The grassland people live a nomadic life. Regardless of the size of their tribe, they only need simple fortifications built with wooden fences. Inside are tents of different sizes. Each tent represents a family. Behind its "home", There is also a pen for livestock.
However, the Khanate in the southern part of the Turks is a majestic city with high halls and numerous terraces, which is very Han style. Of course, in terms of scale, it is far inferior to Daxing City and Luoyang New City, as well as Zhangye New City and Taiyuan City, but its scale is comparable to Shangzhou Prefecture in the Central Plains.
This was built by Changsun Sheng on the orders of Yang Jian to help Qimin Khan. At that time, Qimin Khan was killed by Bujia Khan, Dulan Khan and others, and only a few thousand horses escaped. He was like a bereaved dog. There is nowhere to hide. In order to implement Sun Sheng's plan to split the Turks, Yang Jian placed Qimin Khan south of the Yin Mountains and allowed him to nomadically roam the Monan Prairie and the Hetao Plain, so that he would have no worries.
When Qimin Khan became more powerful, Yang Jian saw that the dog could be released to bite people, so he moved him out of Sui Dynasty. At the same time, in order to save him from worries, he asked Changsun Sheng to help him build this scale beside the Jin River. The majestic Baicheng later became the capital of the Eastern Turks.
Regarding this war, the Turks, like the Sui Dynasty, were full of controversy at the beginning. With the news that the western Turkic army failed to seize the Great Lakes area and was "annihilated" by Yang Ji, there were more and more voices opposing the war; what is even more shocking and worrying is that in addition to the western battlefield, the Sui Dynasty The army is also gathering troops and horses in the east, and there are strong signs of marching into the grassland.
The successive bad news turned the opposition into dissatisfaction, especially the "big prince" faction headed by Ashina Duji, who strongly criticized Ashina Qilifushe's unfavorable performance in the war situation.
The unfavorable war, the Sui Dynasty's border blockade and trade ban, and the imminent outbreak of a full-scale war all put tremendous pressure on Qimin Khan, and he finally realized that he had made a strategic mistake.
On the one hand, he was too optimistic and greedy. He believed that the Great Lakes region was inevitable, so he ordered his second son to take the opportunity to send troops. If he did not go westward by means of war, but went to Daxing City to meet Yang Guang in person and bribed Sui ministers with large sums of money, Yang Guang would most likely leave the Great Lakes area to him.
On the other hand, Qimin Khan had blindly high hopes for Murong Bei, so he believed that Yang Ji's small number of soldiers and horses could be easily dealt with. As long as Murong Bei restrained Yang Ji, Ashina Qilifushe could The Northern Expeditionary Army that threatened Yang Ji from the south would have no choice but to retreat if Yang Ji ran out of food and grass, allowing him to capture the rich Great Lakes region without fighting; however, Murong Bei was defeated too quickly, and Ashina Zhili Fushe wanted to fight quickly before Sui Dynasty could react, so he took the risk.
But in the end, Ashina's plan failed, and Yang Ji used it to solve the problem quickly.
After Qimin Khan received the advice from Shi Shu Hu Xi, he originally thought that his younger son Bulishe could stabilize the war situation and hold Yang Ji outside Madam Fan's city, but he never expected that what he was waiting for would be his younger son. At this moment, Qimin Khan's heart was broken by the news of his defeat and death.
After Qimin Khan received the news of his son's death, he had stood in the study room of the palace for more than two hours. He stood there motionless, as if he was a statue of an old man who had died in his old age.
Ever since Ashina Zilifash was defeated in Lady Fan City, Qimin Khan received bad news every day and received messengers asking for help from Zilifash every day.
After a long time and too many times, Qimin Khan even became mentally numb. The defeat and death of his younger son plunged him into endless darkness. Not only could he not see a ray of light, he could not find a bright road suitable for the Turks.
There was nothing left to do now but to make peace.
However, the Sui Dynasty was a very warlike country, and everyone in the country was proud of their military exploits. Yang Ji's current series of victories had inspired the Sui Dynasty people to have high morale and fighting spirit. Therefore, if he sued for peace, the Sui Dynasty would Not necessarily agreed.
Not far from him, stood a tall and burly young man. This man was full of fierceness, like a sharp sword. This was Ashina Dubi, the third son of Qimin Khan. , like his brother, he was also named Mohe Dushe. The Yating was located in the south, so he was called Nanshe by the Turks.
Ashina Dubi has been silently accompanying his father for nearly two hours. In fact, it is common for grassland people to lose their fathers, husbands, and sons, so Ashina Dubi does not feel sad about the death of his younger brother. What he is more worried about now is the future of Turks, but his father is drowning in grief. He can't say anything and can only keep his anxiety in his heart.
This time, I came here specifically to persuade my father, hoping that he would send more troops to the western battlefield and bring back his second brother, Ashina Chilifushe, as soon as possible. However, my father had lost his mind and ignored state affairs, which really made him feel helpless. .
After waiting for a long time, Ashina Dubi couldn't bear it anymore. He said loudly: "Father Khan, I will go to Madam Fan's City and redeem Bulishe's body. What do you think?"
"Are you going to redeem Bulishe's body?" Qimin Khan finally spoke.
"Exactly!" Ashina Dubi nodded, and said smoothly: "Father Khan, the second brother's envoy said that they would withdraw to the Northern Khan's Court, and at the same time asked Father Khan to reinforce tens of thousands of elite troops. As long as Yang Ji is dragged deep into the grassland He can learn the lesson of Bu Lishe next time and drag Yang Ji to the grassland. When the time is right, he will use the vast number of herdsmen to harass the Sui army and then annihilate it in one fell swoop. If possible, I will lead the troops there."
Qimin Khan was silent for a long time, and sighed: "I also understand his difficulties, but the Sui Dynasty not only has one Yang Ji, and not only the Liangzhou army. If I send elite troops to the Northern Khan Court, and the Sui Dynasty army goes north, we How should we respond?”
He walked a few steps and then said: "If Lifushu retreats to the Northern Khan Court, he can hold on, and after he gathers the young men around him one by one, he will definitely have more troops than Yang Ji, and he can completely defeat Yang Ji. Let’s fight back together.”
Ashina Dubi was greatly surprised when he heard this. He couldn't help but ask: "Father Khan, do you mean to take the initiative to attack?"
"That's right!" Qimin Khan nodded: "If we are so afraid to admit defeat, we will not be able to explain it to the chiefs or ordinary people. And if we negotiate a peace with the Sui Dynasty in a disastrous way, we will definitely be defeated by the Sui Dynasty. It’s a huge extortion, so I still hope that Qi Lifushe can defeat Yang Ji and drive him back to Liangzhou.”
Ashina Dubi frowned and said: "The troops in the hands of the second brother are all defeated soldiers and miscellaneous soldiers. The fighting strength is not good and the equipment is not good. The key is that they are afraid of Yang Ji and dare not fight the Sui army. If Father Khan decides to let Second brother, if we fight with these soldiers and horses alone, we will definitely not be able to do it. So I think it is best to add tens of thousands of elite soldiers."
"Let me think about the additional troops again!" Qimin Khan also understood this truth, and he did still have a lot of elite troops in his hands, but he also had to prevent the Sui army.
If he is given another two to three years, he can eliminate dissidents and annex opposition forces; by then, he can train at least 200,000 to 300,000 elite soldiers. However, the Turks have just completed their unification, and the chiefs of each tribe have different hearts. In addition, because of his own mistakes, the second son experienced such a big defeat. Where could he find so many elite soldiers? What would he do if he sent all his elite soldiers away and the Sui army from the south came to kill him?
Ashina Dubi suddenly became anxious, and he said loudly: "Father, my second brother was trapped in Madam Fan City by Yang Ji. There is no time or ability to waste it. If we delay it, they will undoubtedly die. Even if If Father Khan doesn't want to transfer his elite troops to the western battlefield, he can also send tens of thousands of miscellaneous soldiers to contain Yang Ji! In this case, the second brother and the others can retreat to the Northern Khan's court."
"Hey..." Qimin Khan laughed when he heard this. He shook his head and said to his son: "Hey, you think too simplistically."
Ashina Dubi was extremely happy when he saw that his father was finally led to the military by him, but he was worried that it would dampen his father's enthusiasm, so he pretended not to understand and asked: "Why is it so simple? Please ask Father Khan for advice. "
Qimin Khan is already an old man in his sixties. Like ordinary old people, he also has some characteristics in his heart that he likes to be a teacher. Looking at his son who looks "confused" and "serious" asking for advice, he feels somewhat proud.
His spirit seemed to have improved a lot because of this, and he explained to his son very patiently: "Yang Ji laid siege to Mrs. Fan's city and did not attack, just because he wanted to wait for work and attack reinforcements. If I send some miscellaneous soldiers over, it will be clear that It’s just giving him meritorious service in vain. And this is what the Han people’s art of war calls ‘besieging the city and attacking for reinforcements’.”
"So that's it." Ashina Dubi showed an expression of 'sudden realization', and he continued to ask: "Father, what should we do now?"
"The armies of the southern states of the Sui Dynasty worked on their own, and defense was stronger than offense. This shows that the Sui Dynasty was not ready for a full-scale war." At this point, Qimin Khan said to his son in a deep voice: "The south cannot do without you. The east is inseparable from Du Ji. You must return to your tent immediately today and be sure to monitor every move of the Sui army."
"Yes!" Ashina responded eagerly, and then asked: "Father, people's hearts are different nowadays. Who do you think is more suitable to go to Madam Fan's City?"
The Turks lived scattered on the grasslands and gathered together based on blood ties. Over time, they formed dozens of large and powerful tribes.
Each large tribe is composed of many small tribes, and each small tribe has many branches; the first object of allegiance to ordinary herdsmen is their chief, then the big chief, and finally they are loyal under the leadership of the big chief. Great Khan.
As for the Great Khan, he is equivalent to the "alliance leader" who commands dozens of large tribes; if this "alliance leader" is strong, powerful, develops in the right direction, and can bring tangible benefits to everyone, then the chiefs will obey Tie obeys the orders of the "alliance leader"; if the "alliance leader" does not have the strength to match, then he cannot order or command the chiefs.
Although today's Qimin Khan has the prestige to unify the Eastern Turks, because he foolishly brought the Turks to the hostile side of the Sui Dynasty, the chiefs of various tribes began to have ideas.
Especially after Ashina Lifushu lost the war, everyone's awe and fear of the Sui Dynasty increased again. So at this time, Ashina Dubi really didn't know which chief besides the people of the Ashina family could entrust important matters, and which chief had the ability to defeat Yang Ji.
Qimin Khan couldn't help but fell silent after hearing his son's question.
At this time, the grassland was in troubled times, and the chiefs of various ministries were adopting a wait-and-see attitude. If the Sui army moved northward, some people would betray him without hesitation, so there were not many people who were capable and could reassure him.
He thought for a while and said to Ashina Dubi: "I want to go to Madam Fan's City in person."
"Father Khan is going in person?" Ashina looked at Father Khan in surprise.
"Yes!" After Qimin Khan made his decision, his face became much less sad and his expression became calmer: "I'm going to meet Yang Ji for a while."
Ashina frowned and said: "Father Khan, the Khan Court can't live without you, and Mrs. Fan's city is too dangerous. I won't allow you to take risks."
"I have to go, and there is no one more suitable than me!" Qimin Khan said slowly: "On the one hand, I want to redeem Bulishe's body personally; on the other hand, Yang Ji is both the confidant of the Sui Emperor and the He is a war maniac with a firm stance. If he is unwilling to stop the war, we will not be able to negotiate peace, so I am going to meet him and explore his attitude. If he is willing to let it go, then there is no need for us to continue. Fight, if he is aggressive, then we will have to fight."
. . . . . . .
In the afternoon of the next day, Yang Ji received several brief correspondence. These official documents were brought by his two gyrfalcons from Zhangye, and the content was that there was a serious shortage of officials in the prefectural and pastoral offices and Liangzhou states. He hoped that he, the prefectural pastor, would ask the court for people as soon as possible and needed talents suitable for Liangzhou's political system. .
In fact, Yang Ji has always found that Liangzhou is short of manpower. Firstly, he does not want the children of aristocratic families; secondly, Liangzhou is far away from the Central Plains, and people generally do not want to stay away from their hometowns and come to Liangzhou to serve as officials; thirdly, people think Liangzhou was extremely barren, infested with unruly people, horse thieves everywhere, and frequent wars, which further reduced the source of talents.
According to the official document, the people Yang Ji brought from the imperial court had been assigned to the officialdoms of Tingzhou, Xizhou, Shanshan, and Qiemo; in total, the ruling talents were barely enough. The most lacking talents now are mainly school teachers.
Liu Xuan and Liu Zhuo followed Yang Ji's order to set up primary schools in Shanshan and Qiemo, which they had just acquired, and the results were surprisingly good.
After all, Shanshan and Qiemo were originally the territories of the Central Plains Dynasty, and the people there had deep-rooted feelings for the Sui Dynasty. Although they were later taken away by Tuyuhun, Tuyuhun did not take it away for a long time, and he expropriated the local people violently. The people missed the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty even more.
When the Sui Dynasty established prefectures and counties here, they first severely cracked down on local bandits and horse thieves, giving the people a safe living environment. At the same time, they also registered household registration, divided fields and land, and clarified taxes, giving people the most basic survival. Information; In addition, in order to develop the local economy, Yang Ji also asked the "Wangfu Group" and the Silk Road Alliance to do business and acquire excess products from the people. Therefore, there were almost no twists and turns in the transition from Tuyuhun to Sui Dynasty.
The Sui Dynasty had a popular foundation in Shanshan and Qiemo. Now it is naturally much easier to promote education. However, people's enthusiasm for education has caused a serious shortage of teachers.
"Your Majesty, what should we do now?" Yang Shanhui asked next to him.
Yang Ji said: "The people attach great importance to education. Of course, the government cannot chill the people's hearts. No matter what, they must set up primary schools, and then county schools. Let's not talk about state schools for now. If anyone wants to further their studies, they can go to Liangzhou. It’s time to study at state university.”
"What about the teacher, how to solve it?" Yang Shanhui asked the core question, and then said: "Your Majesty, according to our needs of Chineseization, once Jinshan County and Moxi Governor's Mansion are established and improved, primary schools will also be opened. , which requires a large number of teachers. What is even more popular is that those who come here to teach must speak Turkic and Xianbei, otherwise they will not be able to communicate."
Yang Ji also had a headache after hearing this. Just because Yang Shanhui mentioned a very serious problem: that is, the scholars in the Central Plains cannot speak "foreign languages", and the children in the Dahu District, Shanshan, and Qiemo cannot speak Chinese, so the talents arranged by the court cannot afford "foreign teachers". "For their responsibilities, they need to find teachers from Liangzhou who can speak "foreign languages"; only in this way can teachers dispatched in the future teach in a bilingual way.
He pondered for a long time and said to Yang Shanhui: "You go back first and let the older students from Liangzhou University and prefecture and county schools who can speak foreign languages graduate early, and then assign them according to the foreign languages they can speak."
"Here!" Yang Shanhui accepted the order.
"Liangzhou alone is obviously not enough!" Yang Ji said: "The capital is densely populated, and there should be many poor people who can speak foreign languages. After you go back, ask Liangzhou to open a talent recruitment agency in Beijing. ', specializing in recruiting this type of talent."
"This method is wonderful!" Yang Shanhui's eyes lit up, "The kind of people the king mentioned have been doing nothing in the capital because they have no connections. If we open a 'Talent Recruitment Agency', they will definitely come in droves." Here, he raised his hand and asked, "But I wonder what the king requires of them?"
Yang Ji said: "The place where they will teach in the future will be more difficult. In addition to being hard-working, proficient in foreign languages, and knowing the six arts of a gentleman, the most important thing is to have good physical fitness."
When selecting officials in the past dynasties, the Six Arts of a Gentleman were one of the criteria for measuring the ability of a new official; since the court had such requirements, literati naturally required themselves to be proficient in the Six Arts of a Gentleman. If any literati could not ride a horse and shoot an arrow , are embarrassed to say that they are scholars.
It is under this social consensus that there is no such thing as "a useless scholar", "a useless scholar", and "a weak scholar". However, due to the severe cold and harsh climate outside the Great Wall, There were many changes and wars, so Yang Ji emphasized the requirement of "good physical fitness".
"Your Majesty, there is an urgent report from Baicheng." A soldier quickly came in from outside the tent and handed a military message to Yang Ji.
Yang Ji opened the military information and read it, and frowned.
"Your Majesty, what happened?" Yang Shanhui asked curiously.
Yang Ji handed him the military information: "See for yourself!"
Yang Shanhui took it and glanced at it, and couldn't help but marveled: "As expected of the Ashina family, they once again gathered more than 200,000 soldiers and horses in such a short period of time. But Qimin Khan was a lot smarter this time , instead of massing heavy troops to attack here, he instead strengthened the defense of various important roads. Now, he has obviously included the entire Sui Dynasty within the defense scope, instead of looking at Liangzhou separately."
"People always change, especially in adversity." Yang Ji said with a smile: "The defeat of Ashina Qilifushe had a greater impact on Qimin Khan, but it will also His gradually growing confidence has returned to its original form. And the most important characteristic of this person is that he can bend and stretch. He can face reality when he loses power and keep his tail between his legs."
"The king seems to be dissatisfied with Qimin Khan?" Yang Shanhui originally thought that Yang Ji would have a headache against these Turkic troops, but in his current state, it was obviously not a headache.
"I only know that the enemy is strong and we need to be stronger. As for the rest, I am too lazy to think about it." Yang Ji said with a smile: "Qimin Khan first sent Qilifushe to march to the Great Lakes area, and then now Active defense. Apparently after being punished by us, he saw clearly the reality that he was not as good as the Sui Dynasty."
Yang Shanhui nodded and said: "Military information says that Qimin personally led 30,000 elite troops to rush this way. Will there be a fight or a peace next?"
When Yang Ji saw that it had stopped raining outside the tent, he said, "Let's take Madam Fan's city first, and then fight or draw, depending on the situation. If we fight, we will use the city to consume the Turkic troops; if Yes, everything in the city belongs to us."
"Your Majesty, what should I do?" Yang Shanhui asked.
"What should I do?" Yang Ji understood that he wanted to stay and fight, but he asked pretending to be confused.
When Yang Shan met Yang Ji, he pretended not to understand, so he had no choice but to say, "Should I stay or go back to Zhangye?"
"Of course you want to go back to Zhangye!" Yang Ji shook his head: "You are the governor of Liang, and you actually did things like a military commander, while Master Yinshi is a Sima, but you stayed in Zhangye and did things like a civil servant. This is really unreasonable. Yes, if you stay, you are not doing your job properly."
"..." Yang Shanhui felt extremely aggrieved after hearing this. He said the word "official" in his heart. This is absolutely correct. It was you who asked me to go out with the army in the past. It was you who asked me to lead the army in the war. Now, it's you. It's you who says I'm not doing my job properly.
. . . . . . . . . .
(Flying pigeons pass messages using the pigeon's love for the nest, but I have never raised one, so I don't know if it can find its owner in the wild. But I raised an eagle when I was a child, and I took it to a strange wild place to catch it before. Whenever a bird catches prey, it will find me on its own. I don’t know how it finds it.)
A note on updates:
Maybe I drank too much when I went home to celebrate the New Year this year. During this time, I had stomach problems and suffered from stomachaches all the time.
