Tibet

Just as the abolition order began to penetrate into all states, the Enfeoffment Order of Anxi also caused a stir.

After Li Chenghua became the governor of Anxi Road, he summoned the kings or representatives of the small countries in Anxi in Qiuci and announced to them the imperial grace of the Great Tang Emperor, allowing them to enfeoff their sons, and the court would recognize and grant corresponding titles.

The Enfeoffment Order 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 they were young, they had many wives and concubines, which was very comfortable, but when the sons grew up, troubles followed one after another. Each of them clamored for land and property. In the past, they could be suppressed by etiquette and rules. Now the court encourages the division of the family, recognizes the kings after the division, and grants titles. The rules and etiquette were broken at once.

Why is the Enfeoffment Order an unsolvable conspiracy? Because it directly hits human nature. Even if the king sees that this is a strategy to weaken them, his sons and concubines will cry, make a fuss, and even hang themselves to force the king to implement the Enfeoffment Order.

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 a fuss? If the king insists on it, it means a coup.

So one month after the Enfeoffment Order was issued, a coup broke out in Shule State. Except for the eldest son, the other six sons joined forces to kill their father and eldest son, and divided up the land, wealth and army.

Li Chenghua immediately recognized the throne of the six sons on behalf of the Tang Dynasty court, and conferred them the title of earl and granted them the earl seal.

The Shule coup was the key straw that broke the camel's back. The kings of various countries saw the consequences and the attitude of the Tang Dynasty and had to give in. They divided the land and wealth among other sons and left the royal city to the eldest son.

The first consequence of the enfeoffment was that it was impossible to support so many troops. Of course, the sons would not pay to support the troops that did not obey them. They would rather recruit troops by themselves. In this way, the army of the kingdom was greatly reduced or even disbanded.

The Kingdom of Kucha was divided into seven small countries, and this was still the result of not enfeoffment.

The original 8,000 Kucha troops were also split up, and only more than 1,000 troops were left in the royal city, and more than half of the officials were reduced.

But now is not the time to implement the county system. Only after the Enfeoffment Order is deeply rooted, the time will be truly ripe.

In early April, Anxi Governor Xi Wanli led 15,000 troops to attack the Kingdom of Qishi.

Xi Wanli's appointment as Anxi Governor marked another reform achievement of Anxi. The Anxi Governor's Office was changed from the Jinglüe Office to the Military Office, and the military and political affairs were separated. The political affairs were taken over by the Anxi Dao Observation Office.

With the change of the Hezhong Governor's Office and the Anxi Governor's Office to the Military Office, it marked the complete end of the Jiedushi system that caused violent turmoil in the middle Tang Dynasty.

This time, the Anxi Army's southern expedition to Tokharistan and Bolor was also a set task for the court this year.

Before returning to Chang'an, Li Chenghua sent people to collect intelligence about the Tubo Army's invasion of Tokharistan, Hezhong, Bolor, and Bolor. When Li Chenghua returned to Anxi, this intelligence was placed on her desk.

These intelligence can be said to be both good and bad. The good news is that Hezhong's infiltration of Bukhara has just begun, and it was strongly pulled out by the Tang army.

On the other hand, the predatory nature of the Tubo Army made the Tokharistan countries very wary of Tubo. So far, except for some religious exchanges, the Tubo army has not been able to infiltrate any of the Tokharistan countries, except for the Kingdom of Qishi.

The first to bear the brunt of the bad news was the Kingdom of Qishi. The pro-Tang king and his family were killed. Tubo re-supported the pro-Tubo king to take the throne and stationed 3,000 troops in the Kingdom of Qishi.

The second bad news is that Tubo rebuilt the city in Daboluo and stationed 7,000 to 8,000 troops.

Perhaps Tubo's target was not Anxi for the time being, so they did not attack Xiaoboluo. Xiaoboluo on the other side of the canyon also pretended to be confused, turning a blind eye to the continuous westward expansion of the Tubo army and not reporting to Anxi, which led to Anxi knowing nothing about the westward expansion of the Tubo army in recent years.

Many things are quite coincidental. Just when Tubo had been preparing for many years and was ready to start to make a big move against Tokharistan, the Tang army also launched a strike against the Tubo army.

The Tang army still took the Wakhan Corridor. The army marched westward along the Bomi River. After arriving at the city of Hunduoduo, it turned down and passed through the snow-capped mountain canyons for thousands of miles to reach the Kingdom of Humi.

The Kingdom of Humi is a grain-producing country and the last stop for the Tang army to rest. Going east for more than 300 miles is the Kingdom of Qishi.

The Tang army's 15,000 cavalry and 20,000 camels traveled between the mountains. Although the Kunlun Mountains and the Pamir Mountains are also more than 4,000 meters above sea level, they have one advantage over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, that is, they are mainly high mountain valley terrain. If you cross the snow-capped mountains, the altitude is 4,000 to 5,000 meters, the climate is cold, and breathing is difficult.

But if you walk in the river valley, the altitude will drop to 1,000 to 2,000 meters, with sufficient oxygen, fresh air, abundant vegetation, and many rivers, so the march will be more comfortable.

In fact, going to Humi Country is a detour, and it takes thousands of miles more, but the biggest advantage is that it is basically marching in the river valley all the way, with only a small section of snow-capped mountains and plateaus.

The Tang army rested in Humi Country for three days, and the army began to turn east and marched towards the Kingdom of Qishi along a river valley.

This road was taken by Li Ye in the past. After enduring a food-deficient winter in Qishi Country, Li Ye brought dozens of people to Humi Country to buy food, and met Guru Padmasambhava here.

This river valley of several hundred miles was the only way from the Kingdom of Qishi to Tokharistan, and the Tibetans attached great importance to it. Fifty miles away from the Kingdom of Qishi, two fortresses stood in front, blocking the way of the Tang army.

As soon as several Tang scouts approached, they were immediately discovered by the Tubo soldiers in the stone fort. Rocks flew everywhere. One Tang scout was hit in the face by a flying rock before he could dodge. His nose was broken and his face was covered in blood. He was rescued by several other Tang soldiers.

Xi Wanli stood on a large rock and used his clairvoyance to observe the Tubo fortress hundreds of steps away. The Tubo fortress was located on a high place and looked down from above. The fortress was built with large stones and was quite solid. It was divided into upper and lower sides. There seemed to be soldiers on the top platform of the third floor.

"General, they have lit a beacon!"

Xi Wanli put down his clairvoyance, and a smoke signal was lit on a fortress next to him, rushing straight to the top of the valley.

It was relatively easy to deal with these two fortresses. Xi Wanli immediately ordered his deputy general Li Feilei: "Send three sharpshooters and heavy crossbowmen to blow down the fortress with arrow mines!"

To deal with this kind of fortress, artillery is actually the most suitable, but the improved version of artillery sent to Anxi is still on the way. Anxi still has long braid artillery, which the army generally does not like. They prefer arrow mines, which are convenient, practical and powerful.

Immediately, three heavy crossbowmen ran up, each with two assistants, who were responsible for stringing and igniting.

About 250 steps away from the fortress, they found a cover point. The three of them lay on a big stone, raised their crossbows and aimed at the middle-level window of the right fortress, and assisted the soldiers to light the fuse.

'Ka! Ka! Ka! 'Three heavy arrows were shot out at the same time and accurately shot into the window. In an instant, three explosions sounded in the right fortress, and then billowing smoke spewed out of the window.

Immediately afterwards, three more crossbow arrows were shot out, also accurately shot into the middle-level window, and violent explosions sounded again in the fortress.

"Boom!"

The two explosions made the fortress on the right unable to hold up anymore and collapsed.

The three sharpshooters were about to shoot at a fortress on the left, and the deputy general Li Feilei shouted: "No need to shoot, the enemy has already run away!"

The sharpshooters put down their heavy crossbows, and dozens of Tang soldiers ran over to check, and shouted after a while: "The Tubo soldiers have all run away!"

The commander Xi Wanli rushed forward to check, and the fortress on the left was empty, with a lot of food and more than a dozen plateau donkeys inside. The Tubo soldiers had indeed run away.

The fortress on the right collapsed, and there was blood everywhere, which seemed to have killed and crushed many people.

The soldiers worked together to dismantle the fortress, and a total of 38 Tubo soldiers were cleared out.

But Xi Wanli was more interested in the equipment of the Tubo soldiers, short swords, armor-piercing, and shields, which were basically the same as ten years ago. There were no bows and arrows, and they still used leather bags to throw stones.

Of course, it was not that the Tubo army could not make bows and arrows, but the arrows shot from ordinary single bows could not penetrate the armor of the Tang soldiers and had almost no killing power. After countless actual battles, the Tubo soldiers still chose the traditional method of throwing stones, at least the stones would hit the head and the enemy would faint.

After dealing with more than 30 corpses and taking a short rest, the 15,000 Tang soldiers continued along the river valley to attack Shangmi, the capital of the Qishi Kingdom, dozens of miles away.