In the eighth year of Tianfu in the Later Jin Dynasty (AD 943), Zhang Zhao won the support of various tribes in the coastal areas in June. He was not the lord of the plains, but first became the Yinli Khan of the grassland tribes west of Fengzhou.
But behind this glorious glory, there are also worries.
First of all, with the surrender of the Geluolu tribes and Chiqi tribes, Zhang Zhao's original plan to set up a blockade network against the Geluolu tribes will definitely not be activated, at least on the surface.
So Zhang Zhao could only let Li Ruoyu be the villain and let him set up a checkpoint on Baishui Stream Road.
All iron items going west were subject to heavy taxes, and prices were used to limit the outflow of iron items.
When Zhang Zhao did not unify the Central Plains, Ge Luolu could not be allowed to obtain a large amount of iron weapons, otherwise it would be difficult to drive them when Zhang Zhao came back.
Secondly, the hatred between the Suiye Guo family and the Talos Li family has accumulated to a terrifying level.
This also stimulated the independent development of both parties to a certain extent.
In the few years since Zhang Zhao left Anxi, both Suiye and Talos forces have been expanding rapidly.
After Li Guoshou captured Baishuihu City, he collected a large number of Ogus and Turkic-speaking tribes. Now there are more than 50,000 tents, exceeding 300,000 people.
Originally, Zhang Zhao thought that Li Guoshou did not look like a hero, so he supported him with confidence.
As a result, he has shown good abilities now. By constantly sucking the blood of Samampos, Li Guoshou is no longer the obedient person who even sent his widowed daughter-in-law to Zhang Zhao's bed.
Because after Zhang Zhao knew that Guo Xuanqing was up to something, he deliberately waited for more than ten days in Yanqi, but he never received the messenger sent by Li Guoshou.
It seems that this person wants to rely on the emperor to stay away from the sky, and he will not bother me, Zhang Dahan.
But now Zhang Zhao cannot use the method of strengthening the Suiye Guo family to deal with Li Guoshou because the Suiye Guo family has also expanded.
There are about 300,000 people around Suiye, and they are still stuck on the trade road leading to Ogus. In addition, the Guo family's base is Nestorian, and it is bound to be impossible to strengthen.
So now Broken Leaf and Talos just want to put it away first, waiting for him to free up their hands before they can clean it up.
In Saman Persia and Anyuan Kingdom, the brothers Emir Hamid and Anyuan Kingdom Lord Sadid have also forgotten the fear of being dominated by Zhang Dahan.
Although Hamid, the emir of Saman Persia, sent people to Yanqi to participate in the election, the envoy's status was very low, he was just a minor palace official, and the tribute he brought was not even worth a hundred guan.
Sadid, the leader of the Anyuan Kingdom, probably had such a good time in Guard City (Kabul) that he simply did not even send an envoy. What this meant was already clear.
Not to mention the three Persians that Zhang Zhao conquered back then, Hamid said that Saman Persia was a big country. He and Zhang Zhao were not superiors or subordinates back then, but they were just tricked by Zhang Zhao.
But Sadid, the leader of the Anyuan Kingdom, was different. He was rescued by Zhang Zhao from a mass grave, and he single-handedly supported him to the throne of the leader of the Anyuan Kingdom. Now he dared to repeat it, so he had to take a heavy blow.
Only Rashid Salaiman, who was the governor of Guarding City but was stationed in Luolan City (Bamiyan), was better and obediently sent an envoy here and paid tribute with a large amount of treasures.
But his loyalty is probably very limited. He is just investing, waiting for the day when Zhang Zhao comes to punish Sadid and take the opportunity to become the leader of Anyuan.
As for Cao Yanmian's uncle, who was given the name Zhang Bingzhong by Zhang Zhao as the leader of the Zhenyuan Kingdom, he was even more important.
This uncle didn't send anyone to Zhang Zhao's thirtieth birthday last year, and the Great Khan didn't come this time either.
After listening to the merchant's report, he divorced his first wife and married the sister of Guge King Jidenimagon.
It was self-evident what they wanted to do. The two of them worked together to deal with Li Shengtian's infiltration into the plateau, and at the same time blocked the road from the plateau to Tianzhu.
The sky is high and the emperor is far away!
Zhang Zhao had thought that these places would be out of control, but he never expected that they would break away so quickly, so resolutely, and so without giving him face.
Punch hard! Must hit hard! After unifying the Central Plains, go and kill them!
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At the end of August, Zhang Zhao led his army back to Liangzhou from Anxi.
In this battle, they defeated the Gaochang Uighurs and gained 330,000 people. They also won the support of the tribes in the grasslands west of the Hetao. Each tribe sent a total of more than 400 hostages, all of whom were incorporated into the Yier Army by Zhang Zhao.
The significance of this incident is very important. It means that Zhang Zhao has no worries at all, and it also solves the problem between the Jin Kingdom and the Liang Kingdom in Khotan.
Zhang Zhao's nominal territory reaches the Yibo Sea (Balkhash Lake) to the west. In extreme cases, Zhang Zhao can even recruit tens of thousands of grassland cavalry to assist in the battle.
At this moment, the Liang Kingdom already had the attributes of a grassland khanate. Starting from Lingzhou in Houtao in the east to Yibohai in the west, it covered thousands of miles and had a population of more than six million. It was already one of the largest countries in the world.
But as soon as Zhang Zhao arrived in Liangzhou, news came that shocked him greatly.
It's not that Shi Chonggui's Jin army has no problems, but just like in history, Yelu Deguang was in trouble.
The news that shocked him was that the Later Jin Dynasty suffered extremely horrific locust plagues, droughts and floods this year.
This year, it is supposed to be the spring and summer season when all things grow. Hebei’s Hengzhou, Dingzhou, Shenzhou, Jizhou, Beizhou, and Xingzhou, and Henan’s Huazhou, Chanzhou, and Mengzhou are thousands of miles apart. For three consecutive months, almost all raindrops It won't rain.
But at the turn of winter and spring last year, when it was supposed to snow, there was no snow in the states of Hebei and Henan. Instead, it rained continuously for more than a month.
Large-scale floods broke out in Xijing Henan Prefecture (Luoyang), Mengzhou, Huaizhou, and Ruzhou, and nearly one-third of the fields in several states and counties were flooded.
Thousands of people died in the flood in Henan Prefecture alone. According to statistics from officials in Henan Prefecture, Xijing, later in the Jin Dynasty, there were 5,387 households whose homes were washed away and forced to flee.
This is just the number calculated by the government. In the future, corruption among officials in the Jin Dynasty became rampant, and the number of homeless households was actually at least five times that of their statistics.
The floods and droughts in Henan and Hebei have not ended yet. The Shaanzhou Baoyi Army Jiedushi, the Hezhong Protector Army Jiedushi, the Huazhou Town National Army Jiedushi and the Tongzhou Kuang Guojun Jiedushi have jurisdiction over the areas, and another horrific outbreak broke out. Locust plague.
The locusts were overwhelming, eating almost all the crops. The locusts traveling north even reached the south of Yinzhou in Liang Kingdom.
This locust plague caused more than 20,000 people to starve to death in the two military prefectures of Huazhou (Huaxian, Shaanxi) and Shaanzhou (Sanmenxia, Henan), and more than 17,000 households were forced to flee.
It can be said that almost the entire core ruling area of the Later Jin Dynasty has been hit by this horrific natural disaster. It was also the first time for Zhang Zhao to see the power of the Little Ice Age.
Originally he thought the Little Ice Age was just a little colder, but now he understands.
The Little Ice Age was not just cold, but also disasters caused by various extreme climates.
Under the impact of this horrific natural disaster, Zhang Zhao, who returned to Liangzhou, only had time to look at Cao Yanxi and others. He didn't even hug his son and daughter, but was pulled away by Zhang Xichong, Fan Zhi and others by their sleeves. .
Zhang Xichong handed a memorial to Zhang Zhao with a face full of pain, and said to Zhang Zhao with a heavy heart.
"This is a report from the Later Jin Dynasty. Since last winter, the number of hungry people who have died of starvation in Henan, Hebei, and Hedong in 27 prefectures has reached more than 470,000.
This was admitted by the Later Jin Dynasty Newspaper, but in fact it was far more than that.
Jinyi Envoy and Qionglin Academy combined statistics from various merchants and found that even in Guanzhong, which was the least affected, 35,000 people died due to freezing, hunger and flash floods. In the entire Central Plains, the number would not be less than 700,000. "
The Tiaobao is the Dibao of later generations. Everyone has understood the accuracy of this thing from ancient times to the present. Zhang Xichong said that there would be no less than 700,000 people, but he should be a little conservative.
Zhang Zhao has seen many words in various history books such as people dying of hunger, people eating each other, and thousands of miles of bare land.
But when he was really in this era, he felt that these few words were so heavy.
In only nine months, less than a year, nearly one million people starved to death.
The Liang Kingdom of Zhang Zhao only had more than 2 million people if we exclude Anxi, Suiye, Ningyuan and other places, and only include Longyou in Hexi Province.
This was a one-time event that starved to death equivalent to nearly half of the people in Longyou, Hexi.
In the silence, Zhang Zhao raised his head with difficulty and asked in a deep voice: "Where is the Jin court? Where is Shi Chonggui? Didn't they arrange relief?"
A sad smile appeared on Fan Zhi's face, "If they hadn't provided relief, maybe so many people wouldn't have died.
The Jin court ordered all states to open granaries to store millet, but officials in each state argued that there was no millet in the granaries, so Sang Weihan ordered that people not be allowed to store grain.
Whoever has grain must lend it to the government, who will use it to feed the hungry, and then return it after next year's harvest.
The imperial court also sent sixty-seven people to various states and counties to supervise, and ordered local governments to fear that the Khitan would move south again in winter, so autumn taxes would never be exempted. "
"Sang Weihan, you are trying to force someone to death! If I enter the Central Plains, I will kill this person!"
Zhang Zhao felt chills in his heart. The Later Jin Dynasty was not providing disaster relief. Calling it a search or plunder was light, it was completely robbery.
You should know that Sangwehan's strategy of borrowing food from wealthy households to help victims may seem good, but in fact its operability is very low.
Even in the Republic era, we must operate with caution.
Because the moral bottom line of officials at all levels, and even the moral bottom line of people, cannot be manipulated until the collective reaches a considerable height.
It is foreseeable that the officials of the later Jin Dynasty will definitely not be able to touch the powerful factions who hold military power and political power. Only the rich farmers and small landowners with little background will suffer.
Moreover, when these officials go to 'borrow' grain, they will definitely not just lend him the extra grain. I am afraid that they can leave the farmer whose grain is 'borrowed' three or five days to store grain, which is considered a kindness.
As for the 'borrowed' grain, apart from handing over part of it to the court, it is self-evident whose hands the rest will fall into.
This is to force all the households who can still protect themselves to death, and to completely release the hungry people to ensure the operation of the court!
Zhang Zhao's guess was correct. After the Jin court ordered it, officials at all levels immediately started a big carnival.
Officials who still had conscience and were unwilling to harm the people were forced to do nothing by their supervisors. More than fifty people left with their seals hanging. After they left, the world became even darker.
The plague lord Du Chongwei once again showed his heavyweight strength. Hengzhou under his rule was the hardest hit, and was originally allowed by the later Jin Dynasty to not participate in this 'borrowing grain'.
However, Du Chongwei took the initiative to participate and received one million shi in Hengzhou (Zhengding, Hebei) alone. He only reported 300,000, and the rest went into his own pocket. He also asked people to borrow millions of shi from the people's food.
In this way, Du Chongwei alone plundered two million shi of grain, which resulted in a shortage of grain in all areas of Hengzhou, and even the big landlords were about to run out of food.
So Du Chongwei waited until there was a famine in Hengzhou, sold it at a super high price, and plundered as many as 400,000 yuan of rare folk treasures and gold and silver in one go. The entire Hengzhou was like a ghost.
