Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1102 1097 [Semi-Hanized Nomads in the Hexi Corridor]

All the painters who copied Buddhist caves in various places were recalled to Shazhou City.

The government also dispatched personnel to help them sort out the Dunhuang manuscripts. They spent an entire winter doing preliminary sorting, and then packed them into boxes, sealed them, and waited for them to be shipped away.

Among these documents, there are materials with clear dates, the latest of which is marked as the fifth year of Xianping, which was during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song.

That year, Bao Zheng was only three years old.

In that year, the Guiyi Army and the Ganzhou Uighurs went to war. A mutiny broke out within the Guiyi Army, and Cao Zongshou forced Cao Yanlu, Cao Yanrui and others to death. While relying on the Northern Song Dynasty, he also made friends with the Liao Kingdom.

If that were the case, it would not explain why books were hidden in Buddhist caves.

Judging from the fact that more than 90% of the Dunhuang manuscripts are Buddhist scriptures, this behavior is most likely related to religion.

Four years after the Guiyi Army's civil strife, the Karakhanid Khanate destroyed Khotan!
If we want to analyze more information, the timeline must be pushed back several decades.

At that time, the Karakhanid Khanate, which originally advocated freedom of religious belief and was mainly popular with Buddhism and Manichaeism, took the initiative to convert to desert religion in order to survive and expand in Central Asia. Followers of various religions fled eastward and brought terrifying information about desert religion.

As a result, the three major forces of Guiyi Army, Khotan and Gaochang Uighur formed an alliance to jointly resist the eastward expansion of the Karakhanid Khanate and Desert Religion.

The coalition forces of Khotan and Gaochang Uighurs even took the initiative to attack and capture Kashgar, and then fought back and forth in the Kashgar area for decades.

Later, Khotan made an all-out expedition to the west, and Gaochang Uighurs also mobilized cavalry from all over the country, and even borrowed troops from the Guiyi Army and Ganzhou Uighurs. The four major Buddhist forces in the Western Regions joined forces to form a "Buddhist Holy War Coalition."

The king of the Karakhanid Khanate was killed in the battle, and his eastern troops assembled in Kashgar were also annihilated by the Buddhist coalition forces.

His western front troops were fighting in Central Asia (Bukhara) at the time, and the general who led the troops happened to annihilate the army of the old enemy Samanid Dynasty. The frontline commander of the Karakhanid Khanate took advantage of the situation and became the new king, and returned with the victorious Karakhanid army and the vassal armies of many Central Asian countries to counterattack.

The King of Khotan was horrified and immediately sent messengers everywhere to mobilize people.

The allies did not sit idly by. Not only did the Gaochang Uighurs send troops, the Guiyi Army also sent infantry, the Ganzhou Uighurs sent cavalry, and even the various Tibetan tribes sent troops to support.

From the Hehuang Valley, to the Hexi Corridor, and then to Hami, Hotan, and Turpan, the major forces quickly united together and launched a decisive battle with the Desert Cult's army in Kashgar.

The Buddhist coalition forces were poorly equipped, especially the Tibetan army, which even had very little armor.

The armor and weapons of the Desert Cult army came from workshops in Talas, Samarkand, Isfahan, Braha, Ghazni, Herat, etc. Moreover, their war horses were extremely majestic, which completely crushed the Buddhist coalition forces.

The cavalry units of Gaochang Uighur and Ganzhou Uighur, suffering heavy losses, were the first to abandon their allies and withdraw from the battlefield.

The Tibetan cavalry also fled.

After losing the support of the cavalry, the infantry of Khotan and Guiyi Army were quickly surrounded by the Desert Sect army.

The Kingdom of Khotan was destroyed a few years later.

The Gaochang Uighurs barely managed to protect themselves.

The heavy casualties of the Guiyi Army led to an imbalance of factions within the army, which led to a mutiny and fratricide. The Ganzhou Uighurs took advantage of the internal strife of the Guiyi Army to expand their territory and soon fought with the Guiyi Army.

At the same time, many persecuted monks of various religions in Khotan fled to Shazhou and told everyone they met about the cruelty of the Desert Religion.

Not only Buddhists, but also other religions in Shazhou seemed to feel that the end was coming. They didn't know whether Gaochang Uighurs could stop the expansion of the Desert Religion, nor did they know when the Guiyi Army and Ganzhou Uighurs would fight.

In this case, it is understandable that Buddhist scriptures were hidden in secret rooms in the caves.

The Western Regions War was a great success for the Western Xia. Both the Guiyi Army and the Ganzhou Uighurs were defeated, which made it very easy for the Western Xia to seize the Hexi Corridor.

……

When the snow melted in spring, the painters returned to Luoyang.

The Dunhuang manuscripts and their copied paintings filled more than twenty carts, and the army escorted them all the way.

"What are those?"

Zhou Cong lifted the car curtain and pointed at the grass grid in the distance.

The officer in charge of the escort said: "The straw grid is also called the emperor's grid. It was originally sent by the emperor to encourage farmers to build grids with straw on the edge of the desert around Yinchuan Prefecture. It is said that it can prevent the sand dunes from advancing."

"Is it effective?" Liu Cunzhong asked.

The officer smiled and said, "Rice straw can be used to feed livestock. At first, farmers and herdsmen were unwilling and did not believe it. The government promoted it forcefully for three years, and farmers and herdsmen near the desert found it really useful, so they took the initiative to make square grids in their spare time. It's not just straw square grids, in places where there is no rice straw, they also use shrub branches to make square grids. It started to be promoted in the Hexi Corridor last year, and it is estimated that it will spread to Shazhou this year."

Zhou Cong had been copying murals in Shazhou for several years, so he naturally knew the benefits and disadvantages of it. He exclaimed: "If it can really prevent sand dunes from eroding farmland and pastures, the emperor's method will be famous for thousands of years!"

The grass grids promoted by the Ming Dynasty did not require the planting of trees in the grids.

It's just a grid. If there are weeds or shrub seeds that are blown into the grid by the wind or carried by animals, they will grow naturally if the conditions are right.

Only in the desert edges where water is relatively easy to get, the government will arrange for soldiers and civilians to plant trees. Herders and farmers are also willing to plant trees because the government has promised that as long as the trunks are not cut down, the people can cut branches for firewood when the trees grow up.

Firewood is an important daily necessity in these places!
The convoy stopped outside Ganzhou City. Since they were escorted by the army, they replenished their military rations directly nearby.

There is a horse market in the north of the city.

In the autumn, when the animals are fat and strong, herders from nearby ethnic groups would drive their horses, sheep and other livestock to trade.

Now it is spring, and there are very few people selling livestock. They mainly come to sell dairy products, felt, and the fur of livestock that died in the winter. They also buy some salt and seeds to take back. Not only do the herdsmen here know how to farm, but even the herdsmen in Mobei also grow a small amount of grain to reduce the risk of famine caused by extreme climate.

Seeing the army escorting a convoy stop, herders of all ethnic groups were not afraid and came over with dairy products and furs to sell.

The government did not force them to change their hairstyles, but only stipulated that men must wear right-side lapel collars and women must wear left-side lapel collars, and that they must wear the opposite collar when mourning the death of a relative.

The management was very strict in the first few years, but in the past two years the government has been too lazy to manage it.

Because even among the foreigners, not all of them wore clothes with left lapels. In the Han area, there were also people who wore clothes with left and right lapels reversed, and everyone had long been accustomed to it.

As the Ming Dynasty grew stronger, officials and scholars cared less and less about how other ethnic minorities dressed.

The officer ordered the soldiers to stop the herdsmen but did not disperse them directly.

The painters were about to rest outside the city, but now they got off their carriages and went to see what the herdsmen were selling.

"What kind of skin is this?" Zhou Cong stopped in front of a herdsman.

The herdsman was from the Dangxiang tribe, but he could speak Chinese: "Snow leopard skin. Last year when it snowed, a snow leopard broke into the sheepfold and killed two of my sheep."

Zhou Cong asked: "How much?"

The Tangut herdsman's eyes sparkled, and he decided to extort money from him: "Three strings of cash!"

Fearing that he might have frightened Zhou Cong, he quickly added, "Sir, please don't think it's too expensive. You see, the leather is not damaged. My two sons and I beat it to death with sticks."

Zhou Cong was surprised by the low price. He immediately checked the fur and paid for it: "It is indeed not damaged. It is barely worth three strings of coins."

One hand pays the other hand delivers the goods, and both parties feel they have gotten a good deal.

Zhou Cong happily put away the snow leopard skin and asked casually, "Which tribe are you from?"

The Tangut herders laughed and said, "What tribes are there? Our place is called Yuhe Township. Herders are organized into baojia according to the number of households, and the taxes paid to the government are collected by the baojia head. The big herders were killed by the soldiers, and my family got a share of the pastures left. I got two sheep at first, and then two more. I have more than 20 sheep left, and a horse, which was loaned to me by the government and was repaid last year."

"That's almost thirty sheep. Can we make a living?" Zhou Cong asked.

The Tangut herder said: "My family has more than 40 sheep, including lambs. The first three years are tax-free, and when there is a white disaster, the government also provides food relief. If we can survive the first few years, we will have a good life."

The pastures allocated to herders by the government were obtained from the big herdsmen.

The livestock that the government distributed or loaned to herders were seized from the Western Xia army.

The Ming court didn't spend much money to transfer supplies, but the herders were very grateful. Because in addition to allocating pastures and giving livestock, the government's taxes and labor service were not heavy, unlike the Western Xia that forced the herders to death, and even forced the big herders to rebel!

There are all kinds of exploitation of the people in the Han areas, but are all the officials in Ningxia honest and upright? Of course not, the officials here also exploit the people.

But no matter how much they exploited, they were still considered clean compared to the Western Xia.

With the heavy taxes and levies of the Western Xia as a reference, herders of all ethnic groups were extremely satisfied with the Ming court. They even felt that officials should exploit the people, and those who did not squeeze the herders to death were good officials.

Today, there are no large herders left in the entire Ningxia region, only many small and medium-sized herders remain.

If the lower-level herders have difficulties in life, they can also graze for the middle-level herders, which is equivalent to self-cultivating farmers cultivating their own land while renting the land owned by the middle-level landlords.

In a blink of an eye, the Tangut herdsman sold another piece of skin and said to Zhou Cong happily, "We were afraid of war before because the government was very strict in conscription. If someone in a family was selected as a regular soldier, they had to take their horses home to raise them. If they died, the family would be bankrupt. Now we are looking forward to the war."

Zhou Cong was greatly surprised: "Why are you looking forward to a war?"

The Tangut herdsman said, "A few years ago, the imperial court went on an expedition to the Western Regions, and two of my sons were selected. One son was a laborer helping to transport grain from Ganzhou to Shazhou, and he was paid for it. The other son went to the Western Regions as an auxiliary soldier, and stayed in the north of the Tianshan Mountains as a cavalryman and was given a pasture. The government married him, and he even sent back two strings of money last year."

"That's indeed a good deal." Zhou Cong nodded.

The Tangut herdsman laughed and said, "My eldest grandson is very strong. He can ride a horse at the age of six. When he grows up, he will be sent to serve as a cavalryman. The cavalrymen in our Ming Dynasty have high salaries, and they can also fight in wars and become officials. It was not possible in the Xia Kingdom before. If you want to become an officer, you must at least be a small herdsman. There is no point for herdsmen like us to fight hard on the battlefield."

Zhou Cong heard the other party speaking Chinese and wearing right-fronted clothes, and felt that the Dangxiang herdsmen here would be completely assimilated into Chinese in two or three generations.

Of course, this is because they are close to Ganzhou City. It is definitely not so easy for herders in more remote areas to assimilate to Chinese culture.

(End of this chapter)