Chapter 585 Inspection of War Preparation

It gradually reached the end of October. As a cold wave swept across the Central Plains and the temperature dropped sharply, the winter of the first year of Qingping finally came. Everyone in Chang'an City changed into thick jackets. What made Chang'an people even more happy is that this year's winter clothes are half cheaper than in previous years. A large number of fur brought about by the expansion of East-West trade into the Chang'an market. In the past, a pair of leather boots and a leather jacket moved thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan. Now a pair of ordinary leather boots can be bought for a lifetime of money.

Moreover, a new winter coat has appeared this year: cotton coat, the fabric is ordinary satin, and the inner cover is a good white stack or linen. The key is the inner core, all filled with cotton from the Western Regions. It is breathable and warm when worn on the body. Since cotton was transported by Dashi merchants from far away Egypt, it is very expensive. A cotton coat costs ten cents of money, which exceeds the price of a fur coat, and it can only be a luxury for wealthy families. It is said that there are also wealthy families using this cotton to make quilts and pillows. A quilt costs hundreds of coins, which is as luxurious as it is.

Not only did there be subtle changes on the winter clothes, but many careful people discovered another interesting phenomenon, that is, many horses on the streets of Chang'an have obviously become tall, completely different from the short and thin Central Plains horses. This is the Yili horse introduced from Anxi, but these are just ordinary horses, not excellent war horses. The Anxi army has extremely strict control over the excellent war horses in the Western Regions. Stallions like Dayuan horses and Arab horses are never allowed to flow into Hebei to prevent them from being used by An Lushan to improve the cavalry and horses.

The Tang Dynasty was originally popular in Hu Feng, but in the past it was only the influence of soft culture such as culture, clothing, music, singing and dancing. But now a large number of Western commodities poured into the Central Plains. Khorasan's silverware, Damascus knives, Sogdian's nine kingdoms gems, Egyptian cotton cloth, Indian medicinal materials, Byzantine goldware and handicrafts, etc., and a large number of commodities gathered in Chang'an, and at the same time, with Chang'an as the center, it began to spread to the whole country.

At the same time, many fresh Hu people also appeared on the streets of Chang'an. Some of them had deep eyes and high noses, some had blond hair and white skin. These were merchants from Byzantines, even Vikings from farther west, and dark-skinned Sindhi merchants. Byzantine gold coins also appeared on the Chang'an market.

The people of Chang'an did not call them Hu people like in the past. Many Han people who like to travel also went deep into the distant West. After they came back, they wrote their experiences into many travel notes, such as "The Records of the Roman Kingdoms" and "The Records of the Arab Kingdoms" written by Xiao Ting, a native of Chang'an, "The Sees of Egypt and Libya" written by Wu Wanli, a native of Luoyang.

These travel notes were engraved into books and began to be circulated among Chang'an literati. Then all kinds of anecdotes and interesting stories flowed into the market and were talked about by the people of Chang'an.

All of this subtly changes the view of the Tang people on the West. The most typical example is that Chang'an people no longer collectively called Hu people, but began to have different names, such as Uighurs, Lingdong people, Sogdians, Sindhi people, great cannibals, Romans, Franks, etc. For example, a blond and blue-eyed Western merchant came to a dinner at a Chang'an restaurant. The enthusiastic waiter would ask in two broken Roman words he had just learned and smiled: "Romans? Franks?"

These were all due to the influence of Li Qing'an's ten years of entry into Anxi. The circulation of goods began to gradually change the Tang people's contempt for merchants. Many powerful Han families were also attracted by the profits of international trade and began to form groups to go to the West to trade.

In Yong County, Qizhou, the prefect Cui Ning led the prefecture and county officials to wait for Li Qing'an's arrival on Tangzhi Road. This was Li Qing'an's second visit to Yong County in two months. The last time was to learn about the resettlement of Hebei immigrants, and this time was to Tangzhi Road.

The Tang straight road took two and a half years, and the eastern section had been basically built. It took thousands of miles from Xianyang to Yiwu County. Among them, transit stations, namely warehouse groups, were built in Yongxian, Huizhou, Liangzhou and other places, which stored a large amount of strategic materials. The Tang straight road was about ten feet wide on average, flat and compact, and no grass grew. It imitated the Qin straight road, but it was different from the Qin straight road. First of all, it was not a new road. It was impossible to complete the new road without ten years, and it would consume a lot of manpower and material resources. It would almost cost the whole country to do it. Tang straight road actually widened and leveled the original official road, which greatly shortened the time, and it took only two and a half years.

Despite this, 300,000 civilians, including 150,000 Xinde and Tocharians, 100,000 Tubo surrendered soldiers, 50,000 residents of Longyou, Hexi and other places, as well as hundreds of thousands of camels, horses and thousands of elephants. The construction of this straight road of Tang consumed million Anxi silver dollars and three million stones of food transported by Xinde, which was a huge project.

But it was the completion of this straight road in Tang that greatly strengthened the connection between Anxi and the Central Plains. It used to take fifty-five days from Beiting to Chang'an, but now it only takes thirty days, which is shortened by nearly half. Especially every fifty miles there is an inn. Each inn has three postmen and five horses, which can relay official documents and use the best horses to sprint. It can send Beiting's official documents to Chang'an in as fast as twelve days. This is equivalent to the time spent on a carrier pigeon, but the amount of information it brings is not comparable to that of a carrier pigeon.

The Tang straight road is a dual purpose for military and civilians. It is its completion that the land trade between the Western Regions and the Tang Dynasty began to flourish. With a peaceful environment and good road conditions, the horse bandits disappeared, and there were stations to eat, stay and rest along the way. These greatly reduced the hardship and dangers of the journey and inspired the merchants to pursue profits. Teams of caravans began to appear on the long Tang straight road.

The prefect Cui Ning has been waiting for half an hour. Since he had a deep conversation with Li Qing'an last time, he began to feel the bright future and did his best to resettle immigrants. Half a month ago, Qizhou ranked first in the selection of resettle immigrants in various places, and Cui Ning also received the annual evaluation of the Shangshang Examination. This is his four consecutive years of high school entrance examination, which means that he will be promoted to the next level next year.

"Premier Cui, here you come!" an official shouted in the distance.

I saw yellow dust rolling in the distance, and an army was speeding towards this side. Cui Ning was very energetic and told everyone: "Your Highness Zhao is here, everyone should pay attention to etiquette."

All the officials nodded and agreed. Soon, the cavalry team got closer and closer. A large flag with a black background and a gold-edged edge appeared above the yellow dust. A big word "Li" was written in white on it. This was Li Qing'an's handsome flag.

Li Qing'an's visit this time was not entirely for the completion of Tang Zhidao. There was another important reason for his visit this time. He inspected the hay warehouse in Yong County. Yong County is the main storage area of ​​the Tang cavalry hay warehouse. There are 300 large warehouses that can accommodate tens of millions of loads of hay.

It can be said that hay is the most important strategic material for the Tang cavalry. People can eat food, but horses must eat grass and eat a lot of food. After the middle Tang Dynasty, the cavalry of the Han people gradually declined. On the one hand, it was the deterioration of horse breeds. Since the Western Han Dynasty, excellent war horses were castrated in large quantities, and they reproduced from inferior horses, one generation after another, a hundred years and a thousand years. In the end, the horses in the Central Plains were unable to run fast, unable to carry, and were thin and thin, and were far from the opponent of the nomadic cavalry.

The second is the disappearance of the horse-raising land. After the Anshi Rebellion, all the Tang army in the Western Regions were transferred to the Central Plains. Tubo took the opportunity to occupy Longyou, Hexi and Anxi, causing the Han people to completely lose the horse-raising land. It became an indisputable fact that the army had no horses to be available.

The third is that the cost of cavalry is high. Although the training and equipment of cavalry requires a lot of financial resources, it is more important to be difficult to raise horses. Raising a horse requires four acres of land to plant grass. Such high cost makes it difficult for the Chinese civilization to farm.

Li Qing'an's Anxi army had one million war horses, and there were as many as 300,000 war horses entering the Central Plains. It is conceivable how much forage this requires, so hoarding for forage became the top priority for Li Qing'an to prepare for An Lushan.

Before this, there were two forage farms in Guanzhong, one in the Sinong Temple Grassland located in the imperial city. It was piled up in the open air and had stockpiled four million dans of forage. The other was the Huazhou Forage farm, which had three million dans of forage. These were the supply of horses that were already available. Now, the 300,000 war horses of the Anxi Army have been added, which is obviously not enough for the Tang army cavalry to consume in one winter. In this way, the newly built Yongxian Forage warehouse is the key to whether the combat readiness can be completed smoothly.

Starting from Chang'an, three thousand cavalry rushed all the way, with the purpose of testing the Tang straight road. From Chang'an to Fengxiang, they completed the inspection of the Tang straight road for hundreds of miles in two days. Below is Li Qing'an inspecting the forage warehouse.

Seeing that there were officials in front of him, Li Qing'an gradually slowed down his horse speed. From a distance, Cui Ning came up and bowed and said, "Welcome to Qizhou to inspect!"

Li Qingan turned over and handed the reins to his personal soldiers. He stepped forward and bowed and smiled, "Let Grandpa Cui wait for a long time."

"Why, I heard that Your Highness came to inspect Tang Zhidao. I wonder if Your Highness passed by Qizhou or returned to Chang'an?"

Li Qingan smiled and said, "I have finished inspecting Tang Zhidao. I came to Yong County mainly to inspect the forage warehouse. Is Prefect Cui willing to accompany me?"

Cui Ning was stunned for a moment and immediately realized that Li Qing'an was galloping all the way, but the inspection was over. The official office directing the construction of Tangzhi Road is located in Ganzhou. Li Qing'an could not go to Ganzhou for inspection!

He hurriedly said, "I am willing to accompany Your Highness to inspect the forage warehouse. Please!"

"please!"

Everyone got on the horse and walked west along the Tang straight road. On the way, they happened to meet Tian Zhen, the governor of Fengxiang who came to greet Li Qing'an. He quickly got off the horse and knelt down on one knee and said, "I have missed the opportunity to welcome you. Please forgive me!"

Li Qingan knew that he was sick, so he dismounted and helped him up and said, "General Tian is not feeling well, so don't come here specially. Just wait for me in the forage farm."

"Thank you for your concern to the general. Going out to welcome the general for ten miles is the responsibility of the last general. I dare not disobey the Anxi military rules."

Seeing that he was serious, Li Qingan stopped talking, and the two got on the horse and walked along.

"General Tian, ​​how much material is stored in the forage warehouse now?"

"Report to the general, he just sent 500,000 dan of hay from Hexi the day before yesterday. So far, there are 6 million dans of hay in the forage warehouse, but we have shipped 2 million dans to the Huazhou pasture. If we include this part, we will have 8 million dans of hay. Yesterday, we received news from Longyou that two million dans of hay will be shipped to the next month, all of which are tender grass dried in spring."

Li Qingan nodded. In terms of quantity, it was enough for the Tang army cavalry to use for more than half a year. Now he is concerned about safety issues, especially after his scout exploded the Hebei gunpowder field, An Lushan is likely to attack the forage warehouse. In revenge, he dare not be careless.

"I came to inspect this time mainly because I hope you will strengthen security, raise the security level to Class A, and eliminate any loopholes."

"The last one will obey the order!"

After walking for several miles, they saw a huge warehouse group from afar. Yongxian Forage Reservoir is located about three miles south of Tangzhi Road. A branch was built to connect it, covering an area of ​​dozens of hectares and more than 300 huge warehouses. Two high walls were built outside. The forage reservoir is directly controlled by the military. Eight thousand soldiers were stationed around. There were nearly a hundred sentry towers alone. The defense was extremely tight. There were also 2,400 forage workers. They were all local people, their families were innocent, and they had to change their clothes when entering and leaving the forage reservoir, mainly to prevent people from privately bringing fire into the warehouse.

The forage warehouse is now Class B security, patrolling three times day and night. If it is upgraded to Class A, it is a continuous patrol day and night. The sentry tower is doubled. The officers and soldiers below the Lang General are not allowed to take holidays or have any contact with the outside world. The forage workers are changed from entering the warehouse every day to entering the warehouse once every three days, and they are searched and the soldiers are one-on-one to change their clothes.

Li Qing'an and his party arrived at the forage warehouse. Zhao Fengjun, the general stationed in the forage warehouse, stepped forward and half-kneeled to greet him, "I will meet the general!"

"General Zhao please get up!"

Li Qingan smiled and pointed at Cui Ning again and said, "I would like to invite Prefect Cui to inspect the forage warehouse today. Can you allow me to enter?"

Zhao Fengjun shook his head and said, "Local officials must have the general's golden arrows when entering the forage warehouse. This is the iron rule formulated by the general himself. Now it is just a dictation by the general. Shu Mo cannot obey the order, and the general himself can only have twenty personal soldiers accompanying him. This is the provision of Article 5, paragraph 3."

Li Qingan secretly praised him. He invited Cui Ning to come with him in order to test the defense of the forage warehouse. Now he was very satisfied, so he turned around and apologized to Cui Ning: "Prince Cui, I'm sorry for this military rule."

Cui Ning smiled bitterly. He knew that he had been Li Qing'an's touchstone and said, "Since the rules are like this, I certainly cannot violate the rules. I will wait outside, and your highness will go to inspect."

"Okay then! Let's follow the rules."

Li Qingan smiled at the twenty personal soldiers behind him and said, "You twenty of you come in to inspect!"

He urged the horse to enter, but Zhao Fengjun stopped him. He hesitated, but he still pointed to a row of wooden houses in the distance and said solemnly: "The rules set by the General, the second paragraph, the first paragraph of anyone entering the forage warehouse must be searched and changed clothes. I'm sorry, anyone including the General."
Chapter completed!