Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 321 Bonus ([-])

"Master Mani, I'll leave it to you to translate the Dashi books." Shao Shude wanted to talk to Zhou Yi about serious matters, so he let Master Mani go first.

Such an excellent foreign language talent is still worthy of his high regard.

I don't know why, but the high proportion of senior monks who are proficient in foreign languages ​​may be related to missionary needs.

The language used by the Uighurs is actually the Turkic language family of the Altaic language family.This Mani master is proficient in Uyghur, Turkic Luni, Chinese, Sogdian and Tubo, and he does not know Dashi language.But it doesn't matter, there are other monks who understand Persian, Dashi, and Sanskrit, so we can refer to them and translate them together.

The Manichaean monks are also proficient in multiple languages, and Shao Shude is also ready to receive them.On the one hand, these religious figures should come forward to appease people and restore order in Ganzhou as soon as possible; on the other hand, they can also translate books.

In addition, some of the values ​​of Manichaeism are quite interesting.For example, they advocate the dualism of good and evil, regard farming and vegetarianism as good deeds, and regard the customs of nomadic society as darkness.

Religion is of great significance to tribes with a low level of civilization.Among the large Gein tribes, there are also small tribes, whose population sources, customs, and lifestyles may not all be the same.After religion became the belief of the entire tribe or even the entire Khanate, it was conducive to standardizing the customs of the tribes and bringing them closer to cultural unity.

The rulers see the benefits of this reality, so they tend to push the boat along and help the development of religion.

Manichaeism, Buddhism, and even a certain religion are not in favor of nomadism. This alone is enough for Marshal Shao to rely on their strength.

But keep an eye on them, and don't let the monks with crooked mouths recite scriptures crookedly.It would be better if you know a little foreign language yourself, and being able to communicate with the locals in person will be more conducive to ruling.

Shao Shude is actually quite talented in languages.

His party language is already quite advanced, and he even knows a little bit of dialect.I started to learn Tibetan again last year, so I can only say that I am just getting started, and I can’t say how much I’ve learned yet.But his active learning attitude really made many good warriors who don't know what to do in their spare time feel ashamed—some warriors used knives to scrape the flesh of their servants piece by piece, and their spirit was so empty that it was heinous.

Master Mani quickly resigned.

In this trip, he has already got the result he wanted.The King of Lingwu County didn't blame him for being a counselor next to Lord Wumu, but planned to allocate many rewards and organize people to translate books from other countries.

Get this matter done first to satisfy Lingwu County King, and then you will be able to advance to the next level, and you can compete with the Manichaeists for teaching the Dharma in Liang, Gansu, and Su.

"General Zhou, there is one more thing. Let me make a long story short. You have contributed a lot to leading the army this time anyway. I want to entrust you to be the judge of the Hexi Shogunate and the tribal envoy of the Ganzhou capital." After watching Monk Mani leave, Shao Shude looked at him again. Zhou Yiyan said: "Master Wumu went to Zhangye, there was a lot of fighting in the city, and he went north to the sandy moraine. Now the people of all tribes are in panic, and some timid ones have moved to other places. General Zhou has been in Ganzhou for many years, and his prestige is high. Now, you can go to recruit them. No one knows these tribes better than you. In addition, the monks in the state have traveled to various tribes for many years and have formed many good relationships. They will also send people to help. Do this well, and when you are done, There are other rewards."

"Thank you, Commander-in-Chief." Zhou Yiyan breathed a sigh of relief.In the past, under Lord Wumu, no matter how big the officer was, he could not be counted. Now he has a new position as an observation judge and the tribal envoy of the capital. Although he is not actually in charge of the military, it is still a good start.

"Suzhou also has Uyghur tents. Is there any connection with Ganzhou?"

"Master Hui, the Uighur tribes in Suzhou, number no less than [-], and have long been in contact with Yazhang in Ganzhou."

"You can send someone to appease you. You don't have to ask their family to move to Ganzhou, just stay in Suzhou. You, the tribal envoy, should pay more attention to the Uighur tribes scattered in Suzhou, Guazhou, Shazhou and Hexi Shaqiu. Work hard."

"As ordered."

"Let's go down first. The recruitment of soldiers with silver guns is the most important thing. Let's get this done first."

After sending Mani and Zhou Yiyan away, Shao Shude looked at Chen Cheng, Yang Yue, Zhe Siyu, Li Tangbin and other generals sitting beside him, and said, "The matter of Ganzhou is over, and now there is only Suzhou. Yes. A certain decision, after the silver guns have been recruited and formed, they will go west to Suzhou."

"Commander, go west to Suzhou, do you want to fight?"

"If you can caress, you can caress, if you can't fight, you don't fight." Shao Shude said: "The road is far away, and the people's conditions are complicated. It is a fluke to win Ganzhou. If Li Renmei didn't come to provoke me before attacking Liangzhou, it would be a long time. Ganzhou's handling methods are the same as Suzhou's, focusing on appeasement. Li Renmei can be his Khan in Zendan, and he can be submissive on the surface. The Tubo tribes in Shanzhou know more about current affairs than him , that Tubo nest, I still treat them well. I bought [-] pairs of yak horns in the town last year, and the price was a little higher. This Li Renmei is too ambitious, so that she ended up in the end today .”

There are many people in Tubo in Shanzhou, and Shao Shude still doesn't want to be tough on them for the time being.Superficial restraint, and some business contacts, as long as it doesn't add chaos to Longyou Town.

Of course, this also has a premise, that is, there cannot be a strong man who is very appealing in all departments.Once it appears, no matter how much it costs and how far the road is, Shao Shude is ready to attack with a large army, without mercy.

On April 25th, Zhou Yiyan came to report that the five thousand riders of the Silver Spear Capital had been recruited, and Shao Shude went to check immediately.

On the grass outside Zendan City, five thousand knights in blue were waiting in line, leading their horses.

For the time being, the silver gun capital's equipment still used their old equipment, which was allotted to them by the Lord Wumu before the war, including the war horses.

At present, thousands of craftsmen in Zendan City are being screened. Those skilled in city building will be sent to Huaiyuan County, Lingzhou to participate in city building, and those skilled in carpentry, iron smelting and leather goods processing will be sent to Longyou, which will be under the jurisdiction of the soon-to-be-established Weizhou Metropolitan Academy. The craftsmen of the Longxi and Xiangwu academies made ordnance.

The Duzuo Academy in Weizhou made equipment for the garrison troops in the eight prefectures of Longyou.

Fifteen or six thousand yamen troops and six or seven thousand state soldiers are consumed in daily training.In the future, if troops are used against Taozhou, Shanzhou, Kuozhou, Diezhou, Dangzhou and other places, equipment will also be provided here.Even when using troops against Guanzhong and Shuzhong, Weizhou Duzuoyuan can play a very important role.

Although Li Renmei is a bit confused and arrogant, he attaches great importance to craftsmen.It seems that this is also a consistent characteristic of the grassland people. Their own level is low and there is a shortage of handicraftsmen. Therefore, every time one is taken captive, they are given as good treatment as possible, and then they are allowed to bring apprentices, expand the scale of craftsmen, and provide guarantees for expeditions.

It is a pity that the number of blacksmiths in Ganzhou Uighurs is still relatively small, and most of them are craftsmen who build cities and palaces for the Uighur Khans. There are big problems in the structure.The strength of the Duzuo Academy in Weizhou is still weak for a while, so it is better to ask the Long family in Suzhou to donate some craftsmen, and move to Xiangwu and Longxi counties together with their family members.

"Reward!" Shao Shude waved his hand and said, "I will give you two pieces of brocade and one piece of grain."

Zhou Yiyan immediately sent someone to pass on the news, and the Uighur soldiers gradually became happy when they heard the news.

It is said that Ganzhou Uighurs are rich, but does that have anything to do with ordinary herdsmen?The rich are the fucking nobles and chieftains. Officials, monks, and businessmen who are attached to the upper class can also get a share of the pie, but ordinary Uighur herdsmen are poor as hell.

The treatment of the Shuofang Yajun has also been told to these Uighurs in the past few days. Most of them are skeptical.That's not a soldier anymore, it's the uncle, is it possible?

5000 people distributed [-] bolts of fan brocade and Persian brocade.This kind of brocade should be woven with Punjabi wild silk. The advantage is that it is strong and wear-resistant, but the disadvantage is that it is not delicate enough, so the price is not good, but it must be more expensive than ordinary miscellaneous silk.

One dendrobium grain, of course, is from Ganzhou Kuli, a mixture of wheat, highland barley, and Uighur beans, totaling five thousand dendrobium.

"Since you have entered the Silver Spear City, you can receive two Dendrobium grains per month. You can also receive one reward each for the five festivals of Zhengdan, Chunshe, Hanshi, Chongyang, and Winter Solstice." Shao Shude asked someone to pass on his words sentence by sentence. .

"The reward is generous, enough to ensure that five or six members of your family have no worries about food and clothing. If you buy a field and rent it to others to cultivate, you can be called rich."

"With such a generous reward, it's easy to practice martial arts hard, fight in the army, and fight to the death when going into battle. Don't worry, there will definitely be no shortage of pensions and the like."

"It's hard to explain all the regulations in one word. You can ask Shangguan or Paoze in the future."

After letting the soldiers of Silver Spear City slowly digest the news, Shao Shude went to another place.

The Uighurs sent troops, and of course the rest of the tribes in Ganzhou couldn't relax.In addition to actively donating a large number of cattle, sheep and horses, military service is also required.Not many, mainly to make up for the vacancies of the various armies participating in the battle. One to two thousand people is enough.The sergeant's family, of course, also moved to Lingxia, and the various tribes in Ganzhou lost tens of thousands of people.

"Commander, there is news from the west that more than ten thousand soldiers from Suzhou and Shazhou have been led by Zhang Huaishen, the Jiedu envoy of Shazhou, and Shilong, the governor of Suzhou, and have arrived at Jiankang Military City." Suddenly, the deputy general Zheng Yong ran away. Come over and report.

Jiankang Military City, about 190 miles west of Ganzhou, is located at the northern foot of Qilian Mountain. It is the westernmost military stronghold in Ganzhou.During Tianbao's reign, there were 200 troops stationed and [-] horses, but only a dilapidated city was left empty at this time.

"Very good, I finally realized it." Shao Shude smiled and said: "The order will be passed on, all the troops will rectify their equipment, food and grass, and I will personally lead the army to the west. After a while, Long will be with Zhang Huaishen."

The matter of meeting Long and Zhang on the westward trip is of great importance. Shao Shude is going to take the Iron Cavalry Army, Leopard Cavalry Capital, Silver Spear Capital, Feng'an Army, and Tianzhu Army with him, plus more than [-] soldiers and horses from the Fan tribe including Gamo .On Zendan's side, only the [-] cavalry of the Jinglue Army were left guarding.

More than [-] people are going westward, the scene is grand, and there are many things that need to be prepared.

Without further ado, open the warehouse of Lord Umm Khan and bring everything you can use with you.Although the possibility of fighting is unlikely, it is always right to be fully prepared.

These separatist warlords in the northwest only recognize strength.By relying on the power of the army to subdue them and make them frightened, it is possible to make them obedient and not become a hidden danger in the rear.

Marshal Shao is relatively greedy. He not only wants to get the lucrative commercial profits of the Silk Road, but also wants to control the horses in the Hexi Corridor, and also wants to recruit local elites into the army.The realization of these three goals requires a stable rear.The Long Family in Suzhou must be subdued, and the Guiyi Army can form a friendship - I believe they also have this need.

On April 26, the army set out for the second time, heading west along the northern foot of Qilian Mountain.

There are many orchards, farms, and wheat fields along the way, which are irrigated with snow water from the Qilian Mountains, and the harvests are very good.

Shao Shude even saw a watermelon!

In history, the Liao Kingdom also obtained this crop from the Uighurs after many years of westward expeditions, and named it "watermelon".

During the later Jin Dynasty, Hu Qiao once recorded in "The Story of Trapping the North": "The Khitan broke the Uyghur to get this species, and planted it with cow dung covering the shed. It is as big as a Chinese wax gourd and tastes sweet."

It can be seen that at least during the Five Dynasties and the Later Jin Dynasty, watermelons in the Central Plains were extremely rare, so that even Hu Qiao, the secretary of the Xuanwu Army, had never eaten this kind of thing, and did not know it.

How many animals and plants from the Western Regions have not yet been introduced to China?
Since guarding the Great Northwest and having the advantage of being close to the water, it seems that we can use our brains more in this regard.

Dunhuang already has a certain scale of cotton planting industry, but I don't know what kind of cotton it is.

And carrots?cabbage?Anyway, there are many.

Of course, the most important thing is the horse, which is what Shao Shude wants to get.

Among the three ranches currently in hand, Qinghai Cong has a certain bloodline of Central Asian and Middle Eastern horses.The Liangzhou horses in the Hexi Corridor also have the bloodlines of close relatives of the [-] hard-blooded BMWs presented by Kang Guo.

However, these bloodlines have been greatly diluted, so that Qinghai Cong and Liangzhou horses are getting worse year by year, and they are getting closer to grassland horses.

It is still a bit slow to rely on continuous selection and breeding to purify the bloodline.If we can find some high-quality horse breeds from the Western Regions and improve the pedigree level of the local horses, maybe we can breed a good horse breed that combines the strengths of each family.

The Russians have successfully bred the Don horse, and the Japanese have successfully bred the Oriental horse. These are good examples.

In addition, not only war horses, the demand for draft horses is even greater.I don't know how the British later generations bred such a "monster" as Sharma. If the Shuofang Army had such a powerful draft horse, the picture would be too beautiful to imagine.

Walk all the way and watch all the way.Five days later, Shao Shude entered Ganzhou, where the city gates were wide open.

The Uighurs here have basically fled.However, people came back one after another recently, and after seeing that Shao Shude had no intention of killing them all, he felt a little relieved.

"Commander, do you want to wait in Ganzhou?" Lu Ming asked for instructions.

"No! If there are guests coming from afar, how can we not welcome them? Pass it on, and all the troops will bring enough equipment. Arrows, bowstrings, knives and guns will be checked and checked. If there are any shortages, they will be filled immediately." Shao Shude said.

"As ordered."

"By the way, silver spears are the vanguard." Shao Shude gave special instructions.

Lu Ming was startled for a moment, then he answered yes loudly, and went down to arrange for someone to deliver the order.

(End of this chapter)