The bad emperor of Tang Dynasty

Before setting off, the sea team gave Guo Nuan and the others the information about the mountain city, which showed that the fortress was beyond imagination. Now that Guo Nuan was lucky enough to get close to the base of the wall, it was really extraordinary.

The thick giant granite piles are almost seamless. Guo Nuan stroked the stone brick joints, and it is estimated that his own golden dagger can be inserted in. According to information, in the Xuanzong era, when this Chiling mountain city was still under the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty, the construction of the base of the wall Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of granite were spent, and more than 1 corvettes were recruited. It took more than five years to complete the first construction period. Now it has been occupied by the Tubo people for seven or eight years. After being strengthened, the root of the wall has exaggerated an average thickness of [-] meters, especially the front. The city wall even reached an incredible [-] meters, which is really amazing. No wonder since ancient times, hundreds of thousands of trebuchets have been used to attack the city. The castle was not strong enough and fell, but the siege enemy army cut off the water source of the castle, and cut off its food road, and finally fell due to lack of water and food inside.

"It seems that such a thick city foundation cannot be breached by just sending thousands of engineers to dig tunnels," Guo Nuan thought to herself. A wall foundation tens of meters thick, even the explosives would require a lot of work. months digging is impossible.

A group of people safely passed through the giant hanging gate that was raised and lowered by wheels. Both sides of the arched road with a depth of more than 30 meters are densely covered with movable and closed archery holes and spear holes. piles.

I heard that there is a large pool of water on the city tower, and the water is drawn from the slope stream on the mountain along the canals around the city wall aisle. It is estimated that in addition to the arrow defense, there are swords and spears, and the reception of the movable water gate is not far away. enemy.

Compared with the difficult and dangerous defenses outside the city, the inside of the city is suddenly open, like rows of stone houses in a patchwork pattern, there are many scaffolding felt tents in the middle of the square, and a large number of grocery vendors. .

"You, go away quickly," the fat man deserted, curiously wanting to climb up the stairs at the corner of the city to see what happened, but was soon stopped by a few Tubo soldiers.

Guo Nuan lamented how strong the city was. It seemed that there was no shortcut to break the city, except for conventional siege weapons, such as large bed crossbows mounted on catapults, and fire-beating wooden stakes poured with reed oil.

The trade between Tubo people and Datang people is generally barter. In the past, Tang merchants used to use copper coins to buy Tubo people’s grains, cattle and horses, precious leopard skins and tiger skins and other local specialties. The Tibetans in the plateau used the copper coins obtained from the trade to cast weapons and armor, which undoubtedly enhanced the equipment level of the Tubo army, which would pose a threat to the neighboring Tang Dynasty. Therefore, in recent decades, the Tang Dynasty canceled the practice of using currency to trade with Tubo. Now they use precious goods such as tea, cloth and silk. I remember that in the third year of Tang Yifeng, Datang and Tubo launched a big war in Qinghai Lake. Guo Nuan clearly found from the history books that the Datang army was nearly 20 people fighting in Tubo. One faction suffered a disastrous defeat, and 11 people were killed in battle. Think about it more than 70 years ago, the Tubo Dynasty had not yet fully risen, and the Tang Empire was in a powerful era. At that time, a great war was defeated very cruelly. When the equipment is thriving and rising to a higher level... As for the Tang Dynasty, the Anshi Rebellion is undoubtedly the beginning of the prelude to the twilight of the empire.

"Kaka, these Tibetan people are really good," Luo Cheng passed by a slaughterhouse, and he was surprised to find that a Tibetan woman who was buying vegetables took out a small knife and cut a thin slice of mutton while she was negotiating with the butcher. Put it in your mouth and eat it, it seems that the surrounding Tubo people are used to it.

"Oh, you can eat it like this, the Tubo people are really amazing," Guo Nuan was attracted by Luo Cheng's exclamation, and he swallowed subconsciously, no doubt some time ago he heard the veterans of the military camp tell that the Tubo people like to eat raw meat, and once again He also saw from a distance that when the Tubo soldiers were cleaning the battlefield in front of the positions, a Tubo soldier actually cut off the front leg of a dead horse with a knife and swallowed a large piece. It seems that this is a habit and is true.

There were many merchants from the Tang Dynasty in the market, and most of the horses were wrapped with cloth and medicinal herbs. Luo Cheng undoubtedly heard a few passers-by from the Tang Dynasty talking in the local dialect of Sichuan.

Those with tiger fur coats are undoubtedly nobles. It seems that many nobles on these plateaus like to go to the border to contact the Tang Dynasty. The fat man accidentally bumped into a chieftain, and several sturdy slave guards surrounded the chieftain. Fortunately, Guo Nuan and the other five hurried over. The other party saw that the fat man was also tall and burly, so the high-spirited chieftain snorted and left with his servants.

There was a burst of hustle and bustle, and the crowded aisle immediately avoided an aisle in a panic. The five-party flag in front cleared the way, and a group of no less than 1000 Chinese troops passed by at high speed. Some of the soldiers even knocked over the stalls on both sides of the narrow alley. The green fruit rolled all over the ground, which is undoubtedly a disaster for the poor stall owner of Honest Hands Bar. With an expression of wanting to cry but not tears on his face, Guo Nuan burst into anger and then tried his best to suppress it. It seems that the Tubo people Like the Tang Dynasty, there is a clear class division, and the situation is even more serious. Looking at the miserable Tubo stall owners who dare not speak out, the truth can be seen.

In addition to many Nanzhao merchants in this mountain city, there are also Arabs who have come all the way from the Western Regions. However, Guo Nuan found that there are a variety of handicrafts on these stalls, but there are no vegetables, sauces and vinegar, and some are just shops selling salt cakes. The diet of the Tibetans is very simple, without the complicated seasonings of the Central Plains people. They only know the taste of salt. Of course, for Luo Cheng who likes to cook, it is even more difficult to find delicious food here on the Tibetan plateau, let alone sauce. There is no vinegar, not even hot and sour, which is absolutely indispensable in strong Sichuan cuisine.

The light gauze masked woman in a crimson blue dress fluttered her long sleeves lightly, stepped on the ground hand in hand, and danced in circles from time to time. A big Tubo man next to him was waving a wolf totem flag to attract guests, especially when he used a brown Guo Nuan bent down and threw a piece of silver over.

"Central Plains people, there have been changes in the city recently, leave as soon as possible," the pure accent suddenly sounded, the woman who turned around and danced glanced at Guo Nuan, and a mosquito whisper quietly invaded Guo Nuan's ears.

"Well, everything depends on the circumstances," Guo Nuan followed the connection code at the beginning, and he saw the connector in the city. Although the connector hinted that the task had become more difficult recently, Guo Nuan did not back down.

"Let's go, let's find a hotel to stay first," Lao Gong and Guo Nuan whispered for a while, and then they all went to an earthen house next to the square to stay.

There are many felt tents built in the open air in this area, surrounded by dozens of small tents, Guo Nuan saw another big golden tent of more than 100 square meters inside, and there were many Tubo patrols guarding around, all of them bent over. Bow, holding a bronze sword, especially a general surrounded by a large number of soldiers looks familiar.

"Uh, isn't that exactly our goal?" Wang Zhengba's sharp eyes lit up for a moment, bursting out with shining brilliance, and he immediately touched Guo Nuan with his elbow.

"Hehe, it looks good. It's the Tubo man we're going to kidnap this time. It's really lucky," Guo Nuan and his group confirmed from a distance that it was indeed not bad. This Tubo general was exactly the person depicted on the drawings beforehand.

Soon, the Tibetan target entered the golden tent, and Guo Nuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the golden tent should be the official office of the target. Fortunately, the Tibetans were used to living in tents. Guo Nuan thought to himself, what if he Living in a one-story house with a solid exterior and a complicated inner pavilion, it is estimated that Guo Nuan and the others will greatly increase the difficulty of sneaking in and arresting people.

"Sell raisins, Tianzhu musical instruments, and tobacco cotton."

Just as Guo Nuan and the others were about to leave and enter the hotel, a peddler next to him shouted loudly.

"How much is this raisin per catty?" Da Biao immediately laughed, and he rushed over with a group of excited people.

"Five hundred Wen per catty, you can exchange half a catty of tea leaves," the stall owner shouted enthusiastically.

"It's so cheap, I can't change a catty of tea." Da Biao was excited immediately, and he began to increase the price, and everyone hurriedly unloaded a pack of high-quality Dahongpao tea from the horse's back.

"No, no, it's too expensive to sell. I won't sell it. I will resolutely exchange half a catty of Dahongpao for a catty of raisins," the stall owner shook his head, and resolutely refused. It's a rattle.

"Quack, that's right," Fatty and Guo Nuan looked at each other and smiled, showing two rows of big white teeth.

"No, here you are, the bag inside is Dahongpao," Da Biao simply handed the half-jin tea bag wrapped in straw paper to the Central Plains stall owner.

"Okay, wait a minute, I'll wrap the raisins in paper for you," the stall owner smiled and winked at Da Biao meaningfully, and the transaction was successfully completed.

It is said that Guo Nuan and his group traded around this vendor, and it seemed nothing strange to passers-by. The bustling and noisy street was full of bargaining voices, and others could not hear Guo Nuan and his weird conversations with the stall owner.

"Oh, there is a piece of information in this raisin." Back at the hotel, in a wing room, after everyone bolted the windows and the main door and closed them tightly, they couldn't wait to open the oiled paper bag of the raisin, and there was indeed something inside .

"Quack, I didn't expect that as soon as we entered the city, we encountered two groups of undercover intelligence agents," Guo Nuan sighed. The Shuofang Military Region has done a very thoughtful job of infiltrating the intelligence agents in the border town of Tubo.

It turns out that Dabiao's weird business conversation just now is a code word for connecting with undercover agents in the city. Think about it, the spies in the city use street stalls as a cover, and the spies can't tell the number of people and their appearance characteristics sent by the Shuofang Military Region each time. But every day when the stall owner sees people from the Central Plains passing by in the city, he will yell that line of hawking loudly.

A palm-sized stall not only sells raisins from Turpan, but also musical instruments from Tianzhu. This kind of mixed goods combination is really strange, but only Guo Nuan, who got the code word from the joint, can understand it.

Of course, on the streets with pedestrians every day, the spies also have to do business normally. If unrelated people from the Central Plains are attracted to the stalls to buy goods, in order not to mistakenly pass the information to the non-connectors by mistake, there will be a set of code dialogues next. As long as the words are correct, it seems that the buyer who lowers the price is definitely not a connector. Think about it, unless you are a fool in business, there is no buyer in the world who raises the price to buy things, and the only trading commodity corresponding to raisins is Guo Nuan. They brought Dahongpao tea, so the error of information exchange error almost does not exist.

"A few days ago, the Tubo princess visited, and a large number of guards were added near the golden tent, making it more difficult to capture the target." The paper roll mixed with raisins was opened, and a line of words came into view,