In August, the Hetao already felt a little cool in the evening. It feels fine in the room, but if it's in the field, you'll have to wear a slightly thicker woolen coat sooner or later.

Shimen water flows out of Black Mountain, through the flat grasslands of Jiuyuan, and into the Yellow River. On both sides of the river, a dense forest of oak, poplar and birch trees grows, like a green streamer, winding from the Yin Mountains and dividing the Jiuyuan grassland. The water is clear, and the low-hanging willow branches touch the tumbling water from time to time, like a fishing rod.

Jiuyuan guard Li Sifeng is very idle now, the original horse thief leader has now become an officer and soldier chasing horse thieves, the grassland horse bandits in the Black Mountain area were surrounded and suppressed by his company, almost extinct, and the days on the grassland suddenly made people feel much more stable. The first batch of "Yansui bandits" who were appeased and exterminated, regardless of whether they were true or not, were all sent to Jiuyuan City and Black Mountain City, and to the border of Tuntian.

The 12,000 "matching troops" were scattered in various cantonment forts on the grassland, but there were still not many people to be seen.

Naturally, the people of the capital water supervisor and Jiuyuan Tunwei did the things of damming and damming embankments and digging ditches and clearing wasteland, and a martial artist like him who was born as a horse thief would not do this kind of work even if he wanted to.

Jiuyuan Castle was stuck at the mouth of a narrow passage between Yinshan and the Yellow River, and since this trade route had become safe in the past two years, more and more caravans from Hexi or the Western Regions traveled to Yunzhou along this trade route north of the Yellow River to conduct trade. However, since last year, the newly built Naturalization City has slowly replaced Yunzhou and become the end point of caravan trading.

There are many remnants of ancient beacons or ruined city walls, as well as traces of abandoned canals and dams. Suo Ming, the secretary of Tuntianwei, told him that in the Han Dynasty, Wuyuan County began to carry out reclamation, when this Hetao area had more than 100,000 hectares of fertile land, 40,000 households, and a population of 14 or 50,000.

It's a pity that there is no book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in this era, and people don't know that "Lu Bu in the people, red rabbit in the horse" is such a popular idiom, and the image of the "world's first fierce general" in the history books is not glorious, so the people of Jiuyuan are not proud of being their fellow villagers.

Since the Han Dynasty, Hu Feng has become more and more prosperous, and after the Tang Dynasty pacified the Turks, it was also used as a pasture for the resettlement of the attached steppe tribes, and the fertile land was destroyed and the canals and dams were abandoned.

Li Sifeng laughed when he heard this, patted Suo Ming's shoulder and said, "Boy, are you stupid to read?" If you go back and ask your uncle Suo Zitong, where did your ancestors come from? ”

These words made Suo Ming a little embarrassed, Li Sifeng mentioned this, he seemed to remember that his ancestors came from the river in the Western Regions, and belonged to the Lite people of the Zhaowu Nine Tribes, but they moved to Xinzhou in the Middle Tang Dynasty.

The weapons and equipment of the grassland tribes are backward, and Li Sifeng's cavalry army is only more than 1,000 people, but everyone is wearing armor, and no one dares to provoke it.

Although the Tatar tribes and the tribes of the steppe were known for their rebelliousness and bravery, they were very in awe of the Li family in Jinyang. It was the Li family that brought the Turkic Shatuo Tribe, which had only tens of thousands of households, to the peak, and not only was recognized by the Central Plains Dynasty, but also became the emperor of the Central Plains Dynasty and inherited the name of the Tang Empire.

This is the place that every steppe tribe leader envies and admires the most.

The powerful and prosperous Tang Dynasty, the Tian Khan Empire, whose territory almost reaches the sky of the Western Regions, has long since declined, but it is still deeply imprinted in people's memories and has become a legend.

Now, the emperor of the Shatuo Li family has actually reduced half of the annual "annual tribute" of the grassland tribes, and has treated these grassland tribes very "benevolently". If the tribal leader offered more than 500 good horses, the emperor would appoint an official position, which was of little use but a status symbol.

The main thing is that after becoming an official of the Tang state, the emperor would send craftsmen to help them build a fortress.

A room with a transparent glass window, a mirror-like tiled floor, and a warm fireplace makes it much more comfortable to live in than in a tent. The elderly tribal leaders, in particular, were enthusiastic about owning such a fortress.

The grasslands of the northern land are now scattered sand, there is no king, and the Tian Khan who is far away in Jinyang is their king.

The autumn wind gradually rose, and the nomadic tribes who migrated to the dense forests and grasslands deep in the Yin Mountains in the summer began to leave the summer pastures one after another and return to the grasslands for the winter. The winter pastures of the Tatar, Tuyuhun and Zubu tribes around Jiuyuan are on the banks of the two rivers in Jiuyuan, and the larger tribes have begun to build forts, and the winter pastures are fixed, and it is relatively easy to find the leaders of these tribes.

In this season when cattle and sheep are fat and strong, Jinyang's caravan came to the grassland again.

The branch of the Chamber of Commerce is located in Jiuyuan City, but it has long-term purchase points in the winter pastures of some large tribes, and goods such as cloth, tea, silk, ironware, and porcelain brought from the interior are then distributed to purchase points in various places in exchange for leather, wool, livestock and other products. However, weapons such as riding bows and long knives will not be exchanged directly from distribution points, and the tribal leader will need to come forward and personally come to Jiuyuan City to trade, and the weapons traded need to be registered.

Generally speaking, these acquisition points distributed on the grassland, the hired grassland people become the agents of Jiuyuan City on the grassland, in addition to the leaders of various tribes, and convey the decrees of Jiuyuan City to the herdsmen on the grassland through their mouths. In addition, through these people, Jiuyuan also roughly grasped the information on the grassland.

The law of the jungle is the norm on the steppe, and powerful tribes will rob and annex those weak tribes, and then turn those small tribes into their own slaves.

The Jinyang army is now here, and has also brought something called Wang Fa to the grassland.

The law of the Heavenly Khan was to prohibit the seizure and annexation of those weak tribes in the steppe, otherwise they would be punished as bandits.

Although this edict is difficult to enforce in the grassland, through the preaching of the managers of the acquisition points, some grassland tribes know that if they are robbed, they can go to the town guard mansion in Jiuyuan City to file a complaint, and the town guard will do justice for them at that time.

The so-called town guard is Li Sifeng, the defense envoy of Jiuyuan.

In more than a year of "suppressing bandits," this former horse thief-turned-official has left a deep impression on the tribes of the steppe with ferocity and cruelty.

After three years of development, Jinyang's power has penetrated deep into the Hetao area and slowly took root here.

The grassland people are very bad at doing business, and the three major chambers of commerce in Jinyang have done a good job in the grassland, and the huge profits are enough to support the construction of the Jinyang army on the northland grassland. Now that they have taken root here, it is foreseeable that this force will grow rapidly in the coming years.

This is something that the tribal leaders simply cannot stop, unless they join forces......