Considering the delicate relationship between the governor's office and the subordinate counties, Yang Chong generally kept Cui Zhen in daily contact with the counties in the Western Regions, and Yang Chong's main focus was on Tuntian, Zhao'anqiang, and Helan Mountain. Tuntian looks simple, but in fact, if it does not solve the problem of more than 100,000 Qiang people and Zahu in the Qilian Mountains and Qinghai Lake, everything is not to be discussed, and it may be said that a group of people will come out at any time to rob the soldiers and civilians in Tuntian and the grain in the fields.

Therefore, Yang Chong believes that the success or failure of Tuntian depends on the treatment of the Qiang people in Qilian Mountain and Qinghai Lake, and it is impossible for the Turks and Tuguhun to cross the defense line and cross thousands of miles to grab grain, and the most likely is the tribe of the Qiang people; A small tribe has only three or five hundred people, and the most people reach six or seven thousand, nomadic and wandering everywhere, not only attacking the Han people, but also showing no mercy to Tuguhun, no food, cattle and sheep robbing.

The role of Tuoba Qiang and Xi Feng Qiang was shown at this time, and according to the requirements of the Governor's Office, they sent batch after batch of messengers to contact the Qiang tribes they knew, first to discuss trade, and then officials sent by the Governor's Office to negotiate the settlement. Yang Chong was only placed in two situations, one was to give up the independence of the tribe like Tuoba Qiang, and everything was arranged by the Great Sui, and it could be directly placed in large and small castles.

The other was to retain their independence, so Yang Chong asked the tribes to find one or several abandoned castles to live in, and the governor's office gave officials according to the number of people and the territory, and sent officials to assist in management. If you want the governor's government to pay for the construction of forts and villages, you need to have a commodity exchange, or work for the Hexi Commercial Bank to pay off the debt.

Yang Chong specially set up a special Qiang Governor's Office, appointed Li Wenxin as the Qiang Commander, and only Yang Ze waited for less than one-third of the hundreds of people who came from Chang'an to have actual official positions, Yang Chong recruited a hundred officials from the remaining people on a voluntary basis, and stuffed them into the Governor's Mansion, responsible for dealing with Qiang tribes one by one. At the same time, the cavalry of each county kept attacking the unwilling Qiang and Zahu, and wiped out or drove away their opponents.

Meng Tuo and Li Wenxin proposed a plan for nine cities, starting from Shanshan Town and extending to Qinghai Lake, which was the place where the Tuyuhun people had taken refuge many times, with Angcheng, Bailan and other cities, except that the fertility of the soil was a little worse, and the conditions of Chishui City were similar. Originally, because these places were the territory of the Western Regions, they were not suitable for development, but now with the establishment of Jimo County and Shanshan County, it has become the inland of the Great Sui.

Yang Chong carefully calculated on the map, it should be the Qaidam Basin, there are rivers nearby, and the water source is sufficient, so he agreed to the plan. However, considering the attitude of Liu Quan of Qinghai County, he did not want to stimulate Chang'an, Yang Chong asked Li Wenxin to go step by step, first build two forts near the border of Shanshan County, and for the territory of Qinghai County, it is still mainly based on exploration, and encourage the Qiang people to build themselves.

From Yang Chong's current point of view, Qinghai County is only for stability, and Helan Mountain is the focus of development. Helan Mountain is majestic, if a group of horses gallop, Helan Mountain is 500 miles long from north to south, and 60 miles wide from east to west. From Wuwei to Helan Mountain, there is a Tengger Desert in between, in the depths of the desert there are green salt, white salt, red salt, black salt farms, although salt production began in the Han Dynasty, but now the Turks do not care about the salt farms, but value the deep mountains of Helan Mountain and the pastures in the east.

This is similar to history, the salt field of Helan Mountain reached the Northern Song Dynasty, and was only noticed by the world after being developed by the Western Xia people, and later became one of the thirteen major salt fields in the country. Yang Chong understood that this was a greater opportunity than Qinghai County, Helan Mountain seemed to be the food of the Turks' tiger's mouth, but it was simpler than Qinghai County, as long as the Turks nodded; Unlike the vicinity of Qinghai Lake, in addition to the Great Sui and Tuyuhun people, there are also Qiang tribes who don't know how many, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands, which makes people unguardable.

The main peak in the north of Helan Mountain comes down, all are more than two thousand meters high, the mountain is steep, and it is abruptly flattened down at the Chimukou, the terrain of the pass is very open, it is an important passage for the plateau to enter the plain, Beidi County and Lingwu County are there. At that time, the Han Dynasty could not gain a foothold in Helan Mountain, precisely because Beidi County was the main residence of the Qiang people, and these Qiang people who had been converted to obedience had more and more population and stronger and stronger power, but their political status was very low, and they suffered from the political oppression and economic exploitation of local officials and slippery ruffians.

The final fuse was that in the first year of Yongchu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Empress Dowager Deng was in power and decided to withdraw the governor of the Western Regions and Tian Shu to the interior, so she recruited the Qiang people from Jincheng, Longxi, and Tianshui to cover with the army. The conscripted Qiang people were afraid of being far away from home, and could not go home, so they fled one after another near Jiuquan, and the imperial court ordered the nearby counties to send troops to intercept them, and also set fire to all the houses of the Qiang people along the way, and finally the Qiang people were forced to resist, and Beidi County had to move to the county three times.

The current Beidi County is no longer the original Beidi County, moved from Gansu to Shaanxi in later generations, the population difference is even more, in the heyday of the Han Dynasty, Beidi County 19 cities, a total of 64,000 households, 210,000 people; In the first year of the Sui Dynasty, Ningzhou was changed to Beidi County, under the jurisdiction of Huayuan, Tongguan and Xuanping counties, and the county was governed in Ding'an County, with a total of 4,700 households and 28,000 people. Yang Chong's idea was to restore the location of Beidi County in Gansu and clamp the ownership of Helan Mountain together with Wuwei County.

Yang Chong made a plan to add four counties, Xiaogu County in Dunhuang, Lijing County in Zhangye, Xuanwei County and Yuanwei County in Wuwei, these four counties are all counties that have appeared in Hexi since the Qin and Han dynasties, the old cities of Lijing County and Yuanwei County are all there, Lijing County was incorporated into Fanhe County during the Kaihuang period, and there are more than 3,000 residents around Lijing City; The county town of Yuanwei was ruined by the war, and there were only more than 200 residents in the city, and it became a castle where caravans rested.

The reason why Yang Chong re-established Lijing County was because of the discovery of iron ore, which required a special person to be responsible, in fact, the copper ore discovered in Lijing County; Yang Chong remembered that the Jinchuan nickel mine was in the fault zone on the south side of Longshou Mountain, and Yang Chong did not count on the excavation of nickel, and he never had this ability, but generally the large ore belt is a fold belt, the stratum is completely exposed, and the mineral resources are abundant, so Zhang Guolao took Fang Chou and Qiao Hu to explore, the two iron ores are poor iron ore, and Zhang Guolao found a copper ore mixed with gold and silver.

Yang Chong's old trick was repeated, and once again let Hexi Commercial Bank buy this area and wait for the opportunity to develop; When Zhang Guolao went to Xuanwei County to inspect the salt pans and coal, he unexpectedly brought back graphite to Yang Chong. Yang Chong couldn't wait for the steps of Xuanwei County, and immediately asked Luo Shixin to lead the army to clear the horse thieves in that area, and Kou Jiuhui personally led the team to transport back dozens of truckloads of graphite and start using it in the steel mill.

(End of chapter)