Chapter Twenty-Eight: Shanshan City
The sun on the plateau is always so vicious, in the blue sky, the white clouds are drifting, and the clear sky can be seen everywhere in this era, but the sun that seems to be like fire in the early spring is not felt in Datang. On this alpine meadow, the sun shines like a blazing lamp, scorching and burning. But the ground was still very cold, and the accumulated snow absorbed the heat of the sun's rays, and then they melted into a puddle of snow on their own, making the land muddy and moisturizing the pastures on the plateau that the Tuyuhun people relied on.
In the snow-white environment, whether it is an eagle soaring in the sky or a person standing on a horse on the high ground, it will lose the sharpness of vision, because everywhere in the land is the same white expanse. In early spring, light snow will fall on the plateau from time to time to fill up the snow that has melted before, making spring on the plateau come very late.
On this snow-white earth, there was a procession marching, but they seemed to merge with their surroundings, they were all snow-white, and only the black earth exposed under the horseshoe prints left behind them could prove that they had been here, or that their whereabouts could be found from these clues. Li Kuan and the others walked through this vast grassland, looking for targets that could be hunted.
Each man had one or two horses by his side, carrying their booty on their backs—a bag of food and a jug of water. Although they could consume snow water, the cold snow melted in their mouths was not so good, so at the last Tuyuhun settlement, they strangled the indigenous barbarians. Each brought a pot of water. As for hiding his whereabouts, this is a ghost idea that Li Kuan came up with.
They were only about a thousand people. The tens of thousands of people who control the strings on Tuyuhun must be meat buns and dogs, and there is no return. So they have to hide their tracks, but there is a white snow everywhere, how can they hide? This is a difficult problem, but Li Kuan cleverly thought of a method, that is, the method of wrapping the body in snow-white cotton cloth is really simple, since no matter how we go, we can't avoid the snow-white snow from wherever we go, thus increasing the possibility of exposure, so why don't we turn ourselves white? As long as we are in the same color as our surroundings. And who will find us from afar?
The reason why Li Kuan had this idea was because he had seen the chameleon in later generations, so he came up with it in a flash of inspiration. Similarly, in order to prevent the neighing of the war horse from exposing Xingzang, they chewed the head of their war horse, but the horse's hooves were not tied, and the war horse was also covered with snow-white cotton cloth, leaving only ventilation holes and sight holes in the nostrils and eyes of the horse's head. Such a disguise allowed Li Kuan and his team to travel through the land of Tuyuhun without danger, and also attacked several tribes along the way, seizing a large number of bows and arrows. This provides a small guarantee for what Li Kuan wants to do in the future.
Sitting upright on horseback, feeling the cold wind blowing around him, Li Kuan's face, which only showed a pair of eyes and was covered by a black light veil, looked very gloomy, because he could feel that the Tuyuhun people had realized that something was wrong. Or even perhaps now the fleeing tribes they attacked are already crying in the land of the king's tent in Tuyuhun. In this way, their life on the grassland will be sad, because what awaits them will definitely be the crazy Tuyuhun people who are chasing and intercepting them.
As Li Kuan expected, the capital of Tuyuhun at this time. A small city surrounded by a city wall that is only two zhang high and no more than three feet thick - Shanshan City (Shanshan City is the capital of West Tuyuhun after Tuyuhun was divided into east and west. borrowed here first). This city is located in present-day Xinjiang and was built on the site of the former ancient kingdom of Shanshan. There was no splendid palace, only a cluster of low houses, and around this small city, there were tents one after another, and if the snow-white snow around them were taken for water, these gray tents would look like the shells of turtles. In the outermost part of the periphery are pens of livestock, that is, cattle pens and sheep pens, as well as several large stables. Don't you know that when they build their dwellings like this, no matter which way the wind blows, they will carry the smell of cow and sheep dung? Or do they really like the smell? Of course, this is actually a defensive formation, and there is no bad taste.
Li Kuan: They are still far from here, because they don't have a map of Tuyuhun, and many times they have taken the wrong road, or run directly from one side to the other. The territory of Tuyuhun is small and long. Therefore, if Li Kuan and the others happened to pass through the narrow side, then they would run out of the land of Tuyuhun in three or five days, which shows the small size of this country. Although it is much bigger than a super small country like the Vatican, it is still pitifully small.
"O great King Fu Yun! Your people salute you, and your wisdom is like an eagle soaring in the sky, like the snow on a holy snow-capped mountain, and you will guide us to the abyss of sin that group of demons! "A rugged man in fine leather armor was singing a hymn in praise of Murong Fuyun, the king of Tuyuhun. The king of Tuyuhun, who had succeeded his brother to the throne, was sitting in one of the most majestic two-story lofts in Shanshan City. Beside him were the leaders of the great tribes of Tuyuhun.
These people are the top leaders of Tuyuhun, and their decisions will represent the will of this nomadic people, and no matter what they do, as long as these respected chiefs speak out, then those people in the tribe will support them unconditionally. Even so many people know that if they continue to do so, they may not only bring wealth, but also disaster. However, they will still support it fanatically, because these chiefs and elders are chosen by the divine god of the snow-capped mountains, and obeying the will of the gods is the glory of every Tuyuhun. It is the responsibility of the Tuyuhun people to let God's will permeate the entire heaven and earth.
Speaking of Tuyuhun is actually also a Tibetan people, they are one of the Tibetan people, so the most prosperous Bon religion of the Tibetan people is also very important in Tuyuhun, those gods of snow-capped mountains, the gods of lakes, the gods of stones, these messy gods are extremely popular in Tibetan Bon, no matter what they are, there are gods, a river, a mountain is the embodiment of gods. Therefore, Tuyuhun also believes in these gods and is crazy about them.
However, in the end, the city of Luo on the Tibetan Plateau, where the Bon religion is based, is far away, and there are not so many gods, and there is no bad habit of burning all the remaining good things to the gods. But there is still a fanatical faith, every year many Tuyuhun people go to the Bon stronghold of the city of Luoqi, pilgrimage, with the whole family's food, along the way after the rest of the way burned to those snow-capped mountains, holy lakes and other gods.
"O mighty king, my mighty son, why do you kneel, the eagle of heaven should not break its wings, and the proud king of Zun should bend his knees and spine?" These Tuyuhun people are really speechless when they speak, especially on such a formal occasion, they talk like Wang Erniang's footsteps - long and smelly, but they feel that what they say is very good.
"The thieves from down the mountain, who have plundered the people of the great King of Fuyun and killed their lives, will surely be punished by the god of the sacred mountain and the sacred lake! But the people of King Fuyun are weeping, and their souls cannot rest in peace! The man in the gorgeous leather armor who knelt on the ground sobbed in a low voice, very sad.
"Are the thieves down the hill really powerful? Mighty King Zun, you go and bring back their heads, I believe that you are the most suitable person for bravery! Fu Yun sat on the top, took a sip of a glass of barley wine, and then said.
So the prince of Tuyuhun set off with a large number of Tuyuhun warriors, and came out of Shanshan City to find the Han thieves who were hiding, and they received news that this roaming thief was driven out by the Tang Dynasty, and the people who came to the news said that this thief did a lot of bad things in the Tang Dynasty, robbed the war horses of the Tang army, robbed the grain in the Tang army, and even robbed the military salary.
These rumors reached the ears of the top brass of Tuyuhun, who felt that this group of thieves was really strong, so they sent an army of 20,000 people to the commander of King Zun, including several warriors of the tribe that were destroyed by Li Kuan and them, and they felt that it would take so many people to be foolproof. Because of the thieves' brilliant deeds, they deserve such caution.
Li Kuan didn't expect that the news spread by Li Ersan would make him the object of key attention, otherwise he might be very depressed. Of course, he was also depressed now, because he found that there was a tribe ahead, but this tribe was surrounded by many Tuyuhun soldiers on horseback, wearing leather armor, carrying longbows, horses, wooden spears, and scimitars. There were no less than four or five thousand people, this was a large tribe that was waiting for battle, and Li Kuan and they would definitely not be able to bite it, so they could only make a detour in a depressed way. Looking at the fat on the side of the mouth, but it was not eaten with such good teeth, it really made all the wolf warriors unhappy.
"General, let's fuck this vote! After ending this tribe, we have killed almost one-fifth of Tuyuhun's population in this trip, which is about the same! Xue Wanche said on the side.
"Do this vote, you think I don't want to, but how can so many Tuyuhun soldiers do it? Are you going to give away someone's head? Li Kuan replied angrily. (To be continued......)