Chapter 273 Horseshoeing

【Since the Han Dynasty brought the Western Regions under its rule and opened up the Silk Road, a golden trade route, there have been countless conflicts and disputes caused by the profits of the trade route.

How much profit does the Silk Road have?

The Parthian Empire said: If you want to talk about this, I won’t be sleepy anymore.

Why did we lie to the Han Dynasty envoys with our eyes open?

Wasn’t it just to occupy the Silk Road, a key route, and get something for nothing?

Gaochang said: My friend, you are absolutely right!

After the demise of the Eastern Turks, the countries in the Western Regions on the Silk Road rushed to Chang'an to pay tribute. After all, the Tang Dynasty was one of the terminals of the Silk Road, and face had to be given, including Gaochang.

This was a short honeymoon period between Gaochang and the Tang Dynasty.

For Gaochang, just using a few Fulin dogs withheld from the Western Regions Hu merchants made Li Shimin laugh, and also earned the title of Princess Changle for Qu Wentai's wife, a huge profit!

For Erfeng, it was comfortable to have people flattering him right after he defeated the Turks!

But only two years later, the honeymoon period between Gaochang and the Tang Dynasty officially ended, and the two sides officially fell out.

The reason is also very simple. We mentioned earlier that due to climate change, only the northern road of the three roads in the south, middle and north of the Western Regions is still prosperous.

It was Gaochang that guarded the toll station on the northern road. Gaochang adopted an equal policy for merchants:

Whether you want to do business or pay tribute to the Khan of Heaven, you have to pay me obediently!

The Western Regions countries were naturally dissatisfied, so they finally brought the case to Li Shimin:

Please ask the Khan of Heaven to reopen the central road of the Western Regions to avoid the sky-high toll station of Gaochang.

Li Shimin agreed, and the governor of Dunhuang set up a post station along the old land of the ancient country of Loulan, which is now the Lop Nur area.

Since then, merchants can go directly from Dunhuang to the west along the desert road to Yanqi, and the central road of the Western Regions has been reopened.

Then Qu Wentai beat Yanqi up, destroyed its city, robbed its property, abducted men and women, and left.

After all, cutting off someone's wealth is like killing their parents. If I can't rule the Tang Dynasty, can I not rule you?

Then Qu Wentai stopped pretending.

First, he joined forces with the Western Turks to plunder Yanqi again, destroyed its three cities, and abducted men and women's money and property.

Secondly, he directly detained the tribute envoys from the Western Regions who passed through Gaochang.

Then he wrote a letter to Xueyantuo Khan publicly:

Your position as Khan is equal to that of Li Shimin, why do you want to be his dog? Can you have some ambition?

In the face of the questioning of the envoy sent by Li Shimin, Qu Wentai's answer was also very interesting:

Eagles have their own sky, chickens have their own grass, cats have their own nests, and mice have their own holes.

Why do you care so much? It shows that you are capable, right?

In the face of such an arrogant answer, Li Shimin's answer was "You are good at planning for yourself."

Then he issued an ultimatum:

Li Shimin: If you come to Chang'an in person to admit your mistakes, the previous sins will be written off.

Qu Wentai: I have hemorrhoids and can't ride a horse. I will definitely do it next time.

Li Shimin's patience was completely exhausted.

In 639, Hou Junji was appointed as the general manager of the Jiaohe Road, and Xue Wanjun and Xue Guer were deputy generals, and they sent troops to Gaochang.

Facing the Tang Dynasty's uprising, Qu Wentai was very confident:

If your troops exceed 30,000, there will be insufficient food and grass.

If your troops are less than 30,000, I will kill you, believe it or not?

Hou Junji said: I only have 20,000 cavalry, come and kill me?

Qu Wentai: I will die if I try.

"There is no other way to be frightened, I will die of illness."]

In Ganlu Palace, Hou Junji's heart beat very fast.

Restraining his excitement, he looked left and right, and was a little suspicious for a while:

Why doesn't anyone envy me?

Forget about veterans like Qin Shubao and Li Jing, why didn't they even look at the new Su Lie?

What, is it not an achievement to scare the other king to death or what?

In the end, it was Li Shimin who couldn't bear to see this former minister embarrassed here, and reluctantly praised him:

"Well done."

Hou Junji was happy then.

However, Li Shimin was a little depressed:

"Those unrighteous people are just looking for a moment of verbal pleasure."

"It's a good thing for this beast to die so easily."

Fang and Du looked at each other:

A dignified king was scared to death on the spot, and then recorded in history and ridiculed for a thousand years, which is not a good thing anyway.

If it is said that Tuyuhun has a difficult Tubo next to it, so the specific countermeasures need to be studied.

Li Shimin just thinks that Gaochang should be killed quickly!

They even dare to attack my tribute, do you really think you are fearless just because you are in the Western Regions?

The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty gave an order on the spot, as if he was angry:

"Don't talk about anything else, Qu Wentai must be captured alive!"

"After many years in the Western Regions, I think he has learned the Hu dance, and it is appropriate for him to dance with Jie Li!"

Hou Junji immediately straightened his chest.

However, what disappointed Hou Junji was that His Majesty did not ask him about his opinion on conquering Gaochang, but asked another question:

"Can this desert road be opened?"

Li Shimin knew the financial situation of Hexi very well, so his thinking was also very simple.

All the money collected by Gaochang is the money of the Tang Dynasty!

If Gaochang, this nail, cannot be moved for a while, then we have to consider opening the desert road directly.

Although the financial revenue taken away by Gaochang is not very noticeable in the entire Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin does not despise it.

When Hou Junji was in Hexi, he stayed in Lufu County, which is not far from Dunhuang, so he is familiar with its situation.

After a little thought, he affirmed: "It can be opened."

"Then let Junji do it." Li Shimin appointed lightly.

Seeing the joy on Hou Junji's face, Li Shimin was still unwilling to say anything else, pointing to the light curtain and said:

"Let's see it first."

[In fact, Qu Wentai's initial pretense was naturally justified.

The biggest reason is naturally because the road from Dunhuang to Gaochang is very difficult to travel.

Cen Shen, who was once stationed in Anxi Protectorate, wrote a poem to record this trip:

Ten days of crossing the sand dunes, the wind never stopped all morning. The horse walked in the gravel, and all four hooves were bleeding.

Since the horse's hooves were worn and bleeding, it can be seen that the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty should not have been equipped with horseshoes on a large scale, which is a pity.

According to the tombs unearthed today, some areas in the north had the custom of nailing horseshoes during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Therefore, some people think that it is unreasonable that the Tang Dynasty did not use horseshoes.

But in the era of cold weapons, the development of horseshoes is closely related to the weight of the load.

The heavier the cavalry equipment, the more severe the wear and tear of the horseshoe, and the higher the demand for horseshoes.

The Tang Dynasty was mostly light cavalry for long-distance raids, so the demand for horseshoes was not great.

Horseshoes are also closely related to iron smelting technology. For example, horseshoes are easy to make, but the horseshoe nails that fix horseshoes are still a little difficult.

Moreover, in ancient times, iron horseshoes were nailed in summer, rubber horseshoes were nailed in winter, wooden horseshoes could be considered in places with a lot of mud, and leather half-wrapped horseshoes could be used in places with more thorns.

Different regional environments have different horseshoe choices. For the ancients, this kind of thing was too troublesome without the government taking the lead.

Therefore, if horseshoes had been installed on a large scale in the Tang Dynasty, I believe Qu Wentai would be more cautious when he made harsh remarks.

In short, after Hou Junji led the army to Qikou at all costs, Qu Wentai was directly scared to death.

Faced with this news, the Tang army wanted to take advantage of the other side's lack of leadership to launch a surprise attack, but Hou Junji did not allow it.

The old marquis believed that Gaochang was shameless and forced His Majesty to send troops. Our mission this time is to destroy the country as a supplement and to punish the crime as the main thing.

Moreover, there is an old saying that it is not polite to attack a funeral. The Tang army is a kingly army. Is it necessary to resort to such a bad strategy?

Under the order of the old marquis, the Tang army lined up, beat drums and marched slowly, showing full courtesy.

Although in our later generations, this action has a flavor of "watching a funeral without being too big".

Later things were much simpler. Tiandi City was captured in half a day and more than 7,000 people were captured.

The next day, Gaochang City was attacked. On that day, Qu Zhisheng surrendered the city. Then the old marquis's troops were divided into many routes, and 22 cities were captured in succession. 8,000 households and more than 20,000 people were captured, and they returned triumphantly.

The whole process of destruction was too fast, so after Hou Junji withdrew his troops, a nursery rhyme spread in Gaochang:

Gaochang's soldiers and horses are like frost and snow, and the Han army and horses are like the sun and the moon.

The sun and the moon shine on the frost and snow, and they will be destroyed in a flash.

Gaochang was passed down for nine generations and 134 years, but it ended here.

Li Shimin overcame all objections and established Xizhou here.

At this point, the Tang Dynasty officially had a bridgehead for using troops in the Western Regions and began to sharpen its sword to attack the Western Turks. 】

"Another country has perished."

Kong Ming said dryly without any fluctuations in his tone.

Then he said with interest:

"This horseshoe strategy is very good. It is to exchange iron and wood for the life of horses, which is very cost-effective!"

He sighed:

"We have got another sharp weapon!"

Zhao Yun had a say in this matter. He thought for a while and said:

"When I was in Liaodong, I saw some Hu people cherishing horses and putting wood on the horseshoes with ropes and nails."

"I just didn't expect that such small things would have such benefits."

Zhang Fei is still waiting to collect the first batch of good horses from Yongliang. When talking about cavalry, he didn't hesitate to ask:

"Since the Tang Dynasty has seen so many of these things, why didn't they care about them?"

Liu Bei looked at the territory of the Tang Dynasty on the light curtain and sighed:

"What other reasons can there be?"

"There are both Hexi and Hetao, and the land for raising horses is everywhere. There is no shortage of good horses, so they don't care about these small roads."

Zhang Fei was speechless and couldn't help but envy him even more.

Zhao Yun imagined that if all the horses under his command could be shod, the good horses could run longer without worrying about damage.

Cavalry could also carry armor and heavier weapons. In this way, the cavalry that was only seen on the light curtain seemed to be ready to appear!

Zhao Yun immediately looked at Zhang Fei:

"Third brother!"

Zhang Fei's heart skipped a beat. With Zilong's attitude, why did he always feel that it was not a good thing?

Zhao Yun also went straight to the point:

"Can Yun lead the first batch of cavalry in Yongliang?"

As expected... Zhang Fei sighed and chose to talk about something else:

"Brother, the small country of Gaochang has been around for more than a hundred years!"