Chapter 235: Conquer the Stone Kingdom (Part 1)

The Shi Kingdom is today Uzbekistan. It is located in the Fergan Basin in Central Asia. The capital is Tuozhicheng. Among the nine surnames Hu, it is located in the easternmost direction and is the second largest country among the nine surnames Hu, after Kang. Because of its many pebbled giant stones in China, it is named Shi. Especially near the capital, Tuozhicheng, there is a huge rock called 'Farhad', which is also the symbol of Tuozhicheng.

In the third year of Xianqing in the Tang Dynasty, the Tang court officially established Tuozhicheng, the capital of Shiguo, as the Dayuan Prefecture, and its king Qu Zhaomu was the governor of Dayuan.

The Shi Kingdom had a special significance for Li Qing'an. When he attacked the Shattered Leaf for the first time, the vulnerable Shi Kingdom army, the two Shi Kingdom princes fighting for the throne, and even earlier, the skeleton of the Stone Man buried in yellow sand, under it, he found the gem burning with flames. The burning flame reminded Li Qing'an of Shi Julan's passionate and unrestrained smile, as if it was still shaking in front of his eyes. An accidental encounter was like a faint lilac petal falling on his lips. The beauty had gone, but Li Qing'an could never forget it.

The summer season in the river is so hot that it is hard to stop. The vast Tang army army marchs on the endless fields. The soldiers rode on their horses, their faces were tanned, and there were leather bags for them to march on their backs. Each Tang army was equipped with spears, horizontal knives, round shields and bows. They carried kettles and put their hands on their eyebrows from time to time to look around. This strange land made the Tang army full of curiosity.

Behind the team are large supplies, composed of thousands of flat-panel trucks. Each large truck is pulled by three camels. The car is full of food and grass and various military supplies. Three thousand Tang cavalry guards are all guarded by the left and right. These supplies are transported by 10,000 troops sent by Ningyuan Kingdom.

At this time, a team of cavalry rushed over from afar, and the head scouted captain reported loudly to Li Qing'an: "Report to the General, the envoy of Shi Kingdom to ask for a visit!"

"Where are people?"

"Ten miles away, they dared not approach without the permission of the general."

"They?" Li Qing'an asked, "How many people have come?"

"More than a hundred people came and brought 10,000 sheep, saying that they were rewarding the Tang army."

Li Qing'an showed a sarcastic smile on his lips. When things were about to come, he came to burn incense. He was tidying up his troops for a month, but they didn't come. Do they think they would stop at Zhuye?

"Bring them up!"

The scout captain agreed and turned around and headed towards the end of the grassland. Li Qing'an turned around and asked the guide: "How far is Tuozhi City from here."

The guide was a Turkic merchant who had been running on the Silk Road for many years. He named Ma Wanli, who could speak fluent Chinese.

Seeing Li Qing'an ask him, he pointed to a huge round rock in the distance and smiled: "The general saw that rock is not called 'Farhad', which is the symbol of the stone country. It is about fifty miles away from Tuozhi City. There is a river next to the rock called Jinque River. The water is clear and sweet. In summer, we usually camp by the river. After it gets dark, we will rush to travel while it is cool, and we will arrive at Tuozhi City at dawn tomorrow."

It was almost noon, and it was the hottest time of the day. When Li Qingan heard what he said, he ordered: "Camp by the river in front and march after dark!"

The Tang army was all listless. After hearing the commander's camping order, everyone immediately became energetic and rushed to the river ahead quickly.

Li Qing'an rode his horse past this big round stone called "Falhard". It was as high as the later generations, covering an area of ​​more than 20 acres. When he approached, he found that it turned out to be a huge pebbles, and less than a hundred steps away was a clear river. It can be seen that it was a riverbed of a huge river. After the changes of the world, the river had disappeared, leaving only a small river less than ten feet wide.

In fact, Li Qingan didn't know that more than a thousand years later, under his feet was the capital of Uzbekistan, the famous Central Asian city of Tashkent.

The Tang army had already started to rest by the river. They only had a long rest by the river, so they did not set up camp tents, but just rested on the spot. The river was filled with drinking water, people shouted and neighed, and the sky was bustling. Dozens of cavalry were patrolling the situation on both sides of the river. This was the key point of camping by the river to prevent people from poisoning and intercepting the river water.

At this moment, a large flock of white sheep appeared in the distance. Riders on both sides of the flock waved their long whips to drive them away. Dozens of Sogdians wearing black robes followed behind the flock. This was the messenger of the Stone Kingdom who sought peace.

There was a wooden bridge about two miles downstream of the river. Soon, the sheep were filled with the wooden bridge and rushed over. Hundreds of Tang cavalry rushed forward and took more than a dozen men in black robes to Li Qing'an for a moment.

An elderly white-haired old man knelt down in front of Li Qing'an, and then knelt down afterwards. The old man raised a golden plate with soil in Shiguo high and said loudly in Chinese: "The Tang Dynasty was granted the title of King Shunyi, and Shiguo Tutun Telle contributed the land of Shiguo to General Li of Anxi."

Li Qingan was stunned. He looked at the old man and asked, "Are you the King of Shi Guozheng? "

All Sogdian countries all implemented the system of dual kings, that is, there are two kings in one country. The origin of this system is unknown, and the Shi Kingdom is no exception. The King of Zheng is called Tutun, while the Deputy King is called Yinatutun. Yina means small in Tukkish words, so the Deputy King is also called Xiaotutun. At present, the current situation of the Shi Kingdom is that the King of Zheng is a big food, and the Deputy King of Deputy King of Tang, but today the King of Zheng is here.

In fact, before the expansion of the Great Food East, both the King and the Deputy King of Shi Kingdom were loyal to the Tang Dynasty. During the Kaiyuan period, the King of Shi Kingdom, Mo Hedu, followed the Beiting Jiedu Guard Gai Jiayun to attack Tuhuxian, the son of Shi Sulu, and defeated the enemy in Shuye and made great contributions. He was named King of Shi by the Tang court. Gat and was given a title of King of Shunyi the following year. The current King of Shi Kingdom Teller is the son of Mo Hedu, who inherited his father's title of King of Shunyi.

In fact, Teller is only over fifty years old this year. He suffered from a serious illness a few years ago and almost died. His body has been weak. In addition, the Tang army advanced westward and would ask them to settle the old accounts of the big food at any time. The huge pressure made Teller's beard turn white in less than a month. Today he came to apologize to the Tang army in person.

"I am the King of King Teller. Wuyan saw the general of the Jiedushi under the tent of the Khan. Please punish the general!"

After saying that, he placed the golden plate on the ground, took off his black robe, exposed his upper body, and inserted his thorns on his back. This was not a tradition of the Stone Kingdom, but the Han rule that Teller learned when he was young in Chang'an, "carrying thorns and apologizing for guilt." He took off his clothes, and all the followers behind took off their black robes, revealing their upper body like the king.

Li Qingan didn't help him up just because he inserted a few willow branches on his back, nor did he treat him preferentially because he was Shi Julan's father. He snorted coldly and said sternly: "Because the Great Cannibal is not by your side, you bring the willow branches and land to surrender, but if the Great Cannibal is by your side, you will bring the spear and the arrow, right?"

Teller was so scared that he kowtowed repeatedly and said with tears in his eyes: "Even if I have ten thousand courages, I dare not be enemies with the Celestial Empire. It is really because of the coercion and forced to send troops. In fact, the Shiguo army has been controlled by the Great Cannibal. Sending troops to attack Suiye is a decision made by the Great Cannibal himself, and the slave has no room for intervention."

If Li Qingan had no information from the Han and Tang dynasties, he might have believed Teller's words, but the information from the Han and Tang dynasties had clearly told him that when Beiting attacked Ye for the first time, the Shi Kingdom was not coerced by the Great Cannibals. On the contrary, the Dashi was in a civil war and did not control the distant Shi Kingdom. At that time, there was only one lonely army stationed in the north of Ashibulai City and Talas City, led by Judil. Whether it was Ashibulai City or Talas City, they were far away from Tuozhi City. The Shi Kingdom was completely independent at that time, but the King Teller sent 10,000 troops to support Judil, and these 10,000 troops led by his son Yuanen was ironclad for his decision.

Li Qingan looked at the old king with tears on his face and sincere appearance. He suddenly remembered what Gao Xianzhi had done in history. Like him today, Gao Xianzhi led his army to attack Shiguo. In the name of peace talks, he tricked Shiguo King Teller and his nobles out of the city, captured them all, and then ransacked Tuozhi City. As for the reason why Gao Xianzhi did this, there was no explanation in history. Now Li Qingan understands that Gao Xianzhi must have seen through the hypocrisy of the Shiguo King like himself.

He smiled faintly and said, "Things can not be explained clearly in just one or two sentences, nor is it that you give me the symbol of land, and I can control the Shi Kingdom. This time I came to Shi Kingdom to completely solve some legacy problems. But there is one thing you don't want to worry about. As long as you sincerely surrender, my Tang army will not massacre ordinary civilians. How to deal with you in detail will be discussed after entering the capital."

After saying that, Li Qingan waved his hand and said, "Take them down!"

In front of the largest Zorosa temple in the river, thousands of great food soldiers are demolishing the huge statue of Ahuramaz, the god of light, which is as high as 20 feet tall, and holds its hands to the sun. This statue is the largest statue of the Zorosa in Sogdian. Together with the temple, it is the last holy object of the Zorosa in the river. In the long river of history for hundreds of years, whenever the first ray of sunshine of the New Year rises on the horizon, hundreds of thousands of Zorosagos from all over the world will kneel down and worship the statues of the gods in the huge square, and some even come from far away to Persia.

During the decades of the Eastern Expedition of the White-Clothing Food Festival, because this statue is of great symbolism, it is used as a means to stabilize the situation in the river and has been preserved to this day. However, today, after suppressing the uprising of Shiites and Zoroastrians, Mansour ordered the demolition of the temple and the statues as punishment.

With the order to dismantle, fifty iron chains that were hundreds of feet long covered the head, neck and waist of the statue. Thousands of large-scale soldiers and hundreds of camels pulled hard together. The statue began to shaking. Finally, amid a scream and shouting, the statue fell down with a bang, stirring up dozens of feet of dust in the sky. The statue broke into dozens of sections. Immediately, hundreds of believers from the temple broke through the cordon under the leadership of two elders, rushed forward and rushed forward, stroking the statue and cried.

But the fall of the statue was just a prelude. A large-scale demolition of the temple began. Thousands of large-scale food soldiers rushed over and began to hit the temple wall with iron picks and bump into the wood. The believers hiding in the temple escaped one after another, and the scene was in chaos.

Mansour sat two miles away, looking coldly at the towering statue of the god being pulled down, his heart full of loss and anger. A few months ago, he received the exact news from the Persian Zoroastrianism that the Eye of Light Gem that the Abbasid Caliph wanted had been secretly sent to the temple in Samarkand for worship four hundred years ago.

But an hour ago, the Dashi Army completely searched every corner of the temple, but did not find the whereabouts of the flame gem. In other words, it is very likely that it is no longer in the temple.

As the statue fell down, his heart was slightly balanced.

At this time, a team of soldiers came with two elders of the Zoropause, and an officer bowed to report:

Your Highness, they are said to know the whereabouts of the Eye of Light."

"Is that?" Mansour stared at one of them with a sharp look. "You know the whereabouts of that gem?"

The two elders knelt down and shed tears and said, "The statue of God has fallen. I just want His Highness not to destroy the temple. We will tell you the truth."

Mansour sneered, "You dare to bargain with me? Tell me! Where is the gem? Maybe I will spare your life."

The two elders looked at each other and said in pain: "The gem was sent away when General Qubodi conquered Samarkand thirty years ago, and is currently in the Stone Kingdom."

"Shiguo?"

Mansour became angry and scolded, "You still dare to lie to me!"

"We dare not deceive Your Highness. The gemstone has always been collected by the King of Stone Kingdom. This was the document that the envoy of Light escorted the gems to the west."

An elder handed over a yellowed document. Mansour opened the document, which recorded in detail the process of the escorting the Eye of Light to the Stone Kingdom thirty years ago, and the seal of the king of the Stone Kingdom received the holy relics.

Mansour believed it and was indeed sent away. At this time, he became interested in this book of paper that records texts. He had long heard that the distant East uses paper to record history and can spread culture and art on a large scale. This time, when he came to the East, one of the most important things was to learn the art of papermaking.

Historically, Mansour was the true founder of the Abbasid Empire. He built the city of Baghdad in the lower reaches of the Tigris River. Arab culture and art flourished greatly under his rule and also changed European history. At this moment, his attention turned to paper.

He put the documents together and smiled faintly, "Okay! I won't mention the Eye of Light. If you can tell me how to make such paper, I will keep your temple for the time being."

The two elders were stunned and jumped from gems to papermaking. The His Highness's thoughts were too fast. One of the elders suddenly remembered something and hurriedly said, "I have a clue about papermaking."

"Say! What clue?"

The elder thought for a while and said, "Last year, the Great Food Army and the Tang Army had a battle. At that time, the Muslim general captured more than 1,000 Tang Army soldiers, which were placed in Samarkand. There were many craftsmen. Our temple once hired more than a dozen Tang Army painters to draw for us. I remember some of them said that they could make paper and His Highness could go to them."

Mansour was overjoyed. At this moment, the fire gemstone was temporarily left behind by him. He hurriedly asked, "Where are these prisoners of war now?"

"We don't know this, we have to ask the Muslim general."

"I see!"

Mansour was in a happy mood, and he stood up and waved his hand and said, "Tell me my order and stop demolishing the temple!"

Mansour turned over his horse and quickly headed towards the military camp outside the city surrounded by hundreds of followers. The temple was saved and the square was filled with joy. The believers bowed to the sun to thank the Lord God for appearing. The Great Food soldiers also evacuated the temple one after another.

At this time, the two elders quickly came to the west of the square, and twelve saints in black were kneeling in front of the statue and praying.

"Julan!" An elder shouted, and a man stood up from the saint. She took off the scarf. It was Shi Julan, the princess of Shi Kingdom.

"Elder, what's wrong?"

"You follow me!"

Shi Julan followed the two elders into the temple and came to a secret room. One elder whispered: "Give me the Eye of Light."

Only the three of them knew the secret of the sacred object Eye of Light on Ju Lan. Shi Ju Lan took out a close-fitting skin, took out the flame gem that Li Qing'an gave her from the skin, and handed it to the elder.

The elder placed the gem on the table and knelt down. Under the light light, there was a flame burning inside the gem, and it was like a mysterious eye in the middle of the flame.

"Master God Ahuramaz! Bless you believers!"

They knelt on the ground, prayed silently, and after reciting a scripture, an elder solemnly handed the gem to Julan and said, "We can only deceive Mansour for a moment, and he will soon know the truth. The temple probably cannot be saved. In order to save this last holy object, you will take it back to the stone kingdom immediately. May Lord Ahuramaz be favored by you."

"May Lord Ahuramaz be blessed with you!"

In the military camp outside the city, the Governor of the Great Food Khurasan, Muslim, was silently staring at the map. Behind him, General Chiad and Saud, who had just escaped from the Thunder Leaf, stood behind him.

He had already known the news that the Tang army occupied Sai Ye, but he had just learned about the Tang army's change of commander. Last year, after he defeated Gao Xianzhi, he knew that the Tang Dynasty would invade Sai Ye. For this reason, he sent spies to dress up as merchants to collect Gao Xianzhi's intelligence, Gao Xianzhi's personality, hobbies, habits and other details, and he had collected a large amount of intelligence.

However, after the Tang army changed its general, it meant that all his efforts for several months were spent, and he knew nothing about the new leader.

"Governor General, I know a little about this Li Qing'an." The general behind him, Qi Yade, whispered.

"Well, tell me!"

"My men have several soldiers who escaped from the Battle of Broken Leaf the previous year. They said that the Tang army commander is very good at using bows and arrows. He himself is an archery master. Judil was shot to death by him on the battlefield, so we should work hard to defend bows and arrows."

"I'm also very worried about Tang Jun's bow and arrow!"

The Muslim sighed and said, "I have obtained a lot of Tang bows from the Tang army captured last year. They are indeed very sharp. Unfortunately, no one among the prisoners of war can make them, and their armor is also very strong. It can be seen that the Tang army is a strong opponent, even stronger than Byzantium. We cannot be careless to deal with the Tang army. I decided to use the Macedonian phalanx. You must speed up the training!"

"I understand that I am already starting training and it's almost over."

The Muslim nodded and then pointed at another general Ben.

Hou Meide said: "I am very worried that the Shi Kingdom will not be able to implement my strategy. You will lead 3,000 light cavalry to rush to Shi Kingdom immediately. If you go late, don't rush back. You will be stationed directly in Talas City in the north. If the Tang army tends to continue to advance westward, you will send troops to Ashi and force the Tang army to return to the rescue. Do you understand?"

"Yes! I'm humble in my duties."

At this moment, someone at the door reported: "Governor, the Palace of Mansour is coming down!"

Abu.
Chapter completed!