Early Tang Dynasty: forge ahead

Chapter 211 Interrogation
Seeing how confident Chen Qingsi was, Huang Heshou thought that he had some conclusive evidence. Thinking of the words "Save your entire Huang family", a trace of fear flashed in his eyes.

He was not afraid of being paid for free, but he was not able to bear the charge of collaborating with the enemy.

Huang Heshou kicked Xu Kai to the ground and said, "Tell me, what on earth did you do?"

Xu Kai himself was also panicked. He knelt on the ground again and said incoherently: "General, general, no, general, I don't know. They just said they needed some iron to repair farm tools. They definitely didn't mean to collaborate with the enemy. Commander Ming Cha..."

When Chen Qingsi heard this, a trace of anger flashed in his eyes. He knew the direction of history.Knowing that the Nine Surnamed Tiele would rebel in the future, these iron weapons would inevitably become iron knives and arrows, sharp weapons against the Tang army.

"Damn things!"

Huang Heshou never imagined that Xu Kai would be so bold as to sell iron tools strictly prohibited by the imperial court to the grassland. He was so angry that he kicked him again.

This kick stirred up real fire. Xu Kai rolled several times due to the kick. He wanted to get up and couldn't continue to kneel.

Chen Qingsi asked tentatively: "After asking for iron, are you asking for weapons again?"

He had seen too many such situations in later generations.

Most corruption crimes start from a small matter. As the courage becomes greater, the amount of corruption increases.

Xu Kai's face turned pale, which really made Chen Qingsi guess right.

The situation in Lingzhou is somewhat special, which makes it difficult to sell the empty grain.

Lingzhou is known as the South of the Yangtze River. With the nourishment of the Yellow River, agriculture and animal husbandry are developed, there are many lakes, and the wetlands are contiguous. It is one of the few resource treasures in the North.

However, after the great turmoil at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the world's population dropped sharply.

Lingzhou was bordered by the most powerful Turks at the time and suffered the most serious damage.

There is a shortage of population everywhere in the world, and Lingzhou is far away in the north. The roads are inconvenient, so no one will move to Lingzhou.

Therefore, even though it is located in a geomantic treasure land, Lingzhou's population has not been able to increase.

Here, there is a situation where fertile land is left uncultivated, and each farmer here is allocated farmland that exceeds his or her ability.

Without population pressure, Lingzhou can be self-sufficient in food and still have a certain amount of surplus.

Therefore, the surplus grain in the army cannot be sold to Lingzhou. The Tang Dynasty also has the Sanjia Municipal Law. Commodities such as grain have fixed prices. You have to spend a lot of hard work to transport the grain to the place where it is needed, and you cannot sell it at a high price. The gain outweighs the loss.

Selling excess grain to the grasslands is the only way to make big money.

The grassland people make a living as nomads, and every winter is a test of life and death. The tribe reserves some food to enable them to survive the critical moment.

This is also the reason why the imperial court does not allow food to go northward, so that the weak can eat the strong and control the grassland population.

If the grassland people can survive every winter safely and the population increases greatly, with their custom of all the people being soldiers, within a few years, several large tribes can unite to form a team of tens of thousands.

Now that we have become stronger, who is willing to look after people’s homes and homes?
Xu Kai broke the precept for the sake of profit.

Faced with the request of the prairie people to buy some iron and repair farm tools, they naturally would not refuse.A little adds up to a big thing, and then one day he says that he needs some weapons to fight the enemy tribe.

At this point, even if Xu Kai wanted to refuse, he could no longer control the situation.

Besides, the money given by the other party is indeed enough...

Chen Qingsi asked: "Do you know which tribe you are trading with?"

Xu Kai didn't answer for a while, but just curled up and squirmed to relieve the pain in his abdomen.Huang Heshou shouted angrily: "Why don't we actually recruit him?"

Xu Kai supported and knelt on the ground and said, "It's the Uighur tribe."

Chen Qingsi frowned and said, "Are you sure, or is it what they said?"

This was different from the situation in his memory. In history, the nine surnames Tiele rebelled. He couldn't remember which surname it was, but it couldn't be the Uighurs.

Although the Uighurs were one of the Tiele tribes, they were still very weak at this time, and they were a staunch pro-Tang faction.It was precisely because of standing in the right position that the Nine-surname Tiele was destroyed by the Tang army due to rebellion. The Uighurs got an opportunity to grow and gradually became a powerful tribe on the grassland.

Xu Kai said: "They said they were Uighurs?"

Chen Qingsi frowned: "You didn't dig into it?"

Xu Kai didn't say a word. He only wanted money and didn't care who the other party was.

"idiot!"

Chen Qingsi cursed and said: "If I provide some useful information, I can give you a chance to make meritorious deeds. Otherwise... for your current crime, even ten deaths will not be enough."

Xu Kai's expression changed, and he suddenly took two steps forward and said, "They are in the Sijie tribe. Yes, they are from the Sijie tribe."

Chen Qingsi was so alert that she immediately asked: "Who are the people from the Sijie tribe? Did you see them in the Sijie tribe, or what?"

He didn't quite believe that the Sijie tribe was going to rebel.

If the Sijiebu was really rebellious, it would not send people to Gyeonggi to complain.

Moreover, the Sijie tribe had always been close to the Tang Dynasty, and their tribes were also among the most trusted tribes by the imperial court. They were settled in Monan, where they had the richest pastures, and their treatment was not comparable to that of the Mobei grasslands.

Judging from the current situation, there is no reason or counterargument for the Thinking Department.

Xu Kai shook his head and said: "I don't know. Today, I went to apologize to the people in the Si Jie tribe. I saw them in the tribe of the Si Jie tribe. They were avoiding me...yes, it was them."

Apologize right away?

Chen Qingsi looked at Huang Heshou and said, "Return the horse to apologize, but that magical horse?"

Speaking of this, Huang Heshou was still a little distressed and said: "Yes, Mr. Chen, in fact, there is a reason for this. We originally discovered that magical horse, but we are not good at taming the wild horse, so it was taken away by Si Jie Department. We were the first to get there. I really didn’t expect them to turn against us and accuse us of robbing them of their divine horse. It’s indeed wrong to detain them and force them to return the divine horse, but we can’t talk nonsense.”

Chen Qingsi quickly caught the loophole in this statement and asked, "How did you find out?"

According to the people from the Sijie tribe who came to Beijing to complain, the place where the sacred horse appeared was at the foot of Helan Mountain, which was the pasture of the Sijie tribe. It was in a remote location, far away from the towering Khan Road.Generally speaking, Han people are unlikely to travel that far.

When Chen Qingsi said this, Huang Heshou was stunned. He really didn't think about this and looked at Xu Kai.

Xu Kai trembled inexplicably and said, "Yes, they told me that they encountered it when they were passing by Helan Mountain."

Chen Qingsi nodded slowly, took a long breath, and said, "Is there such a possibility that the other party told you the location of the divine horse, and then notified the other party, deliberately creating conflicts and frictions?"

Without waiting for a reply, he suddenly thought of something and asked, "When did you discover them? When did your previous transactions take place?"

"This afternoon!" Xu Kai thought for a moment and said, "Once before June, once around October."

(End of this chapter)