In Gansu, April is already the early spring season when the ice and snow melt and the grass grows in the wild. Outside the acropolis of Suzhou (now Jiuquan City, Gansu), a new province in the western part of the imperial court, two horsemen who reported the news quickly came from the west, and after arriving at the city gate, they shook the waist card in their arms towards the soldiers guarding the gate, and then the horse did not stop and rushed to the door.

"Great victory!"

"Beiting Victory!"

"General Jingxi led his troops to attack Ili on a snowy night and broke Dzungaria!"

"My Great Qin Heavenly Soldiers are mighty, beheading more than 6,000 Tartars and capturing more than 20,000 Dzungar tribes!"

"The captive chieftain has escaped to the west, and my Great Qin has won thousands of miles of land in the Ili River Valley!"

“……”

The two messengers rode down the streets, waving their hands and shouting loudly.

"Wan Sheng!"

"Wan Sheng!"

"I'm mighty in Great Qin!"

“……”

The vendors and residents on both sides of the street burst into cheers when they heard the news, and some people who were doing good things excitedly followed the messenger and galloped behind the horse, roaring, and passing on the content of the good news to each other, and everyone was encouraged, motivated, and infected by this good news.

After many years of war in the northwest, the border people on the front line in the northwest have been able to keenly capture a lot of exciting and exciting information from this good news.

Ili, that is the royal court of the Dzungar people, has now been captured by my Great Qin!

Then the day of the fall of the Tartars is not far off!

The northwest border may be gone!

A few days ago, a contingent of more than 3,000 officers and men from Shaanxi arrived in Suzhou City, and after resting here for a period of time, they set off for Tingzhou to strengthen the defense force in the Beiting area.

But he didn't want to, Yue Zhongqi, the general of Jingxi, actually attacked Ili with 4,000 light horses, and captured the Junggar royal court in one fell swoop, which made the situation in the entire Western Regions instantly reversed.

That didn't say, when the reinforcements from the rear gathered in Tingzhou one after another, it was the season of using troops at the turn of spring and summer, and the general would inevitably muster up enough courage and make persistent efforts, leading the army to follow the direction of the slave chieftain's escape, attack Dayuzi, and kill the remnants of the Dzungar department, so as not to give the Tartars a chance to breathe.

As long as the Dzungar headquarters is broken, then whether it is Altai, Kobdo, Aksu, or Kashgar, it will definitely be able to spread the message and bring the entire Western Regions under the rule of our Great Qin.

Thinking about it, in just 20 years, my Great Qin and Dzungaria have achieved the switch of offense and defense, and comprehensively suppressed this western steppe regime, and at this time, the day of destruction is just around the corner!

In that year, in order to defend Qinghai and Shuote in the south, prevent Western Mongolia in the north, and control the entire Hexi Corridor in the west, our Great Qin Imperial Court did not hesitate to spend a huge price from Lanzhou to Suzhou, along this key communication line, successively built Suzhou, Ganzhou, Liangzhou, Xining and many other fortified castles, intending to use city-building tactics to block the eastward advance of these Mongolian Tatars.

At that time, our Great Qin also specially invited some military staff officers of the Qi State Project to build all the types of these walled cities into fortresses that were easy to defend and difficult to attack. As long as a small number of soldiers and horses are stationed in it, they can block the siege of thousands or even tens of thousands of cavalry of the Tartars, thus making it difficult for those Dzungar Mongol horse teams to move an inch.

In order to build these forts, the local government ordered the cutting of large timbers in the area of Longnan, and at the same time found sites in various parts of Shaanxi and Gansu to overhaul brick kilns to provide sufficient building materials for these forts. With the technical and financial support of the Qi people, several cement kilns (joint ventures) were built in Lanzhou, and those fortresses and walled cities were built into copper walls and iron walls.

In order to transport these materials more efficiently, more than ten years ago, the imperial court gritted its teeth and requisitioned hundreds of thousands of people in Shaanxi and Gansu to build a simple horse-drawn iron track (iron-clad wood) from Fengxiang Mansion (now Baoji City, Shaanxi) through Gongchang Mansion (now Dingxi City, Gansu) to Lanzhou, in order to accelerate the efficiency of the transfer of materials in the northwest.

Of course, this horse-drawn railway track is not entirely for military purposes, in order to save horsepower and improve the speed of cargo turnover between the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions, the merchants will also transfer to the northwest to pay some user fees, rent special carriages made by officials, and run briskly on this convenient railroad.

The northwest is barren, and the people are even poorer, and those local residents and tribal barbarians who have little knowledge have never seen such a rare thing as railroad tracks. But they knew that the rails laid on the ground must be very valuable, so they took them down and took them to the blacksmith's shop to smelt the iron sheets, so that they could be made with many hard and easy household and farm tools.

Or, build a few good iron blades and be a happy and carefree bandit.

Therefore, in order to maintain this precious horse-drawn railroad track, the northwest transfer made the Yamen have to draw elite cavalry from various border towns and form several sections of road escort teams to severely crack down on those bandits who destroy the railroad tracks.

If a businessman or traveler takes a horse-drawn track to pass through the Lanzhou line, he will see wooden poles erected on the side of the road from time to time, with hideous heads inserted into them. The owners of these heads, in addition to some of the horse bandits who plundered along the way, there were also many daring thieves who were rampant to intercept the railroad tracks.

For this northwest transportation artery, needless to say that the northwest transshipment has made the yamen attach great importance to it, even no one in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces dares to ignore it, but there is a difference, and the transportation of materials in the entire northwest will not necessarily stagnate, but it will definitely suffer a major impact on the Beiting Protectorate that is in harmony with Junggar.

Although, after more than ten years of operation, Beiting has successively resettled more than 40,000 households, with a population of almost 1440,000, and nearly one million mu of cultivated land, which can barely support most of the food needs of the local garrison. However, there are still countless supplies that need to be supplied inland, including ordnance and ammunition, clothing, medicinal materials, cotton and linen fabrics, as well as various hardware, tools and agricultural tools, etc., all of which are continuously transported to Beiting through the Hexi Corridor before the heavy snow closes the road.

It is said that in order to strengthen the rule of the Northern Court and even the entire Western Regions in the future, the imperial court planned to continue to extend the Yulong Railway under construction to the west through Lanzhou to Jiayuguan in a certain period of the future. If possible, maybe the way to the Western Regions is also a proper move.

"If I, Great Qin, can completely control the Western Regions, then it will be possible to reach the land of the Seven Rivers where commerce and trade are prosperous." Deng Tinghai, the second proprietor of the "Huai Ji" trading company from Lanzhou, stretched his head back from the window, and his face showed an excited expression, "When the time comes, we will transport inland tea, cotton cloth, porcelain, silk, and various Chinese medicinal materials through the Hexi Corridor through the Western Regions directly to those steppe khanates in the west, and the trade profits earned are no less than the Mobei trade controlled by the old men of Shanxi." Hehe, at that time, it will be our turn to raise our eyebrows and exalt in the Shaanxi and Gansu merchant gangs! ”

"Well, what Lao Deng said is reasonable." Zhuo Fuguang, the young owner of the "Zhuo Ji" trading company from Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu), nodded and said: "After passing through the Western Regions, it seems that you can still lead to the territory of the Rakshasas. I heard that they are also extremely hungry for my Daqin's goods, and once this trade is done, the scale and profits are probably not less than those in Mobei. ”

"Over there in Mobei, the Mongols plus the Bohai State have a population of only four or five hundred thousand at most, and they can make those Shanxi veterans make a lot of money. If our Shaanxi-Gansu merchant gang can wrap up the entire Western Regions and the Qihe region, and even the trade of Rakshasa is rounded, the population is several times that of Mobei, then it is not a sea of gold and silver, let me wait to take it! ”

The Mobei trade mentioned by several businessmen has only flourished in the past ten years.

In that year, in order to obtain strong logistical support, the Qin army on the expedition to Mobei packaged and sold the booty captured on the battlefield to Shanxi merchants at a very low price, in exchange for the other party's free delivery of food, ordnance and other supplies to the military.

With the increasing territory and population of Mobei controlled by the Qin army, these Shanxi merchants who helped the Qin army take care of logistics also obtained the trade monopoly in the Mobei region, selling inland tea, cotton cloth, salt, candles, silk and other commodities to those Mongolian tribes, and exchanged a large number of cattle, horses, sheep and other livestock from their hands, resold them to the interior, making money at both ends, and soon accumulated a large amount of commercial capital.

Later, the Bohai Kingdom, located in the Beihai and Lingbei regions, also secretly entered Mobei and started smuggling trade with these Shanxi merchants.

In the past, the Bohai Kingdom passed through the Qi State and the Northern Ming Dynasty, through the Heilongjiang River and the Jingqili River, and traveled thousands of miles to obtain some tea, silk, cotton cloth and other daily necessities, which were not only expensive, but also not much, and only the upper class of the Bohai State could afford to use them.

Later, with its strong force, the Bohai State advanced all the way to the west, driving the Rakshasas to the Yenisei River and occupying an extremely vast territory. The territory is larger and the population is larger, and the demand for all kinds of daily necessities naturally expands.

Although the territory occupied by the Bohai State is all bitter cold land, half of the time of the year is cold days in ice and snow. But fortunately, the land is vast and sparsely populated, and millions of acres of arable land can be reclaimed at will, and there is no particular focus on intensive cultivation.

However, the entire Bohai State does not even have a decent industrial base, it is a purely backward country in agriculture and animal husbandry, and the entire country is still located in the hinterland of Asia.

That's right, Qi State and Beiming have given great aid to the Bohai Kingdom, but most of the daily supplies are not given to you for free, you have to buy them with real money and silver, and exchange them for a large amount of fur. Due to the distance, the things transported are a little expensive, and when the Bohai Kingdom spends money, it will inevitably hurt a little.

In addition, as a wild country located in the hinterland of Asia, you can't always rely on Qi and Beiming to live, right? You have to deal with neighboring countries and establish some form of diplomatic and trade ties, don't you?

Because there is no shortage of food in Bohai country, and there is also abundant meat, the majority of people after eating and drinking, should they make some tea to eliminate food, we are also a "civilized country", there are a lot of Han people in the country, how can there be a lack of tea?

After a long time, the Bohai country, which is not very worried about food and clothing, is now addicted to tea even ordinary people, and it has gradually become a daily necessity for the majority of people.

So, where does tea come from?

Looking around, well, the Rakshasas in the west are enemies, the Dzungars in the southwest are not very rich, and the Khalkha Mongols in the south have nothing but cattle and sheep, and they are also poor. After taking a look, it seems that it can only have a certain degree of trade contact with Great Qin.

As a result, the smuggling trade between the Bohai State and the Great Qin and Jin Merchants grew from a small fight to a small size, and gradually became bigger and bigger, and the two sides also chose a suitable trading base - on the banks of the Kyakhta River.

The Jin merchants from Datong, Shanxi, through Mongolia, to Kyakhta, is an excellent trade route. They brought tea, silk, cotton cloth, fruits, porcelain, rice, candles, rhubarb, ginger, musk, etc. from the territory of Qin, traveled to Kulun, arrived in Kyakhta, exchanged a large amount of precious furs and sand gold from the Bohai State, and then loaded these things on cattle and horses purchased from Khalkha Mongolia, and drove all the way back to Shanxi. Whether it is livestock, or furs and golden sand, it is resold and re-sold, and after the cost is removed, the profit can reach three to five times.

Tea and other mainland commodities were transported north from Zhangjiakou to Kyakhta, passing through the vast Mongolian Plateau, although there are more than 800 kilometers of vast Gobi stalls, and sleeping in the open is extremely difficult. However, because of the profit, more and more merchants came to trade, especially the merchants with Jin merchants as the main body.

A literati who once accompanied him wrote in his book "Mongolian Essays": "Mianmian Dao, few people are not peng. Since the rice salt salary, all salty. There are hundreds of miles of wells, and it is common to see no people for several days. The taste of water is bitter, fishy and smelly, turbid and astringent, and it is like a jade liquid."

The prosperity of Kyakhta trade has led to the development of commerce in many inland cities of Daqin, such as Beijing, Datong, Taiyuan, Zhangjiakou, Suiyuan, Kulun and other places, as well as the development of tea production in Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces.

Every year, about 200,000-250,000 quintals of tea are transported from tea-producing areas to Kyakhta, and this considerable freight cost drives the economy of tens of thousands of transporters, and also feeds many poor farmers and Mongolian tribes along the way.

With the prosperity of trade, the requirements and taste of tea in the Bohai Kingdom became higher and higher, and they were no longer satisfied with the demand for ordinary brick tea, and some nobles and military officers began to drink the higher grades of Baihao and Longjing.

Of course, the tea, cotton, silk, porcelain and other commodities that flow into the Bohai State from Daqin every year are not completely digested by the Bohai State alone, and a considerable part of them are smuggled into the territory of the Rakshasas and Dzungars by the Bohai State.

Look, isn't it magical? The Bohai Kingdom fought to the death with the Rakshasas, constantly seizing their territory, but in private, they even started business happily.

As for trade with the Dzungars, this statement is actually not very accurate, and it should be the remnants of the Qing Dynasty. After being driven out of Moxi Mongolia by the Great Qin more than 20 years ago, they fled to the northern region of Kobdo (i.e., Tangnu Ulianghai) and continued to survive. In order to survive, their Great Khan - yes, reduced to this, no longer has the face to be emperor, has lowered himself to the name of the Great Khan of Manchuria, and at the time of the defeat of Galdan and the rise of Arabtan, he expressed his attachment to the Dzungar Khanate, in order to obtain the protection of the other side.

Now that Ili has been captured by the Qin army and the Dzungar Khanate has been hit hard, what will happen to the puppet Qing in the Khobdo region?

(End of chapter)