The sun is bright, but there is no warmth. There is no wind in the sky, but the cold air is everywhere. Through fur, armor, silk cotton battle jacket and human skin, it has been seeping into human bone marrow.

"What exactly does Soge want to do?" Following Zhang Qian, Luo Huaizu looked out of the city while asking with confusion. In such a cold weather, patrolling the city is not an easy task. As he walked, the mist produced by his breath condensed into frost on the edge of the person's helmet, eyebrows and eyelashes.

"I don't know either, I should be waiting for reinforcements!" Zhang Qian shook his head and responded in a low voice. Then he also looked around, and there was no sign of anyone except for the vast snowy field.

The silver snake dances in the mountains, and the wax figures are originally galloping. The snowy wild in the Western Regions makes people look at it for a few times and feel full of passion. The walls of Shuye City have long turned into pure white. The walls made of rammed earth are now completely wrapped by ice tumors and snow, like a huge piece of glass.

"I always feel that Soge is not just waiting for reinforcements. It's cold and the Turks want to send troops to support him, and they have to wait until after March next year." Wang Zhihuan stepped up the steps on the horse road, and his fur swayed, doubled his body shape, looking like a bear ready to hibernate.

What he said was the facts, and no one could refute them. But Wang Han's voice rang out immediately, "The river valley was blocked by the Soge sent people. In such a cold day, Guo Yuanzhen and Niu Shuai's troops could not take a long way. If you want to support us, you will have to wait until March next year."

This is also true. There are only two roads from Gumo to Shuye. One is to cross the Bachang River Valley and the other is to cross the Boda Ridge. No matter which one is, it is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Especially in this kind of ice-dropping weather, the defense only needs a few hundred people to block the tens of thousands of troops of the attacking party. If the attacking party encounters a blizzard, it may be wiped out!

Everyone was able to successfully attack Xiaocheng by speed and luck. At that time, Soge was leading the main force of the Tuqi Shiren to attack Kucha. From Gumo to Shuye, they were already at the back of Soge. There were not many soldiers and horses guarding along the way, and no one expected that Zhang Qian would not leave the relatively close Paodaring, but led his troops to cross the Bachang River Valley.

After Soge lost the grain reserve in Gumozhou, the offensive of the Tuqi Shiren immediately became a defensive. Naturally, he had to use all the conditions that could be used to prevent Niu Shizhao and Guo Yuanzhen from pursuing the victory. Therefore, the defense of Bodaling and Bachang River Valley was immediately strengthened by Soge several times. Even the Tulugashan Pass on Shule's side, Soge sent dead soldiers to block the situation.

In this way, before the beginning of next spring, the partial teacher of Zhang Qian's army could only deal with Soge alone. So everyone was careful every day, fearing that they would not do well, so they repeated the mistakes of Zhou Yiti in spring.

"Puu!" A personal soldier slipped under his feet and fell head-on. He leaned against the ropes at his waist and tied his other two companions together, preventing him from rolling down the city and falling down his bones and breaking his bones.

Wang Zhihuan, who was walking relatively backwards, quickly reached out and pulled the fallen person up. However, he also slipped his feet and leaned forward and backward. Thanks to Wang Han's fur belt, he avoided falling out of the city.

Luo Huaizu decisively reached out and grabbed Wang Han's shoulder. Zhang Qian stretched out his left hand to support Luo Huaizu, and another hand to hold the battlement of the city wall. Several personal soldiers rushed up from the left and right sides, blocking Zhang Qian with their bodies, and then everyone stood staggeringly together, laughing at each other.

Such a smooth city wall, not to mention setting up a ladder to climb in, I am afraid that it will not be able to stand up with my wings. However, the ice and snow on the city wall were not created by Zhang Qian deliberately sent someone to splash water, but God took the initiative to help!

As early as the third day after the Tang army captured Sailye City, Zhang Qian was still hesitating whether to burn the city or whether the cat was spending the winter in the city, heavy snow fell from the sky.

Compared with the 21st century in another time and space, the climate in the Western Regions is much wet and warmer. The heavy snow fell one after another for a day and one night before it cleared up, and then there was a warm sun. The sunlight first turned the snow on the top of the city into water droplets, slowly descending along the high places. However, the snow on the low places had not yet heated to the melting point. So the water droplets were frozen again by the snow, attached to the wall together, climbing up continuously, turning the entire Sailed Ye City into a strange crystal palace.

In a blink of an eye, the second heavy snow came quietly again, and the thickness of the city wall increased by another layer. When Soge finally arrived at the foot of Suye City with his men, he was facing a towering ice city. The Tang army in the city completely gave up the idea of ​​leaving, closed the four doors under Zhang Qian's order, preparing to fight him to the death with Suye.

However, the battle did not break out for a long time. Soge, who still had an absolute advantage in the army, tentatively shouted outside the city and found that even a ladder could not be found on the city wall. So he retreated more than a hundred miles away and the ruined Yechuan was injected into Yezhi City in Rehai.

Even after two rounds of emergency expansion of Gumo and Liucheng, the total number of troops under Zhang Qian's command was only over 6,000. With the primitive grenade that had not been fully understood by the Tukha, everyone was very sure to defend the Thunder Ye City. However, taking the initiative to attack Ye Zhi, whose troops were twice as powerful as his own, may not be more than 30%.

Therefore, if Soge did not come to attack Shaye, Zhang Qian did not have the strength to attack Ye Zhi for the time being. Both sides had to be "neighbors" for the time being without any help.

The enemy, who had originally irreconcilable, suddenly became "near neighbors", which made the soldiers very uncomfortable. Zhang Qian, who had never managed any city at all and had not planned to stay in Shaye for a long time, was even more busy. Fortunately, the harvest was very abundant in the last battle, and after Soge took Shaye in the spring, he always used this place as a nest. Therefore, the food in the city was enough for the Tang army to persist for more than half a year.

With food, the soldiers were much more at ease. In the Suiye City, the elders of the Soge tribe were all rich. After confiscating the firewood, forage, gold, silver and other items they had reserved, it was enough for the Tang army to do no miscellaneous work and survived the cold winter smoothly.

"Tuqi Shiren is similar to the Turks, and he can't afford to lose in a war. Soge drags on like this, in fact, it's not good for him." When the laughter gradually subsided, Wang Zhihuan took a few steps to Zhang Qian and continued to whisper, "In theory, it's in his interest to fight quickly and decide quickly. If he can't fight quickly and decide quickly, he abandons Thunder Leaf and migrate westward is the best strategy. No one can stop him in the west, whether in Julan, Talas or Baishui City! If the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty chased him there, they would have to risk going to war with the great cannibals."

"The small country over there is indeed destroying one. By robbing, he can make himself rich again! However, he may not dare to go, and his men may not support him to go west." Zhang Qian frowned, trying to avoid slipping, and responded in a low voice, "Even if he can't take down the leaves, he will be surrounded by us, Niu, Guo, and the two general managers. As long as the thunder cavalry surrender in time, the death will be at most Soge himself and his wife and children. When he went to Baishui City, he angered the great cannibals. He and his subordinates may not be able to survive!"

"You mean, Soge obeys the orders of the great cannibal?" Wang Zhihuan was stunned, his brows frowned tightly. Two rows of ice smears immediately slid down between his eyebrows.

"You can't completely obey your orders. At least the big cannibal is one of his financial owners!" Zhang Qian raised his hand and wiped his face preventively, holding his handful of frost, and shook his head with a smile. "Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many big cannibal coins, scimitars and fierce turmeric in the warehouses of Sailye City and Gumo City."

This answer made Luo Huaizu furious. Then, he shook his head disdainfully, "Guo Yuanzhen is really a waste. Fortunately, Li Xian trusts him so much. So is Li Xian. It is not enough to send a waste to the Western Regions to take charge. He also sent Zhou Yiti, a reckless man!"

"Guo Yuanzhen may not be a waste. He is a civil servant, and all the soldiers and horses in his hands are only more than 20,000. Of course, he is not willing to get into evil with any forces around him. However, the Western Regions are so vast, but there are not many Han people. If the Turks are defeated today, Tiel will rise tomorrow. As long as the great cannibal's ambition to expand the eastward, it will be difficult for the Western Regions to get real peace." Zhang Qian sighed and his answer was a little heavy.

When the survival crisis was lifted, he looked back and thought about it carefully and found many problems that he had never noticed before. Guo Yuanzhen's response was very negative, but it was not without reason. There were too few Han people in the Western Regions, so few that they could only concentrate in a few important cities. There were hundreds of tribes living on the vast land between these important cities.

These tribes live by water and plants, and live near Shule this year, and may go to Khotan next year. The Tang Dynasty government cannot effectively rule them. They can only support the chiefs of several large tribes and replace the government to detain the chiefs. The chiefs of the large tribes rely on the support of the Tang Dynasty government and establish their prestige, and their ambitions will rapidly expand.

Before the Great Cannibal advance eastward, although the ambitions of the chiefs of various Western Regions expanded, they could not find external support, and it was difficult to cause great storms. After the Great Cannibal advance eastward, they immediately solved the problem of the chiefs' support.

The tribes in the Western Regions lack high-quality weapons, and the great-cannibals are not short of them! After the Dashi annexed Persia, it also obtained the manufacturing technology of ground furnace steel and high-quality iron ore in the ancient Persian region. Just let the caravan secretly transport several batches of swords over, the warriors under a certain chief could be more powerful.

The tribes of the Western Regions lack money to encourage morale, and they are not short of great cannibalism! They have snatched all ancient Persia and had already killed the vanguard into India, and they can plunder a few palaces of the earth kings, and then fill the camels that go east, and then double their courage.

The tribes in the Western Regions lacked the skills of forming troops, training soldiers and commanding combat, and the Great Cannibal could still provide them with them. They began to enter the Persian Governor's Office forty years ago and expanded all the way east to the Pamirs. The Great Cannibal accumulated rich combat experience. They were also familiar with how to use the ambitions of the chiefs to incite rebellion.

The chiefs wanted to establish their own Khanate, but the cannibals wanted to expand eastward but were afraid of the Tang army's military force. The goals of the two families were consistent in a certain direction, and collusion became inevitable. If the Tang Dynasty could not change the current control method of the various ministries in the Western Regions, the stability period won would not exceed three years after the extermination of an ambitious chief. In almost the blink of an eye, a new chief stood up and repeated the previous round of rise, expansion, rebellion, and destruction!

"Shaoguan, the soil and salt have been boiled according to the method you taught. The first pot costs three pounds and seven liang. Today, it can still be boiled for about twenty pots!" Ren Wu led seven or eight white-haired craftsmen to the side of the horse road excitedly, raised his head, and deliberately reported very loudly.

"Okay! All the craftsmen will pay twenty yuan each. If you don't have money, you will give two dou of rice directly. It is a reward. The wages for the past few days will still be paid!" Zhang Qian immediately did not care about the gains and losses of the Tang Dynasty's Western Regions policy and announced the reward with a smile.

"Thank you for the young supervisor!" Ren Wu thanked him loudly, then waved hard at the craftsmen behind him, "Let's go and find Captain Guo to take the reward. I have told you before that the young supervisor is different from others, and it will never be the case. You don't believe it yet! This time, let you put your money in peace first!"

"Thank you, young supervisor!"

"Thank you, young supervisor!"

"The young master of the junior supervisor is rich and noble!"

[Liancheng]…

Some of the craftsmen had gray eyes, some had blue eyes, and some had black eyes like Tang Jun. At this moment, they did not show much difference. They were obviously relieved, either bowing their hands, holding their chests, bowing in a mess, and then followed Ren Wu and jogging straight to the government office. It seemed that if they were late, the reward would disappear.

The group of strong men who were cleaning up the snow under the city wall stopped the broom and watched the craftsmen go away with envy, and then they were dejected one by one.

"Stop looking, who told you to choose fried noodles with oil instead of knives?!" The foreman who led the team immediately widened his eyes and scolded him loudly, his face red from cold was full of disdain. "After all, you still have two papers a day. If you don't work hard, you will have nothing to pay. Go and beg for beggars by yourself!"

The young and strong men all picked up and swept them awkwardly, and continued to work hard to clean up the snow. No one had the shame to say a word of complaint.

They and the craftsmen responsible for boiling salt were originally prisoners of the frozen city. When others chose to attack Shaye with Zhang Shaojian, they chose twenty kilograms of fried noodles. Although they heard that Shaye City was easily recovered by the Tang army, they immediately regretted it and risked being frozen to death and rushed over to join. They still lost the opportunity to serve the Tang army and could only stay in the city to work as laborers.

Under Zhang Shaojian, if you are a regular soldier, the military pay is 100 cents a day. If you are a new soldier, the military pay is 50 cents a day. Even if you are a new soldier, you can still be a military craftsman, and you can get twenty cents a day. However, if you are a strong worker, you only have two cents a day!

"If anyone is dissatisfied, they will sign up next time they recruit troops. As long as they can pass the assessment, they will get fifty cents immediately, and they will also care about food and clothing!" After finding Zhang Qian was nearby, the foreman cheered up and scolded him harder.

Among the laborers, a few younger people suddenly became much more flexible in their activities. Soge was in Yezhi and would come sooner or later. At that time, they could join the army. They had missed an opportunity. The next opportunity came, they would definitely seize it.

"If the Tang Dynasty officials were a little better to the Han people, there would not be fewer and fewer Han people in the Western Regions!" Luo Huaizu suddenly had an insight and mentioned the previous words again. "With more Han people, the court naturally did not need to coax the chiefs of those tribes. What Guo Yuanzhen did was simply to waste the foundation and conquer the end!"

This time, Zhang Qian did not refute him. Instead, he smiled and walked silently towards the government office along the street that had just been cleared.

There were very few residents in the Thunder Leaf City. Most of the people walking on the street were veterans and recruits who were resuming on the streets. The brothers won every battle and had money in their pockets, so they all stood up straight when walking. After the Tang army recovered Thunder Leaf, after review, the vendors who were allowed to stay in the city tried their best to poke their heads out of the window and sold the goods in their hands to the veterans and recruits.

Seeing Zhang Qian, the veterans immediately stopped and saluted respectfully. The new soldiers who had just joined the army in the frozen city were nervously not sure where to put their hands and feet, and their eyes were filled with admiration.

"After the spring starts, you write a letter and ask your two junior brothers to recruit some people. Even if it is a craftsman who is twenty cents a day, there should be many people willing to come." Luo Huaizu followed a few steps and whispered to the point again.

He had already obtained the complete formula of black gunpowder. He watched with his own eyes that Zhang Qian mixed sulfur, saltpeter and charcoal powder together according to the formula and put it into an iron can to create a grenade. However, he never mentioned the matter of seeking revenge on Li Xian, as if he had never said those words.

"How much can I recruit? After coming, if someone like Guo Yuanzhen is replaced by the guardian of Saiye, the big man will probably have to leave in disappointment in the end." Wang Han shook his head and expressed deep doubts about Luo Huaizu's proposal.

"As long as the Han people are treated differently from tribes, this trouble will never be solved!" Wang Zhihuan also shook his head, his young face full of worries.

As they walked along with Zhang Qian, they were no longer the passionate scholars in the past. They could see many of the bad policies of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions, but how to correct the mistakes, they could not find a suitable answer.

"I'm wondering why all the vassal states later became Han people!" Zhang Qian suddenly stopped and said very seriously.

Luo Huaizu was stunned and didn't know how to respond. However, Wang Han and Wang Zhihuan's eyes lit up at the same time. They turned around and quickly swept over the veterans, recruits, vendors, and Lifu on the street. Suddenly, they felt that the snow-covered Yecheng was so beautiful. 1603351279
Chapter completed!