The blade of the sword swung for thirty thousand miles, and the country was soaked in nine thousand layers of blood.
The world of the Shengtang Dynasty was created with one sword, one spear, one foot and one inch.
In the 800 years since the founding of the country, the thirty generations of wise kings and heroes were all ruthless men with outstanding martial arts and outstanding achievements. And it was these ruthless people one after another who turned the small city-state that was originally located on the Jinhe Plain into the Huanghuang Empire that now spans hundreds of thousands of miles.
The boundaries of the dynasty were bounded by the vast sea to the east, the ghost desert to the west, the wilderness to the north, and the barbaric wilderness to the south. If it weren't for the natural barrier of the mainland of China, the climate outside of China would always be harsh and poverty-stricken. The sharp sword of the Holy Tang Dynasty , I really don’t know how far it will extend.
The eight-hundred-year-old civilized country is glory and light to the people of Shengtang. It is a glorious history that cannot be told and read in schools, and stories and legends that are filled with applause in teahouses and restaurants.
Of course, it is also the bitter memory of the neighboring small countries being beaten for eight hundred years.
There was no need for a reason for Shengtang to beat anyone.
Although every generation of emperors would always rack their brains to come up with a reason before beating others, in order to comply with the ancestral motto of "learning from teachers leads to fame". However, it is often better for them to find reasons than not to find them at all.
Because anyone who listens to those reasons will feel that these grandsons not only want to beat people, but also want to hurt people's hearts. Not only do they want to hurt people's hearts, but they also look down on everyone's IQ.
For example, the sixth generation emperor Li Tianci. When he was sweeping through the seven Monan Kingdoms, the reason he came up with was that his beloved golden eagle was seduced by the sheep of the Bohai Kingdom and ran away.
So, Li Tianci personally led 150,000 mysterious armored cavalry and marched directly into the Bohai Kingdom, rummaging through boxes and cabinets, looking for birds everywhere. However, it is a pity that the King of Bohai Kingdom's home was ransacked three times, and the unlucky golden eagle was not seen. Li Tianci was unwilling to give up and went all the way north to search. He did not stop until he had searched the other six countries.
In the end, the golden eagle was not found, and the seven Monan countries had no choice but to move in tears, moving eight hundred miles to Mobei, as far away from the broken bird of the Holy Tang Emperor as possible.
The fourteenth-generation emperor Li Hengyi gave an even more outrageous reason when he attacked Dianyue: One day, Li Hengyi's beloved concubine said that she had a nightmare, dreaming that the prince of Dianyue took advantage of the opportunity of coming to the imperial capital to worship her. Got to sleep. After hearing this, Li Hengyi became furious. Without saying a word, he led the Qilin Army to southern Xinjiang to settle accounts with the prince who had cuckolded him. The King of Dianyue was so frightened that he quickly wrote a letter to plead guilty, saying that he had more than twenty bastard sons, and he did not know which one had offended his empress in his dream. As long as his majesty pointed it out, he would immediately execute him on the spot.
Li Hengyi said lightly: The scandal is too ugly to look back on.
Then, he commanded 80,000 gold unicorns to completely wipe the Dian Yue Kingdom off the map.
When the twenty-fifth generation emperor Li Miao came to power, he took the method of finding reasons to beat people to a new level. In order to wipe out the five Dongyi states and seize the important seaport, he actually forced the leader of the Dongyi Alliance to declare a challenge to him.
The Dongyi people were completely panicked, wondering what kind of fun this Emperor Shengtang was playing.
But Li Miao said: If you don't obey my orders, you are an enemy.
Shengtang has one and only one attitude towards his enemies: beat them to death.
This was neither left nor right. There was no other way. The leader of Dongyi had no choice but to write a respectful and modest letter of challenge and send it to the imperial capital cautiously. Then, he waited for the Shengtang Navy Master who happily accepted the challenge.
After that, there is no more.
In order to praise the great achievements of the emperors of the past dynasties in conquering all directions and expanding the territory, Li Taixuan, a great poet of the Holy Tang Dynasty, once wrote this famous work that has been passed down through the ages in the same year when the Dongyi tribe was exterminated:
In the misty mirror lake of the imperial capital, the phoebe flowers alone are drunk with ruby red.
The blade of the sword swung for thirty thousand miles, and the country was soaked in nine thousand layers of blood.
I don’t know if Taixuan really admires the achievements of the previous emperors, or if he has evil intentions and is holding back his bad intentions to ridicule the Holy Tang for being aggressive. In short, after the publication of this work, the emperors of the past dynasties did not like this poem, and they always felt that there was something strange about it.
It was not until the previous emperor Li Chengwen succeeded to the throne that everyone woke up from a dream: Come on, it turns out that the problem lies here.
What exactly is the problem?
Nanhua.
The "nanhua" in Li Taixuan's poem refers to the nanjin flower. This flower is abundant in the oasis of Ghost Desert and is a sacred flower jointly respected by the thirty-six countries in Western Xinjiang.
According to legend, where the nanjin flowers bloom, there is endless water and wealth.
The reason why people think there is something wrong with Li Taixuan's poems is precisely because of this flower.
This is sweetness, and that is arsenic and frost.
Nanjin is the sacred flower in the hearts of the people in Western Xinjiang, but it is also a thorn in Shengtang's eyes.
A poisonous thorn.
The eighth emperor, the eleventh emperor, and the twenty-third emperor of the Holy Tang Dynasty launched three large-scale expeditions to the Ghost Desert in Western Xinjiang. Xuan Jia, Qilin, Long Dao, Fierce Blade, the top elite legions of the dynasty, almost took turns to fight, but in the end they all failed to achieve complete victory.
This is not to say that the Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Ghost Desert in Western Border are so powerful that even the Holy Tang army that is sweeping the world cannot do anything to them.
The most important problem is that these people from Western Xinjiang can kill them all, but they cannot be defeated.
Unless they are really slaughtered, it will be an abominable rhythm of beating them down, rising up to rebel, beating them down again, and rising up to rebel again, over and over again.
It was not until the twenty-fourth generation emperor Li Shilun succeeded to the throne that he changed the practice of all the previous emperors to march to the western frontier, and instead adopted the strategy of "mainly appeasement with gentleness, supplemented by heavy military suppression", and treated each other as a "brotherly nation". Finally, Xijiang became a little calmer.
Since then, after nearly a hundred years of six generations of emperors, the Western Territory and the imperial capital have maintained a relatively friendly situation. When the emperors of the Holy Tang Dynasty sent troops to conquer the world, they intentionally or unintentionally avoided the west and only directed their efforts towards the west. elsewhere.
The ghost desert is as quiet as the Dead Sea, no one disturbs it, and no one cares about it.
This state of affairs seems likely to last until the end of time.
At least, that was what the twenty-ninth emperor Li Chengwen thought before he ascended the throne of the Nine-Fiveth Emperor.
However, it was precisely when he was in office that something happened again in Guimo, Xijiang.
Several years ago, in a land farther west in Western Xinjiang, alien races emerged.
The Turks who worshiped flames, like a prairie fire, suddenly swept across the vast world in the westernmost part of the continent. Countless tribes and city-states were either wiped out or surrendered. A huge empire with territory and population comparable to the Holy Tang Dynasty stood side by side across the vast ghost desert.
It was also from that time that the originally peaceful and peaceful Thirty-six Kingdoms of Western Xinjiang began to become secretly restless again.
After Li Chengwen succeeded to the throne, he soon noticed signs of instability in the west. Just when he was thinking of countermeasures and planning to prevent it, a large-scale rebellion suddenly came unexpectedly.
As one of the thirty-six major tribes in Western Xinjiang that was a vassal state of Shengtang, twenty countries raised their rebel flags overnight and sent troops to attack the imperial military fortresses located in various places. A large number of court officials and Shengtang border residents stationed there were brutally killed.
The situation in Western Xinjiang suddenly got out of control and was rapidly sliding into the abyss.
The Shengtang royal family has always had a saying: written documents are not written, and military actions are not effective.
Compared with his younger brother Li Chengwu's gentleness and elegance, Li Chengwen can definitely be regarded as the god of death.
When the war broke out, the new emperor was furious. Emperor Li Chengwen, who had only succeeded to the throne for less than a month, looked at the battle report sent back from Xijiang and only two words popped out of his mouth:
Slaughter the country!
In an instant, Shengtang's military machine was fully activated.
The closest place to the Ghost Desert in Western Xinjiang is Liangzhou Mansion, where the famous Fierce Blade Legion is stationed. They were the first to react due to the chaos. The 70,000-strong Fierce Blade Armored Army, under the command of the general He Jingming, ignored the small groups of rebels in various places and rushed directly to the core area where the rebellion broke out-Chechi State.
Immediately afterwards, the Long Sword Legion, which was preparing for the war in the Central Plains and passing through the northwest, also quickly assembled and set off westward. One hundred thousand long swords and tigers, along the route of the Blade Army, swept away the various rebels they left behind. Wherever it passes, not a blade of grass grows.
By the time the two elite groups, one behind the other, met at the King's Court in Chechi, the main force of the Western Xinjiang rebels had been wiped out, and the remaining defeated troops fled westward and hid deeper in the Ghost Desert.
However, Shengtang's anger did not subside.
The twenty-eight states of Central China, under the orders of Emperor Li Chengwen, mobilized up to 300,000 soldiers from the east along the Western Xinjiang trade route to repair the thirty-six states one by one.
Yes, you read that right, it’s the Thirty-Six Kingdoms.
Not only were the twenty countries that participated in the rebellion suffered a bloodbath, but the other sixteen countries that were honest and did not cause trouble were also severely beaten.
The reason is very simple.
Li Chengwen said: I want to show them.
them? who are they?
Not the thirty-six tribes of Western Xinjiang, but the Turks.
Behind this sudden rebellion of the vassal states was the Turkic Empire. Li Chengwen saw this very clearly, and naturally he was not interested in drinking.
How can we frighten the hungry wolf on our pillow without resorting to thunder and lightning?
Of course, even if it is said that it is massacre of the country, it cannot really kill all the chickens and dogs. Firstly, the Shengtang Dynasty has passed the earliest stage of barbaric expansion. Civilization and enlightenment have become the foundation of governing the country. Bloody killings are not in line with the public sentiment and public opinion in the Shengtang Dynasty; secondly, the Ghost Desert of Xijiang is the absolute western territory of the dynasty. It has a good barrier and buffer. If it becomes a no-man's land, not only will trade be impossible, but it will also be in direct conflict with the Turkic Empire.
In that case, the pressure on the defense on the western front would suddenly increase, which would be detrimental to the country.
In the 799th year of the Holy Tang Calendar, which was the year Li Chengwen succeeded to the throne, the sudden and short-lived rebellion in Western Xinjiang was finally completely put down by the Holy Tang army, and the vast ghost desert once again returned to silence.
However, the rebellion was suppressed, but not all the hundreds of thousands of troops involved in suppressing the rebellion were withdrawn.
Following the emperor's will, 20,000 sharp blades, 20,000 long knives, and 60,000 soldiers jointly formed a new army - the Zhenjiang Protectorate, and stayed in the vast thirty-six countries!
The long sword and fierce blade will forever rule the western frontier.
