Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

The first month of the 13th year of Jianji (913) was more joyful and peaceful than any previous year.

Because of the imperial examination at the end of February this year, the number of scholars from various prefectures gathered in Xijing increased sharply, and there were many more people with southern accents, eager to try.

The plan for the ranking of the imperial examinations has not yet been decided, and it may not be officially implemented until three years later, but this does not affect people's enthusiasm in the slightest.The imperial examination of a unified empire is fatal to scholars.

They talked about it repeatedly when they were in their hometown, and they talked endlessly with their companions on the way to Beijing with the court envoys from various states.Whenever they have free time, they supervise and encourage each other, and those who have outstanding knowledge also help others to solve problems. They are very enthusiastic and full of positive spirit.

When they arrived in Chang'an, they worked even harder, spending the whole night with prostitutes.

King Shao Shenli of Chu looked up at the Qinlou Chu Pavilion in Pingkangfang, and left without hesitation.

It used to be his favorite thing to hang around in Jiaofangjima -- if he had a membership card, he would have already applied for it.

But now I feel that these are quite boring, even the bride who has just married and returned home not long ago doesn't care, and rides out of the city on horseback—Chu Princess Xie, the daughter of Xie Yanzhang, the capital of the Tiande Army.

It snowed heavily yesterday, and the earth was completely white.After Shao Shenli rode his horse for a while, he met a few young men, all of whom were sons of honorable nobles, about the same age as him.

The few people were silent, and after checking the equipment, they started to gallop in the snow. During this time, the bowstring and the thunderbolt sounded continuously, and the sound of the arrow hitting the target was endless.

The weather is cold and the strings are brittle and easy to break.After breaking a string, Shao Shenli took out another string and continued to practice.

Around the shooting range, there are about a dozen helpers.From time to time, they replaced the immobile horse and sent a new horse with sufficient strength. Sometimes they also ran over to change the target, so that these masters could practice more happily.

After shooting more than ten arrows, Shao Shenli asked someone to bring a horse spear, put it under his arm, and rode the horse to charge.

The straw man swayed in the cold wind.

Shao Shenli's eyes were piercing, fixed on the target.When he got close, he held the moon with both hands, first swept one, and then picked it up with all his strength, picked up the whole wooden figure behind him, and then threw it down heavily.

"Xi Lulv!" The horse's back was almost crushed, and it raised its head and neighed in pain.

Shao Shenli threw away the horse lance, took out the iron mace from the sheath, and controlled the horse to rush to another grass man gathering area.

Wherever he passed, he smashed left and right, and the straw men fell to the ground one after another.

After practicing for a while, he dismounted again, asked his attendants to bring a rifle, walked up to a straw man, and practiced the assassination technique on the spot.

His expression was so focused and his movements so fierce and powerful that his companions couldn't stand it any longer.

"Your Highness, are you stupefied..." Someone opened his mouth wide and asked, "Is it because some girl with a red card has been snatched away, and her heart is pent up and she can't vent it?"

"Maybe the bride is ugly..."

"Xie Yanzhang is also a good-looking talent, isn't it?"

"Next time, find a handsome servant boy, maybe His Highness will like it."

"Haha, reasonable!"

"Forget it, Your Highness is a nobleman, and he works so hard. I'll just wait here to talk nonsense and waste time. Let's practice hard."

After the few people finished speaking, they continued to mount their horses and shoot their bows, practicing riding and archery.

Noble children, their conditions for learning literature and martial arts are unimaginable to outsiders.

An ordinary shepherd on the grassland must not have practiced horseback riding for as long as they did.Not to mention the consumption of equipment and the like, which require a lot of resources.

As for the nutritional conditions and the teaching of famous teachers, the gap is even bigger.

The only thing that the prairie herdsmen can possibly surpass them is their courage to fight hard, their courage to risk their lives, and their lives.Or the children of nobles linger in the flower streets and willow alleys, wasting time on crooked ways.

But when the Great Xia Prince like Shao Shenli was also training hard day and night, the gap between the two sides widened infinitely.

"Kill!" The heavy snow fell again, and the top of Shao Shenli's head was like a steamer, steaming. When he finished the last assassination move, his whole body was almost exhausted.

The entourage hurried over and helped him to rest in a wooden house.

Shao Shenli, who had removed his armor, looked at his slightly trembling hands, feeling full and peaceful in his heart.

A year and a half ago in Luoyang, when the soldiers of the Imperial Army cheered for Fu Cunshen and ignored him, he felt lost.

It turned out that in the eyes of warriors, he was so unbearable, so non-existent!

Everything he owns is not respected from the heart of others, just like his biological mother.

This kind of cognition made his heart suffer and became the driving force for him to move forward.

"I still need to practice!" He grabbed the water bag, gulped down a big mouthful of water, and said, "Until the Western Expedition begins."

The followers looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

It seems to be a good thing, but it seems not to be a good thing.His Royal Highness King Chu's self-esteem is too strong, and he hasn't awakened it for more than ten years. Once he is stimulated, it will be out of control.

It's a mess!

There was a dull sound of hoofbeats on the post road not far away. Judging from the sound, it seemed that there was more than one horse.

"Five hundred miles urgent!" Someone outside the wooden house exclaimed: "What kind of emergency military situation?"

"Could it be that Abaoji called back? It shouldn't be. It's freezing, if he has the ability, why should he run away?"

"Perhaps there is another disturbance in Huainan. In the land of Xinde, the people's sentiments are not safe, and the people's hearts are not attached. If there are people with ulterior motives and a little incitement, there may not be no rebellion."

"I don't think it will be Huainan, it may be Wu Guan."

"Wuguan has been suppressed several times. Which fool would dare to make trouble in a short time?"

"Where would that be? Could it be that there was a rebellion in the middle of Guizhou, and captured the prefectures and counties?"

"It's hard to say, those people are brainless, it's really possible."

When Shao Shenli heard the words, he suddenly got up, walked out of the wooden house, and looked at the back of the messenger who was gradually going away.

Such urgency must not be a trivial matter.

Reminiscent of the fact that an envoy from the Grand Master and the Kingdom came to Beijing to ask the princess to marry their monarch a few years ago, Shao Shenli highly suspected that something happened in Qianzhong or Jiannan.

But thinking about it carefully, there seems to be a problem: according to the time, only three months have passed, and the envoys of the Dachanghe Kingdom should have just left the country. Maybe they have not had time to report the whole story to their monarch in the future. How did Nanman move so quickly?
But if it wasn't Nanban, where would it be?
He couldn't figure it out a bit, but there was a faint joy and excitement in his heart.

Study hard all day long, isn't it for the moment when you go into battle?If an opportunity arises in the south, should you take the initiative to invite Ying and join the army to march south?Shao Shenli was a little hesitant for a while - Grandpa probably won't go to the south himself, which really makes people scratch their heads!
******
On the 28th of the first lunar month, Shao Shude, who was with his family in the Pearl Mirror Hall of the Daming Palace, received a military report from the south.

After reading it, he took a heavy slap on the case.

The 22nd prince, who had just passed the full moon, immediately burst into tears. Wei Shi hurried over, picked up his son, and comforted him softly.

In the past six months, Shao Shude had four new children.

In April of the 12th year of Jianji, Xiuyuan Xiao gave birth to a daughter.

In August, Chongyi Du gave birth to a daughter who died young.

In the first month of the 13th year, Chongrong Webster gave birth to a son.

Also in this month, Jieyu Chu gave birth to a son.

So far, he has had 44 biological children.

Compared with Li Yuan in the former Tang Dynasty, the number of children has exceeded three. Li Yuan had only 10 children before he became the Supreme Emperor. After being imprisoned by his son, he actually gave birth to 50 children in his 31s.

Shao Shude has lost five children so far, with a mortality rate of 10%, which is higher than that of Li Yuan—perhaps Li Yuan did not record some children who died young.

However, the survival rate of Li Yuan's children surpassed that of his descendants.This is another very interesting thing. Not only the Tang Dynasty, the survival rate of the children of the first two generations of emperors in many dynasties far exceeded that of the successor kings.

Take the "little Taizong" Tang Xuanzong as an example. He had a total of 12 sons. Except for Yizong, the eldest son of Empress Chao, most of them died when they were young, and a few adults also died young, which is extremely outrageous.

On the contrary, the survival rate of his 11 daughters is much higher.The reason is not easy to draw conclusions.

Shao Shude noticed his son's crying, so he went to the side hall next to him, and read the military newspaper carefully again.

The barbarians in Lizhou rebelled again!

This time the momentum was not small, occupying various key points around Wuhou City in Lizhou Lisuo, separating Hanyuan and Tongwang counties from the state government.

Shao Shude asked someone to bring the map again, and looked at it carefully.

The barbarians between Li and Ya can be said to be numerous and powerful.At the end of the former Tang Dynasty, tens of thousands of people and 10 people were frequently gathered to make riots.

And Lizhou is also a prefecture that is relatively south of Jiannan Road. Wuhou City is located in the middle of the mountain.

Hanyuan County is 25 miles south of Wuhou City. It has already crossed the mountains, and the terrain is gradually unfolding.

In Nanshili of Hanyuan County, there is a large-scale post station, Baituyi, and in the forty miles to Tongwang County, there is a wooden post.

There is Dadu River ten miles south of Muyuyi, which is fast and difficult to cross. It is called the most dangerous and is the natural boundary between north and south.

But it is only a "geographical boundary". In the Tang Dynasty, military towns were set up on both sides of the river.The Guochao also sent soldiers and horses to station, mainly the Shengjie army, plus more than [-] local peasants.

More than 30 miles south of the Dadu River, there are Wangxingyi and Wangxingguan.

Fifty miles south of Wangxing, there are Qingxi Gorge and Qingxi Pass, which were important places for the Tang Dynasty to guard against Tubo and Nanzhao.

110 miles to the south of Qingxiguan, it is the boundary between Lizhou and Yizhou.And 嶲 (guī) state is also a state in the southwest of Jiannan Road.

The post road runs from the state boundary to the south across the entire Yizhou border, and passes through Xin'an City, Yong'an City, Sanfu City, and Shaye City (now Xichang) to the south. There is a post road to the south—this is another important station for troops. It was presided over by Li Deyu during the Taihe period. build.

Thirty miles south of Shaye City, there is the military town of Jiangmoshu, and another 120 miles to Yangpengling.After crossing this mountain, there is a post at the southern foot of the mountain. The location of this post is the boundary line between Tang and Nanzhao after the Anshi Rebellion.

From the Dadu River to the south to Yangpengling, a total of more than 750 miles, it was still under the very stable rule of the Tang Dynasty until the reign of Emperor Wenzong of Tang Dynasty.Li Deyu and Wei Gao built a fort here and stationed troops and horses. It was not Nanzhao, but Tubo.

Since the late Tang Dynasty, the country has been weakened, and many barbarians in this area have voted for Nanzhao, losing a lot of land.

After Gao Pian defeated Nanzhao, he restored the border in one fell swoop.However, the local fortresses were dilapidated and the people fled one after another, making it increasingly difficult to garrison troops.And once the garrison is reduced, it will be difficult for you to suppress the barbarians and control the land.

It's good that they don't make chaos, but once they make chaos, they will often attract the Nanzhao army, which is very troublesome.

In history, when the Dachanghe Kingdom attacked Qianshu, its army went directly to the south bank of the Dadu River.The Shu army fought their backs and won a big victory. Tens of thousands of thieves died.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Quanbin destroyed Houshu and suggested "take advantage of the situation to take Yunnan".

Zhao Kuangyin stroked the map with a jade ax and said, "I don't own anything else."

"It is to abandon the counties of Yue and Yi, and take the Dadu River as the boundary. If you want to invade, you can't, you can't, and you can't, the best strategy is to defend the troops."——Zhao Kuangyin ordered to abandon all Yizhou and half of Lizhou, thinking that such a defense is "resisting troops" top policy".

In this way, 750 miles of land were thrown to Dali.In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the military town and fortress system rebuilt by Li Deyu and Wei Gao, the good situation built by the former Shu king Jian who killed tens of thousands of enemies in the first battle, completely collapsed, and the defense line finally retreated to the "natural limit".

To a certain extent, Zhao Da, who easily gave up the Southwest Territory and planned to save money to buy Youyun Sixteen States, is not as ambitious as Zhao Er, the donkey cart war god. At least his younger brother really started to do it, although the ending was very bleak. .

Shao Shude frowned as he looked at the number of garrison troops marked on the map.

To the west and south of the Dadu River, the garrison has only two commanders who are not full-staffed, with a total of more than [-] people.In addition, there are thousands of Tutuan villagers in Fanzhi, and the total force is six to seven thousand.

With this kind of people, if Dachang and the country come to attack, there is a high probability that they will not be able to withstand it.

As for whether Dachanghe Guoyou came, there is no doubt about it.Report from the front, the bandits have sent troops to the north, and began to besiege several forts stationed by the Xia army.These garrison walls are thin and low, and each has only a few hundred soldiers, so the fall is inevitable.After that, we will attack the Dadu River directly.

Of course, these are not the most troublesome.

The most annoying thing is that the Man Liaos in Li and Yi prefectures vigorously responded to the Dachanghe Kingdom, and raised troops to cause chaos, with the intention of blooming in the center and creating chaos-the Man Liaos in Yazhou still gave face, and did not follow along with the chaos.

"Fuck his uncle, if you don't get a wife, you will go to war?" Shao Shude took another look at the case again, and ordered: "Call the prime ministers of the Political Affairs Hall and the Privy Council, and I want to ask the right question."