Time flies, and another New Year's Eve has arrived. After today, we have entered the year 934 in history. This is the third year that Zhang Zhao has traveled through time.
In the Central Plains, on November 26th, Li Siyuan, Emperor Mingzong of the Later Tang Dynasty, who killed all the descendants of his adoptive father Li Keyong, died. Six days later, without a secret funeral, on the first day of December, Li Siyuan's third son Li Conghou succeeded to the throne.
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Therefore, after this New Year's Eve, the reign name of next year 934 will not be Changxing but Yingshun.
Of course, Yingshun will soon become Qingtai, because Li Conghou's sworn brother Li Congke will rebel and successfully overthrow him.
What's funny is that Li Siyuan was Li Keyong's adopted son, who rebelled against his adopted brother Li Cunxu and killed all his adoptive father's blood heirs.
Li Congke was also Li Siyuan's adopted son, and then he rebelled against his adopted brother Li Conghou, and almost killed all of his adopted father's bloodline heirs.
Uh! Maybe he should be called adopted son, because Li Congke was the prostitute brought by his mother.
However, no matter what, Li Ke seems to have been cursed to use this system. It seems that if his adopted son uses it too much, the consequences will still be big.
Of course, King Zhang doesn't have this worry now, because his army of righteous soldiers has not been established yet and only has a mere twenty people.
All this was because King Zhang's requirements were too high. He recruited adopted sons to form an army of adopted sons, and only recruited those with Han appearance and intelligence. Naturally, he was a bit slow to collect them.
However, unlike the big bosses in the Central Plains who accepted adopted sons purely for the sake of force, Zhang Zhao's adoption of adopted sons requires the development of both civil and military talents.
In addition to the training of horsemanship, archery, martial arts, calligraphy and warfare, reading and writing are the most basic. Zhang Zhao also personally compiled textbooks for education, including domestic affairs, diplomacy, mathematics and laws, and all must be studied.
Being the adopted son of King Zhang is definitely not an easy task. The only one who has a non-Han appearance is Huang Yang'er, who was adopted by Zhang Zhao because of his merits in blasting. He knows this kind of pain best. Sometimes he would rather go back.
Forget about herding sheep.
On New Year's Eve at this time, in addition to staying up late, there is also an indispensable procedure, drinking peppercorn wine.
It’s really Sichuan peppercorn wine! Take a handful of good Sichuan peppercorns, put it in the wine and drink it warm, the taste is amazing!
After having two drinks with everyone, Zhang Zhao quickly threw the wine glass as far as he could.
Whoever invented the idea of using Sichuan peppercorns to warm wine is really insightful!
Fortunately, the alcohol content at this time was not high, so it didn't burn my throat very much, otherwise it would have been numb and spicy, almost like eating hot pot.
In the hall, there were many people invited to participate in the all-night feast on New Year's Eve. Officers from all armies and above, civilian officials from various places who guarded and appeased the people, and the entire Hanshan capital, hundreds of people were together.
He was said to be a civil servant, but in fact he still acted like a military man. As soon as he drank a little more wine, the atmosphere in the hall suddenly changed.
This is not a 'high-end state banquet' for Ju'er Khan who is also the vice-king of the Kingdom of Jin. This is simply a gathering of one hundred and eight generals from the Water Margin in Liangshan.
Yang Shouli and Huitong monk Zhengtong were dancing to each other. After a while, a large number of drunk people came up to them, and finally it turned into a chaotic dance of demons.
Ma Yaozi and Barbarian Xiong started fighting again. The two had always had some quarrels with each other. Now they started wrestling directly in the banquet hall with the help of alcohol. A group of people who were watching the fun and not taking it too seriously were also booing around them.
Zhang Zhao could only helplessly wink at the old Zhang Zhong next to him. If he didn't take care of this, the two of them would definitely get angry.
After such a fool completely catches fire, there is a high probability that a knife will be used, which is very detrimental to the unity within Xianshan City.
With a crisp sound of ‘Ding Dong!’, Zhang Zhong walked over to Zhang Zhong carelessly, threw two gold cakes on the foot-wrestling table beside them, and then began to greet the people around him.
"Come on! I'm going to be the boss tonight, but this wrestling is meaningless. It's all about brute force. You will all be high-ranking officials in the future. Let's play something elegant and compete in archery!"
"That's right! Competing in archery skills is nothing more than a competition between the two of you. Only in the competition of archery skills can you show your bravery!"
"Yes! On New Year's Eve, when the king comes, how can you let your two idiots be more beautiful than before?"
The atmosphere was different when Zhang Zhong came out. Although he had just arrived in Kesai City a few days ago, although Zhang Zhong strictly speaking had no military exploits and did not even hold an official position.
But no one dared to look down upon him. Just because the king was brought up by Zhang Zhong, not many people dared to stab him in front of him.
What's more, this was probably the king's instruction, so someone quickly brought the bows, arrows and arrow targets.
Everyone's focus instantly changed from two people wrestling with everyone watching, to a shooting competition.
Everyone excitedly announced the twelve good shooters, and the rest took out their gold and silver and began to place bets.
After a while, the high-quality Liuyun Shu brocade in Anxi, which is hard to find in the river, appeared on the bet. The atmosphere suddenly became more enthusiastic, and everyone's eyes lit up when they looked at the Shu brocade.
Even Barbarian Bear and Ma Yaozi couldn't care less about the slight disagreement between the two of them, and began to breathe heavily.
Zhang Zhao gave a wry smile, his men could feast and drink in exchange for staying up late, but he couldn't because he still had to arrange for these guys.
This time he collected the defeated troops of Yusupu. He selected more than 8,000 troops from them, and more than 3,000 Persian troops surrendered. In addition, more than 3,000 troops were selected from various tribes in Beishan. Zhang Zhao collected a total of 30,000 troops for himself.
The army.
It's a lot of pressure! You must know that during the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the Anxi Army could usually dispatch more than 30,000 people. If there were more logistical supplies, they would not be able to keep up.
But Zhang Zhao had to dispatch so many talents, because what he had to face next was the counterattack of the entire Samampos.
Regardless of whether it is on the eve of decline, Samampos is still a large transoxian country with a population of more than three to four million people.
According to the information provided by the Persian general Rashid Saliman, the military strength of the Persian army is divided into four frontal armies.
On the one hand, there are the Royal Guards of the Forbidden City of Alka, which are directly controlled by Nasr II. There are about 5,000 people. This is the emir's trusted force.
Then there are the Ghulam Guards stationed in five important cities including Bukhara, Samarkand, and Herat.
Among them, Ghulam in Bukhara is controlled by Crown Prince Hamid, with about 20,000 people, and the remaining four cities add up to about 10,000 people.
The third front was the border defense force that faced off against the Safar dynasty in the south. The Ghulam Guards and Ersalia Standing Army combined totaled about 30,000 people.
Finally, the standing and semi-standing army of Juzhanti Province, which was completely destroyed by Zhang Zhao, numbered about 35,000 people. Adulal brought out more than 30,000 people, but in the end only about 3,000 or 4,000 people fled back.
Zhang Zhao was numb when he heard this. A country with a population of less than 4 million maintained an army of 90,000 to 95,000 people all year round, with an astonishing military-civilian ratio of more than 40 to one.
What kind of militancy is this? Damn it, given the productivity of this era, it would be terrifying if the military-civilian ratio could reach 80:1. Not everyone can become a native of the Warring States Period and the Qin Dynasty.
He finally knew that the biggest reason for the decline of Samampos was that the entire country had been kidnapped by the huge military nobles and officer class.
Four million people support more than 90,000 troops. I am afraid that most of the country's national power will be used to support soldiers.
Even if there are many half-soldiers and half-citizens among them, as well as low-cost warriors, it is not something this country can afford.
If he had time, Zhang Zhao could slowly consume it like the Kara Khanate in history, until the giant in the river fell, and then his mouth would be full of oil.
But he didn't have time, so he could only use the current favorable situation to decisively and quickly tear off Samampos's last disguise. The owner of the 90,000-strong army was not strong either.
With Xiaobo Da, 30,000 troops are the minimum requirement.
The atmosphere in the hall became more and more heated. The bear hit the bullseye four out of five times, forcing Ma Yaozi to a dead end. If he fell below this number, he would not only be embarrassed, but also lose a large amount of money.
But Zhang Zhao didn't care about that. He was writing and drawing on the manuscript paper, and had already begun to make a military reform plan to control these 30,000 people.
First of all, the name of Shandu will be separated from the Fengtian Army, because judging from this battle, Zhang Zhao still needs to personally lead the assault.
Moreover, among the more than 60 people left in Hanshandu, there are actually many who are not suitable to be released as officers.
For example, like Dunzhu, Man Xiong, and Song Zhongyi, if you ask him to lead thirty or fifty people, it's okay, but if he leads more than two hundred people, he will harm others and himself.
Therefore, Zhang Zhao planned to separate the name of Shandu from the Fengtian Army and turn it into the name of his own bodyguard.
Then Fan Shun, Dunzup, Man Xiong, Song Zhongyi and others were placed in the personal guards as middle and lower-level officers, and the scale was based on 300 people.
From now on, these three hundred people will be like Li Shimin's black armor cavalry in history, becoming the decisive force that follows the leader to break the formation.
Those who can be released as officers, such as Yin Yaozi, Fan Quan, Yan Jin and others will be released as officers this time.
The newly recruited 16,000 troops will be controlled by Feihudu and Tiemadu of Hanshandu and Baodaying.
These 16,000 people will form two armies, each with 8,000 people.
The Persian surrendered troops were mixed with light cavalry from various units in Beishan, plus some of the former infantrymen from Kesi City to form the Shunyi Left Army.
Zhang Zhao planned to let Yan Jin be the military commander of the left army, with Fan Quan, Hu Guang, Persian general Rashid Saliman and others as his deputy.
The Shunyi Right Army had Yin Yaozi as the commander of the troops and horses, and Ma Yaozi and Lu Sanlang as his deputy.
It is still late winter, and the weather is not conducive to war. The real battle may not begin until March or April next year. After the food and grass from Khotan are shipped, the army can be sent south.
Choosing spring is not only because the road is easy to travel, but also because it can delay the spring plowing of Saman Persia. If the battle goes wrong, the Persians will not be able to cultivate with peace of mind. Only by attacking instead of defending can they better defend the Fergana Basin.
"Your Majesty! Captain Yan reported secretly that on the way from Bukhara to Juzhanti, they intercepted the envoy from the direction of Bukhara. It is said that he is a high-ranking official and has been sent over overnight!"
Just when Zhang Zhao was about to finish the general's plan, Guo Tiance hurried over.