With the sound of drums and the sound of sheng and reeds, almost all the buildings in Khotan, including the palace, have their main entrances facing the east gate.
The Xuan'en Gate at the east gate is the largest gate and the most prosperous market in Khotan.
Different from other cities in Anxi and Hexi, the city has Yangma City outside, then Luo City, and the inner city.
The Yangma City in Khotan exists as a satellite city on the east and west sides of the main city.
Therefore, Khotan City does not have the strong smell of cattle, horses, alpacas, camels and other livestock like other cities. Instead, the air is very fresh.
After crossing the chain bridge of the moat, Zhang Zhao smelled the faint sandalwood coming from Xuan'en Gate. A strong man wearing a Tang-style purple robe but a Khotanese-style long hat was riding on a horse and waiting, surrounded by people. There were dozens of Khotanese knights accompanying them, all of them elite heavy armored cavalry with both men and horses.
"This is my great treasure, the Minister of Rites of the Khotan Kingdom, Li Ruo Yugong, the governor of Luzhou. Ruo Yugong's ancestor is the son-in-law of Wang Yu of Hanzhong, and the prince of Wudu County in the Tang Dynasty, Wei Chigong, is the winner!"
Ma Furong was afraid that Zhang Zhao didn't know that the visitor was a descendant of Yuchi Sheng, so he introduced him specially.
But Zhang Zhao definitely knows who this is!
His nominal cousin was actually his elder brother-in-law, the eldest brother who wanted to be Queen Zhongyun Li Ruoliu.
Although the two have not met yet, Zhang Zhao had already sent someone to contact Li Ruoyu when he was still in Yuechang (Qiemo).
Li Ruoyu also took the risk of sending twenty people to support his sister. This is why Zhang Zhao was able to safely recall Yan Jin and others.
"Fanjie Envoy, I am here to welcome the rebel army, King Tuoxi, by order of the Great Sage and Emperor. Please follow me into the city!"
Li Ruoyu just glanced at Zhang Zhao's face, then rode his horse to Fan Runing and stretched out his hand to lead the way.
Although Fan Runing's official position was much lower than that of Li Ruoyu, he still did his duty and rode in the middle at this moment.
Zhang Zhao touched his chin thoughtfully. Ordinarily, with Fan Running's status and the people except him, how could Li Shengtian call Li Ruoyu back to greet a junior envoy of thirty or forty people?
This is obviously an unequal status between the two parties! Could it be that Li Ruoyu had already told Li Shengtian what happened to Zhong Yun?
After the Guiyi army moved, some of the drummers from the horizontal blowing team brought by Li Ruoyu were in front and some were behind.
They were dressed in colorful clothes, riding on tall colorful horses, and began to play elegant music to welcome the guests. The original sound of drums and shengs became even louder.
The city of Khotan was built after the city of Chang'an. The royal palace is located in the inner city to the north of the central axis. The outer city is also divided into east and west cities, with Duolifang in between.
Of course, the scale is much smaller. When Zhang Zhao came, he asked about it and found that the entire city of Khotan had about 50,000 residents.
Well! In fact, it is not too small. There are only 20,000 to 30,000 people in Dunhuang, the capital of Zhongyun Kingdom, and only 7,000 people in Dunhuang.
When the three morning flags of the sun, moon and stars, symbolizing the Tang Dynasty, appeared on the streets of the outer city, extremely warm cheers rang out, and countless Khotanese people gathered enthusiastically on both sides of the streets.
Zhang Zhao took a look and saw that most of the residents had obviously Indo-European white, specifically Scythian looks, but at first glance they looked like Central Plains Han people, and there were quite a few people who looked like Li Ruoyu.
At the forefront of the team were twenty Khotan heavy-armored knights, followed by the envoys of the Guiyi Army. Fan Running was in the middle, and Li Ruoyu, wearing a purple robe, was on the right.
Zhang Zhao, on the other hand, wore his extremely powerful stainless steel Mingguang armor on the left, which had attracted most of the arrows and spears in several bloody battles.
I, Mr. Zhang Erlang, even pretended to be fake by wearing a mask shaped like a Buddhist King Kong.
What's even more exaggerated is that although Fan Running is in the middle, he looks a little lonely.
But behind Zhang Zhao, a large flag with the Chinese character "Zhang" and the three morning flags symbolizing the Tang Dynasty were flying high. Fan Quan and Yin Yaozi were guarding behind him. Zhang Zhaocai looks like the protagonist.
On the left and right sides in front of Zhang Zhao's horse, Man Xiong and Dunzhu were wearing infantry armor weighing dozens of kilograms. They held the horse for him with a Mo knife in one hand and the other in the other.
These two guys were too heavy to wear armor, so they probably had to ask the hippo to see if they could hump them, so they simply walked in front of Zhang Zhao's horse to lead the horse for him.
Behind Zhang Zhao, Bai Congxin led twenty-two horsemen to follow closely. Twelve of them were equally majestic with both men and horses. The remaining ten were dressed in fancy brocade robes, held crossbars, and hung hard bows. Cao Fourteen was among them. .
This young man dressed up even more handsomely and unrestrainedly. After seeing a lot of blood and going through thousands of miles of yellow sand, he really looked like a knight-errant.
These twenty-two riders are Zhang Zhao's You Yi Army.
After You Yijun, there was Hanshan Duerlang led by Yan Jin. After breaking through the city of Goni, their equipment went through another round of upgrades.
Now he wears a Suani helmet on his head, a red robe with flat arms on the outside of the armor, and is equipped with three staffs - a crossbow, a throwing spear or an axe, and a long spear and a horizontal sword.
A few of them also have double-banded harbingers, that is, two bows and harbingers for arrows. They are obviously masters of shooting from both sides.
The team entering the city continued to move forward, and several large flags of various colors that echoed the three morning flags of the sun, moon and stars behind Zhang Zhao suddenly appeared in the distance. These flags were brown, green, and black, and they looked relatively old.
Zhang Zhao recognized at a glance that these were the flags used to issue orders in the Tang Dynasty army, so those who raised these flags were probably the descendants of the Tang Dynasty in Anxi.
Judging from the fact that Ma Furong beside him could become an official in Khotan, there must be many Tang Dynasty survivors in Khotan and even the Western Regions.
"The Emperor of Han was obsessed with beauty and wanted to overwhelm the country. Yu Yu couldn't get it for many years."
Amidst the noisy drum music, Zhang Zhao took off the Vajra mask on his face, raised his long sword high, and roared with all his strength.
Ancient poetry was actually sung with rhythm and music, especially Bai Juyi's Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which is a classic long poem describing the decline of the Tang Dynasty.
The country is destroyed and the family is destroyed, coupled with the "poignant" love story between Emperor Ming and Yang Yuhuan, coupled with the death of the Yang family in Maweipo, the exciting plot of Yang Guozhong being killed by the army and the loss of power by Emperor Ming, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow can be said to be one of the best at this time. The long poem is a popular song among the top pop songs.
Ordinary people in this era, if you write a song of eternal regret for them, most of them may not be able to read or know what it is, but as long as you come up with a melody, everyone can hum along with it.
When Zhang Zhao sang, "The cold spring brings a bath in Huaqing Pool, and the hot spring water washes away the fat." The waiter helped her weakly, and it was the beginning of her new grace. 'when.
The surrounding soldiers from the capital of Hanshan and the soldiers from Youyi all started to sing along, and their words were correct and rhythmic, because Zhang Zhao had been teaching them when he came from Yuechang to Khotan.
Ma Furong and Li Ruoyu looked at each other, wondering what Zhang Zhao was causing trouble?
The chants of hundreds of big men suppressed the sound of the pipes and drums in the team.
When they finally reached the crowd holding the brown, green, and black flags of the Tang Dynasty, countless people rushed to the side of the team, supporting young and old.
Sure enough, among these people, the men were wearing crotchless shirts, Luo Futou or net scarves, and carried Tang-made horizontal knives and other Central Plains knives on their waists.
Most of the women wear blue-black shirts or jackets made of hemp and kudzu, which are quite different from the dress of other Khotanese people.
Some of the old men, following Han Chinese custom, were holding dustpans containing Hu cakes or steamed cakes.
There were also some people who were carrying pottery urns filled with sycamore wine or physalis water. When they heard the singing, most of these people could sing along with them. They held up their things and started running wildly with the advancing team.
'Yuyang's flying horse stirred the ground to come, shocking the song of colorful clothes and feathers.
Smoke and dust arose from the Jiuzhong City Tower, and thousands of horses traveled southwest.
The green flowers swayed and stopped, more than a hundred miles west of the capital. '
A slight breeze blew on Zhang Zhao's face, and a teardrop slipped from the corner of his eye. The Tang Dynasty was here, turning from prosperity to decline. He originally wanted to move others, but for some reason, he was a little moved.
On the side of the horse, Ma Furong had already started singing along. Li Ruoyu's face was still expressionless, but his lips kept moving.
"Who has ever remembered? White-haired soldiers in a lonely city thousands of miles away! Does the Emperor of Chang'an know?"
An old man in black robe was kneeling on the roadside, crying and beating his chest and feet. The sound of drum music was gone! All that was left was heart-wrenching wails, and there was no shortage of blond hair and blue-eyed beards!
The dark crowd sang loudly and chaotically. Following Zhang Zhao's horse and the three morning flags of the sun, moon and stars, they rushed towards the inner city!
