Tibet

In the imperial study, Li Ye looked at Qingzhou and Yuanzhou on the sand table.

On the other side stood Wei Jiansu and Guo Ziyi.

Li Ye pondered for a long time and asked: "Who do you think it would be better for the Privy Council to send to exterminate the party?"

Guo Ziyi had already made up his mind and said calmly: "Li Sheng is the only one who can go out to conquer the party!"

Li Ye nodded, he was also thinking of Li Sheng.

At this time, Wei Jiansu asked: "How does your Majesty plan to deal with the party members?"

Li Ye sighed and said: "If you are not of my race, your heart must be different. At that time, the Southern Huns were attached to the territory, and the Eastern Han Dynasty was too kind to them, leaving hidden dangers. Later, Cao Cao divided the Southern Xiongnu into five tribes: left, right, south, north, and middle, and placed them in the pass respectively. Hedong, Hebei and other places were led by their nobles. This was the root of the Wuhu chaos in China.

The Dangxiang and Wuhu are so similar at this time. When we are strong, we can despise these alien races, but when we unfortunately become weak in the future, what will these alien races bring to our descendants?

Wei Xiangguo, if you don't plan for the world, you can't plan for one game! "

Wei Jiansu was deeply moved and stroked his beard and said: "Your Majesty is right, I fully support the destruction of Dang Xiang!"

In the afternoon, Li Ye met with General Li Sheng.

Li Ye performed extremely prominently in the war to pacify Nanzhao, creating a model for Li Ye to check and balance small countries, destroying them but not destroying them.

Some small countries cannot be destroyed, such as Nanzhao. Nanzhao and various small ethnic groups in the south are numerous and complex, and the court does not have so much energy to take care of them.

Leaving Nanzhao as an agent and letting it manage it saved the court a lot of trouble. The same goes for the Shi Kingdom. It is one of the nine Sogdian kingdoms. If it is completely destroyed, the other eight Sogdian kingdoms will be completely pushed to the Dashi. , the Tang Dynasty could not gain a foothold in the Hezhong area, so the Nanzhao model was the best solution. It controlled the Shi Kingdom with garrison and shared its resources, while not interfering in the internal affairs of the Shi Kingdom and appeasing the Shi Kingdom through marriage.

This is the foundation laid by the Nanzhao model, and for this reason, Li Ye valued Li Sheng very much.

"I am here to see you, Your Majesty!" Li Sheng bowed and saluted.

Li Sheng is now the General of the Right Guard and the Minister of Military Affairs. His position is a sinecure. If the emperor remembers you and uses you, you can immediately mount your horse and go to war. If the emperor does not remember you or does not want to use you, you can go to war. I can only idle for the rest of my life.

For example, Li Ye will no longer use Gao Xiuyan, the general of Zuowei. He is already over sixty years old, so Li Ye makes him the general of Zuowei and the Duke of Dai, just to let him enjoy his old age.

But Li Sheng was different. He was only in his early forties and in the prime of life.

Although Li Sheng's expedition to Nanzhao was successful, he was on the wrong team after all, so he was still quite uneasy.

This time the emperor decided to use him to fight against the party, and he was particularly excited.

Li Ye pointed to Yuan Qing and other state roads on the sand table: "The general knows about Dangxiang's rebellion, right?"

"I read the Xun issue of Tang Dynasty yesterday and already know it."

Li Ye pointed at Yanzhou with a wooden pole and said: "Now that Dangxiang is besieging Yanzhou, how should we save it?"

Li Sheng pondered for a moment and said: "Your Majesty, I believe that what Dangxiang really wants to attack is not Yanzhou, but Lingzhou!"

"How can I see it?"

"Your Majesty, Dangxiang is different from other nomads. They are half pastoralists and half farmers. Their population has reached the critical point of 500,000. If they can exceed 500,000, they will soon advance to 1 million. As The nobles of Dangxiang definitely hope that the population will exceed 500,000, but if they want to exceed 500,000, they must have sufficient food. Near Qingzhou and Yuanzhou, the largest grain-producing area is the Hetao. Once they occupy the Lingzhou Hetao, Dangxiang will have demand for an independent country.”

I have to say that Li Sheng's inference is still very convincing. Historically, Dangxiang officially established the Xixia Kingdom after taking control of the Lingzhou Hetao, and it has always been the thorn in the side of the Song Dynasty.

"Do you think they are pretending to attack Yanzhou?"

"No, Wei Chen thinks that they still want to plunder Yanzhou's fire oil, but not Yanzhou's land. Wei Chen read the ten-day magazine. It said that the party has been attacking Yanzhou for a few days, and your majesty has not yet received information about the loss of Yanzhou. The news shows that they are encircling rather than attacking, luring our main force to rescue Yanzhou and buy time for Lingzhou. Once our main force reaches Yanzhou, they will immediately start to snatch the kerosene and then retreat quickly. "

Li Ye nodded, "If I give you 50,000 troops, how will you deal with Dang Xiang?"

"Report to your Majesty, if Wei Chen is given 50,000 troops, Wei Chen will ask for Chang'an's 30,000 troops and Yunzhou's 20,000 troops. Chang'an's 30,000 troops will march northward, and Yunzhou's 20,000 cavalry will be divided into two. One team rushed to support Lingzhou, and the other team rushed to support Yanzhou. "

Li Ye nodded with satisfaction, "As you wish!"

Li Ye immediately appointed Li Sheng as the imperial censor and defense envoy within the pass, and led an army of 30,000 to rescue Yanzhou.

At the same time, an urgent letter was sent to Zhang Guangsheng, the governor of Yunzhou, ordering his 20,000 troops to be divided into two groups, one to rush to rescue Lingzhou, and the other to Yanzhou to stop the party members from plundering kerosene.

Ying's letter was received quickly. Zhang Guangsheng received Ying's letter at dusk. He sent troops overnight and ordered General Lu Yan to lead 10,000 cavalry to Lingzhou. He himself led 10,000 troops to Yanzhou.

At the same time, another eagle letter from Li Ye also arrived in Taiyuan, ordering Taiyuan's three-city defense envoy Xin Jingmin to lead 5,000 troops to rush north to temporarily take over Yunzhou's defense.

Just as Li Ye was dispatching troops and generals to prepare for action against Dang Xiang.

Some subtle changes have also taken place in western Liaoning.

On a vast grassland, a migration team is slowly heading west.

This is a small tribe in Xishiwei, with only a thousand people. More than a thousand carts are loaded with tents, other furniture and various daily necessities. Women and children are sitting on the carts, men are riding horses, and large herds of cattle and sheep follow on both sides of the caravan.

The team marched eastward in a mighty manner.

Since the 30,000 troops of Shiwei were annihilated and the pro-Shiwei Bayegu Khan was eliminated, the Shiwei nobles finally felt the crisis coming.

They finally began to consider the retreat, and this small tribe was their migration test.

The migrating team could not go through the territory of the Kulubo tribe. This was one of the conditions for the Kulubo tribe to send troops. If the Shiwei migrating team entered their pasture, they would withdraw immediately.

The Shiwei tribe did not want to lose this only ally, so they could only migrate along the south bank of the Onon River. The Onon River was the dividing line between the Kulubo tribe and the Bayegu tribe. In fact, they walked along the border between the two tribes, on the Bayegu side.

The team had been walking for four days, and they were very nervous. Once they were captured by the Bayegu tribe, they would probably become slaves.

Slaves were actually similar to the lowest-level herdsmen of the Bayegu tribe, except that they had to pay more taxes to the nobles. Of course, there was still discrimination.

But if they surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, the change would only be the name, and the name of the Shiwei people would no longer exist. They would become citizens of the Tang Dynasty, with their household registration in Liaoxi. After a few generations, they would become Han people.

Now the court was not planning to migrate them to the interior, but to keep them in Liaodong to farm, transforming them from nomadic people to farming people, and gradually sinicizing them.

This westward-migrating experimental tribe was unfortunate. In the afternoon, a Bayegu cavalry of thousands of people came and surrounded more than a thousand carts. Faced with the fierce shouts of the cavalry, the men did not dare to resist and knelt on the ground one after another, while the women cried in the carts with their children in their arms.

The nobles of the various tribes on the grassland were still quite welcoming to the population, which meant that they would get more tax sheep.

The Bayegu cavalry searched all their weapons and ordered the team to turn south to the kingdom of Bayegu. Their fate would be decided by Dada Khan.

Generally, they were divided equally among the eight tribes and became slaves of the Bayegu tribe.