Chapter 274: Things in the Western Regions

Wine that has been stored for five years does not mean that it has been cellared for five years, but that it has been five years since Li Shimin gave it to be stored in the cellar. As for Li Shimin's hid for a few years when he was rewarded, Zhang Yunwen does not know.

When the crystal red and viscous wine is drawn into a thin line and falls into the wine cup, a mellow aroma of wine permeates the flower hall.

Zhang Yunwen picked up the wine cup, and when he saw it, he saw a red liquid as thick as honey. Lying quietly in the wine cup, like a piece of red jade. When I smell it at the tip of my nose, I feel a strong aroma of wine coming to my nose, rushing straight to my mind from my nose, which makes people feel shocked. I took a small sip, and all of a sudden, a slippery and sweet liquor slid across the tip of my tongue and rolled into my throat, and the long, mellow flavor echoed throughout my mouth.

After drinking wine at Li Jing's place, Zhang Yunwen and Su Dingfang left Li's Mansion and walked all the way to where Su Dingfang lived.

"What's the matter, Brother Su, is Gong Li's art of war broad and profound, unpredictable?" Zhang Yunwen sat on the horse and said to Su Dingfang, who was still in a trance.

When Su Dingfang heard this, he turned his head and smiled: "Brother Wei thinks that he has been familiar with the art of war since he was a child, he is well versed in strategy, and he fights on the battlefield, and he is the first. And now, after listening to Master's words and seeing his arrangement, I realized that I was so superficial! Alas, don't talk about it, don't say it, because my brother will definitely learn the master's skills! As he spoke, he immediately hugged his fist at Zhang Yunwen, "Thank you Yunwen for introducing me, today's grace, I dare not forget it!" ”

Zhang Yunwen hurriedly said: "Where is Brother Su, you and my brother, what are you polite!" ”

Since Su Dingfang worshipped Li Jing as his teacher, he ran to the Zuo Xiaowei Yamen where Li Jing was located in three days, and every time Zhang Yunwen came to the Yulin Wei military camp, he almost pounced, and later simply went directly to Li Daoxuan to drink and excluded Su Dingfang.

Li Daoxuan kept complaining that Su Dingfang was their Yulinwei's person, not Zuo Xiaowei.

The days flow away calmly day by day, like picking up a handful of fine sand and watching it slowly slide off your fingertips. In the blink of an eye, it was March of the sixth year of Zhenguan.

"What, Changle is getting married?" When Zhang Yunwen heard Li Yu talk about the news, he couldn't help but be slightly surprised, and the appearance of that delicate and cute little girl suddenly appeared in his mind.

"Well, the husband's family is the eldest grandson of the eldest grandson's family, and now the father and queen mother are preparing a dowry! Tell me, what kind of congratulatory gifts are we going to prepare? Li Yu asked with a smile.

Zhang Yunwen replied a little absent-mindedly: "You can arrange these things yourself!" Anyway, don't be too thin as a gift! ”

Li Yu let out an "um" and began to tilt his head to think about what gift to give.

Although he felt a little sorry for Changle's marriage, the increasing number of affairs made Zhang Yunwen quickly forget about it.

First of all, Li Shimin took his family to Jiucheng Palace in the name of wind disease, saying that it was a summer escape. Although it has begun to heat up in March, it is still a little short of escaping the heat. This is obviously Li Shimin wanting to be lazy! Zhang Yunwen said secretly in his heart.

Li Shimin is in Jiucheng Palace, not far from Chang'an, and every day the major events in the court and China are passed to Jiucheng Palace by galloping on fast horses.

Then, the investigation institute received information that Tuyuhun had invaded Lanzhou, and although it was not repelled by the garrison of the state capital, it suffered a lot of losses, especially many Han people were taken captive by Tuyuhun.

When Zhang Yunwen reported this information to Li Shimin, Li Shimin was furious in the Jiucheng Palace, saying that he had to destroy this group of Tuyuhun people!

In April, Li Shimin rushed back to Chang'an from Jiucheng Palace in a hurry, for no other reason, Xiangzhou Governor Zou Xianggong Zhang Gongjin was seriously ill. According to the Imperial Doctor, Zhang Gongjin will not live for this month. So Li Shimin rushed back to see Zhang Gongjin for the last time.

In the winter of last year, Du Ruhui, who had been sick for a long time, still failed to survive the winter that was not very cold, and died.

And now, less than five months apart, Zhang Gongjin is about to pass away again, which makes Li Shimin feel like a world away. Looking at Zhang Gongjin's haggard face, as if he saw the original Xuanwu Gate, Zhang Gongjin supported the door alone, and the gate was firmly blocked by one person. At that time, Zhang Gongjin was so majestic and mighty, and now, this thin yellow-faced man on the sickbed, where is there still a little bit of the original majesty?

When Zhang Gongjin passed away, Li Shimin wept bitterly. There is a priest who said, saying that it is unknown to cry on the day, but Li Shimin said: "The king is the minister, and the father and son are also, the love is heartfelt, and the birthday is avoided!" ”

The whole of April was clouded with gloom. In June, Li Shimin's son, Jiang Wang Li Huan, also died, and this kind of repeated blows really made Li Shimin sad for a while.

Seeing this situation, Zhang Yunwen asked Li Yu to carry the pastries he made himself to the palace to comfort Li Shimin, and Li Shimin was better off in the comfort of his children.

Fortunately, the next thing made Li Shimin start to cheer up.

In July, the king of Yanqi sent an envoy to pay tribute. Yanqi is still in the northwest of Gaochang, thousands of miles away from Chang'an, and the original tributary road must pass through the vast desert and thousands of miles of moraine. However, since the end of the Sui Dynasty, the tributary road of Yanqi has been closed, and the missions to and from Yanqi and Chang'an must pass through Gaochang.

This time, the envoy paid tribute and proposed to Li Shimin that he hoped to reopen the moraine road without going through Gaochang.

Li Shimin, who sold the crossbow machine to Gaochang, pondered for a while, then agreed to the request of the Yanqi envoy and decided to reopen the moraine.

The envoy of the Yanqi Kingdom immediately retreated with joy.

However, the matter was not over, and it didn't take long for the investigation institute to come with news, saying that Gao Chang was not angry with Yanqi and Datang to reopen the road, and actually sent troops to attack Yanqi and plundered away.

Hearing the news, Li Shimin immediately said angrily: "Lu Wentai is capricious, in front of my Datang, he is extremely deferential, and he did this kind of thing behind Datang's back!" ”

At the same time, he also said to Zhang Yunwen: "Yunwen, look at it, then Lu Wentai got my crossbow machine, so he acted recklessly, attacked more than once, and now he is plundering the subject countries of the Tang Dynasty, which is really arrogant!" ”

Zhang Yunwen said with a smile: "Your Majesty, why should you be angry, this Lu Wentai is just a clown who jumps off the beam, and now he has made enemies on all sides and disrupted the entire Western Regions, isn't this what we want to see?" ”

Li Shimin thought for a moment and nodded.

Information about the Western Regions came from time to time, and whenever Zhang Yunwen got this information, he would run to Li Shimin as soon as possible and present the information.

First of all, as Zhang Yunwen said, in order to consolidate his khan position, he sent troops to conquer. And the target of the conquest was Xue Yantuo.

The Western Turkic army set out from the royal court, led by the Khan of Yehu Khan, and absorbed all the troops and horses along the way, and when it reached the north of Gaochang, it had gathered nearly 100,000 soldiers and horses. Remembering that when he borrowed Gaochang, Gaochang King Lu Wentai treated himself like this, and the narrow-minded and retributive Ye Hu immediately decided to divide part of his forces to attack Gaochang, even if he couldn't destroy Gaochang, he would be afraid of Gaochang, and he would personally come to kowtow and apologize.

So 20,000 soldiers and horses, led by a general, went to Gaochang City to kill.

However, Ye Hu didn't know that Lu Wentai had purchased 3,000 crossbow machines from the Tang Dynasty, so the Western Turkic army still looked at the Gaochang army with the same eyes as before, and still used the previous tactics to deal with Gaochang, but the Gaochang crossbowmen relied on the city wall to attack, and the crossbow arrows rushed straight towards the Turkic soldiers who were riding around the city and waiting for the opportunity to shoot, shooting them off their horses.

The leading general hurriedly ordered the soldiers to retreat and reorganize the attack.

The Western Turkic soldiers, who knew the power of Gaochang's crossbow arrows, rushed into Gaochang City in a scattered formation this time, and countless feathered arrows flew into Gaochang City.

The crossbow arrows, bows and arrows in Gaochang City also returned fire, and countless arrows exchanged back and forth on Gaochang City, colliding together, sounding the sound of "clanging bells", sending out bursts of dazzling sparks.

They fought from the afternoon to the evening, until both sides were exhausted, and the Turks retreated. Counting the number of people, it was found that in today's battle, 3,000 iron horsemen were lost. The Turkic generals who led the army were immediately hateful, angry and afraid. What he hated was why Gao Chang had a large number of crossbow machines, and he was angry that he was angry that he would lose so many people and horses, and what punishment he would receive in front of Ye Hu, so he was worried.

On the second day, the offensive continued. From early to noon, nearly four thousand people were lost. The Turkic general finally realized that he was carrying out an impossible task and had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

On the other side, the 80,000 army led by Ye Hu encountered the 100,000 Xue Yantuo army led by Yi Nan, and the two sides immediately launched a fierce battle on the grassland. This battle lasted for two days, and it was really a river of blood and a mountain of corpses.

The final result was that 10,000 of the 80,000 troops of the Wild Leaf Protector were killed and 30,000 captured, and the remaining 40,000 troops fled westward. And Yi Nan's losses were also quite a few, 100,000 Xue Yantuo elites were killed in battle, 8,000 were killed, and 20,000 were wounded.

However, the matter was not over, after returning to the royal court with the remnants of the army, he was killed because of the highest merit of Yili Khan, on the grounds that he was not of his race. As a result, the various tribes gradually became more and more centrifugal to the leaves. Later, Ye Hu was jealous of Mo Heshe's son, and wanted to kill him in private. The mud who got the news ran away and escaped.

Finally, the strategy of the wild leaf protection caused the tribe to revolt, and the two departments of the Beida official and the crossbow lost Bibi sent troops to attack the wild leaf protection, and the wild leaf guard rode to Kangju, and soon died in Kangju. And the Turks welcomed back the mud in Yanqi and established him as Khan and Dulu Khan.

When Ni Yu ascended the throne, he was faced with a shortage of Western Turkic soldiers, and Gaochang and Xue Yantuo sent small armies from time to time to attack certain tribes of the Western Turks. So Ni Yu decided to send an envoy to Datang to ask for an annex.

In October of the sixth year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin sent Honglu Shaoqing Liu Shanyin to establish Lu as Xi Lilu Khan.

The Western Regions have temporarily returned to tranquility.