Chastity Layman

Outside the curtain.

Xiao Siye, Xue Rengui, Li Sheer, Li Heli and other shufu governors also understood the emperor's intentions, and then they wanted to abolish the Western Turks and withdraw the two capitals.

Pei Xingjian and Lai Ji were appointed as the third in command of Anxi and Beiting respectively. In fact, they served as the chiefs of Mengchi and Kunling. If all the ministries are honest, then they will comfort and appease them, if they are not honest, then they will recruit them briefly.

They also sent each of them a capable fighter, Wang Fangyi and Liu Rengui, both from famous families and very capable fighters, they belonged to the new generation of fighters who had made a name for themselves during the Kaiyuan Dynasty.

The emperor obviously didn't pay much attention to the current Western Turks. What kind of Tuqishi and Ge Luolu are nothing. In the past few decades, the Western Turks have been ups and downs. Who dares to oppose the Tang Dynasty? How many years?

Now the emperor of the Tang Dynasty has already crossed the river, and his eyes are on Persia, on the Xindu River, and even on the banks of the Volga River in the Caspian Sea.

The Silk Road of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions has been advanced in three ways. The northern route passes through Zhaowu and Kesa, directly passes through the Caspian Sea, connects with the Black Sea, and directly trades with the Roman Empire.

The middle road passes through Zhaowu and Tocharo through Tianshan Mountains from north to south, and connects with Persia. Even now, with the advancement of the Tang army's westward expedition, it is only a little bit close to the Persian Gulf in the south.

Now on the Silk Road in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, countless Sogdian merchants used camels to transport their goods to the river and into Tocharia, and then Persia and Dashi merchants relayed their goods, and then transported them to the two rivers or the north bank of the Persian Gulf, where they met with Egyptian merchants or It is traded by Tianzhu merchants, and they will redistribute and transport them to more distant places.

The southern route directly enters Tochara from the south of the Tianshan Mountains through Congling, then crosses the Khyber Pass and enters the Indus River Basin, sells goods to Tianzhu merchants, sells letters to Tianzhu countries through the Ganges River, or goes down the Indus River Enter the sea and sell the goods to Dashike Egyptian merchants in Haikou.

In the past, what the Tang Dynasty could really control along the Silk Road, which was thousands of miles from east to west, was the Hexi Corridor. Further west, it was basically controlled by the Western Turks in the Western Regions and the Sogdians in the river.

The trade along the Silk Road was actually segmented. The east of Yumen Pass was controlled by the Tang Dynasty, the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains were controlled by the Western Turks, the area in the middle of the river was controlled by the Sogdians, and further west, there were Persians, Tianzhu people, and Khazars. People, Alvas, Romans, etc., and to the south are Tocharians, Tianzhu people, big cannibals, Egyptians and Venetian merchants.

Western Turks, Persia, Rome, Khazar, Tianzhu, Dashi, and the overlords of all parties are trying their best to monopolize the Silk Road at their doorstep, setting up checkpoints and collecting taxes heavily.

Oriental silk sold to Rome was more expensive than gold, and Nanyang spices were even known as black gold when they were sold to Venetian merchants several times. .

When the Western Turks were at their strongest, they were able to perish and conquer Tocharia, punch Persia, and kick Rome. The most important thing is that they controlled the Silk North Road from Yumen Pass to the Black Sea. Most of the profits on the Silk Road, They took them all.

But now, the three Silk Road routes of Datang are directly connected with the big countries in Persia, Rome, Dashi, and Tianzhu, and there are many middlemen in the middle. This means that Datang not only controls the important source of goods on the Silk Road, but also Mastered more trade transit profits.

The development route of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions in the past few decades was actually along the Silk Road trade route, building post stations and military forts along the Silk Road, establishing military towns and villages, and emigrating along the route.

The emperor has been staring at the Western Regions, his eyes are far away.

He is now hoping that the Western Expeditionary Army can defeat the big cannibals of Persia, and it is best to take advantage of the situation and push southward along Tocharo to the sea.

Although Guo Xiaoke on the front line told the emperor that Tocharo originally belonged to the plateau area, and the Gobi Desert to the south was quite difficult to pass. He suggested to the emperor that if he wanted to open up an outlet to the sea from the Western Regions, the best plan would be to cross the Congling Ridge and go south from Axu City (Khan Abad), the capital of Yuezhi, on the upper reaches of the Wuhu River. Lancheng (Bagran) in Quanzhou goes south to Luolan City (Bamian), the governor's mansion of Fengdu, climbs over the Snowy Mountains (Hindu Kush Mountains) in the east, and arrives at Huwen City (Kabul) in Xiliuzhou, a river valley at the east foot. Go east along the Xiliu River Valley, cross the pass, and enter the Gandhara Kingdom in the Indus Valley.

Only through this route can one cross the Snowy Mountains, reach the rich Indus River basin, and then go down the river to reach the sea, and even cross the mountain pass and enter the northern plain of Tianzhu eastward.

Compared with the continuous plateau mountains and Gobi desert in the south of Tocharo, the richness of the Indus River Basin is undoubtedly more attractive.

Although the Western Expeditionary Army has not recovered the entire Khorasan area after several battles with the Great Food Army, it has also curbed the Eastward advance of the Great Food Army and even regained some lost ground.

Now the most southeast stronghold of the Great Tang Western Expeditionary Army is Jiling City, and the most northwest strongholds are Huoxun and Mulu, divided into two major legions.

One is the southeast camp that almost occupies the entire Afghan region of later generations, relying on Tocharo, and the northwest camp that almost occupies the entire Turkmenistan area of ​​later generations.

Jiling City is the Zabol of the later generations, and the Eastern Army of Dashi, also known as the Far Eastern Army, is stationed in Zahedan, and the distance between the two armies is only a few hundred miles.

The Northwest Camp focused on stationing in Mulu (Mare), while the Northern Army of Dashi was also called the Khorasan Army stationed in the city of Tus (Mashhad).

If it wasn't for the internal strife in the Great Food, it is now split into two parts, the East and the West, and they are still fighting each other. In fact, after the Great Food conquered Persia and moved eastward, it set its future strategic goals. The Far East Army first conquered Tocharian, and then crossed the Khyber Pass and entered the Indus River Basin, just like the route that countless foreigners invaded India time and time again in history, entering the fertile Indus River Plain and even the more fertile northern Ganges Plain.

And its Khorasan Army crossed the Wuhu River to the north, entered the river area, and captured the Zhaowu Kingdoms, in order to capture the rich city-states here and control the important nodes of the Silk Road.

It's a pity that they met Datang, who was advancing westward strongly, and they had internal strife.

Historically, after Datang entered the Western Regions, it was not strong and its control was insufficient. Especially after the rise of Tubo, it made Datang miss several times against the Western Regions. The important task of food westward.

It was not until later that Datang returned to the Western Regions, but the return of Datang to the Western Regions made Tuqi vigilant and dissatisfied, so later in the battle between Datang and Dashi, Ge Luolu, who was the Tang Xijun, turned against him and took a blow in the back , so that the Tang army was defeated.

Not long after this battle, the Anshi Rebellion broke out in the Central Plains, and the main force of the Anxi Army was transferred back to the Central Plains King Qin, which made Datang almost completely lose control of the Western Regions.

But in this time and space, Datang is more powerful. Tubo was beaten to ashes by Qin Lang when Tubo first emerged, and then he was completely dismembered and never got up again. Although Songtsan Gampo endured the humiliation, he once wanted to reach out to Nipo Luo, but was killed by Wang Xuance Another beating.

Later, he died of illness in depression. After his death, the little Tubo fell into a succession dispute. In the end, Gal Dongzan supported his grandson to succeed to the throne. Small area.

The Western Turks were also played to death by Li Shimin and Li Yin's father and son. One generation was not as good as the previous generation. As for the city-states of Gaochang Kucha and Zhaowu Sogdia in the Western Regions, they had been washed over and over again.

Under such a situation, how could the emperor Li Yin, who was already very happy, confine his gaze to the Tianshan Mountains. His gaze had already been set on the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.

In essence, this is actually the spillover effect brought about by the continuous explosion of productivity improvement since the new policy of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty.

The national power of the Tang Dynasty is booming, the productive forces are liberated, and there are sufficient reserves in the treasury, which can support the Tang army's expeditions and wars again and again, can support their continuous external expansion, and allow them to go further.

In history, after the Germanic barbarians destroyed Western Rome and established a feudal country represented by Frank, they played the game of enfeoffing knights. It took hundreds of years for a group of barbaric old men to recover enough. Productivity, enough strength was reserved, and then there was the Crusades.

In essence, although the Eastern Expedition of the army was under the banner of jihad, in essence, those barbarian feudal aristocrats finally had overflowing productivity, so they were able to march eastward and went to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea to grab territory from foreign races and build a cross country.

If the Central Plains was still in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and everyone was still busy with introversion all day long, the people couldn’t even afford food and clothing, and the kings had to be wary of their own lairs all day long, how could there be any grand plan, how could they be able to expedition to the Western Regions, The sword points to the two rivers.

In the thousands of years of history, there was only a strong, continuous and successful expedition in the Qin and Han Dynasties.

Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty ruled the world, and the 30-year accumulation of the founding emperor's prosperity could not support Yang Guang's profligacy. His three conquests of Goguryeo also ruined the entire Sui family business.

In the final analysis, the savings of the Sui Dynasty were not enough, and its system could not completely liberate the productive forces, and there was no way to provide more sufficient support for Yang Guang's three campaigns.

These problems do not exist here in Li Yin.

The wealth and strength accumulated in the prosperity of Zhenguan was stronger than that of Han Wenjing and Sui Kaihuang, not to mention that Han and Sui were still traditional farming civilizations after all. An advanced farming society.

"Guo Xiaoke has been in the Western Regions for a long time. Since he proposed to temporarily abandon part of Khorasan's lost land, replace it with defense and attack, and instead go east to the Indus River for a little conquest, I think we can give it a try."

"Since the White Xiongnu Zanda and the Western Turks successfully invaded the Indus River Valley along this route and conquered many Tianzhu city-states, then my Great Tang's Western Expedition Army can naturally do the same."

The emperor tapped the back of the chair with his fingers, and the strength increased a little.

"Order Guo Xiaoke to sit in Dawan Army Town and be in charge of the border defense of Mulu City, Jiling City, Huoxun City, etc., and use Cheng Mingzhen as the commander of the Indian Road and Battalion to cross the Great Snow Mountain to conquer Gandhara and other countries!"