Compared to the steppes in the north of Sylvan, it was relatively less affected, because a large number of deserters and routs almost all fled to the north, and a large number of tribes along the way were looted to varying degrees.

In particular, the army led by the Mahdi not only looted the goods and people, but also carried out a large number of massacres. It is precisely because of this that the Sogdian tribes in the south and north of the Hilfan Mountains chose to attach themselves to the Tang Dynasty and became an important supporting force of the Shenwu Army in Khorasan.

Qin Jin also had an extremely friendly attitude towards the local tribes, in order to win their support and minimize the disadvantages caused by the labor expedition as much as possible.

However, most of these methods can only play the role of icing on the cake, and in the end, the Shenwu army can only be supported by a solid victory.

Otherwise, no matter how good the Shenwu Army did in wooing the tribes, it would not be possible for those tribes to risk offending Dashi and possibly being wiped out.

This is human nature, and Qin and Jin have always advocated the principle and policy of peace between the two sides, as long as it is in the interests of both sides and can deal with common enemies together, they can be co-opted as allies.

Although the quality of the tribes is uneven, and there are many of them who have evil intentions and fish in troubled waters, as long as an effect is formed, this momentum of rushing to take effect can also become an effective means to disintegrate and hit the morale of the Great Cannibal Army.

To put it bluntly, this is taking advantage of the situation.

Once the trend of betraying the Great Cannibal by the Tang Dynasty is formed, the prestige of the Great Cannibal will be greatly reduced, and the barbarians will lose their fear of the Great Cannibal, and more oppressed tribes will stand up against it.

If this cycle continues, the big cannibals will be anxious.

In addition to checking the progress of the construction of the city, Qin and Jin also had two important purposes for inspecting the south, one was to show force to the Persians in the south of Silvan, and the other was to actively show goodwill in order to gain the broad support of the Persians.

The news of the Tang Dynasty's support for the restoration of Persia has been spread, and it is believed that a large number of Persians will support it.

Many Persians in Khorasan converted to the Great Food Religion for survival reasons, but after all, the time was still short, and the influence of the Great Food Religion was not so far-reaching. After the religiously punitive poll tax was removed, more and more Persians believed that they would abandon the Great Food Religion.

However, the destruction of Khorasan by the Great Cannibals is also obvious.

The agricultural Persians were swept away from the land, large tracts of arable land were abandoned, and steppe barbarians continued to migrate south.

Along the way to the south, Qin Jin saw very few Persian villages, but everywhere he could see large areas of cattle and sheep and herdsmen grazing with whips.

Whether it is a peasant or a herdsman, they are all the objects of Qin and Jin's unity.

Many of the herdsmen of the tribe did not choose to flee after seeing the Shenwu army, and even the leaders of them even rushed to ask for a meeting with gifts and expressed their deference to the Tang soldiers.

When they learned that the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty had personally received them, some tribal leaders excitedly expressed their willingness to be the most loyal servants of the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty!

The alliance between Sylvan and the steppe tribes obviously worked, and the steppe tribes within a radius of hundreds of miles knew that the Shenwu Army was willing to live in friendship with the tribes and would help.

These are all things that the Great Cannibals could not do, and not only did they not treat them kindly, but in addition to forcing them to convert by force, they plundered their population and goods.

After the Tang Dynasty army defeated the Great Cannibals several times and occupied Khorasan, many tribes turned away from the Great Eclipse, which oppressed them by force, and turned to the Tang Dynasty.

The person in charge of building a new city two hundred miles south of Sylvan was Jiang Fengxiang, the commander of the new army.

The vicinity of the new town is a large area of cultivated farmland, which is more suitable for settlement than the Sylvan on the steppe.

It was also closer to the Persian-inhabited area, and if the Shenmu army wanted to gain a foothold in the land of Khorasan, it would have to cooperate with the Persians.

The construction of the castle is also the first step in a long-term plan.

After leaving Mulu City and arriving in Shirvan, a large number of auxiliary troops of the Shenwu Army were successively sent to the south to build the city.

The name of the new city has not yet been decided, but the scale is not small, and the city wall with a radius of ten miles can be said to be comparable to Mulu City.

Qin Jin's plan was to make the new city the premier city in North Khorasan in ten years, and the most important transportation hub in the east and west of Khorasan.

And it can be used as the most stable support point for the Tang Dynasty to gain a foothold in Khorasan.

Many of the generals and officials who accompanied the army on this expedition to the west were left behind by Qin and Jin, and the imperial court in Chang'an also passed a national examination, selecting more than 3,000 young officials, who were about to be sent to Khorasan, Tocharo, and other places.

Compared with the vast land, 3,000 officials are a drop in the bucket, but this is only the first step, and then, after Qin Jin returns to Chang'an, he will initiate and promote a wave of westward migration.

There will be more people who will come to the land of the Western Regions to make meritorious deeds, glorify the lintel, and benefit their descendants.

Whether people in this era are officials or in the army, what they do is basically inseparable from these three things.

As long as there is a temptation with sufficient interests, and on this basis, it is bound to form a trend.

The further south you go, the more cultivated land you have, and after a long day of marching, you can hardly see grasslands, cattle and sheep in sight.

Although there is a lot of abandoned land, there are already sporadic wheat fields that can be seen in good care.

The Persian peasants in the villages were clearly deeply wary of the arrival of the Tang army.

Qin Jin originally wanted to have an in-depth exchange with the local farmers in the village, but everywhere he went, he closed his doors, as if he was hiding from the plague jackal, let alone greeted him.

It is no wonder that the peasants in the scattered areas are no more closed than the herdsmen who are on the move, and their channels for obtaining news are more closed than those of the herdsmen, and naturally they have rarely heard about the Sylvan Alliance.

And, even if they do, it won't necessarily make a difference.

After all, the first thing all the troops did when they arrived in the village was to forcibly requisition the grain and the young population.

These are the necessities of war.

The attendants forced open the door of a Persian peasant house, and inside, three old and three, young and four, all curled up in a ball and trembled.

The interpreter simply translated the old man's trembling and somewhat incoherent words.

"Several of my sons have been conscripted by the army, and there is no news so far, if you still need people, take me away, my grandchildren are not yet ten years old, please let them go......"

The old man's eyes were filled with fear, despair, sadness, and vague anger.

Qin Jin could see that several of his grandsons should already be teenagers and half-grown children, and the reason why he said this should be because he didn't want them to end up in the army like his son.