't wait! When Li Siye comes back, all the cattle and sheep will starve to death, and these herdsmen will be in chaos!" Pei Guoliang said anxiously, stamping his feet.
"But our Tang Army's fodder is just enough to last the war horses for a winter. If you use it to feed the sheep, what will the Tang Army's war horses eat?"
"Then what should I do now?"
Zhao Chongxuan thought about it for a long time, gritted his teeth and said cruelly: "There is only one way, and that is to kill the sheep! Go and tell the herdsmen that the Tang army can help a small part of them, but they must kill half of the sheep."