Chapter 310 Daluntai

"The north wind swept the white grass and folded, and the snow flew in August, and suddenly it was like a night of spring breeze, and thousands ......of trees and pear blossoms bloomed."

In early winter, the temperature has dropped below freezing. In the snowflakes, warm a pot of hot wine, and watch the turtle dancers sing and dance, but it is also a pleasure.

Wang Pu enjoyed the qiē in front of him, and he was a little suspicious that this was really the bitter cold Western Regions in his previous impression.

When setting off from Yanjing, Zhang Mai asked two personal secretaries to choose to stay - he wanted to take one to the Western Regions and leave one for Guo Fen to deal with the relevant documents, but Li Fang, who had followed him for a long time and had gradually taken root in Hebei, chose to stay, and Wang Pu, as a new returnee, still needed to win meritorious deeds, so he decided to come to the Western Regions with a strong willingness to take risks - in the impression of the Central Plains scholars, to rush to the Western Regions thousands of miles, it was necessary to risk a certain amount of life.

When passing through Yedu, Zhengzhou and Liangzhou, Zhang Mai will always stay for a period of time to hold an examination, the object of the examination is a young man of twenty-five, the content of the examination is to be able to recite a classic, or read through the history, or be able to understand more than one of the 19 kinds of "Shixue", considering the current cultural status quo of Shilin, the quota of the two categories of Jingxue accounts for one-sixth, and the "Shixue" category accounts for two-thirds, and the young people who are under the age of 25, literate and hyphenation, have flexible brains and strong bodies, and should be selected from them. He wants to take him to the Western Regions for some training.

Although we all know that it is difficult and hard to go to the Western Regions, but in the name of Zhang Mai, with the will to have the opportunity to approach the Supreme in the future from Longxixing, thousands of people still came to the three places, and the readers of Shandong have never only read the scriptures and history, but the upper is good, and the lower will be very bad, everyone knows that Zhang Mai likes to understand the people who understand "Shixue". These readers have a high level of Chinese and IQ, and it is not difficult to master a practical study in the next painstaking effort.

Yedu radiates Hebei and Shandong, and the selected students have the highest cultural experience, Liangzhou radiates Hexi and Guanzhong, and the selected students are the most brave, and Zhengzhou radiates Hedong and Henan. The situation is somewhere in between - sure enough, it fulfills the old saying: Kanto is the prime minister, and the Kansai is the general.

These three exams were publicized two months in advance, and finally 300 people were selected, the average age was less than 20, the youngest was only 15 years old, 300 students were organized into a battalion, all of which were led by veterans who had fought for thousands of miles, and finally Wang Pu was appointed as the governor of the battalion. It's a lot of hard work along the way!

What's more, from the selection examination in Yedu to Dunhuang, Zhang Mai has never appeared in the student camp, which makes many students who are dedicated to the dragon feel disappointed.

The 100 students in Yedu fell ill when they walked to Liangzhou, Zhang Mai stayed in Liangzhou for a long time, they happened to recuperate, and when they started again, more than a dozen people asked to quit. Zhang Mai is not reluctant. The coil was issued and repatriated on the spot.

And so on all the way. There are people left behind all the way, and when they arrive in Dunhuang, only half of the students in the Kanto region are left, but none of the students in the Kanto region have been left behind - the northwest is a place of martial arts, let alone in the past ten years. Hexi is even more civil and military under the education system of Tiance, and no one who dares to go to Liangzhou to take the exam lacks courage, and for these people, walking from Liangzhou to Shazhou is actually just a longer journey.

Dunhuang further northwest. No one is left behind. After the people of the student camp crossed the Tianshan Mountains and arrived at Luntai, Zhang Mai finally came to the student camp, and Wang Pu counted the number of people, and only two hundred and thirty-four people remained.

But at this time, more than 200 people are no longer the polite students when they first set out, the wind, frost, snow and rain along the way, all the faces have become dark and solid, plus a military uniform, if you don't explain, the herdsmen along the way will definitely not see that these people are from the scribes.

Zhang Mai only showed up at this time, and smiled at the more than 200 gray-faced young students: "From Yedu to here, there is no war all the way, just walking." People who can't even walk the road still want to be slaughtered by officials? I think it's better to go home and give them a pain for their parents. ”

The soldiers of the full camp couldn't help laughing when they heard it, and the resentment along the way was swept away in the laughter!

Although the marshal's words are a joke, they are secretly philosophical, and more importantly, there is a subtext in this sentence: those who can't stand it are eliminated, and if they can stand here now, they are the winners! Some people even faintly thought that the journey of 10,000 miles from Yedu to here was clearly another exam!

Not to mention that they have come all the way, whether it is knowledge, mind or mind have reached a higher level, for a person's growth, walking thousands of miles and reading thousands of books can never replace each other.

Zhang Mai waited for everyone to laugh and stopped, and then said: "Later, we will enter Luntai City, after the ceremony of entering the city, you will act separately, or three people, or five people, go to all parts of the Western Regions to investigate what you want to investigate, learn what you want to learn, I don't care about the specifics, in short, act according to your hobbies, this investigation and study can be a few months, or a few years, after you have completed your investigation and study, you will see and experience to form a strategy, this policy is submitted directly to me, I will discuss your origin according to this." For each soldier, I will appoint a sergeant to do close protection, and if there is a particularly dangerous and valuable operation, you can ask the Luntai garrison to send troops to assist. Well, bathe, change clothes! Come with me into town! ”

More than 200 people bathed outside the city, walked such a long way, all of them were used to "do their own food and clothing", boiling water boiled by themselves, and after burning, they were properly combed, at this time Ma Xiaochun asked people to send robes, which were tailor-made cotton clothes for them by tailors in Liangzhou, and the wide robes and slow sleeves of all colors were the style of the Holy Gate from Qufu, the most orthodox Confucian robes, which were divided into six styles of ritual music and books.

If you only know how to read poetry and books all day long, wearing these clothes, or there is a malaise, Confucius said: "Literature is better than quality, then history, quality is better than literature, and literature is courteous, and then gentlemen." "At the end of the later generations, Confucianism called himself a gentleman, but he didn't know how to exercise, he didn't know martial arts, and he who was better than his quality could only be called a historian, and as for those who had literature but no quality, he could only be called a nerd.

And more than 200 people have gone through the elimination and trial of thousands of miles, and when they arrived here, they were all strong and strong, and their spiritual outlook was masculine and elegant, and there was a sense of convincing force in their elegance.

The veterans who watched these students make a fool of themselves along the way were originally just making fun of them. Until this time, when I saw such a polite and polite momentum, I couldn't help but be in awe - if a person with cultural literacy goes through training and knows martial arts, the realm that can be achieved is beyond the reach of pure martial arts.

Zhang Mai saw that more than 200 people had changed into robes, nodded with satisfaction, and said, "Let's get in the car." ”

Over the years, Guo Wei has been needed for war. Let Liangzhou build a lot of various chariots, these thirty-six antique chariots are provided by Guo Wei, at the moment the students wearing royal money drove, everyone else is sitting in the car, Zhang Mai rode on the throne of sweat and blood in front, thirty-six carriages followed by two wings, and then there is the Modao battle axe array and the eagle Yang, sweat and blood armies.

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When Zhang Mai arrived in Luntai, the new immigrants from northern Shanxi had settled here for more than three years, and the most difficult days had passed. Now that the bitterness is coming, I heard that Zhang Mai is touring the west, and the Han people who stayed in the Western Regions and moved here are all excited!

"The marshal has toured the west!"

"The marshal has come to see us!"

"After all, the marshal didn't forget about us!"

The so-called "Qiang flute, why complain about the willows, the spring breeze does not pass the jade gate"!

The emperor sat far away in the capital of the Central Plains, and no matter how many holy decrees he gave him, it was not as good as coming directly to the northwest to make people really moved!

And the Hu people also responded enthusiastically, after all, Zhang Mai's reputation as "Heavenly Khan" is not false, but how many wars have been fought through guò! This mark of blood and iron is the most deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. It is difficult to erase the time of several generations, and if the Han people are full of admiration and affection for Zhang Mai. Then they were in awe of Zhang Mai - several wars in the Western Regions, the overwhelming conquest of Mobei, they were all piled up with human heads, and no Han emperor who could defeat the powerful Hu regime had ever been here - even the first Han emperor known as the Heavenly Khan, Tang Taizong!

So as soon as Zhang Mai arrived, Luntai City was almost a sensation in the whole city, and no matter Hu Han, he came out of the city to greet him.

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Xue Fu served as the commander-in-chief of this western tour. presided over this ceremony to enter the city, the power of the Mo sword and the battle axe, and the vigor of the eagle's sweat and blood are all needless to say, everyone has heard of it in the text, but this time the city has caused the greatest shock to the Luntai people. Instead of these tens of thousands of troops, but the hundreds of humble scribes who stepped down from the wagons!

When the Throne of Sweat and Blood arrived outside the city, the chariot slowed down, and the people of Luntai tasted the hundreds of young people sitting on the thirty-six carriages with a new curiosity, they had seen a lot of powerful cavalry, and Tiance's iron cavalry was at most a little stronger, but these young people had a temperament that the Hu people of the Western Regions had never seen.

"This is a scholar from China!"

The conquest of force brings awe, which can establish the foundation of rule, while the influence of culture can bring the branches and leaves of admiration, and contains the possibility of long-term rule and integration.

After the chariot entered the city, more than 200 soldiers stepped down from the chariot, and Yili followed behind Zhang Mai. Even the pace of their walking makes people seem to see a kind of musical beauty with vision - integrating "etiquette" into daily words and deeds, which is one of the biggest characteristics of Han culture, and the reputation of "the state of etiquette" is not a lie!

This kind of walking ritual was proposed by Shandong scholars and summarized by Wei Renpu, all the scholars practiced when they were in Liangzhou, but after the Liangzhou practice was completed, Xue Fu went to see a rehearsal and came back and gave two evaluations: "elegant" and "weak"!

But after these thousands of miles of experience, at this time, hundreds of scholars saluted again, and even Xue Fu, who was in charge of the overall situation in the back, couldn't help but secretly admire!

Different from the rigor of the Mo Sword Formation, the fierceness of the Eagle Yang Army, and the vigor of the sweat and blood horse, although the students' salute steps are slow and not as strong as the battle steps, they have another kind of internalized power!

After Zhang entered the city, he met with the leaders of the army, all ethnic groups and various towns, and also enjoyed the singing and dancing of various ethnic groups, and then the students who had been prepared for a long time also performed some programs, among which two Kaifeng students performed cross talk, which caused all kinds of laughter present, two Dengzhou scholars performed the Qin Se ensemble, the tune is the sound from the south of the Yangtze River, and there is a Kansai student who performed the Dong Xiao solo song, but it is the Qiang sound outside the plug, the Hu tune of the northwest can certainly resonate with most of the people present, and with Wu Yin's song "Yebo Fengqiao", While arousing the homesickness of new immigrants, it also made the Hu people in the Western Regions yearn for the distant Gusu even more.

Then there is the appearance of a group of famous singers brought by Zhang Mai from Yanjing - the performing arts of the Central Plains, which has both the prompting of private commercial needs and the guidance of Zhang Mai behind the scenes, and now finally developed an excerpt of the scene. Now this product is still a long way from the Kunqu Opera and Peking Opera that Zhang Mai knows, but the music combined with playing and singing, and the performance of martial arts are integrated into a familiar story, and then shown on the stage. This is the first time that such an art form ahead of its time has been made in the Western Regions!

This group of singers has already caused a sensation when they performed in Yanjing this year, and now they are showing their heroism in Luntai, and everyone present is fascinated.

The banquet ended in more than half of the participants getting drunk and staggering, during which there were Qiuzi dancers secretly sending autumn waves to Shandong scholars, and there were also Qiuzi Hao clans who wanted to recruit a scholar as a son-in-law! After this evening, all kinds of legends about Chinese literature and art spread through the trade routes of the Western Regions, and the students, after taking off their dresses, dispersed in groups to carry out the various investigations that Zhang Mai had confessed. Even Wang Pu himself. was also sent out by Zhang Mai to investigate.

"You are the camp supervisor of the student camp, and you should lead by example."

To be honest, most people, including Wang Pu himself, don't know what they should investigate, so for most people, the most important thing at the moment is to figure out what they want to do, of course, they haven't completely let go at the beginning. Everyone still gathers in the Luntai area to walk the streets and alleys and ask about the people's livelihood and folk customs here. Inquire a little about military and political affairs.

In the end, Wang Pu decided to focus his investigation on the immigration policy of the Western Regions. He organized a few students with similar temperaments to himself and began to act.

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Luntai is no longer the wheeling platform of the past. This military city, which was originally built by the Khitan and Hui people, has now changed greatly.

The Daluntai area, centered on Luntai City, is the most important ruling area of the New Tang Dynasty at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains in the Western Regions, with an area of 50,000 square miles and 400,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the area. and more than five million acres of pasture.

At the beginning, Tiance established the Western Regions, and the Han people in the Western Regions gradually "emerged", and the influence of the Han and Tang dynasties of immigrants had not yet died out at this time. Many of them have changed their Han nationality, and the people who moved in from Lianglan Guasha in Gansu Province are enough to support a small city in Luntai.

Therefore, the reason why Yang Yi chose to garrison and train here is also because he can get logistics supplies from here.

When the rebellion in northern Jin Province began, the Yang Zhe family led hundreds of thousands of refugees to move westward, a large part of which settled down along the way, and only a few hundred thousand people finally arrived in Luntai. After arriving in Luntai, most of the people were arranged in the Daluntai area, and some people were arranged to other Han people-only settlements.

For the resettlement of these people, the Tiance regime gave considerable policy tilt to support, and almost all the empty land of thousands of miles at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains was used to resettle them.

In addition, because most of the women and children who died of illness or fell behind on the road were old and weak, and when they arrived in Luntai, the proportion of young and strong people was quite high, so the Tiance regime tried to marry wives for them, and those who could get Han women would take Han women, and those who could not get Han women would take Hu wives. The Han people are now powerful, and these people are destined to have large tracts of land, so Hu Nu is also willing to marry them. And those children who have lost their parents are also raised by those who are willing to raise them. In terms of household registration, the newly formed family followed the head of the family and injected Han nationality. In the end, this round of immigrants settled a total of 80,000 households in the Daluntai area, 230,000 people, plus the original Han population, the number of Han people in the Daluntai area reached 370,000, and at this time the Hu people in the Daluntai area were only 80,000 - it was the first place in the entire Western Regions where the Han people dominated the population.

After Wang Pu and his partners investigated, they found that after the arrival of the 200,000 new immigrants, the Tiance regime did not let it go, but carried out a well-planned colonization operation according to local conditions.

The precipitation in the Western Regions is scarce, the moisture of the land depends on the snow water, the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, Qiuci, Yanqi and other places, by the war is quite less, the local forces are relatively strong, even after the sand and melon immigrants and some of the local Hu people were conscripted to the east for "relocation", the proportion of the population occupied by the Han people is less than forty percent, and the Luntai side, is swept away by the Hu wind, the most plastering dozens of large and small oases were originally the free land of the Hui nobles, and now all are vacant.

The Han people are the best at farming, and the impression of the Central Plains people on the Western Regions sometimes always stays in the desert sand, but they don't know that the oasis of the Western Regions is not at all under the acres of acres of plastered fields in the Central Plains. The only thing to overcome is the hard work of starting a business and the initial unaccustomation. As immigrants from the Central Plains, the biggest advantage of the new immigrants is farming, but the people of northern Jin are in a semi-arid zone. So newcomers are no strangers to animal husbandry.

In response to this situation, Tiance carried out fixed-point reclamation, and built farms and pastures around Luntaicheng, which were dotted with each other, and the western regions were rich in animal power, and the farms and pastures could use animal power to transport grain and animal husbandry materials to Luntai. For example, leather goods, wool. As the most important commercial city on the Silk Road at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, Luntai transports various production and living commodities to each other, and provides military protection at the same time.

But the place north of the Tianshan Mountains is more than 3,000 miles! Even if more than 100,000 people come, how much space can they occupy? One large Luntai area is enough to support hundreds of thousands of people. If you want to spread out more than 100,000 people and spread them over a radius of thousands of miles, you will inevitably not be able to form a powerful effect under the dispersion of power. But if all of them are gathered in the Daluntai area, then the rest of the places will be left vacant?

At this moment, Wang Pu discovered a very interesting phenomenon, many of the new immigrant families they visited, there were knights who had just returned from thousands of miles away, and they were not going to perform military affairs, what were they doing so far?

"Go see my reserved lot!"

All the knights who were asked replied in unison.

"Reserved land?"

"Yes. Reserved land. ”

It turned out that the New Tang Dynasty regime not only gave the new immigrants their existing farms and pastures, but also gave them a lot of "reserved land". And the area of the reserved land. Usually it's still three to five times as much! Some families are divided into several stretches of hills, and some villages are divided into several complete oases by the whole village. There are also families who have the right to tax a certain desert trade route.

The reserved land is located in an uninhabited oasis outside the Daluntai area. Naturally, these oases were not uninhabited for eternity, but were affected by the Battle of Luntai and became "no man's land".

In the first year, no newcomers took "reserved land" seriously. Everyone is immersed in the cultivation of the current land - survival is in question in the first year of arrival, where else can be considered? However, after taking root and living a stable life, with the strong habit of "planning for the sake of children and grandchildren" of the Han people, almost at the same time, the new immigrants broke out to pay attention to the reserved land.

As a result, they ran to the reserved land designated for them to have a look. Some of the oases already have Hu people grazing and even settling down there.

"That's our land! What the marshal pointed out to us! I don't need it now, but my son can. A new immigrant who was visited by Wang Pu said angrily that he was actually only twenty-one years old, but the year before last he married two Hu girls, less than two years, the two Hu girls have given him two sons and a daughter, although one of them died, but he also adopted an orphan, calculated that he already has three children, if he continues to have children, even if the survival rate of his son is not high, he has to consider the livelihood of at least five or six sons: "Now on the land of Daluntai, even if I have a few more sons, I can still support it, but what about my grandson!" ”

So in anger, he and his fellow villagers who shared the oasis sued the official - that is, the defenders of Luntai. The reply from the defenders of Luntai was that they should be allowed to exercise the power of the lord of the oasis to expel the Hu people, and if the Hu people dared to resist, they would be allowed to use force, kill and wound them without guilt, and seize their own interests.

These new immigrants came all the way to Liangzhou, and they were equipped with weapons from the beginning, and they went through hardships along the way, and most of the men who were able to get here became warriors, and even women could ride horses with knives.

"So last May, we formed a patrol team to go and reserve land to chase those Hu'er away."

"Don't those Hu'er resist?" Wang Pu asked.

"Rebellion? In the army, but it is a captain! The young lieutenant sneered: "A few Hu'er, you can be our opponent!" However, there are also Hu'er who gather together, and the Han-Epitek can't beat them, but as long as the Han-Epitek in one village can't beat them, the people from other villages will help, and the lips and teeth are cold! The oasis is what is given to us, that is ours, if these Hu'er are allowed to ignore the law and do whatever they want, there is still a place for us to stand in this Western Regions? ”

"Then Hu'er won't be in tandem with each other to deal with Hermes-Epitek?"

"Haha!" The young lieutenant said, "They dare! In the Western Regions, if you dare to gather more than 300 people, you have to report to the defenders of Luntai, and if the herdsmen above this scale dare to use force, it is the crime of extermination! Once discovered, the defenders of Luntai will immediately drive over and destroy them! ”

Although Wang Pu is also a Han Chinese, when he heard this, he couldn't help but sigh for those poor Hu'er, although these people are of different races, they are too pitiful.

It seemed that he saw the other party's intentions from Wang Pu's expression, and the young lieutenant showed a sly smile: "Xiucai Gong's heart has softened? Ha, we Han people are good at everything, but we are soft-hearted, and so am I, so when I saw that those Hu'er were so pitiful, I thought about giving them a way to live. ”

Wang Pu sighed, happy that the young lieutenant had a benevolent heart: "Little brother lent them the reserved land?" ”

"How is that possible!" The young lieutenant rolled his eyes: "There are two Hu'er who can't survive and have come to my house to become a shepherd slave." It doesn't matter if you give them a bite to eat, how can you give them the land, that is to be left to your children and grandchildren! ”

Speaking of this, he was a little embarrassed, and he covered up one thing without saying anything—one of the two Hu'er was a woman, and she had just recently conceived his child, and the young lieutenant was considering whether to take her as a concubine......

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The more in-depth he visited the Daluntai area, the more interested Wang Pu became in this issue, and even braved the severe cold to ride a horse hundreds of miles away to see the nearest reserved place to Luntai.

This visit to the new immigrants has just ended, which completely changed Wang Pu's concept of the Western Regions, and also changed Wang Pu's view of Zhang Mai. Many of the practices of the Tiance New Tang Dynasty – or more directly Zhang Mai – were clearly not quite in line with the Confucian way of benevolence, and the Heavenly Khan, who had the name of benevolence in the Central Plains, tacitly approved and even encouraged the people to use force and kill people in the Western Regions!

Occupying Luntai and dividing the reserved land, Wang Pu and his partners estimated the total area of the reserved land north of the Tianshan Mountains according to the results of the visit, and found that although the north of the mountain is large, the land of Jinghua has been almost occupied. Under the current policy environment, the remnants of Hu'er in Shanbei will only be quite sad, and in the next 20 years, the population growth and decline between the two sides can be known almost without thinking.

Marshal Long Xiang, who was originally expected by the Holy Lord, also had such a violent and fierce side in the northwest. But Wang Pu can't say that Zhang Mai is wrong.

In such a sinister environment, the kind of gentleness and elegance advocated by Confucianism does not seem to be very applicable at this time. Perhaps, only by such means can we effectively establish rule, truly protect the clansmen, and let Chinese orthodoxy truly take root and sprout here.

Luntai is already like this, so what about the more distant and Han-mes-epitek Shule and broken leaves? What about the riverine region, which is more distant than Shule and Broken Leaves, and more sparse than Han people?

Suddenly, Wang Pu, who was also against Zhang Mai's western patrol, changed his attitude a little, he was in Luntai, and the ice and snow blocked the road, but he already hoped to see Guo Luo early and listen to the situation in the river as soon as possible.

But if you want to see Guo Luo, you have to wait until after the beginning of spring, then you can cross the Tianshan Mountains and go to Shule along the south of the mountain, and at the same time, Guo Luo also has to cross the Green Ridge, and then the two giants of Tiance and Xintang can successfully meet each other.

In other words, it must have been at least the summer of the eleventh year of Tiance.

"It's so difficult to even see each other," Wang Puxin said, "Then can the rule of my Tang Dynasty in Hezhong and Tianzhu really last long?" ”

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—————————— (To be continued......)