Xiqiang can be said to be an ancient people.

Some people have even said that the Qiang people and the Han people were the same people at the earliest, and later the Chinese ancestors moved east from the west, so they gradually became far apart.

Tang Jian didn't believe in such a statement, thinking that it was just a deliberate fabrication by later generations, just like the Huns were also after the Three Emperors and Five Emperors.

He also believes that the Qiang people are the native people who originated and grew up in Western Xinjiang.

From the time of the pre-Qin period to the present, especially in the Han Dynasty, the Hundred Years War of the Han and Qiang has shattered the dream of the rise of the Qiang people. Since then, the Qiang have not had a chance to rise up.

Until now, there are many qiangs, but none of them can rise, and they have long been reduced to second-rate or even third-rate frontier barbarians.

Tubo on the plateau was far inferior to Xiqiang, but Tubo worked very hard, the efforts of generations of people, continuous strangulation and conquest on the plateau, annexing small states and tribes, and finally broke through the isolation between the Central Plains, although the plateau has not yet been completely unified, but people have dared to directly call the Great Qin.

Xiqiang, who was originally isolated between Tubo and the Central Plains, instead attached themselves to a former third-rate son like Tubo at this time, which was simply losing the glory of their ancestors.

You know, Xiqiang was once a first-class barbarian who was as powerful as the Beihu people on the grassland, but now he has been reduced to the point of serving Tubo as a servant army, if their ancestors knew, they would not be allowed to get up from the ground and die again?

Tang Jian was on a mission this time, and he sent Xiqiang to the south, from Chang'an, crossed the Sanguan, crossed the Qinling Mountains, entered Hechi County of Bahan Road, and then went south along the Jialing River, passed through Shunzheng County and Yicheng County, and then went west in Guangyuan, passed through Pingwu County, entered Tongchang County, and reached the bottom of the Snow Mountain.

Along the way, the farther west you go, the more desolate you feel.

The war at the end of the Sui Dynasty also affected Shu. Although the flames of war did not burn directly here, there were also many bandits and rebels rising in Shu, not to mention that Qiang Rong took advantage of the chaos to invade the east.

Since the Qiang people invaded the border, many familiar Qiang in the counties of Shu have also become tense with the Han people. For thousands of years, countless Qiang tribes have failed to annex the Central Plains, or moved to the Central Plains after being conquered by the Central Plains.

In fact, many Qiang people have already become naturalized citizens, but the Qiang people still retain some old customs to a greater or lesser extent, and even in some remote places, many Qiang people still live in the form of tribes.

It is said that Shu Road is difficult, and it is difficult to go to the blue sky.

But from Hanzhong to Shu, there are several important roads, all of which have plank roads, which are not particularly difficult. But after arriving in western Sichuan, this is called the road difficult, and sometimes there is no road at all.

Over the mountains and mountains, through the river and the stream, there is only a sheep intestine trail.

Many roads could not pass through the carriage and horses, and could only go to the kind of bantam pony in Shudi, and the goods could not be carried, and they were all transported by ponies.

Because there are many Qiangrong in western Sichuan, there is also border trade here, among which the main one is to use horse tea, and salt to make fur.

The tea sold to the Qiang people is the most inferior tea, the tea leaves are picked after the rain before the Ming Dynasty, and when there are only some old leaves left in the back, the tea people cut off the old leaves with the tender branches, and then after steaming and pressing, they become tea bricks.

This kind of black tea brick, the Central Plains people disdain to drink, the Central Plains ordinary people disdain to drink, but sold to the Qiangrong herdsmen, who mainly milk and meat, are very popular with them, and they can be sold at a high price.

However, it is extremely difficult to transport these tea and salt and other things, and every tea brick and every bag of salt must be transported by horse. Because of the demand for border trade, there are also several tea horse roads in western Sichuan.

On this tea horse road, the profession of horse gangs also arose, and they specialized in running tea horse roads and trafficking goods for merchants. The border is very chaotic, there are many caravans on the tea horse road, and there must be no weak force, otherwise it may be difficult to protect the goods.

Therefore, these caravans have the nature of a dart team.

Tang Jian came this time, is to pretend to be a Central Plains tea merchant, he hired a well-known local horse gang in Pingwujiang Oil City, carrying hundreds of boxes of goods, heard that he was going to the west of the snow mountain, the horse gang dispatched more than 100 people to escort the goods.

The price of this caravan was very high, but Tang Jian readily agreed.

He didn't go to the local county to transfer troops, because he didn't want to expose his identity, and intended to enter the party as a businessman first, and then find an opportunity to lobby for Zhao'an to persuade him to surrender.

The caravan first went north along the Fujiang River in Jiangyou, and after entering Tongchang, they could only go over the mountain.

When crossing the snowy mountain, Tang Jian suffered a lot, the snow on the snowy mountain was not waistless, even the most familiar horse gang, over this snowy mountain, it took half a month, and he lost more than a dozen horses in the middle.

Fortunately, the people of the horse gang were very conscientious and professional, although they lost more than a dozen horses, but they took off the goods from the horses, divided them into packs, and carried them on their backs, and forcibly transported all his goods across the mountain.

At the foot of the west side of Snow Mountain, the horse gang replenished a batch of dwarf horses and got back on the road.

Tang Jian and his entourage came all the way to Jiacheng County on the bank of the Luojiang River.

I saw a small city in the distance on the hill on the bank of the Min River, and the city was very small.

Especially not many people are visible.

At the bottom of the mountain and by the river, you can see that the occasional passing people are also some Qiang people, and these are just very common to see the horse gang coming. Some people rode down from the city below the mountain, greeted them from afar, and spoke Chinese.

The head of the Zhao team of the horse gang told Tang Jian, saying that these Qiang people are Baishui Qiang, also called Deng Zhiqiang, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, these small Qiang who originally lived by the Baishui River rose, and gradually occupied the area of the Minjiang River today, and later Deng Zhiwang was a vassal to the Northern Wei Dynasty, and was canonized as General Longxiang and Deng Zhiwang.

Later, Deng Zhiwang was also awarded the history of Yizhou Thorn and the founder of Gansong County.

Baishuiqiang became the attached familiar Qiang, but later defeated by the Shengqiang in the west, Deng Zhiwang fled to Chang'an, and Yuwentai of the Western Wei sent a general to lead troops to escort him home, but his power declined, and later his land was taken over by the Northern Zhou army.

Bai Shuiqiang also gradually integrated into the Han people and became a household Qi people.

At the end of the Sui Dynasty, Dangxiang Qiang invaded and captured the lands west of the Snow Mountain, and the Han people fled to Shuzhong, but Baishuiqiang directly attached to Dangxiang. Now the Dangxiang Qiang people occupy this place, but many places use these white water Qiang to assist in governance.

Bai Shuiqiang, who came down from the mountain, is now a soldier of the party members, and he is very happy about the horse gang that came, since the beginning of this year, there have been very few horse gangs coming, let alone such a large-scale horse gang.

The head of the horse gang came over with the white water Qiang man and introduced him to the owner of the goods, Lao Tang.

Tang Jian claimed to be Tang Ping from Hanzhong, a tea merchant. In the past, I used to sell tea to Yunnan, but this year is the first time I came here, and I want to see the market here and open up a new market.

That Bai Shuiqiang didn't care about this remark, he only cared about what goods he brought.

"Tea leaves, a whole hundred boxes, one hundred and twenty catties each."

The Qiang man began to count with his fingers, but after counting for a long time, he couldn't figure out how many catties there were.

Tang Jian smiled and said, "It's 12,000 catties of tea." ”

"So much tea, how many horses do you have to change." The Qiang man's eyes widened, "You have this tea from Hanzhong?" ”

"Well, it's not, I'm from Hanzhong, but this tea is picked from Shu, and it's Shu tea."

The tea traded with the Qiang tea and horses in the southwest is basically taken from Shu, which is a problem of transportation costs.

"Go into the city, and I'll take you there."

As a result, Tang Jian didn't move, "I want to sell this tea to Xishan." ”

"Nishiyama? It's not easy to go over there, or you can simply sell the tea to my general, and there will be a good horse for you. As soon as Bai Shuiqiang heard that he was going to Xishan, he immediately persuaded him.

But Tang Jian was unmoved, and said that if your general wants to buy tea, I can give you twenty boxes.

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