Tibet

Prince Arolie took Li Ye to the large warehouse on the left first. These are warehouses where weapons and armor are stored. The large rooms where spears are stacked are already empty. Eighty thousand spears have not been returned yet. There are also armor, Shields, swords, crossbows and a large number of arrows, Li Ye also saw a dozen large trebuchets.

"There is actually a trebuchet?"

Li Ye stepped forward, patted the huge wooden frame and asked with a smile: "Where did these trebuchets come from?"

"This is the trebuchet that the Tang army used to attack Suiye City ten years ago. They couldn't move it away, so they gave it to us. There are eighteen of them in total!"

"This is a good thing, you should make good use of it."

Li Ye looked around the armory and said to Prince Arolie: "How many young and strong men can be mobilized in the city, not including soldiers, but ordinary people."

Arole thought for a while and said: "There are about 20,000 people, and I am going to mobilize them all to build the city wall."

Li Ye smiled and said: "Select 3,000 young and strong men from the 20,000 people and give them armor. I will let my subordinates train them. In two months, they will be trained into soldiers who can fight in battle."

Arole was overjoyed. With this, they had eight thousand troops.

………

Prince Arolie took Li Ye to the large warehouse in the west. Here are also important strategic materials, including pig iron, copper, medicinal materials, wood, piles of cloth, and other items packed in large boxes. I don’t know what they are. What?

"Is there a blacksmith in the city?"

"There are quite a few. Kesai City is a famous iron smelting center. There are hundreds of craftsmen without any problem!"

Li Ye pointed to the pig iron and said: "Kesai City has a big defensive weakness, that is, the city gate is too old and can be easily broken by a battering ram. Blacksmiths and carpenters need to be concentrated to build new city gates and suspension bridges using pig iron and thick wood. This is important to implement as soon as possible.”

Arolie also knew that Li Ye was right. The city gate had been at least thirty years old. He nodded immediately, "I will arrange officials to implement it immediately."

At this time, Li Ye walked to some large barrels in the corner and patted the barrels. It seemed to be liquid. He smiled and asked, "Is this wine?"

Arole shook his head, "This is an oil. Ordinary people use it to light lamps at night. It is also a medicine. We use it to treat skin diseases. It is quite effective. It is a specialty of our place."

Li Ye had been using candles these two nights. He didn't know what ordinary people in Bukhan used to light lamps at night. He thought they were burning a bonfire, but he didn't expect to use oil to light lamps.

"What kind of oil is this refined from?"

"It's not refined oil, it's oil that comes out of the ground. We call it Kanda, which means underground oil."

Li Ye's eyes widened. He was surprised and happy at the same time. There was oil coming out of the ground. Isn't that oil? Why is there oil here?

He suddenly thought that this was not the Tang Dynasty, but Kyrgyzstan in later generations, a land rich in oil. No wonder there was underground oil emerging.

Li Ye asked urgently: "Are there any oil wells that produce kanda in the city?"

"We don't have it in the city, but Anji City in the north does. Kanda is produced there."

"This is a good thing on the battlefield. It is the siege weapon used to attack with fire and burn down the Stone Kingdom."

Arole slapped his forehead and said, "If you don't tell me, general, I really wouldn't have thought that since Kanda can light a lamp, it can be used to light a fire!"

"How many warehouses are there?" Li Ye asked hurriedly.

"There are probably more than a dozen barrels in the warehouse, and there should be some in the homes of residents in the city. There are also shops specializing in kanda, but it doesn't matter. Anji City is just to the north, about eighty miles away from us. In the warehouse over there There are quite a few.”

After discovering oil, Li Ye not only thought about the defense of Bakhanna City, but also thought about next year's Battle of Talas. With it, he could increase his chances of winning.

King Bakhna personally took to the streets and mobilized the entire city.

He stood on the street and shouted to tens of thousands of people: "The King of Stone Kingdom sold his soul to the devil. They will attack us in the spring, as well as the food army. We cannot sit still and wait for death. We must take action to defend our homeland." , to defend our faith, I ask everyone to take action to defend your parents, your wives, and your children.”

The whole city of Kesai was boiling. I heard that stones were needed to build the city wall. Every household demolished the houses they no longer wanted and donated the stones they planned to build new houses. Almost all the young and strong men went out, and the strong young women They also participated in the labor. Abandoned houses, warehouses, temples and public buildings were demolished one after another, and a large number of stones were cleared. Tens of thousands of people participated in the construction of the city.

On the vast snowfield, three thousand new soldiers were running in formation. The three thousand soldiers were divided into twenty battalions, with each battalion having 150 men. Each battalion was further divided into three teams, with each team having fifty men. A team leader.

All twenty of Li Ye's men served as captains, and each commanded a new battalion. The first step was physical training. Although the Bukhan country mainly relied on cavalry, defending the city also required physical strength.

King Murdo initially wanted to have a decisive battle with the Shiguo army on the grassland and take advantage of the traditional advantages of Bukhan's cavalry. However, Li Ye gave up his idea with one sentence. Bukhan's cavalry went to fight against the Shiguo army. Who would then? To resist the Great Eating Tocharian Army?

Only then did King Murdo realize that the Shi Kingdom's attack on Bakhna was just a facade. Behind it was the attempt of the Great Food Army to capture Bakhna and cut off the connection between the nine Sogdian kingdoms and the Tang Dynasty from the east.

Realizing the seriousness of the problem, Murdo began to fully delegate power and no longer interfered with Li Ye's training of three thousand recruits.

Li Ye rode beside the team and shouted in Sogdian: "At the end of the siege, whoever still has some physical strength will survive. Remember, everyone, the more sweat you shed in training, the less blood you shed on the battlefield!" "

The soldiers had already run for twenty miles, and everyone was so tired that they were out of breath, but it was no use. Their goal was to return to the city. The soldiers had to grit their teeth and continue running towards the thirsty city ten miles away.

At the same moment when the soldiers and civilians of Ba Khanna were preparing for full battle, hundreds of cavalry escorted a large carriage into Tuozhi City, the stone royal city.

Sitting in the carriage was a man of about forty years old. He looked Persian at first glance. His eyes were sunken, his features were clear, his nose was high and straight, his eyes were deep and intense, and his thin lips revealed his arrogance and coldness.

This person was the second most powerful official of the Abbasid Empire, the Governor of Khorasan, Abu Muslim. He made a special trip from Khorasan to the Shi Kingdom to arrange a spring war against the Bakhna Kingdom.

If the Bukhanna Kingdom is captured and the connection between the Tang Dynasty and the Nine Sogdian Kingdoms is cut off, then in the summer, the food army will destroy the Sogdian Nine Kingdoms by closing the door and beating the dogs. Therefore, in the battle of Bukhanna, Abu. Muslims are determined to win;

The carriage slowly drove into Tuozhi City under the escort of hundreds of large food cavalry.

The Shi Kingdom is much larger than the Bakhna Kingdom in both area and population. It is the second largest country among the nine Sogdian kingdoms after Kang. The streets in the city are also very spacious and very lively, with dense shops on both sides. , people were coming and going, Abu Muslim squinted his eyes and looked at the shops on both sides. Basically, they were selling goods from the Tang Dynasty. There were not many goods from Persia and Dashi. This fully shows that more of the countries in the river belonged to the Tang Dynasty. sphere of influence.

Along the central axis street, all the way to the end is the Stone King's Palace. At this time, Shi Kun, the King of Stone Kingdom, was already standing in front of the palace waiting.

Shi Kun was the Chinese name given to him by his father. To be precise, his Sogdian name was Kundu Shi. Nobles from various Sogdian countries would give themselves Chinese names.

Kundu Shi is about thirty-seven or eighteen years old. He has a very peculiar appearance, with snow-white skin, elegant temperament, and silvery white hair. He is tall and tall, independent and has a fairy-like temperament. It can be seen that he must have had a fairy-like temperament when he was young. He is an outstandingly handsome man.

Good-looking men also have great advantages in the workplace. No wonder Feilong likes him so much and even regarded him as his descendant for a time. Unfortunately, his beautiful appearance hides a wolfish ambition, which he exposed prematurely. Completely spurned by Feilong.

The carriage stopped, Abu Muslim stepped out of the carriage, and Kundushi quickly stepped forward to salute.

They exchanged a few pleasantries, and Kundushi led the way again, inviting Abu Muslim to the palace.

In a splendid hall of the palace, Abu Muslim saw one of the goals of his trip, a sand table map with a length of two feet and a width of two feet. The countries in the Pearl River Basin were intuitively displayed on the map, including cities, rivers, and grasslands. , mountains, deserts, lakes and so on.

This is also the sand table map recorded in the treasure book. It took Kundushi five years to make it.

Abu Muslim stood in front of the sand table and looked carefully. He stared at Kesai City for a long time and asked: "How could the Tocharian army's sneak attack on Kesai City fail?"