Chapter 80: The Yellow Head Returns to the Envoy
Kunlun Mountain to Qilian Mountain near as the Hexi Uighur settlement, south across Qinghai, north control Juyanhai, in the thousands of miles, abundant water and grass, very suitable for the development of animal husbandry, some places by the Qilian Mountains ice and snow is also very suitable for farming. For this reason, most of the Uighurs who migrated to this area were still engaged in animal husbandry, while some of them converted to agricultural inhabitants and engaged in agricultural production. The Uighur script had a direct impact on the creation of some ethnic scripts in the north and northwest, and the Mongolian script of the Yuan dynasty was created based on the Uighur alphabet and was used until the 21st century. The Manchu script promulgated by Hachi in the Qing Dynasty was created according to the Mongolian language.
The Uighurs occupied the choke points of the land communication arteries of East and West Asia and Europe, and gradually became a business-savvy people. Regardless of the war years or peacetime, they traveled to Persia and India in the west, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong in the east, especially Bianjing, Yanjing, and Shangjing, the political centers of Liao, and Linhuangfu in Shangjing, Liao. The Uighurs exchanged horses, stacked cloth, brown, oblique brown, mink skins, wild horse skins, frankincense, beads, jade, amber, agate, clay sand, iron weapons, and other goods from the five dynasties and the governments of the Song, Liao, and Jin dynasties for a large amount of copper coins, silver, silk, silk, silk, tea, and other goods, which greatly enriched the material and cultural life of the people of all ethnic groups. For this reason, Uighur merchant settlements were also established.
The Uighur Empire had disappeared in the long course of history, and the legitimate royal lineage that had been canonized by the Central Plains Dynasty had been severed in the hands of Li Yuanhao of Western Xia. More than fifty years later, a big drama arranged by the crossing crowd began to be staged.
The vast and sparsely populated countries of the Western Regions, where their national strength is weakened, have the most headache being the extortion of Liao and Xia.
Since the Great Song Empire nominally incorporated all the Tibetan tribes, the Huangtou Hui, who lived between Western Xia and Song Tubo, became depressed. In the early years, Jiaoguo Luo, who took refuge in the Qing Tang Dynasty, was absorbed by the Great Song Dynasty, Western Xia has always been a mortal enemy, and the Tubo tribes are a plate of loose sand that was bought by the Great Song Empire. The Ghochang Uighurs in the northwest, also known as the Western Uighurs, were also weakened and unable to defend themselves from the powerful eastern neighbors such as the Western Xia and Liao states and the Qarakhanid states in the west. The sad Huangtou Hui had to convey his sincerity to the Great Song Empire, the only generous neighbor.
As early as when Tubo announced its merger with the Great Song Empire, the Huangtou Hui had the intention of surrendering, but many hesitant magnates were unable to make up their minds to join the Great Song Empire for their own interests and fear of the Western Xia, the nearest powerful neighbor and suzerain.
When the Great Song Empire defeated the Xia State, changed the past situation of defeating and defending the war, and annihilated tens of thousands of elite troops of the Xia State Party Xiang clan in one go, Huangtou Hui immediately sent a high-level team of envoys to Bianjing to lose Cheng, requesting that it become a vassal or nominally merge with Tubo.
In fact, the Huangtou Hui were only a larger tribal confederation, not a unified state power. Sandwiched between the Western Xia, Gaochang Uighurs, and Tibetan tribes, the Huangtou Hui were very difficult, and the alliance of nomadic tribes, with a total population of less than 200,000, could not grow. The inevitable fate of being dependent on a certain great country is as miserable as that of countless weak nations.
More than 50 years ago, the tragic experience of being annihilated by Li Yuanhao and their weak strength made the descendants of this Uighur Khanate, whose territory and population did not hinder the overall situation, deeply aware of the necessity of holding thick legs. However, Khotan, which had long been destroyed by the Qarakhanid, did not pay tribute and friendship with the Great Song Empire in the early years, and did not exchange it for the protection of the Great Song Empire? The very contradictory envoys had to sort out their goals and thoughts on the way.
The caravan that had been arranged by the crossing people a long time ago and the representative stationed in Huangtou Hui accompanied the envoy back to Bianjing to ask for annexation, hoping to get the same treatment as the Tibetan tribes. After a lot of hints and clichés, the traversal knew the bottom line of these Uighur descendants. They could provide more vassals and tribute than the poor and manpower-scarce Tibetan tribes, and they could also give up more autonomy and benefits in exchange for the protection and garrison of the Song Empire.
It was only three months later that the traversers who received the telegram saw the envoy sent by the ancestors of the Yugur tribe, who had a tragic fate. The typical Uighur envoy wore the dark brown curls characteristic of the Uighurs, and was imbued with a strong Uighur aristocratic atmosphere. The beard, fat body, intricate gold-woven robes, blue eyes, high nose bridge, white skin and other notable features all indicate the identity and family background of this envoy.
After the envoys left, the traversers began to discuss the natural acceptance of the entire Uighur empire under the name of the weakest Uighur descendants. This envoy is a good pawn. Through the exchanges, the more they looked through the public, the more they felt that this descendant of the royal family named Yaoluo Ge Renshun should be the direct descendant of the Uighur royal family of Ganzhou who was wiped out by Li Yuanhao back then, which is very useful.
If this nobleman with a certain strength is fostered into the largest force in the Yellow Head Hui Hui, he can insert his power into the entire Western Regions, whether it is to attack the Western Xia or to lay out the northwest, it is a good chess piece. Through a set of scientific analysis, this benevolent and obedient thought is very suitable for being a chess piece, with courage and no ambition, a desire to grow the ethnic group, and no unscrupulous maneuver to betray the country for glory. This evaluation information is a good gift in the eyes of the traversal.
After reading the Yellow Head Uighurs' gift list, the traversal gave a new gift list to Renshun, and the difference between this gift list and the previous one was that in addition to the traditional Western Regions specialty, a new specialty suitable for the production of the Western Regions was added, that is, cotton. Significantly reduce the share of other gifts and increase the share of cotton to more than 30%, with a focus on cotton as a local specialty.
Before Renshun went to Bianjing, the wealthy Travelers signed a series of treaties with him in Gongxian, not only demanding control of commerce and handicrafts in the entire Western Regions, but also requiring Renshun to hand over the trade monopoly along the Qilian Mountains to the Travelers after recovering the ancestral lost places such as Guazhou and Shazhou with the help of strength. The "Treaty of the Western Regions," which completely controlled Huangtou Hui from all aspects such as politics, economy, military, culture, and religion, was released.
Politically, the Renshun and Uighur regimes must recognize their subordinate status to the Central Plains Dynasty, economically accept the national intervention and control of the economic model of the Crossing Masses, militarily resemble the relationship between the United States and South Korea, culturally accept the comprehensive Sinicization education assistance of the Crossing Masses, fully resist the invasion of Islam religiously, restore the status of Buddhism as the state religion, and a large number of cronies and subordinates who have been inserted into the Crossing Masses from various fields to become officials and high-level officials who hold power, just like the Japanese demanded of Zhang Zuolin in those years. The leaders of all real power and key departments are Japanese supervisors and consultants.
With the treaty signed, Renshun received a free aid of more than one million guan and an interest-free loan of 3 million kan, all of which he used to buy tickets and arms that circulated among the people. The ticket was to buy profiteering luxury goods to seek greater benefits and befriend the magnates of the Great Song Empire, and the arms were for self-protection and to start recovering the Huangtou Hui in the northeast of Guazhou and Shazhou after returning.
As a win-win result, Xia Guo, the only one to suffer, would not only have to suffer the pain of blood loss caused by the dumping in the next five years, but also endure the crisis of continuous loss of the northwest territory.