Prosperous Tang Blood Blade

Chapter 678

Chapter 91 Tuyuhun Khan King Murong Fuyun
Mulei, in fact, was a Pulei state in the Western Han Dynasty. "Pulei" is a phonetic transfer of the Huns, and it is named after Pulei Sea, which is now Balikun Lake.Over time, it became the current wooden barrier.

Baitake Mountain (now Beita Mountain) in the north of Mulei County was a strategic location between Yiwu, Altay and Dihua in later generations, but at this time, it is not that important. After all, the vast Western Regions, everywhere All are detourable places.

After Qu Boya, Qu Wentai, his father and son, and the Gaochang royal family were rescued by his henchman Qu, they settled down in the Baitak Mountains.

As Qu Wentai gathered more and more tribes, by the middle of May in the fourth year of Wude, tens of thousands of people had gathered here.

Of course, the tens of thousands of people are not all the army, there are also some herdsmen of various ethnic groups who cannot be restrained by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, but they all hate the people of the Tang Dynasty.

But there are too many people, eating and drinking has become a problem.Seeing that the food, cattle and sheep were getting less and less, Qu Wentai found Qu Boya and said to him, "Father, we already have more than [-] elites in our hands. It should not be difficult to capture Gaochang City. There are only [-] Tang troops in Gaochang City. If you do mental calculations and are unprepared, the odds are great!"

Qu Boya shook his head and said, "Let's forget it!"

"Forget it!" Qu Wentai was impatient when he heard this: "Forget it? How can I forget it? They destroyed my Gaochang Kingdom, destroyed my ancestral temple, and the community. This feud cannot be shared, how can I forget it!"

Qu Boya suddenly took out a hoe from the corner of the tent: "Look at this?"

Qu Wentai glanced at it nonchalantly, and then took a second glance without interest: "Father, it's not that my son doesn't work hard, and doesn't distinguish grains. It's just a hoe, so what's so interesting about it!"

Qu Boya sighed and said, "Look carefully before you talk!"

Qu Wentai took the hoe and felt that it was obviously much heavier than normal hoe.This is an ordinary hoe, but it is half coated with black paint, which is mainly to avoid oxidation of steel.He looked at it for a long time, but he didn't see why, so he handed the hoe to Qu Boya: "Father, there is no difference, at most it is a little heavier!"

Qu Boya pointed to the hoe and said: "This is just a hoe, but it is made of refined steel. It is extremely sharp and can cut a steel bar as thick as a little finger at once. It can be said to cut iron like mud. Whether it is an arm It's still a thigh, if you swing it, it will be broken in two!"

Qu Wentai was stunned: "There is such a thing?"

As he said that, he asked someone to bring a thick iron chain, and went into battle himself. With a swipe of the hoe, with a click, the iron chain was cut into two pieces. Looking at the edge of the hoe, there was no burr!
Immediately horrified, Qu Wentai stroked the smooth edge of the shovel, and said with a horrified expression: "This hoe is so sharp? This Tang Dynasty is so prodigal, such a fine steel is actually used to make a hoe? The steel of the Tang Dynasty Is it that much?"

From the rise of steel in the Han Dynasty until modern times, steel has been a strategic material for 2000 years, firmly controlled by the central government, and iron smuggling is a felony because the output of steel is scarce and extremely expensive.

If you don’t have an intuitive understanding of the preciousness of steel in ancient times, you can ask your ancestors. Many people of their generation are still using wooden plows until 30 or [-] years after the founding of New China.Steel is hard to find, and steel with superior performance is even more difficult to buy. The better ones are used to make weapons, and the lower ones are used to make agricultural tools, so nothing will be wasted.

Now that the Tang army actually uses such good steel to make hoes, it still has one hand, which can only show that the iron and steel resources that the Tang people have mastered are beyond everyone's imagination, and they don't regard steel as a rare commodity at all!
At this moment, Qu Wentai noticed that there was still one person in the tent.

Xue Yingxiong.

The ability of Gaochang State to gain a foothold in the Western Regions mainly depends on the tribes of the six surnames Xue, Ma, Zhang, He, Liu, and Liu in the Western Regions.Xue's family has occupied Gaochang's officials for a long time, and its disciples and old officials are almost all over the Western Regions.

In fact, Xue Yingxiong also wanted to join Chen Ying, but Ma Mengming took the lead, and this time the Xue clan was made very miserable by Chen Ying, and it can be said that they suffered heavy losses.The main source of income for the Xue family is farming.Anyway, the Western Regions are vast and sparsely populated, and you can farm wherever you want, but the population resources are very precious, especially the Han people who can farm are even more precious.

The Xue family controlled tens of thousands of tenant farmers. These tenant farmers lived a poor life like slaves. The Xue family relied on squeezing these Han people and lived a luxurious life comparable to a prince.In Chen Ying's words, Chen Ying disbanded more than [-] tenants of the Xue family and formed self-cultivating people, and confiscated Xue's fields and distributed them to ordinary people.

It is precisely because Chen Ying did such a great job that Xue Yingxiong, the official minister, was very dissatisfied.

Cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents.So Mrs. Xue was determined to confront Qu Boya and Chen Ying.

Xue Yingxiong looked at Qu Wentai in shock, and smiled slightly: "His Royal Highness does not know that after Chen Ying led his army to leave Gaochang, he did not establish the Western Regions to conquer the Western Turks, but stationed in Jinman County to reclaim wasteland. There are several blast furnaces built in Hua'ergou, which are specially used for steelmaking!"

Qu Boya said: "Chen Ying's several giant blast furnaces are making steel day and night. I don't know how much steel they can produce in a year?"

Xue Yingxiong said: "20 catties."

Both Qu Wentai and Qu Boya heaved a sigh of relief. 20 jin was not a small amount for a warlord, but it was really nothing for Gaochang, the richest country in the Western Regions.Gaochang's domestically produced steel can reach up to 50 jin, but most of this steel is supplied to the West Turkic Khanate.

However, considering that Chen Ying's steel is superior in performance to their Gaochangguo's steel, one dare not underestimate it.

Xue Yingxiong said again: "One furnace!"

Both Qu Wentai and Qu Boya exclaimed in surprise, "What? 20 catties per furnace?"

Xue Yingxiong nodded and said: "Yes! Your Majesty, 20 furnaces! Chen Ying can smelt at least [-] furnaces of high-quality molten steel in Hua'ergou in a month. Just imagine how much steel they can produce in a year."

A batch of 20 jins, 400 million jins a month, nearly 5000 million jins a year, this is really scary.

Chen Ying had never thought of making steel in the Western Regions, but when he asked people to open up wasteland near Huaergou, he accidentally discovered that there was a coal mountain on the west bank of Huaergou, and a coal mountain thirty miles upstream on the east bank. Iron mines are simply a windfall.

This was not the most motivating factor for Chen Ying to start mining. The main reason was that Chen Ying discovered that the Han people in the Western Regions actually used wooden plows when they farmed the land. Apart from a kitchen knife, every household rarely had iron tools.Chen Ying couldn't believe it when he said it. Many Han people in the Western Regions didn't even have iron pots.

Seeing this situation, Chen Ying felt that it took a month to open up wasteland, plow the soil, and plant it again.Anyway, these [-] troops were idle when they were idle, but Qu Wentai and his son were silent. Even if Chen Ying wanted to kill someone, he needed an excuse, otherwise it would be criticized.

Therefore, while Chen Ying was paying attention to the infighting of the Western Turks, he asked the Anxi Army soldiers to make steel.In fact, the main body of soldiers in this era is still farmers. They are all versatile workers who can farm, work, and hunt.Therefore, Chen Ying mined coal in the west mountain of Huaergou, led the Han people in Gaochang to mine coal together, and handed over the method of making coal briquettes to ordinary people. A simple briquette mold and an iron briquette stove are really too simple.

Of course, this has another purpose.Because the winter in the Western Regions is too cold, in order to keep warm, a large number of trees were cut down for firewood, which is also the reason for the deterioration of the environment in the Western Regions.

Chen Ying set up workshops and mines at the same time, allowing the Han people in the Western Regions to become rich first, but being rich alone is not enough, they must learn to protect themselves.

Chen Ying believed that Li Yuan would never allow Chen Ying to wait in the Western Regions for a long time, and he would not allow Chen Ying to lead an army of [-] for a long time.

Therefore, Chen Ying directly used the Lingzhou model.For the people of the Tang Dynasty, every ten households constituted a Jia, and there was a head of the Jia; ten Jia were a fort, and the head of the fort; ten forts, a town, had a mayor.

Every household took advantage of the slack in farming to practice military techniques under the training of the generals of the Anxi Army, and took the captured equipment of Tong Yehu's army, as well as the newly built crossbow and crossbow. All these things are free, no money.

In today's Western Regions, all Tang people are soldiers.

Of course, during the training process, Chen Ying also summoned people of all ethnic groups to launch large-scale construction activities. A town built a town fort, which is actually a small town. This kind of fort is different from the cities in the Central Plains. This kind of fort is specially built to prevent the enemy from attacking. In that kind of easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Now there are more than 170 towns and castles in the [-] newly established states in the Western Regions, almost everywhere.

Xue Yingxiong went on to say: "According to the news from the elaboration, Tang peasants from all over the Western Regions have a hand, and they don't need money, they give it away for free. In addition to hoes, they also have horizontal knives, crossbows, and shields."

Qu Wentai said: "It's free, Chen Ying is so generous?"

Xue Ying said: "Chen Ying has too much steel in his hands, it's unimaginable."

Qu Wentai didn't even have the sound of taking a breath at these words.How much power can so much steel exert?It’s hard to say anything else. Anyway, the Han people in Gaoche and Gaochang have generally used steel farm tools. Even ordinary people’s homes have iron armor and hold horizontal knives made of high-carbon steel. In the past, such equipment was the Western Turks. Attached to Lijun's patent!And as time goes by, there will only be more and more well-equipped Tang people, as long as you are not an idiot, you will know what this means!
Qu Wentai smiled contemptuously and said, "War is based on people, not steel! When the Turks raised their troops, they used arrowheads made of animal bones or flint, and they didn't even have leather armor, but they still fought softly." The people were killed so frightened that they were defeated, and the army was defeated!"

"His Royal Highness is right. So what can the Tang people have no matter how much steel they have? So what can they do if their equipment becomes sophisticated? Even with the magic weapon that cuts iron like mud, they are still a group of cowardly sheep. Let them harvest the weeds!" Xue Yingxiong laughed loudly and said, "It's useless to have Tang Rengou with the best equipment. After a battle, these will all become ours. I wish they could all wear armor and hold precious swords!"

Qu Wentai said, "The hedgehog is full of thorns, and a light knife can kill it; the bull has great strength, and it can be knocked down with an arrow! No matter how good Tang Jun's equipment is, it is also made of sand. The army, what a shame!"

Both Qu Wentai and Xue Yingxiong had disapproving smiles on their faces, but Qu Boya still felt a little lack of confidence.

At this time, there was a burst of wanton laughter from outside the tent: "It's ridiculous, it's ridiculous, a group of cowardly foxes imagined to deal with tigers, how ignorant and fearless!"

Qu Wentai's face changed drastically when he heard the words, he hastily drew his sword and rushed out of the tent.

At some point, there were densely packed cavalry outside the tent.The leader, a tall man in golden armor, was riding on horseback, looking at Qu Wentai, the look of contempt in his eyes was clear at a glance.

Qu Wentai looked around, and found that his so-called elites were all controlled by this group of cavalry in blue armor, and no one issued a warning.However, one can rest assured that there was no murderous intent on the visitor, and it was not Tang Jun. Although he spoke Tang Yan, he had a weird accent.

Qu Wentai boldly asked, "Who are you?"

The general in golden armor smiled lightly and said, "Ben Khan Murong Fuyun!"

"Murong Fuyun?" Qu Boya suddenly realized, he saluted Murong Fuyun and said, "I didn't expect Tuyuhun to come here, and I am far away to welcome you, please make amends!"

(End of this chapter)