Just as the abolition of slavery began to spread in all states across the country, Anxi's grace order also caused a big stir.
After Li Chenghua became the observer of Anxi Road, he summoned the kings or representatives of various small countries in Anxi in Qiuci, announced to them the emperor's favor from the Tang Dynasty, and allowed them to ennoble their children. The court would recognize it and grant corresponding titles.
The order of grace was officially implemented in Anxi, and the whole Anxi was boiling.
The years in Anxi were long and peaceful. The kings had nothing to do and gave birth to sons all day long. Each king had a lot of sons. When he was young, he had a lot of wives and concubines. But when the sons grew up, troubles came one after another, and they all clamored for land.
In the past, if you want family property, you could use etiquette and rules to suppress it. Now the court encourages family division, recognizes the subdivided king, and grants titles to the king. All of a sudden, the rules and etiquette are broken.
Why is it said that the extension of favor is an unexplainable conspiracy? Because it directly attacks human nature. Even if the king sees that this is a strategy to weaken them, his sons and concubines will cry, make trouble, and hang themselves, forcing the king to execute the extension of favor.
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They are all sons, why should only the eldest brother inherit the throne and wealth? Now that there is a chance, how can the princes not make trouble? If the king persists to the end, it means a coup.
Therefore, one month after the promulgation of the Tuien Order, a coup broke out in Shule Kingdom. The other six sons, except the eldest son, joined forces to kill their father and eldest son, and divided up the land, wealth and army.
Li Chenghua immediately recognized the throne of his six sons on behalf of the Tang Dynasty, named them earls, and granted them the earl seal.
The Shule coup was the straw that broke the camel's back. Seeing the consequences and the attitude of the Tang Dynasty, the kings of various countries had to give in and allocate land and wealth to other sons one after another, leaving the royal city to the eldest son.
The first consequence of the enfeoffment was that they could no longer support so many troops. Of course, the sons would not spend money to support an army that did not obey them. They would rather recruit their own troops. In this way, the kingdom's army would be greatly reduced or even disbanded.
The Kingdom of Qiuci was divided into seven small countries, which was still the result of not all being enfeoffed.
The original 8,000 Kucha army was also split up. There were only more than 1,000 troops left in the royal city, and the number of officials was reduced by more than half.
But now is not the time to implement the county system. The time will be truly ripe only after the extension of grace is deeply rooted.
At the beginning of April, Xi Wanli, the governor of Anxi, led an army of 15,000 to attack the Shishi Kingdom.
Xi Wanli's appointment as the Governor of Anxi marked another reform achievement in Anxi. The Anxi Governor's Office was changed from the Economic and Strategic Office to the Military Office, the military and government were separated, and the government affairs were taken over by the Anxi Road Observer Office.
With the conversion of Hezhong Dudufu and Anxi Dudufu into military prefectures, it marked the complete end of the Jiedushi system that caused violent turmoil in the mid-Tang Dynasty.
This time, the Anxi Army's southward expedition to Tocharo and Big and Little Bolu was also a set task of the imperial court this year.
Before Li Chenghua returned to Chang'an, he sent people to collect information about the Tibetan army's invasion of Tocharo, Hezhong and Dabolu. When Li Chenghua returned to Anxi, this information was put on her desk.
This information can be said to be both good and bad. The good news is that the penetration of Ba Khanna in Hezhong has just begun, and it was forcefully pulled out by the Tang army.
On the other hand, the predatory nature of the Tubo army made the Tocharian countries very wary of Tibet. So far, except for some religious exchanges, the Tubo army has not been able to penetrate into the Tocharian countries, except for the Jinshi Kingdom.
The first to bear the brunt of the bad news was the Kingdom of Yushi, where the pro-Tang king and his family were killed. Tubo re-supported the pro-Tubo king and stationed 3,000 troops in the Kingdom of Yushi.
The second bad news is that Tibet rebuilt the city in Dabolu and garrisoned 7,000 to 8,000 troops.
Perhaps the Tubo's goal is not directed at Anxi for the time being, so they did not attack Xiao Bolu. Xiao Bolu on the other side of the canyon also pretended to be confused and turned a blind eye to the Tibetan army's continuous westward expansion and did not report to Anxi. This has led to the Anxi situation in recent years.
I knew nothing about the westward expansion of the Tibetan army.
Many things are quite coincidental. Just when Tubo had been preparing for many years and was about to show off its offensive against Tochara, the Tang army also launched an attack on the Tubo army.
The Tang army still followed the Wakhan Corridor. The army marched westward along the Bomit River, arrived at Hunduoduo City, then turned down the road, passed through thousands of miles of snow-capped mountains and canyons, and arrived at the Humi Country.
Humi Country is a grain-producing country, and it is also the last resting place for the Tang army. More than three hundred miles further east is the Chushi Kingdom.
The Tang army's 15,000 cavalry and 20,000 camels traveled through the high mountains. Although the Kunlun Mountains and Congling area are also over 4,000 meters above sea level, they have one advantage compared to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, that is, they mainly use
The terrain is dominated by mountains and river valleys. If you are going over snow-capped mountains, the altitude is four to five thousand meters. The climate is cold and breathing is difficult. But if you walk in the valley, the altitude suddenly drops to one or two thousand meters. There is sufficient oxygen, fresh air, and abundant vegetation.
, there are also many rivers, making marching more comfortable.
In fact, the journey to Humi Country was a detour, covering thousands of miles more, but the biggest advantage was that we basically marched in the river valleys all the way, with only a small section of snow-capped mountains and plateaus.
The Tang army rested for three days in the Humi Kingdom, and then the army began to turn around and march eastward, marching along a river valley towards the Chushi Kingdom.
Li Ye walked this road in the past. After surviving a winter of food shortage in the Shishi Kingdom, Li Ye took dozens of people to the Humi Country to buy food. Here he met Master Padmasambhava.
This valley of several hundred miles is the only way from the Kingdom of Yushi to Tochara, and the Tubo people attach great importance to it. It is still fifty miles away from the Kingdom of Yushi, and two fortresses stand in front, blocking the way of the Tang army.
As soon as several Tang scouts approached, they were immediately spotted by the Tubo soldiers in the stone fort. Rocks were fired at them. One Tang scout was unable to dodge and was hit in the face by flying rocks. His nose bones were broken and his face was covered with blood. Others
Several Tang Army soldiers rescued him.
Xi Wanli stood on a big rock and used his clairvoyance to observe the Tubo Army fortress hundreds of steps away. The Tubo Army fortress was located on a high place, commanding the sky. The fortress was made of large stones and was quite solid. It was divided into upper and lower sides, with a third floor on the top.
There seemed to be soldiers on board too.
"General, they are lighting beacon fire!"
Xi Wanli put down his clairvoyance, and smoke ignited from a nearby fortress and shot straight to the top of the valley.
It was easier to clean up these two fortresses. Xi Wanli immediately ordered to his deputy Li Feilei: "Send three sharpshooting heavy crossbowmen to blow up the fortress with arrows and thunder!"
To deal with this kind of fortress, artillery is actually the most suitable, but the improved artillery sent to Anxi is still on the way. Anxi still has long braided artillery, which the army generally does not like. They prefer arrows and thunder, which are convenient, practical and powerful.
Immediately, three heavy crossbowmen rushed forward, each with two deputies, and the deputies were responsible for cocking the bow and igniting the weapon.
About two hundred and fifty steps away from the fortress, they found a cover point. Each of the three of them lay down on a large rock, raised their crossbows and aimed at the window on the middle floor of the fortress on the right, and assisted the soldiers to light the match rope.
‘Ka! Ka! Ka!’ Three heavy arrows were shot at the same time, accurately hitting the window. Three explosions instantly sounded in the fortress on the right, and then billowing smoke spewed out from the window.
Immediately afterwards, three more crossbow arrows were shot, also accurately shot from the middle window, and another violent explosion sounded in the fortress.
"Boom!"
The two explosions caused the fortress on the right to be unable to hold up any longer and collapsed.
The three sharpshooters were about to shoot at a fortress on the left. Lieutenant General Li Feilei shouted: "No need to shoot, the enemy has already escaped!"
The sharpshooter put down his heavy crossbow, and dozens of Tang soldiers rushed over to check. After a moment, he shouted: "All the Tibetan soldiers have fled!"
The commander-in-chief, Xi Wanli, immediately went to check. The fortress on the left was empty. There was still a lot of food and a dozen plateau donkeys in it. As expected, all the Tibetan soldiers had escaped.
The fortress on the right collapsed, and there was blood everywhere. It seemed that many people had been killed by the explosion.
The soldiers worked together to dismantle the fortress and found a total of thirty-eight corpses of Tibetan soldiers.
But what Xi Wanli was more interested in was the equipment of the Tibetan soldiers, including daggers, piercing armor, and shields, which were basically the same as they were ten years ago. There were no bows and arrows, and they still used leather bags to sling stones.
Of course, it's not that the Tubo army couldn't make bows and arrows, but the arrows shot by ordinary single bows couldn't penetrate the armor of the Tang army soldiers, and had almost no lethality. After countless actual battles, the Tubo soldiers still chose the traditional stone sling.
At least if a stone hits the head, the enemy will faint.
After the Tang army disposed of more than 30 corpses and took a short rest, the 15,000 Tang army continued to kill along the river valley toward Shangmi, the capital of the Yushi Kingdom, which was dozens of miles away.