Neon Clothes and Iron Clothes

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A four-wheeled carriage passed through the street and stopped in front of the towering granite door of the Prime Minister's residence. The people who greeted it looked at the vehicle in surprise. This was the first time they had seen such a light and gorgeous carriage. The car door opened, and Zan Xiruo got out of it. He frowned and looked at the steps in front of the door, and said to the housekeeper: "Tear down these steps so that the carriage can go in, and remove the steps leading to the foot of the mountain." The road should be repaired, widened, and flattened, so that it should not be so steep to make it easier for carriages to travel! "

"Tear down the steps?" The housekeeper looked at Zan Xiruo in surprise: "Yes, but this represents the nobility and power of the Gar family!"

"Yes, but it's too inconvenient!" Zan Xiruo waved his hand: "The people of the Tang Dynasty are really smart, they can actually come up with such a carriage. You can find a piece of flat land tomorrow, and I will build a new mansion!"

"Master, you want to live on the ground? How can that be done?" someone asked in surprise.

"Yes, this is not in line with the noble status of our Gar family!"

"Yes, the gods live on the top of the mountain. The higher you live, the closer you are to the gods!"

Zan Xiruo frowned when he heard everyone arguing. It is true that the upper class of the Tubo nobles at that time were accustomed to placing their residences in high places, even if this would be very inconvenient. This is actually because Tibet had just entered a unified country at that time, and these nobles still maintained the customs of leaders of local separatist forces before unification, and were used to living on dangerous hills, because this was more conducive to defending against enemy attacks. Of course, they have made this custom religious. For example, the top of the mountain is closer to the gods, and the people living there are also closer to the gods. But Zan Xiruo's vision was naturally much broader than that of these Tubo nobles, especially since he traveled through the Western Regions and broadened his horizons through the east-west trade routes of Eurasia, so he naturally sneered at such remarks.

"Okay, stop talking!" Zan Xiruo said coldly: "The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty did not live on the top of the mountain. Isn't his status noble enough? A despicable slave can also build a shed on the top of the mountain. , Does that make him noble? Don’t say any more, just follow my orders! Also, find the craftsmen at home and let them see if they can imitate this four-wheeled carriage!"

Zan Xiruo scolded his men, returned to his room, changed his clothes, and came to the meeting hall. His subordinates were already waiting for him, and the furnishings of the meeting hall were extremely gorgeous. The floor was covered with Persian rugs instead of straw mats. In the corner of the room is a silk screen from the Tang Dynasty, embroidered with dozens of graceful beauties in gorgeous clothes. On the walls are exquisite carvings by poisonous craftsmen. On both sides of the door are a pair of marble Bodhisattva statues from the Western Regions. The round moon-white stone eyes look piercing on the black marble face.

As soon as Zan Xiruo stepped through the door, the old man with a goatee who met Dusong Mangboje that day came up to him and said, "Prime Minister, Zan Pu made an oath before you came back. We have tried our best to stop him, but he still insists on his own way! It’s so abominable!”

"I know about this!" Zan Xiruo replied coldly: "Go find our people and discuss building roads!"

"Building roads?" The old man was confused by Zan Xiruo's extremely jumpy speech: "Prime Minister, are you going to——?"

"This time I found a four-wheeled carriage in the Western Regions. It is convenient and fast, and it is also very comfortable for people to sit on!" Zan Xiruo said with a smile: "I heard that it was invented by the Tang people. If it can be popularized in Tubo, then Enough!"

"Coco, Zamp just didn't let you take part in the oath!" The old man became anxious when he heard this: "This is the most important thing right now!"

"Is this important?" Zan Xiruo said coldly: "If you don't participate, just don't participate. Building roads and making the country long-term and stable are what the Prime Minister should consider!"

"Then, what if someone doesn't come?" the old man asked.

"Wouldn't that be better?" Zan Xiruo said with a smile: "This way we can know who is the family's friend and who is the family's enemy!"

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Red Mountain Palace.

"Zanpu! The Prime Minister is back!" The palace manager bowed to Dusong Mangbojie.

"Oh? He didn't come to see me?" Dusong Mangbojie said angrily: "He didn't come to see me?"

"No!" The palace manager lowered his head and said, "The Prime Minister immediately summoned all the ministers when he got home. I heard that he was discussing the construction of roads!"

"Building roads?" Dusong Mangboje asked: "Who has gone?"

"It seems that everyone has gone!" The general manager of the palace said: "Everyone who has been invited by the Prime Minister has gone. There are still a few people who have not been invited, but they also went after learning about the Prime Minister's return!"

"Bullshit!" Dusong Mangbojie was furious when he heard this: "Zan Xiruo didn't even participate in the oath of alliance, which means that he has been abandoned by the king, and these people actually followed his orders. You go and go there that night If everyone in the family has written it down, I will show it to them!"

"Zanpu!" The palace steward became anxious upon hearing this and said hurriedly: "Please calm down! In any case, Zanxiruo is still the prime minister of Tibet, and he has the power to govern the country on behalf of Zanpu. These people obey his orders. It’s justifiable!”

"Do you mean to abolish Zan Xiruo's position as Prime Minister first?" Dusong Mangbojie asked doubtfully. "That's not what I meant!" The palace supervisor quickly defended: Just kidding, if Zan Shiruo's position as prime minister is really abolished as Zamp said, it will mean a major reshuffle of the top management of Tubo. If nothing else, karma Most of the Er family will definitely be eradicated. If this was done, Zanpu himself might even have his eyes gouged out and live in a monastery for the rest of his life. He would definitely want his entire clan to die.

"What does that mean?" Dusong Mangbojie asked dissatisfied.

"What I mean is that the Prime Minister is just doing his duty!" The palace manager racked his brains and replied: "Why don't you meet with him, Zanpu? Many things can be explained clearly!"

"Meet the Prime Minister?" Dusong Mangbojie frowned and fell into thought. When the palace supervisor saw that Zampu did not refuse immediately, he hurriedly said: "The Prime Minister has just returned from the Western Regions. It is natural for you to summon him to ask about the situation of the war, right?"

"Yeah! That's fine!" Dusong Mangbojie was finally convinced this time: "Then let's do this. You send someone to Zan Xiruo's house and tell him that Ben Zanpu wants to summon him!"

"Yes!" The palace manager finally breathed a sigh of relief.

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When Zan Xiruo came to the Hongshan Palace, it happened to be dinner time for the Tubo people. At that time, the Tubo people generally had two meals a day. In fact, Zan Pu also called him into the palace on the pretext of inviting him to have dinner. When Zan Xiruo walked into Zan Pu's restaurant, the first dish of the day had just been placed on the long table: stewed mutton with courgette and highland barley. Zan Pu sat at one end of the long table, and on his right was his wife, who was also a cousin of Zan Shiruo.

"Prime Minister!" Dusong Mangbojie raised his right hand, pointed to his left hand side, and motioned for him to sit down: "Please wait a moment, I have asked the cook to speed up the serving!"

"Thank you, Zamp!" Zanxiruo bowed to Zamp, sat down on the chair, and sniffed: "Hmm, the mutton is delicious!"

"Then eat more!" Dusong Mangbojie winked at the steward, and the servant hurried forward to serve Zan Xiruo with the mutton. Dusong Mangbojie coughed: "You must have heard about the oath, right? This is not my wish. It's just that the gods appeared in the dream and asked for the oath to be held on the fifteenth day. I have sent an envoy I went to urge you, but I still didn’t catch up!”

Zan Xiruo stuffed the mutton into his mouth, chewed it hard twice, spit out the bones, and then said Shi Shiran: "Yes, the meat is cooked just right, not old or tender. Oh, is it about the oath? If you miss it, you will miss it. No, it’s no big deal!”

Seeing Zan Xiruo's nonchalant look, a burst of unknown fire rushed straight to Dusong Mangbojie's forehead. He had done this deliberately before, just to anger Zan Xiruo, but he didn't want the other party to remain so indifferent. I can’t handle Dusong Mangbojie anymore.

"Prime Minister, it is my practice in Tubo to make an oath every year!" Dusong Mangbojie said: "Those who do not participate in the oath cannot receive the blessings of gods and Buddhas!"

"Zanpu, gods and Buddhas have eyes!" Zan Xiruo said: "I led troops in the Western Regions and shed blood and sweat, defeated the Tang Dynasty's army, and captured the Tang Dynasty's cities. How could the gods and Buddhas not protect me? As for me, Absent from the oath, my father had also been absent from the oath before, but it was because Songtsan Gampo went to Chang'an to propose marriage to the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Gods and Buddhas blessed him with many descendants and a long life. According to my opinion, the land of my country of Tubo is now so vast. , there are five to six thousand miles from east to west, and it is really difficult to ask the ministers to come to swear an oath every year. It would be better to change it to once every three years or every five years. "

"You——?" Dusong Mangbojie was irritated by Zhan Xiruo's arrogant answer: "The annual oath between monarchs and ministers is a rule left by our ancestors. How can we change it at will?"

"Zanpu!" Zan Xiruo didn't seem to notice Dusong Mangbojie's anger, and said with a smile: "The reason why the monarch and his ministers were required to make an oath every year was because Zanpu's power was not stable at that time. If the oath between the monarch and his ministers was not made once a year, Nobles from various places may seize the city and rebel. Now that Zamp has unified the plateau, the nobles from all parties have far fewer people than Zamp. If they rebel, it will be their own destruction. Why do they need to make an oath every year like in the past? Let the nobles run for their lives?"

Facing Zan Xiruo's rebuttal, Dusong Mangbojie was speechless for a moment. As Zan Xiruo said, at that time, all the kings of Tubo and their ministers killed dogs, horses, cattle and donkeys as sacrifices once a year, and they went to the altar to swear an oath to heaven. Of course, there were religious and cultural reasons for this. Another factor is the level of economic and social development of Tubo at that time. Due to geographical factors, the economic level and transportation conditions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area where Tubo is located are far behind those of the Central Plains. Therefore, although the royal family of Xibonye wanted to unify the country with Tubo, With continuous consolidation, a slave-unified country has gradually emerged on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but the independence of its local nobles is still very strong.

In order to combat the separatist tendencies of local nobles, annual oaths are extremely necessary! This can not only repeatedly "emphasize" the superior and subordinate relationship between Zampu and local nobles, but also consume the manpower and material resources of local nobles by holding the oath ceremony itself. It can be said to be a Tubo version of the "alternating attendance" system, allowing local nobles to A lot of manpower, material resources, and energy have to be expended on this matter, so naturally there is no way to do it all.

This system was still very effective for a long time, but as the Tubo country became increasingly powerful, starting from the middle and late period of Songtsen Gampo's rule, the Tubo army began to expand outwards, occupying Qinghai where Tuyuhun was located eastward, and today's Xinjiang In the southern Xinjiang area, they controlled the Qiang and Hu tribes in the Xikang area and parts of Yunnan to the south. To the west, they moved down the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and turned some city-states on the Ganges Plain into vassals. Tubo gradually developed from a slave country on the plateau into a vast multi-ethnic empire, and brothers Zan Xiruo and Qinling were the main representatives of this military expansionist faction.

And this brings about a new big problem - according to Tubo tradition, high-level politics is largely composed of oaths: Tubo people believe that language has some mysterious power, and in order to make decisions that are effective enough , then one must sacrifice to the gods in front of them and ask them to bind both parties, so that the agreement between humans becomes an agreement between humans and gods. There was nothing wrong with this originally, but the vast territory of the empire made frequent oaths unacceptable. It would not be surprising for a governor in the Ganges Plain and a general in Qinghai to meet for half a year. There is nothing to do for once, just hurry up and forget it. And the nature of the oath itself makes it impossible to send envoys and agents - you can't let an agent swear an oath in front of the gods for you, right? As the main representative of the military expansionist faction, Zan Xiruo also saw this, so he did not hesitate to express his attitude in front of Zan Pu.

"Prime Minister, you came up with this idea for your Gar family, right?" Dusong Mangbojie calmed down: "After all, your brothers are all in the border areas, so it's not easy to go back and forth!"

"You can't say that!" Zan Xiruo said with a smile: "Yes, several of my brothers are in the border areas, but it's not just my brothers who are in the border areas. The country's territory is getting wider and wider, and everyone has the possibility to go there. A remote place!”

"Have the Prime Minister ever thought about it! If the oath is changed to once every three years and the oath is once every five years! Will the nobles forget their respect for the gods? Forget the noble blood of the Xibo Ye royal family?"

Zan Xiruo took a deep breath. Dusong Mangbojie’s second question was very pointed. As the ultimate winner of the plateau chicken game, the Xibo Ye royal family relied on not only force, but also the divine attributes contained in their body. . Needless to say, it was common for rulers to claim to be descendants of gods, or simply living gods. However, the unique geographical environment and backward productivity level of the plateau make the divine attributes of the Xibonye royal family particularly credible. (End of chapter)