MTL - Chastity Layman-Chapter 1430 Uncle Qin Guo of Xuanwei Western Regions

  Chapter 1430 Xuanwei Uncle Qin of the Western Regions

  Tuozhe City is a famous city in the middle of the river and an important commercial center.

  Both Zhang Qian and Xuanzang came here. It is known as the hub of the Silk Road. With a history of 500 years, it is a must-pass on the Silk Road and is also famous for its commerce and handicrafts.

  It is located on the north bank of the upper reaches of the Yaosha River, and to the east is the western mountain range of the Dawan Basin.

  The whole city is located on such a huge oasis plain surrounded by mountains and rivers. The geographical location is unique and extremely fertile.

   But at this moment, the whole city is still bleeding.

The soldiers and horses of Hezhong Town led by Qin Jun are looting the whole city in an efficient and organized manner. Because the king of Shi Kingdom disrespected orders and was arrogant and rebellious against Tang, Qin Jun unceremoniously ordered the complete destruction of Shi Kingdom and Tuozhe City. military orders.

Break through the city defenses, enter the city, capture the king, behead the deputy king, and then clean up the remaining resistance street by street. After controlling the entire city inside and outside, the Hezhong Army began to expel the remaining population in the city. Get kicked out.

  All survivors can be saved as long as they put down their weapons, but those who refuse to put down their weapons will be shot without mercy. The captives were driven to the captive camp outside the city. They were not allowed to take anything except the clothes on their bodies, and they were not even allowed to keep their gold, silver, jade and jewelry.

   Even some people’s clothes were made of more valuable materials, but they were forced to strip them off and put on ordinary clothes.

  Men, women and children were sent to different camps separately, and they were kept under centralized supervision.

   "Take good care of them, these captives are very valuable."

   "Yes, there is a shortage of people everywhere now."

  Since the new law was implemented by the central government a few years ago, a large number of government soldiers from Guanlong Central Plains and other places directly moved their entire Suizhechong Mansion with their families to the Western Regions and other border areas, and established a new Zhechong Mansion here. The government soldiers took turns to be on duty in various military towns, guards, and forts.

  They were awarded a lot of land, and their families were also assigned a good piece of land. And Zhechong Mansion also obtained a large piece of military farmland, and all military towns and Shouzhuo cities also had military farmland beside the garrisons, and the most fertile land on the border land was assigned to the border army and his family members.

The land is all good. For example, there are four major military towns under the Hezhong Fanzhen, namely Dawan Town, Kunlun Town, Mulu Town and Huoxun Town. Among them, the Dawan Basin where the Shuai Mansion is located is the best. In places like the south of the Yangtze River, there is abundant rain and sunshine, and the river water gathered from the snow-capped mountains guarantees the water for agricultural planting in the basin and plain.

  Even because it is located in the Western Regions, cattle, horses and animal power are relatively cheap.

  However, there are a lot of fields, but it is not easy to cultivate them. It requires a lot of manpower. Therefore, in the Western Regions, from the frontier soldiers to the government soldiers, to the family members who immigrated with the army, there is a shortage of labor.

  The cheapest and most cost-effective labor is naturally slaves, and they are the Turkic tribe herdsmen captured by the Hezhong army, or the mountain people in Congling and other places, or the Sogdians who refused to accept the management in the river.

  Anyway, these slaves captured by the Hezhong Army themselves have not been trafficked for a long time, nor have they changed hands several times, so they are healthy and cheap, and they are directly digested internally.

  Buy it back and send it back home, and become a slave to help the family with labor.

Because of the lack of people, the tens of thousands of Tang troops in the Western Regions have not been polite to the Turkic people in recent years, arresting people, arresting people, arresting people everywhere, regardless of whether you are from the Tuqi Shi tribe or the Ge Luolu tribe. Or where the moon is still secret.

   You don’t want to surrender and surrender. If you meet, you will fight. If you are defeated, you will be captured. If you are captured, you will be a slave. There is no second way.

  Datang no longer needs their surrender.

   "When we turn around, we will hold an auction, and the brothers who are going out this time will give priority to bidding."

Hezhong Town has a strong army and a large defense area, and the situation it is facing is not peaceful. There are still some remnants of Western Turkic forces behind them. To the south is Tocharia and Tocharia, to the southwest is the Persian region occupied by Dashi, and to the west there are Turkic people who fled westward, and the nomadic Khazar tribe in the Black Sea area.

   Fortunately, the imperial court attaches great importance to Hezhong Town. Over the past few years, the garrison has been continuously increased, and now it has reached more than 60,000 people, who are divided into four military towns.

Form a strong deterrent to the Hezhong area, but if the Sogdian countries in the river are not wiped out, the Tang army in Hezhong Town will not be safe for a day. After all, the four major army towns are located on the four sides of the river, and the middle is full of Sogdian The city-states.

  Although the more than 60,000 soldiers in Hezhong Town are strong and capable of deterring the Sogdians, Tocharians and even cannibals, the pressure to survive is not small.

  The imperial court will deal with the military equipment and even some clothing and cloth for the soldiers in Hezhong Town, but they have to deal with the food, and even the military expenditure, they need to find a way to solve most of it.

  Tens of thousands of soldiers moved to the frontier with their families. This is tens of thousands of families, 200,000 to 300,000 frontier soldiers and their families. How much can they grow by farming alone?

  The pressure is there, you have to fend for yourself.

  Qin Jun, the uncle of the country, has a simple method, rob, seize, and give birth.

   To rob is of course robbing the Western Turks, robbing the Sogdians, robbing their cities, robbing their tribes, robbing their land, robbing their livestock, cattle and sheep.

If they are robbed, they will be arrested. If they are caught, they will be their own captives. They will be sold to their own soldiers, who will assist in farming, grazing, and even set up handicraft workshops in feudal towns. After all, they are located on the important land of the Silk Road, and the conditions are still very good .

  Now everyone is in urgent need of slaves, and the most important thing is to grow more cotton.

  Due to the special geographical conditions and climate in the Hezhong area, the conditions for growing cotton are very good, and the quality of the cotton produced here is also very good.

Over the years, cotton has become popular in the Tang Dynasty, and cotton cloth has also become a very popular livelihood item. Then cotton jackets, cotton quilts and cotton shoes are very popular daily necessities made of cotton cloth. Cotton The demand is also growing.

  Back then, the Qin family took the lead in planting cotton in the Central Plains and doing cotton spinning and processing. The area of ​​cotton planting continued to increase, but the supply was always in short supply.

Although the price of cotton cloth in the Central Plains has changed from a niche high-end product that was more expensive than silk in Wude to an ordinary commodity, no matter how ordinary it is, it is still a material in great demand. Even the cotton in the Western Regions is of good quality. , has always been a high-end product, the price is high, and it is easy to sell.

  Anyway, there are so many lands allocated now, some of them are grown for food rations, and some are sold to the army. The rest of the land is more cost-effective to grow cotton.

  However, growing cotton is more difficult than growing grain, especially picking it is not easy. A family alone cannot grow much. At this time, it is very urgent to buy slaves and keep slaves to grow cotton.

And when a large amount of cotton began to be planted in Hezhong, Qin Jun, the son of the Qin family and the uncle of the dynasty, of course would not let go of the cotton spinning industry in the local area. After all, there is cotton in the local area, so there are great advantages in cotton spinning. What's more, this place is also the hub of the Silk Road. The cotton cloth woven and even the cotton clothes made can be sold to both ends of the east and west, whether it is sold by itself or wholesaled to those merchants, which is full of business opportunities.

   But cotton spinning also requires a lot of labor. Whether it is the initial processing of cotton, deseeding, spinning, or finishing weaving, each process is a labor-intensive industry.

  But in the Western Regions, there is a shortage of people.

  The imperial court has immigrated for several years in a row and offered various preferential terms, but now the main population in the river is the army and their families.

  It takes at least fifteen or sixteen years for a person to grow from birth to adulthood, which is too long.

  So it’s still a good deal to grab it directly.

  With more than 60,000 elites in their hands, Hezhong Town went out to arrest people everywhere. They almost caught all the Western Turks in the territory, so now they started to arrest the Sogdians.

  Originally, a strong young man from Western Turkic was worth at least forty guan, and even a teenager was worth 15 guan, but the supply was still in short supply.

  Hezhong Town has made a lot of money by catching prisoners in the past few years. It has not only provided a lot of cheap labor for the army's family members, but also generated a lot of income for itself.

  Building castles, building post roads, even rewarding soldiers and distributing military salaries, there is still a surplus.

   This has to be said to be a result that shocked the court chiefs, and they also praised Qin Jun, the uncle of the country, for his ability to be a military governor.

Because of this, the soldiers and horses in Hezhong Town have also taken part-time jobs in the past few years to do some military returns, or armed escorts, or engage in cotton spinning. Run without letting the horses graze.

  Qin Jun was able to find a way to be self-sufficient. How much financial expenditure did this save the court?

Not to mention, even if the imperial court can come up with this amount of money and materials, if it is transported from the Guanlong area to the river, thousands of miles away, the transportation cost will be too high, even if it is transported from Suiye, Gaochang and other places, It also moves thousands of miles.

   Now I can be self-reliant, which is really wishful.

  Hezhong Town's self-reliance has captured too many captives, and because of internal digestion, the price of slaves in Hezhong Town has plummeted in recent years.

   It used to be that a Turkic young man had forty guan, but now 15 guan is enough. A Turkic boy even only needs five guan, which is a little more expensive than a cow and a horse.

  But for Qin Jun, since he is now self-sufficient, reducing the price is also taking care of He Zhongjun’s own people, which is a benefit for everyone.

Anyway, the supply of slaves is always in short supply. The tens of thousands of families in the Hezhong Army have not yet realized that there are enough slaves. Other immigrants can only buy slaves at a high price. As for the slave traders in the Central Plains who want to come to sell slaves, sorry, No.

   There are only a very small number of particularly high-end slaves, such as those with superb riding and shooting skills. These people can be sold at high prices to play polo or serve as guards. There are very young and beautiful ones, and they can be sold for a high price. Or those with special skills, whether they are veterinarians, human doctors or masons and blacksmiths, are also worth more.

   Then there are some original noble heads, and sometimes they can be sold for a high price.

   This kind of thing is actually not only done by the Hezhong Army, but also by the Anxi Army and the Beiting Army for several years, and even the frontier troops in Liaodong, North Korea, and Southwest.

  There will be no nerd-like person in the imperial court jumping out to say something unkind. There have been such people before, but they have long been cast aside by everyone.

  How much is benevolence and righteousness worth?

Although this seemingly barbaric approach now, it can be exchanged for the stability of the newly conquered territory, it can even open up more new territories, it can also save the court money, and it can provide everyone with the cheap labor they need. Will you object?

   With regard to slavery, in fact, the attitude of the whole Tang Dynasty has not changed since the Wude Dynasty. They have always supported and liked slavery.

  (end of this chapter)