After meeting with Li Shimin and the others, Sun Xiangfu first expressed his opinion on the matter of Byzantium and the Arab tribal alliance, saying, "Your Majesty, the emergence of any big country in the West is not in the interests of my Tang Dynasty, especially the country controlled by religious theocracy. ”

Li Shimin was stunned when he heard this, and asked, "Why did Zhengming say that?" ”

Sun Xiangfu replied, "First of all, this kind of religious culture will hinder the spread of our Central Plains culture. ”

Sun Xiangfu had already explained this point to Li Shimin and the ministers when he talked about the problem of the country before, but he didn't need to explain more.

In fact, when Li Shimin heard that there was an empire of Byzantium in the West, his instinctive reaction was to help the tribal alliance and overthrow it, because he did not allow other powerful empires to exist in this world.

Now after Sun Xiangfu's reminder, he began to think rationally from a political point of view.

Seeing Li Shimin nodded, Sun Xiangfu glanced at Ma Zhou with a relaxed expression, and knew that he must have already had his own thinking in this regard, and in terms of political wisdom, he didn't think that he was more insightful than Ma Zhou, who had actually been to the West, so he said, "As for other aspects, I believe that Ma Shilang will have corresponding suggestions for Your Majesty." ”

Seeing that Sun Xiangfu threw the question to himself again, Ma Zhou was not ambiguous, and continued, "Young Master Sun is right, the emergence of any powerful country in the West is not in line with the interests of my Datang, this is a conclusion reached by the mission after the field investigation.

In the West, the smaller the country, the smaller the population, the weaker the country, the more deferential it is to our Datang, and the more powerful a country as the Byzantine Empire is to ignore our Datang, if it were not for the impact of the Muhammad tribal alliance and the defeat, they even want us to establish diplomatic relations with it as a subordinate. ”

At the beginning of the sixth century, the strength of the Byzantine Empire was definitely the first brother in this world, and in the early days of Li Tang's founding, in terms of territory, population, and military strength, it could only rank third at most, and it was not as good as the Sassanid Dynasty of the Persian Empire with a population of 20 million, and the Byzantine Empire with a population of more than 30 million, there was a gap of two or three times.

However, now it is different, after the Tang Dynasty's territory expanded to all sides, the population also reached 30 million, almost catching up with the Byzantine Empire, and far surpassing the Persian Sassanid Dynasty, which had fallen into decline.

After the establishment of the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, the territory of the Tang Dynasty and the scope of the power of this Western power have been close at hand, and the disputes in Central Asia have been looming, because many small countries that were originally subject to the Byzantine Empire have begun to fall to the Tang Dynasty.

There is no way, who calls the Tang Dynasty rich, and in terms of policy, it basically does not exploit the areas it rules, but the Byzantine Empire, which fights with Persia every year, is tyrannical because of its own emptiness.

"Therefore, the minister rushed back ahead of schedule to remind His Majesty not to take a position among these Western forces lightly. Even, to give some support to the weaker of them, Persia. By the way, this time, the Persian crown prince Yi Hei will also come to Dingxiang to meet His Majesty. ”

For Persia, Li Shimin is no stranger, because since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Persia and the Tang Dynasty business exchanges are very frequent, however, the history of the Tang Dynasty has changed, the history of Persia, has not changed much, in the last year, they reached a peace agreement with Byzantium, returned all the property looted by the Byzantine Empire, and repaid the military expenses for several years, so that it only retained the original land, the treasury was empty enough to starve to death rats, in this weakest time, they suffered attacks from the Arabs, most of the land was lost, and the population was reduced by more than half.

Historically, the two tigers of Persia and Byzantium competed, and finally the Arabs took advantage of it, first destroying Persia, and then defeating the declining Byzantium, becoming the second empire after the Tang Dynasty.

Now, due to the early rise of the Tang Dynasty, Persia is even more in a dilemma.

Because, after Cheng Zhijie took the Western Turks, absorbed the territory of more than a dozen countries in the west in one fell swoop, and established the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, the territory of the original Tocharian State has been owned by the Tang Dynasty, which is equivalent to the thousand-mile border behind Persia, which is already directly bordered by the Tang Dynasty, and what is even worse is that the Tang Dynasty also sent a force from the Zhichong Mansion to be stationed there.

It was a well-equipped Tang army of 30,000, not to mention a surprise attack, even if it was to attack Persia proper, with the current national strength of Persia, it would not be able to resist the attack of this army at all.

Therefore, they have long sent a good letter of state to Datang, and when Datang's mission passed through Persia, they received the mission with the highest standard in China, and made up their minds to hug Datang's thighs, not hugging it! If the Tang army opened its bow left and right with the Arabs, Persia would be destroyed in an instant.

"Do you think so?"

For Ma Zhou's proposal to support Persia and let the Tang Dynasty have a buffer between the Arabs and the Byzantine Empire, Sun Xiangfu agreed, and said again, "My Tang Dynasty is now in the east, north, and south of the coastal territory, has been basically stable, but the hidden danger is larger, that is, the west, however, the west has a wide area, folk customs, and the Central Plains is very different, want to run it, not overnight, support a Persia, in exchange for ten years, or even twenty years of local development, more in line with the actual situation."

Of course, how to support, we can have a lot of means of operation, the reason why Persia can not resist the attack of the Arabs, is not because of how strong the Arabs are, but because the Persian treasury is empty, grain and grass are insufficient, if we give Persia some loans here, just to defend the land, I think the Persians should still be able to do it. ”

After all, the Arabs are a new unified regime, and its war with the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire on both fronts, relying on the support of fanatical beliefs, in fact, the fight is also more difficult, historically, they are destroyed in Persia more than ten years later, and it is only after a few decades that it poses a threat to the Tang Dynasty.

Now, the Tang Dynasty has reached the territory of the Tang Dynasty decades ahead of schedule, and the economy has surpassed the Tang Dynasty.

"Borrowing? Borrowing from country to country? ”

"Yes! As our Datang products become more and more abundant, it is only right to use them in useful places. ”

Sun Xiangfu said simply, and immediately let the ministers who worked in Shanyang during this period of time suddenly realize in their hearts, not to mention the tens of millions of acres of fertile land around Dingxiang and Shanyang, Guangbei is close to Tai'an in the west, and tens of millions of acres of fields in Shangqi and two counties will also be initially developed this year.

If the surplus grain of the Tang Dynasty is exported to Persia, it can effectively alleviate the possible overcapacity in the future, and at the same time can make this part of the grain that the Tang Dynasty itself cannot consume, and play a strong economic role.

If you borrow money, you must charge some interest, and you don't need Sun Xiangfu to explain the Tao in it, Ma Zhou thought of a mortgage strategy, and said, "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that what Lord Sun said is reasonable, we can promise to lend money to Persia to tide over the difficulties, but we must agree on the interest rate with them and sign the mortgage agreement."

That is, they borrow money from us, we charge them interest, and they need to return our corresponding money and interest according to the agreed time, of course, because they borrow from us, we will release certain grain export controls to them, so that they can use the borrowed money to purchase grain in our Datang, so that they can basically get through the difficulties. And if we can't repay it on time, we need to allocate the territory of the mortgage loan to us to pay off the debt. ”

"What if they don't pay their debts?"

As the governor of Anxi, Cheng Yanjin is naturally the most concerned about the affairs of the west, and even, he has long been eyeing the surrounding neighbors, because he has a lot of sons, the Tang Dynasty is now strong in military strength, and his military merits are very good, and he naturally wants to give all his sons a knighthood.

"Don't worry about this, they didn't borrow and didn't pay back, offended my Datang's confidence, besides, with our Datang's current strength, are you still worried that they won't repay their debts?" Ma Zhou turned to Cheng Yanjin and replied.

"Hahaha, it's better not to pay it back! It just so happened that the old man could raise troops to fight over. ”

For such a thing as lending money and collecting money, Cheng Yanjin, a ruffian guy like him, is very willing to do it, and as long as he sends troops to the west, he has to protect the capital of Anxi, this kind of feeling that no one has a fight, and only I have a sense of play, for him, it is not too good.

"The minister also thought that Ma Shilang's plan was feasible, and in addition, the minister suggested that the military core of the imperial court should be transferred to the west in the next step, and every year, more than thirty percent of the government soldiers would be transferred to the territory of the Anxi Dadu Protectorate to take turns and train, at least, not to allow people and horses like this Tubo and Pi to be discovered from the west to the territory of Beifang." Li Jing, who rarely expresses his opinions on political affairs, said.

He was the one who had led the expeditionary force through the Western Regions a few years earlier, and knew more about the chaos in the Western Regions than most of the people present, and he had a more specific understanding of the strength of the Byzantine Empire.

If Datang continues to move forward at the current pace of development, it will inevitably compete with Western forces.

"The minister seconded the proposal, most of the soldiers of my Tang Dynasty have turned professional, and only a certain amount of defensive strength needs to be retained in the locality, and most of the sergeants should be transferred to the border to take turns on duty and do adaptive training to avoid a situation where there is no conquest for a long time and a decline in combat effectiveness."

When it comes to military affairs, Du Ruhui, the secretary of the military department who has been reinstated, naturally wants to say a few words, a comfortable life is easy to make soldiers become old soldiers, which is quite a dangerous thing, and as the country becomes more and more extensive, soldiers need to be more suitable for expeditionary operations, and a wise man like him can naturally see the future development direction.