Five years ago, in the eighth year of Shaoming, in 953 AD, four years after Bai Congxin conquered Shiguo City.
Hezhong Province, Bai Kingdom, Wanli City.
This Wanli City has nothing to do with the Wanli Emperor of the later Ming Dynasty. The meaning of this Wanli City is the New Li City thousands of miles away.
Just by hearing the name, you can tell that the lord of this city is most likely from Licheng County, Jinan Prefecture, Jiaodong Province, which is also the Licheng District of Jinan in later generations.
Indeed.
Song Heishan wore a brown round-collared robe and walked struttingly on the streets of Wanli City.
He was one of the six envoys of Zhang Baoyi and Zhang Xuanwei in Wanli City, and the hometown of Zhang Baoyi, the envoy of Xuanwei in Wanli City, was in Licheng County.
This guy was originally Yang Guangyuan's tooth soldier. Yang Guangyuan was an old traitor who raised troops to respond to the Khitans when Yelu Deguang first tried to enter the Central Plains. He was the governor of Pinglu and Ziqing.
Zhang Baoyi naturally didn't do well following such a handsome guy.
After Yang Guangyuan was defeated and killed by Li Shouzhen, Zhang Baoyi, who was lucky enough to escape with his life, and a hundred or so old soldiers from the Pinglu Army ran to Juye Ze in the southwest and became bandits.
Well, it is exactly the Liangshan Mountain in the Water Margin.
Zhang Zhou's rule among the people was actually a bit rough. The biggest reason was that since the founding of the country, Zhang Zhou had fought everywhere in the north and south.
Who made Emperor Zhang have a very high spirit even though he had no foundation in the Central Plains?
Along the way, he was basically fighting, because only by fighting could he make others surrender to him, a Tibetan thief from Hexi.
And even in the rare intervals when there was no fighting, Zhang Yan was still using "cruel officials" like Pei Yuan and Zhao Pu to cause trouble everywhere.
Therefore, there was not much time to clean up the people. The only large-scale search was to recruit evil elements in Buddhism on a large scale.
Zhang Baoyi and others happened to have nothing to do with Buddhism. Instead, they were hired by several patrol inspectors around Juyeze because of their a little bit of force. They participated in the battle to hunt down Buddhist villains, and were even recommended to the county government to participate in martial arts examinations due to their merit.
But Zhang Baoyi didn't dare to go, because in Zhang Zhou, he had served as an internal agent for the Khitans, and he was also a tooth soldier under a traitor like Yang Guangyuan. Once discovered, he might be beheaded.
As a result, these tooth soldiers of the Pinglu Army continued to settle down in Shuibo Liangshan. They robbed dozens of households and brought them to farm in Liangshan, and coerced more than a hundred boatmen on Juye Ze to pay them protection fees. , life is a bit poor, but we can still get by.
Then, Yao Yuanfu Laoji Fufeng saw the way to get rich from Bai Congxin, so he sent several sons back to the Central Plains with his troops and started a Wagner-style military recruitment.
Yao Yuanfu is also an old general. With him taking action, Zhang Baoyi and others will soon be unable to hide.
Yao Yuanfu's eldest son found the former general of Pinglu Army and went up the mountain to persuade him, but Zhang Baoyi still couldn't believe him and he didn't want to go to the river thousands of miles away.
Therefore, no matter what the eldest son Yao Yuanfu said, he just refused to let go. He even suspected that the imperial court was trying to get him down and kill him.
But then, unsurprisingly, as soon as Yao Yuanfu's eldest son left, on the third day, the royal court's imperial navy and naval forces attacked the entire town of Jinbo in Juyeze.
Led by the fisherman who deeply hated the oppression of Zhang Baoyi and others, they quickly blocked Zhang Baoyi and others in the mountain stronghold.
At this point, Zhang Baoyi was very wise and did not let his men, children and grandchildren resist, because that would have no other consequences besides the death of the whole family.
Also captured almost at the same time as Zhang Baoyi and others were more than 400 bandits, water bandits, and bullies around Juyeze, including 2,000 family members.
Later, on a small flat-bottomed boat in Jinbo Town, a small official wearing a green robe and claiming to be the county lieutenant of Yuncheng County determined the crimes of Zhang Baoyi and others in just half a cup of tea.
Zhang Baoyi was so shocked that he was speechless. He felt that his world view was shattered. What a heinous crime, and the whole family was exiled for eight thousand miles. The verdict was over in the time it took him to drink some water?
Well, it wasn't until he saw the figure of Yao Yuanfu's eldest son among the officers and soldiers escorting them to the river that he suddenly realized it.
Damn it, this is being targeted by a villain!
However, Song Heishan touched the brown floral brocade robe on his body, patted the horizontal knife on his shoulder, straightened out his big belly that had begun to gain weight, and looked at the red-headed servant behind him who nodded and hunched over. deficit.
Three years ago, Song Heishan followed Zhang Baoyi to the vicinity of Shiguo City in the middle of the river and quickly became like a fish in water.
Because what they do in Juyeze is to rob people to farm for them. They are experts at this job! Perfect re-employment is a yes.
So this group of dozens of old soldiers and their two to three hundred grandchildren and nephews immediately entered the state.
Using the armor and weapons they borrowed from Bai Congxin, they quickly conquered a small tribe of more than 300 people and 2,000 people.
Then it was like a snowball. Until now, Zhang Baoyi controlled more than 7,000 households and nearly 50,000 local indigenous people in the southwest of Shiguo City. He established his own town, Wanli City, and became Bai Congxin's Wanli ambassador. .
The backbone of his subordinates like Song Heishan also received the official positions of a thousand households and town governors.
Now, Song Heishan's family is the king of this thousand-family, seven-thousand-people indigenous people. Compared with in Juyeze, where almost one family has to support one of them, life is already as beautiful as heaven.
"Master, my servant has inquired. Someone in their family is going back to Chang'an recently and can bring back ten pieces of the finest Yunxia Shu brocade."
Behind Song Heishan, the middle-aged red-headed servant said in a broken Tang accent that only the pronunciation of the word Chang'an was particularly accurate, with an inexplicable sense of envy.
The word "Master" can be regarded as a typical example of exporting to domestic sales.
The word "yeye" of the Han people was absorbed by the Northern Wei Dynasty who went south during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and then was accepted by the people outside the Great Wall. Then it lost its original meaning and changed from expressing father to a title for a person of status.
Historically, it was not until the end of the Yuan Dynasty that Laoye came to mean later generations in Chinese, but this time and space had already become popular in Hezhong.
Because the Han people, who gradually took the strategic initiative in the river, felt that the local indigenous people were not worthy of being called Langjun and Alang like them, so the terms Laoye and Daye came into being.
This is a term specially used by the natives in the river to call the Han people. The Han people still call each other "lang".
Of course, the scope of the Han people is a bit broad. In addition to the original Han people, the grassland people who believe in the Six Methods Sect and were recruited by Tian Khan to come to the river to help in the boxing are also called Han people in the river.
Song Heishan nodded. Ten pieces of Yunxia Shu brocade were not cheap, but the money had to be spent and it was worth it, because it was used as a betrothal gift for his eldest son Song Dalang.
The woman's family belongs to the Ma family, a large Han family in Khotan. It is said that when the Holy Emperor first arrived in Khotan, it was their family's Ma Furong, who was then the inspector of the Jin Kingdom, who went to greet him.
Ma Furong's younger brother Ma Jirong also followed Shengtianzi to fight in Suiye and Ningyuan. Although he did not return to the east with him in the end, he also reached the high position of deputy governor in the Ningyuan Governor's Region.
Of course, Song Heishan's son could not marry the direct daughter or granddaughter of brothers Ma Furong and Ma Jirong, but considering Song Heishan's background, being able to marry Ma Jirong's niece was already considered a high achievement.
You must know that in today's river, every man and woman is precious.
Not to mention the large Han people in Anxi like the Ma family, girls from the Zubu, Xijiasi and other tribes who came from the grasslands are in hot demand as long as they can speak fluent Chinese.
If King Li Congde of the Jin Kingdom had not started preparing to move the vassal to Kangju City (Samarkand), and had the need to rely on them, Han vassals in the river, Song Heishan's son would not have been able to get Song Heishan's turn, even if it was a daughter from the Ma family.
This is a shop opened by people from the Tang Dynasty. Song Heishan remembers that the owner’s surname seems to be Mi, and his granddaughter is married to a great official in Baishui City, so she has some strength.
In the four Han cities of Suiye, Talas, Baishui City, and Shi Guocheng, which mainly formed the territory of the Han people in the river, they were quite capable of taking both black and white.
The so-called Daxuan Comfort Envoy actually refers to Uncle Fang, but he cannot be called Uncle Fang yet.
Because the saint has not yet officially consecrated Bai Congxin, the general manager of the camp in Hezhong, as the king of the Bai Kingdom, Lu Zhenlu Sanlang, who is also in Baishui City, has not received the title of Baishui Grand Duke.
Therefore, the current situation is still a bit embarrassing. Bai Congxin can only continue to issue orders in the name of the general manager of the camp in Hezhong, and the princes and uncles under his command can only take the title of Daxuan comfort envoy.
Because although the Xuanwei envoys and the Zhenfu envoys were vassals, they could be said to be imperial officials on the surface.
Similarly, minor vassals who were originally supposed to be gentlemen and gentlemen are now all called Xuanweishu and Zhenfushi.
At the same time, Tang people is also a rather playful statement.
According to the current common names, the Central Plains people in the river are either called Han people or Zhou people, because now the Central Plains is the Great Zhou Dynasty and not the Great Tang Dynasty, so there is no way they can still be called Tang people.
Therefore, these people who are deliberately called Tang people are actually Sogdians from Beiting in the west to Beiping Prefecture in the east.
The Sogdians are a very special ethnic group. There are estimated to be one to two million people in the Central Plains, and there are several factions among them.
For example, Kang Fu and An Shenqi followed Li Keyong back to the Tang Dynasty and Li Cunxu restored the Tang Dynasty. They are no different from the Han people.
There are also Hexi Sogdians such as Kang Jinshan and Mi Guozhong who used to be members of the Hexi Chamber of Commerce and started their careers with Zhang Zhi.
But neither of these two groups is the most numerous. What is most important is that many have settled in the Central Plains and can speak fluent Chinese. However, they are regarded as Sogdians in the Central Plains, but are regarded as Tang'er by the local Sogdians in the river. , more than one million in total.
After these people saw Zhang Yan's determination to conquer the Xiajun Yi people in the river, they immediately became interested. They also wanted to take advantage of this trend and become the pioneers of the Xiajun Yi people in the place that should have been their hometown. They would use their status to win over the Yi people. A great wealth.
However, after these people arrived in the river, the status of the Han people had already risen.
The local Sogdians who were ruled there did not want to admit that these same people who looked similar to them and had been away from their hometown for dozens or hundreds of years were also Han masters.
At the same time, these Sogdians who pretended to be half-Han from Shatuo did not want others to regard them as Sogdians and insisted on keeping their Han identity, so they gradually accepted the title of Tang people.
It's not a big deal, Tang people always sound much nicer than Hu people.
Just in this way, in order to completely distinguish themselves, they began to strongly refuse their fellow tribesmen left in the river to use Han surnames like An, Shi, Mi, and Kang like them.
Bai Congxin did not stop it, because the benefits were obvious. By doing this, these Sogdians were building a firewall between the locals and the Han people!
The Sogdians below will definitely hate them, the Sogdians from the east, who can no longer be regarded as their own race, rather than directly hating the Han people.
At the same time, there are at least 1.5 million Sogdians in the Central Plains. They have the driving force to come east without mobilization, and their way of thinking and language are Chinese. They are a very useful middle class, and their numbers are quite large. Simply perfect!
Song Heishan was about to go in to talk to the owner of the Mi family about the price and place a deposit when he suddenly heard the big bell in Wanli City ringing. The pedestrians in the market suddenly panicked and hid on both sides of the street.
"There are thieves in Yingchun Fort who are causing trouble. There are thieves in Yingchun Fort who are making trouble. All government soldiers are armed and go to the Yamen to listen to orders!"
As the bell rang, a horseman named Wuhou beat the gong and shouted along the street.
"No, Wang Liu is at Yingchun Fort!" Song Heishan shouted. Wang Liu was one of the old soldiers who had fallen into the grass with them in Juye Ze. He was assigned to Yingchun Fort as an inspection envoy.
"These thieves really know how to pick the right moment." Song Heishan then cursed.
The reason why he said this was because at this moment, the Han army in the river and the Saman Persian army were starting a tug-of-war that was cruel to both sides.
What happened in these years was just as Zhang Yan and Bai Congxin expected.
After Bai Congxin established a foothold in Shiguocheng, Salah, the actual controller of Samampos, couldn't help it.
In four years, he spent all his strength to cross the river of medicine three times in an attempt to regain Shiguo City.
The force used increased each time, and it was this time's turn, that is, the fourth time to go north.
Saleh not only mobilized a total of 70,000 troops in Samanid Persia, but also summoned more than 40,000 troops from the Bouveshi dynasty that controlled Iraq, the Safar dynasty in southern Persia, and even the Ihshidi dynasty that controlled Egypt. God warrior.
There are a total of 120,000 troops, and if you include the civilians, there are as many as 200,000 without the need to claim it.
In order to prepare for Salah's attack, Bai Congxin also began to recruit troops on a large scale in the four cities in the river. He recruited 6,000 Han heavy-armored soldiers around Shiguo City alone, and also requested assistance from Ningyuan and Khotan.
This was the fourth battle between medicine and water that decided the fate of the river in history.
At this time, it was the most difficult time of the fourth battle of Yaoshashui. At this time, Bai Congxin and Lu Sanlang had already filled their 50,000 troops and almost all of them to the shore of Yaoshashui.
After three confrontations with the Zhou army in the Central Plains, the combat effectiveness of the Saman Persian army has been rapidly improved.
Although they are not as good at fighting as Zhou Jun, they are not as vulnerable as before, and their equipment has been greatly improved due to the support of the Tianfang Sect countries in the Middle East.
This led to the fact that although the main force led by Bai Congxin defeated the forward army of Salar Abu Yusuf of Samampos several times, it was never able to achieve the results of defeating an enemy force capable of large-scale destruction.
Instead, Abu Yusuf relied on the Jeddah Fortress and continued to increase his troops, hoping to use the population of Samambas as many as four million to kill Bai Congxin, who only had a few hundred thousand people.
His tactic has so far had an effect. Under the threat of hundreds of thousands of people on the opposite side, the Zhou army had to shrink its troops to avoid the confrontation with the Samanid Persian army turning into a competition to spread the pie, which would lead to being defeated by various parties. Break.
This move was very effective. It immediately transformed the numerical advantage of the Saman Persian army into bloat. They were constantly defeated by the Zhou army in key areas, and the losses were not small.
However, Bai Congxin's reduction of troops had a shortcoming, which was that it would cause the Samambas' rangers to begin to penetrate into the four Han cities. They attacked everywhere and continued to encourage the local Tianfang believers to resist.
This was a well-planned attack, and Abu Yusuf had a huge time difference of a second, because this battle was only more than three months after the last battle.
Half of the main force of the Zhou army that participated in the last war had returned to Suiye City for repairs more than two months ago. No one expected that Samampos could be mobilized again so quickly.
Of course, this does not mean that the Saman Persians have much advantage, because the four Han city armies headed by Bai Congxin also have a powerful assistant - the vassal army of the Khotan Kingdom.
The current situation in Anxi is that half of the Khotan Jin Kingdom's army was controlled by Hu Guang and became the main force of the Han army in Anxi.
Half of them were controlled by Li Congde and were for the Jin vassal army. There were almost 20,000 people. They were controlled by Ma Jirong, the deputy governor of Ningyuan, and Xue Shouli, the military envoy of Ningyuan.
At the same time, Lao Zhang Zhong, who was guarding millions of acres of private property in Ningyuan for Zhang Zhi, also had a force of 5,000 royal private soldiers controlled by Dang Jin, who could be mobilized to the battlefield at any time.
So the focus now is when the 5,000 private soldiers of the Jin vassal army and the emperor can be mobilized and leave Tianmen Pass.
This war can be won only if they break through the water city blockade established by Abu Yusuf on Yaosha Water and stab the Saman Persian army in the chrysanthemum - cutting off the Persian army's logistical supply route.
. . . .
Song Heishan drew his horizontal sword and quickly got on a war horse. He was the envoy to suppress the war, and he could exercise certain powers on behalf of Zhang Baoyi when the envoy Zhang Baoyi and his eldest son and other young men went to the front line.
By the time Song Heishan ran to the yamen gate, more than a hundred Han troops had gathered here. They all carried horizontal knives on their waists and held long spears, and were followed by servants carrying armor, bows and arrows and other equipment.
When Song Heishan saw another governor, Zou Dalang, he was immediately relieved. He quickly rode over and said:
"Zou Da, someone who knows the way to Yingchun Fort asked me to take two hundred people to reinforce. You stay in the city. If there are thieves who want to attack Wanli City, there will be someone to command."
Zou Dalang nodded heavily, and then said with great confidence:
"Take all these three hundred people with you! We have recruited everyone over the age of thirteen and over forty-five in the city, and we can still gather two hundred people. Ordinary thieves are not our opponent."
Song Heishan thought about it for a moment and immediately agreed. He got on his horse and shouted to Zhang Baoyi's thirteen-year-old eldest son:
"Give the silver and white flag to a certain family for use. You can stay in the city and listen to Uncle Zou's arrangements. Don't be afraid."
Thirteen-year-old Zhang Dalang blushed. He put on a slightly smaller cloth armor and shouted loudly:
"How come Uncle Song still looks down on others so much? Although my nephew is not weak yet, he has already killed five traitors with the sharp knife on his waist. How can a great Zhou Dynasty man be afraid!"
"Hahaha!" Song Heishan laughed three times and praised: "He is a descendant of our Han people. With you here, this Wanli City will definitely be fine."
After that, he looked at the old men behind him, who were almost as gray as him. Most of them were around forty years old and shouted: "My children and grandchildren cannot return after killing thieves with medicine and water. Can you still fight?"
"Song officials, don't worry. Even if a certain family is over forty years old, it is still no problem to kill five or eight thieves." Someone immediately shouted back.
"Okay, then let those Saman thieves who come over have a look. His grandfather is old, but the sword in his hand is not old!"
Song Heishan waved his hand and rode out first. A silver-white Sanchen flag immediately started to flutter in the wind behind him!
