Who is this Cen Ziqing? Cen Ziqing, single name ginseng, the word Ziqing, at that time was quite famous, known as the greatest poet in the Tang Dynasty in later generations, and Gao Shi was also called Gao Cen.

Cen Shen explained the intricate situation in the Western Regions one by one.

Since Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty passed through the Western Regions, the people of the Middle Earth began to know the Western Regions, and during the Western Han Dynasty, there was a capital protector in the Western Regions to manage the affairs of the Western Regions in a unified manner.

The Eastern Han Dynasty Bangu made the Han Shu to establish the Western Regions, and there was a complete description of the Western Regions in the historical books, and the geographical situation of the Western Regions was summarized in the Han Book as: the west of the Xiongnu and the south of Wusun. There are mountains in the north and south, and there are rivers in the center, more than 6,000 miles from east to west, and more than 1,000 miles from north to south. The east is connected to the Han Dynasty, the Yumen and Yangguan are bound, and the west is limited to the Green Ridge.

Regarding the geographical territory of the Western Regions, there were slight differences between dynasties, and there were also narrow and broad senses. The Western Regions in the narrow sense is mainly the above, and the Western Regions in the broad sense, in the case of the Tang Dynasty, the entire area west of the western border of the Tang Dynasty is called the Western Regions.

After the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, the Southern and Northern Dynasties were all times of great turmoil, the Middle Earth was divided, and all sides were fighting, so naturally there was no time to take care of the distant Western Regions, and the territory of the Western Regions was basically lost. Until the advent of the Tang Dynasty.

During the Sui Dynasty, the Sui general Changsun Sheng used a plan to divide the Turks into two parts, the East and West Turks, and the small countries in the Western Regions were numerous, but they were all subject to the Turkic control or surrender to the Turks, at this time the Turkic power reached its peak, known as the vast territory, from the Khitan and Murwei in the east, and Tuyuhun and Gaochang in the west, and all the countries were controlled by more than one million.

Taizong's famous generals Li Jing and Li Shichang defeated the Eastern Turks and destroyed their country, and the countries called Taizong the Heavenly Khan.

In the ninth year of Zhenguan (635), Li Jing was sent to attack and destroy Tuyuhun, and in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan (639), the Tang generals Hou Junji, Xue Wanjun and Tiele patriarch Qi Bi He Li destroyed Gaochang Kingdom.

During the reign of Gaozong, the general Su Dingfang destroyed the Western Turks in the second year of Xianqing (657), and finally brought the entire Western Regions into the control of the Tang Dynasty after a painstaking and long-term strategy.

About the operation of the Western Regions:

In the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty operated the Western Regions by cultivating the frontiers and organizing the Han people to enter the Western Regions to introduce farming techniques, reclaim wasteland and cultivate farmland, and in more than 100 years, more than 500,000 mu were reclaimed, which not only solved the problem of grain and straw for the garrison, but also promoted the development of local agriculture and commerce. The Han army also built many official roads, castles and beacon towers, and dispatched soldiers to garrison them to protect the safety of business and transportation roads, with more than 20,000 standing soldiers, which was the prestige of the Han family.

The Tang Dynasty made great efforts to conquer the Western Regions, and unlike the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty ruled and developed the Western Regions in the long run.

First of all, the Tang Dynasty had a complete military and political management system in the Western Regions, with the Metropolitan Protectorate as the highest institution, under the jurisdiction of the military and administrative systems, with a fixed number of officials and a special department.

Second, with regard to land reclamation and farmland cultivation, instead of using the Han Dynasty's reclamation policy, the tuntian system, the land equalization system and the tenancy modulation system were adopted, which were handled according to local conditions. In addition, the tenant system and the sharing system were implemented for the recruited tun people, and the military system was also adopted by the government and the military system, and the soldiers and peasants were integrated, so that the soldiers could shoulder the dual responsibility of reclaiming land and garrisoning the frontiers.

Finally, the various ethnic groups in the Western Regions adopt a policy of respecting their autonomy, without ethnic discrimination, and each ethnic group is under the leadership of each ethnic group to manage its own internal affairs, and there is no need to pay taxes to the Tang Dynasty.

All these measures flourished the development of the Tang Dynasty's territory in the Western Regions and the consolidation of its rule. Centered on the four towns of Anxi (Qiuzi, Bisha, Shule, and Yanqi), the Tang Dynasty established a strong influence in the Western Regions.

What's more worth mentioning is that the Tang Dynasty also used another military system in the Western Regions - the cityside military system, which is a system of integration of soldiers and herdsmen. The aforementioned Tiele Department Qi Bi He Li is the city soldiers. The soldiers were brave and used by the Tang Dynasty, which was a very important force of the Tang Dynasty and would occupy a pivotal position in the future.

At the same time as the Tang Dynasty flourished, two powerful empires in the west also quietly rose, one was the Great Food Empire and the other was the Tubo Empire. These two empires were the main opponents of the powerful Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions.

Under the wise and promising leadership of the founding Zanpu (i.e., the king), the Tibetan Empire unified the Tibetan Plateau, married with the Tang Dynasty, imitated the Tang Dynasty official system, rectified the rule of officials, redrew the administrative territory, and strengthened the military organization and capabilities, which eventually became a major hidden danger in the southwestern border of the Tang Dynasty.

After Gaozong, the Tang Dynasty suffered from successive disasters and famines, locusts, frosts, waterlogs, and droughts, and there were no disasters, and the national strength of the Tang Dynasty was greatly damaged.

After years of using troops, the huge military expenditure could not be sustained, and even once the four towns of Anxi were dismissed, the Tang army in the Western Regions gradually adopted a defensive position, and the Tibetan forces quickly filled the vacuum of the Tang Dynasty's forces, and the powerful Tubo quickly gained a firm foothold in the Western Regions.

However, at that time, the Tang Dynasty was in its prime, after the famine, the national strength recovered rapidly, and the restored Tang army immediately launched a counteroffensive, and the Tubo Empire repeatedly tug-of-war, and finally in the first year of longevity (692) of the Wuzhou (Wu Zetian period), Wang Xiaojie, the head of the Wuwei Army, broke Tubo, recovered the four towns, and reset the Anxi capital to protect the palace in Qiuzi.

However, the state situation of the Western Regions was complicated, and the large and small Bolu blocked the path for the Western Regions countries to pay tribute to the Tang Dynasty, and the first three Anxi Protectors of the Tang Dynasty, Tian Renwan, Gai Jiayun and Fumeng Lingjing (Yincha), all returned to the small Bolu in vain. (Note 1)

Chinese silk, tea, paper, spices, rhubarb and coptis were imported from the Western Regions into Persia (now the Great Food Empire), and Persian (now the Great Food Empire) commercial goods such as gems, corals, agate, medicines, fruits, and exotic animals (such as lions, ostriches and giraffes) were also imported from there.

Cen participated in Meng Wenze's talk and talked, but before he knew it, it was late, but he was still unsatisfied, and Cen Shen stayed in Meng's mansion that night.

The next day, Lord Meng, the assassin of Tanzhou, invited Cen Shen to inspect the yamen of Tanzhou Mansion, talking while walking, passing through the martial arts hall, only to hear the sound of the intersection of blades in the hall, so he went inside to watch.

Entering the hall, I saw the soldiers and horses make Ming Xiang sit upright, the generals and colonels under it, sitting in two columns, on the martial arts field, there are six military generals, divided into three comparative tests, one of them is a blue robe and black boots, holding a green dragon halberd, brave and invincible, majestic, handsome appearance, it is He Jingzhi.