At the beginning of March, the spring breeze in the grasslands north of Yunzhou has just arrived.

After a spring rain, the banks of the Yuhe River are already full of green.

On the official road between Tongyuan City and Yunzhou under Baleng Mountain, the carriages and horses of the brigade are mighty and stretching for more than ten miles.

It's just that the hundreds of convoys of goods escorted by the rear of more than 5,000 cavalry troops don't look like they're going on an expedition......

The mountain road is long, and the valley is flanked by endless greenery, which stretches along the mountains to the northern heath. There are no trees on the rugged hills of the Northland, but now the slopes are covered with a faint layer of green, and they look full of life. This trade road on the grassland is dusty, and the hoof prints of cattle and horses can be seen everywhere.

Xiongguan Mandao, the word used to describe the second round of expansion of Tongyuan City is the most appropriate, here at the foot of the Baleng Mountain to the confluence of two rivers, but also to the northern grassland Baishui Luocheng and Jining City pass road.

The war horse walked on the suspension bridge of the Yinma River and shook a little, and the rushing river water was under his feet. In spring, when the snow melts and the river floods, the turbid river flows through the prairie swamps and converges, only to be blocked by two barrage dams, forming two artificial lakes of considerable size between the valleys.

In the history of China, except for the Tang Dynasty, the area of Yunzhou, Youzhou and Shanbei has almost always been on the front line of the Central Plains Dynasty's resistance to the southward invasion of the northern grassland peoples.

Now, Li Qi intends to expand his power to the grasslands in the northwest.

He planned to carry out the tuntian according to the military system of the Northern Dynasties and the early Sui and Tang dynasties, and stationed 5,000 troops in each of the military states of Yunzhou and Shanbei, half of which were dispatched during the war, and half of the soldiers and horses were left to ensure the safety of the place. It's just that the method he adopted is relatively similar to that of the production corps of later generations, and the main assets such as land, reservoirs, and workshops belong to him, which is equivalent to state-owned, and the garrison households are equivalent to the village households employed by the royal family.

Suddenly there was a low horn sound in the distance, and I saw a group of cavalry galloping forward, and in a moment they rushed to the front, and the army general led by Li Qi jumped off his horse in front of the banner, and bowed his hand and said: "The last general will knock on the Son of Heaven!" ”

Li Qice immediately stepped forward and said, "General Wu Luan has worked hard, just get on the horse and walk with me." ”

After hearing this, Wu Luan, the guard of Tongyuan City, gave another salute, and then turned over and got on his horse and followed Li Qi's side.

"This year, we will expand Jining City and Baishui City, set aside a new military state, and then you will move the town to Jining." Li Qi said to Wu Luan as he walked.

The ability of the grassland peoples, who are mainly animal husbandry, to resist natural disasters is very weak, and when the snow falls heavily, the pasture grass on the grassland will be completely covered, and the cattle and sheep will not find enough pasture, and they will starve to death in groups. Even the cattle and sheep that survived were so hungry that they were left with only skin and bones, and there was no milk, and almost all the young lambs born in the spring would starve to death.

This is the snow disaster.

Compared with the drought, the disaster brought by the snow disaster to the grassland people is even more terrible.

Generally at such a time, in order to survive, those nomadic people who lived in pursuit of water and grass began to bring long knives and bows and arrows, rode war horses, consciously gathered in front of the chief's tent, only waiting for the chieftains' orders, and then began to rob the grain of the Han land, and of course women and slaves.

What Li Qi wants to do is to use commercial means to enhance the ability of these grassland tribes to resist disasters.

If the nomadic tribes of the steppe were able to exchange enough food and pasture for their livelihoods, they would gradually become dependent on the help of the Han Chinese, who were good at farming. Robbery is actually a very risky thing, and if it weren't for the fact that they couldn't survive, the steppe tribes generally wouldn't risk robbery.

They weren't the horse thieves who roamed the steppes.

Li Qi felt that the coexistence and co-prosperity of the Chinese nation was in line with the harmonious values of later generations, so he was ready to instill this concept into these grassland tribes.

Of course, the promotion of some policies must rely on force as a guarantee.

From Yin Mountain to Wolf Mountain, there are more than a dozen tribes and hundreds of tribes large and small, except for the Dang Xiang Qiang Tribe, he does not think that there is a force that can confront him......

From Yunzhou to Jining, it took more than an hour to drive on the highway in later generations, but now it takes three or four days. For this reason, Li Qi built Tongyuan City, Fengzhen City, Baishui City on this route, plus Jining, as the center of the military Tuntian District, each fort city is 60 or 70 miles apart, even if the ox cart passes, it only takes half a day.

This largely ensured the safety of the trade route.

Li Qi used this defensive line connected by the fortress to stop the Khitans' westward expansion.

Markets gradually formed outside the three newly built forts of Jining City, Baishui City and Fengzhen, and strangely enough, the Hu merchants from the Western Regions who came from afar liked to go to Fengzhen City, which was the closest to the Han Dynasty, to do business. Tongyuan City, which is only a dozen miles away from Fengzhen City, is not easy to pass, because the Tang Army has tax collectors in Tongyuan Guancheng, and customs duties are levied on goods coming and going.

Most of these caravans, consisting of large numbers of camels and knights, came from the far west. These brave merchants traveled thousands of miles to bring special products from the Western Regions and even big food in camels to exchange silk, tea, porcelain and other oriental specialties. Watching a team of tall camels walk into the special market town outside the east city of Fengzhen, Li Qi felt a little dazed, as if he had seen the scene of naturalization outside the city that he had seen in movies or television.

This year, he needs to enlarge the outer circle of Jining City, Baishui City, and Fengzhen City to build an outer city, so that he has a stronger ability to resist the westward advance of the Khitans.

Li Qi thought that it was a good way to let the Zubu, Tuyuhun and Turkic people learn to farm.

These steppe people are wild and untamable, and they can't farm, so it is not easy to teach them to farm.

Farming is a good way to kill the wild, and with the fetters of the land, people will have a lot of scruples when doing things. As for disobedience, if you put them into the military household, you will naturally learn to obey very quickly. If there is no one to manage them, Li Qi does not think that these guys with a loose nature and no skills can live well in such a harsh living environment as Hermes-Epitek, and there is a high probability that they will become criminals......

Thousands of cavalry troops rolled along the ancient trade routes of the Northland, and the leaders of the steppe tribes along the way heard the news and leaned down in front of Li Qi to worship the new "Heavenly Khan". Since Li Keyong owned Hedong, the grassland tribes in the north have been dominated by the king of Jin, and the Li clan in Hedong has ruled this area for decades, although they have been submissive to the Khitan State a few years ago, but when the Li Tang forces returned to the grassland, it is logical to return to the rule of the Tang Dynasty.

For these steppe tribes, there doesn't seem to be much difference whether the "Tian Khan" is the king of Jin or the Khitan king, they are all the same brutal and greedy, except for the livestock and warriors in the tribe as "annual tribute", they have not done anything good for these nomadic tribes on the grassland.