Tibet.

Chapter 1285: Ransom and Release
Although Dengli Khan's brothers and nephews were unwilling to rescue the Khan trapped in the Tang Dynasty, at the insistence of Prime Minister Dunmohe, the Uighur court finally decided to put the overall situation first and redeem Dengli Khan.

On the Tang Dynasty side, the Right Prime Minister Wei Jiansu was responsible for the negotiations with the Prime Minister Dunmohe. There was not much bargaining in this negotiation. Regardless of how many people were left in Feihu Pass, the Uighurs agreed to redeem the Uighur army for a total price of 10 million sheep.

Among them were not only the prisoners of war from Feihu Pass, but also one thousand prisoners of war captured by the Tang army in Yi County.

Of course, the ransom does not include weapons and war horses. The weapons and war horses must be left behind. The two parties agreed to hand over the weapons and release the people in Qingsai Gorge in Yunzhong County.

The Tang Dynasty gained the upper hand and also gave face to the other party. Both parties agreed to reach an agreement in their own way. The Tang Dynasty signed a redemption agreement. In theory, the other party was defeated and the trapped remnants of the army would be redeemed in the form of ransom.

What the Uighurs signed was an armistice agreement, which made it clear that the Uighur army was not prisoners of war, but that the two sides reached an agreement for the Uighur army to return to the grasslands. The text also mentioned that the Uighurs would pay 10 million sheep as war compensation for the Uighur army's invasion of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Ye signed the armistice agreement on behalf of the Tang Dynasty.

Prime Minister Dun Mohe did not stay in Chang'an. He immediately ordered General Guduo to return to Feihu Pass, while he himself rushed to Yunzhong.

Considering that autumn had arrived and they did not have much time to travel back and forth, the Uighurs had made preparations in advance. They brought 12 million sheep and 100,000 horses, and would deliver the sheep to the Tang Dynasty in advance, and they would take the prisoners of war directly away.

Ten days later, Xi Wanli led 30,000 cavalrymen, accompanied by the Tang Dynasty's handover envoy Duan Xueshi and the Uighur general Guduo, and rushed to the western exit of Feihu Pass, where there were 30,000 troops led by Nan Jiyun.

Guduo led a dozen of his men into Feihu Pass and soon arrived at Feihu County.

Dengli Khan waited patiently for Gutu to come.

"Khan, several princes within the Huihe tribe disagreed with the rescue, but Prime Minister Dunmohe insisted on the rescue, and other tribes also requested rescue, so the opponents had no choice but to agree."

Dengli Khan gritted his teeth and said, "I knew these bastards wanted me to die in the Tang Dynasty!"

"Prime Minister Dunmohe has concluded negotiations with the Tang army and paid 10 million sheep to redeem the Huihe army."

"What is the name of redemption?"

Dengli Khan did not care how many sheep he had to pay, but he cared about the name of the redemption. If it was in the name of prisoners of war, then he would not be able to continue to be the Khan. No Uighur would accept a prisoner of war to continue to be the Khan.

Guduo handed the agreement to Dengli Khan, who read it carefully, not missing a single word. He breathed a sigh of relief because it was a ceasefire agreement and he would not become a prisoner of war.

"When can we leave?"

"You can go now, but Khan better take a look at the copy, there are conditions on it."

Dengli Khan took the copy and looked at it carefully, and frowned, "How can we ensure the safety of the army if we can't take away the weapons and horses?"

Guduo smiled bitterly and said, "Khan, the other party has made it very clear that they just want a ransom. If they want to kill us, it would be easy. They just need to send in a batch of sick mules and horses. All our war horses will die within ten days. The meat will not be preserved and will rot quickly. We will have no food. This trick is very cruel. Fortunately, they did not use it.

And since their regent has already signed the agreement, he will not go back on his word, Khan, don't worry!"

Dengli Khan was just being hypocritical. He was actually more anxious than anyone else to leave this damn canyon. He would even accept being asked to take off all his clothes and leave.

Besides, he knew better than anyone that they had no choice at all.

An hour later, 55,000 Uighur soldiers laid down their weapons, bid farewell to their horses, and marched in formation toward the western valley entrance. The 60,000 Tang troops watched the Uighur soldiers pass by them one by one.

Each of them took a bag of five kilograms of dry food and a water gourd, and marched to Yanmen Pass. Under the escort of the Tang army, 55,000 Huihe soldiers crossed Yanmen Pass, and Yunzhou was across the way. There was no resistance or opposition along the way. All the Huihe soldiers were eager to go home. Winter was two months away, and every soldier was worried about the situation at home.

Including Dengli Khan and several captains of ten thousand men, they were treated slightly better, each of them had a horse and more food than the soldiers.

Four days later, the team arrived at Qingsai Valley. At this time, the Tang army had delivered 10 million sheep at the entrance of Zihe Valley two days ago. Ten thousand Tang cavalry drove the endless flock of sheep to Fengzhou.

These flocks of sheep, valued at tens of millions of strings of cash, would eventually be transported by water to various parts of the Tang Dynasty for sale. Half of the money earned would go into the imperial court's left treasury and the other half into Li Ye's inner treasury as war dividends.

Fifty-five thousand Uighur soldiers passed through the Qingsai Valley and entered the prairie. Only then did tens of thousands of Uighur soldiers seem to have returned home. They relaxed their bodies and minds and ran towards the distant camp with cheers.

Prime Minister Dunmohe led more than 10,000 Uighur soldiers to set up camp dozens of miles away. They welcomed the released Uighur soldiers into the camp. After three days of rest, the army returned to the grassland in a mighty manner.

.........

In the past few days, there has been a trend of returning land in the imperial court. In the early stage, it was the Guanzhong gentry, including the Wei family, Du family, Su family, Liu family, Yang family, etc. In the later period, it was basically the various families in Guanlong. Almost every day, they reported to the Ministry of Households and gave up their estates in Guanzhong.

The first family to give up the land was the Dugu family. They were also one of the largest landlords in the Tang Dynasty. They gave up eight manors in Guanzhong, covering about 200,000 acres. According to the court policy, there were two ways to give up the land: redemption and exchange. The Dugu family chose exchange.

Next came the Changsun family and the Dou family, who also all withdrew from the Guanzhong manors. Then it was the Yuan family, who withdrew from five manors, and then the Yu family, the Houmochen family, the Dou Lu family and others followed suit.

Some had one manor, some had two or three. Within ten days, all the Guanlong families withdrew from more than a hundred manors and millions of acres of land. All of these families chose to exchange them, and none of them chose to redeem them.

The reason is very simple. The imperial court does not allow the addition of manors larger than 500 acres, which means that land annexation is no longer allowed. The replacement of manors is an exception. In this case, everyone naturally wants to keep the manor.

There is a deeper reason behind this, which is to replace overseas islands.

All families received various proposals from the court to exchange land, among which the last option was to exchange the islands at ten times the price.

However, most families ignored this option, but there is no wall that is impenetrable in the world, especially among the Guanlong nobles, who intermarried with each other and had all kinds of intricate relationships.

Yuan Xiao, the grandson of Duke Bing Yuansu, married the daughter of the Dou family. Yuan Xiao is currently the governor of Longzhou. He happened to be reporting to the court these days when he received a shocking news from his wife.

The news really shocked Yuansu. The Dou family actually exchanged the island. Each of these family heads was an old fox. He certainly knew that the Dou family would not be so stupid as to exchange the island by themselves.

The Dou family must have followed the Dugu family and the Changsun family, which means that the Dugu family and the Changsun family are very likely to have exchanged the island. What are they doing? They actually hid it from me.

"Grandfather, maybe the Dou family wants to do overseas business. They have had this idea before."

"You think too simply. What do you need islands for overseas business? And these are all deserted islands. It is impossible for the Dou family to exchange for a deserted island alone. I guess the Dugu family and Changsun also exchanged for one."

Yuan Xiao suddenly remembered something and said quickly, "My grandson had a party with some old friends yesterday. Chang Sunqun was also there. We mentioned the land exchange. Chang Sunqun said that his family not only handed over the land in Guanzhong, but also the manors in Hedong and Zhongyuan. I wonder why?"

Yuansu nodded slowly and said, "It's just as I expected. There must be something fishy going on here. The Dugu Family and the Changsun Family must be hiding something from me!"

"Why don't you go ask Grandfather?"

Yuansu thought the same thing. He took out a visiting card and handed it to his grandson. "Give it to Dou Xian for me. I'll visit him tonight!"

(End of this chapter)