In 1006 AD, also in the Julian calendar of the West, the ruler of Eastern Rome, Basil II, was still maintaining his majesty on the northern Bulgarian lands, and the rumored theft of Constantinople did not shake his focus on force, even if some scholars left Rome or Athens, and even some people contacted the Arabs who opened Helen privately, the stubborn Basil II did not care at all.

At the beginning of the year, Abu Ali, the monarch of the Fatimid kingdom, continued to demolish Christian churches and exclude the Arabs who believed in Christ, while appointing a new minister of state, named Fernelle, who had increased the population of the Fatimid kingdom by 200,000 in the past year.

This news did not attract the attention of the Abbasid monarchs and nobles in Baghdad, who were still intoxicated by the eyes of the beautiful women, and the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were filled with the intoxicating smell of fat powder and the occasional smell of blood, which was caused by the struggle between the nobles.

A little further east, in the place of the legendary Golden Fleece, a new family that unified the vast expanses of Transcaucasia and was gradually becoming more and more prosperous, and their family name was Bagrat .

Walking down the Iranian plateau, through the salt-laked plains of Central Asia, across the towering Hindu Kush and the Green Ridge Plateau, is another scene of chaos. Everywhere, green cultists in black robes or brown robes and white robes chased and killed the tribes who believed in Buddhism, and the Khotanese kingdom, which believed in Buddhism and had stolen silkworm technology from the East, went into complete decline.

Further to the east, according to the traditional Ganzhi years of this land, the year of Bingwu is the year of Bingwu, the third year of Jingde of Zhao and Song, and the twenty-fourth year of Khitan Tonghe. Prior to this, at the beginning of the year, the emperor of the Zhao Song Dynasty had just signed an alliance with Northern Liao for peace - the Tanyuan Alliance.

The process of the Tanyuan Alliance does not need to be detailed, what is the content of the covenant? First, the emperors of the two countries are brothers, and the country is a country of brothers; second, to clarify the constraints on boundary affairs; Third, Zhao and Song provided 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 horses of silk to Northern Liao every year.

If we read the contents of this treaty in detail, we will find that the first two articles are similar to the international treaties of later generations, and in plain words, they are a face-saving job. The third is a big problem, on the surface, it seems that the Northern Liao took advantage, and the Zhao Song Dynasty had to pay a lot of money and materials to the Northern Liao every year, but in fact, the money was not seen by the wealthy Zhao Song Emperor and the scholars, and at the same time, this was also the beginning of the slackness of the Northern Liao's military and political affairs - there was no need to fight, why did you still raise so many troops? This is also the beginning of the aforementioned war between the armies of the two great powers in the East.

The most historic is the fourth article of the Tanyuan Covenant!

The matter of the field is equivalent to the official border trade port opened in later generations, and only a politically stable country can maintain the stability of this international trade market well. In the hundred years before the Zhao and Song dynasties, it was a hundred years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, and there was a chaotic war in the eastern land, and the appearance of this field stabilized the border tranquility between the Zhao and Song dynasties and the Northern Liao to a large extent.

All in all, this covenant can be said to have directly shaped the future political direction between Song and Liao, and at the same time gave the civilians living in a vast area north of the Yellow River a chance to recuperate.

In view of the weakness shown by the Emperor of Zhao Song and the scholars in the face of Northern Liao, Li Deming, a lucky boy, proposed the same arrangement to set up a field under the advice of his adviser Zhang Zhi (zhi) and others.

So after Li Jiqian's death, Li Deming's position was consolidated, but he inherited the throne for the first time, and he was desperate to further be recognized by the clan and expand his influence. This idea was good, but he listened to the joint messengers sent by the Qarluqs and the Turks, and at the same time ignored the dissuasion of his adviser Zhang Zhi and others to jointly intercept the "Dongyi" Luo team returning from the west.

But I didn't expect that there was a big deviation, and it was not the usual wild horses and yellow sheep that returned from a distant migration, but the wild wolves that were hunted.

……

To this day, Li Deming deeply realizes how reckless this willful decision was, compared to the hanged Qadir Khan, he should be very lucky to be able to save his life, but the regret in his heart is deeper than the bottomless quagmire on the grassland.

Starting from Polo City, passing through Luntai, not going to Yizhou (Hami), but through the hot Huozhou (Turpan), and then passing through Guazhou, and then passing through the north of Shazhou (Dunhuang), passing through Suzhou, Ganzhou, Liangzhou (Jiuquan, Zhangye, Wuwei), and arriving at Huizhou (Zhongwei), which lasted a month and a half, what he saw and heard along the way made Li Deming's heart flicker left and right, and there was no moment of stability.

Unlike the previous expedition to the west, when there were Turks and Qarluqs who took over the borrowing of the road along the way, this time when he returned to the east, Li Deming was almost alone, at most he was a witness to the migration. This time, he witnessed the strength and arrogance of this team, whether it was the fierce yellow-haired Uighurs or the hypocritical and cunning Cao clan of the Guiyi Army, they were all beaten by Luo Kaixian's men.

Li Deming, as a person who has already signaled his surrender, was put in the position of a bystander by someone Luo, he thought that someone Luo would borrow something from him when he passed through Suzhou and Liangzhou, and he would earn some bargaining chips for himself, but he didn't expect that his role as the leader of the party and the people's congress could not be played at all.

Luo's men were more fierce than he expected, a temporary patrol of 1,000 cavalry dared to run into 3,500 Uighur sand pirates, and could also cooperate with friendly raids to encircle and suppress, and the yellow-headed Uighurs with high noses and deep eyes were either killed or killed in the desert.

The Cao nobles of the Guiyi Army were even more unbearable, but the Cao children who took the lead were killed, and the team of thousands of people collapsed, except for the hundreds of cronies of the Cao clan who resisted desperately, the rest all surrendered, and there were very few people who could escape to Shazhou.

It was less than twenty miles away from Huizhou, and Li Deming's anxiety was even worse, and sometimes he even felt that he had no shame to see his woman and his three-year-old young son Yuan Hao, and of course, those Han staff who kept admonishing him.

The hurried horse's hoof nature approached, and a loud voice shouted in front of Li Deming: "General Li, the general has something to summon, please General Li move!" ”

"Lead the way!" Li Deming, the person who reported the news, knew that it was Dou Zucheng, a Han soldier next to Luo, who was said to have been in the military justice department for a period of time, and had just been transferred to his side recently. He, a "general" who has not made an inch, could not afford to offend, so he hurriedly agreed casually.

……

Luo Kaixian, who gave the order, was riding on the duke's back, and he was on a not very high dirt slope, and the position of the dirt slope could clearly see a trace of blue buildings in the north - that was where Huizhou was.

According to Lao Luo's original memory, this should be in a small city called Zhongwei, which is a railway transportation hub connecting North China and Northwest China, and the largest traffic choke point except for the Longhai Line Railway. Although he never stopped at this place, he didn't know how many times he passed along the way, but he ...... Although the small city in front of me is not big, it is the first city with blue brick walls I saw after coming to the east - Polo City, Luntai City, Huozhou, Guazhou, Suzhou, Ganzhou, and Liangzhou are all rammed earth walls of sand!

Through the lens of the telescope, although the small city in front of you is not as grand as the cities of later generations, it has some civilization that cannot be felt on the grassland, the kind of civilization that belongs to the East.

A sense of familiarity came up from the bottom of my heart, and most of the cities in later generations no longer have ancient city walls for the so-called urban construction, except for Chang'an, most cities have been difficult to see the traces of this cultural inheritance, but have become a thousand cities with no characteristics at all. Even after that, the bureaucrats are still boasting about how much effort they put into building the place......

Before joining the army, Lao Luo was also an angry young man, but after joining the army, he became silent, and the whining words he had with his partners when he was young were also silently hidden in his heart.

Now, when he saw such a typical Han civilization style city wall, he wanted to say something, but he felt a little unable to say anything - the people around him were either "natives" who had returned from thousands of miles or "ghosts" who came from foreign lands and had no understanding of the East.

And with whom? What to say? No one can understand the sorrow that he once buried deep in his heart, and no one can understand the changes of the bloody annihilation of the land and ethnic groups after a thousand years......

Lao Luo clenched his fists, jumped off the horse, sent the Duke to graze aside, and casually asked Alki beside him: "What is the reward from Alker's side?" ”

"Not yet, the most recent return is that he and General Min went to the outskirts of Lingzhou." Olki stood behind Lao Luo and replied respectfully, "This ...... Huizhou, Helton's side has already entered, and there is no news yet. ”

"Hmm......" Lao Luo also knew that there was nothing to worry about at this time, everything needed to be done step by step, it was useless to urge, turned his head to look at the back, and hot air balloons were floating in the air, "Did you send someone to call Li Deming?" ”

"It's already sent, it's Dou Zucheng, it's estimated that it will come soon." As the road progressed, Lao Luo's prestige became heavier and heavier, and people like Olki, who would have been very relaxed in front of Lao Luo, also became very restrained and no longer talked much.

Lao Luo didn't feel anything, under his understanding, the army should be like this, thousands of miles, more than 100,000 lives were under his orders, and there was no sloppiness.

If you want to relax, go to the private camp, or arrive at your destination and settle down, right now? No way.

However, fortunately, the destination is not very far away, it depends on whether this Li Deming can be informed and know how to cooperate, otherwise it is not impossible to let go and kill!

……………………………………………………

P.S. After a two-day break, I continued to code words. The pig's feet will begin to change from a nomad state to a peasant state, and the strategy for the East will also officially begin!

Thanks to the book friends "Don't Say Suffocate You", "wrzjj", "Farm by the Sea", "Bookworm Seeking Taoism", "kgb136" for the point coin reward!