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Chapter 905: The Army Attacks the City
At dawn, when the sky in the east was just beginning to turn pale, loud trumpets rang out almost simultaneously from the east and west of Yarkand City. A large number of troops suddenly appeared in the originally quiet wilderness, slowly approaching the city wall from two directions. To their left, right and back, there were also thousands of cavalrymen cruising.

"This capital is too small! Jinsuo, ask Gulandam if he has taken the wrong road?" The team in the east of the city finally stopped about 2 miles away from the city wall. After a while, a huge black ball rose from the ground and slowly rose.

Wang Chengen accompanied the emperor on the top of the carriage, holding a telescope and looking through it, and soon found the city in the morning light. But he seemed unsatisfied, and continued to scan left and right, then put down the telescope and shouted loudly to the people below.

"Don't make a fuss, it should be correct. Look carefully at the towers in the city, there are more and taller ones than those in Khotan. Those are their temples. If it weren't the capital, where would there be so many?"

The flood also made the nearby city a little confusing, for the same reason Wang Chengen had said, it was too small. The scale was not much different from Khotan, the city wall was only a little higher, and it was all built of rammed earth, which looked too shabby.

But Hong Tao disagreed with Wang Chengen's guess. He would definitely not go wrong because there was only one road and there was no chance of making a mistake. Moreover, this city looked similar to Khotan at first glance, but if you looked closely, there were some differences.

"Your Majesty, I thought there were at most 10,000 households in this city, unless they dug holes and lived underground." Wang Chengen raised the telescope again and put it down after a moment.

The emperor was right. There were indeed many tall and thin white towers in the city, but the more towers there were, the smaller the population. The city area was limited, and every additional temple would occupy the courtyards of more than a hundred households.

Although he was not present to witness the attack on Lingdan Khan's Vajra White City and the Jianzhou Jurchens' Hetuala City, he had seen the details in the subsequent report of the General Staff. It was estimated that at least tens of thousands of people could live there.

The Yarkand Khanate had a population of over a million and a vast territory, far larger than that of Ligdan Khan and the Jianzhou Jurchens. It was unreasonable that their capital was so shabby.

"They don't all live in the city. There are many villages and pastures nearby. They exist in the form of tribes, which are called emirs. Each emir leads a tribe of hundreds or thousands of people, and they all submit to someone, who is the king or the Khan.

This form is a bit like the Zhou Dynasty in Han history. The Emir is a vassal state, and the Khan is the King of Zhou. However, the King of Zhou cannot directly manage his people, and must rule indirectly through the vassals of all sizes. At the same time, the King of Zhou is also the most powerful of these vassals, and has his own tribe, the so-called Khan tribe. "

Taking advantage of the interval when the hot air balloon had not yet completely taken off and the siege would not be launched for a while, Hong Tao stood on the roof of the carriage and started another class. The topic was to analyze the state structure through the Yarkand Khanate.

Feudalism is probably the most common and longest-lasting system ever adopted by mankind. From the perspective of the origin of civilization, the Mediterranean region, Central Asia, and East Asia have all adopted feudal systems, and their structures are very similar, with obvious differences in names.

Take the Yarkand, Bukhara, and Kazakh Khanates as examples. Their method of electing the Khan by tribal alliance is a typical feudal system. In fact, the Mongol Empire established by Genghis Khan is the same.

"Dividing the territory, blocking government orders, and local separatism will do more harm than good!"

Although Wang Chengen followed the emperor around all day and served him like a lackey, he was not a fool who could only flatter and could point out the shortcomings of the feudal system at will.

"Well, it's not in vain to go to the inner academy. It's good for you to go and listen more often in the future. But just listening and remembering is far from enough, you have to understand it thoroughly. Take the vassal states of the Zhou Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty as examples. They have their own advantages and disadvantages. There is no definite conclusion about which one is better or worse." Hong Tao affirmed Wang Chengen's insights. When he formed the Cuju team nearly ten years ago, he found a drawback: the young eunuchs lacked knowledge of humanities and history.

Although it didn't matter whether the eunuchs knew this or not, it was better to know it than not to know it, so a new course was added, requiring them to attend classes twice every ten days in the inner hall, and it seemed to be effective.

"Your Majesty's Ming Dynasty is the best. I'm not flattering you. I've privately compared dynasties in history books, and none of them can compare to today's. With my limited knowledge, I don't need to read history books anymore. Just do everything according to Your Majesty's way."

For a eunuch, it was simply unimaginable to be able to discuss how to govern the country with the emperor, but Wang Chengen was not afraid, and neither were the Cuju players.

There are no longer so many so-called taboos in the palace today, and even avoiding taboos has almost become a decoration. However, people do not disrespect the emperor because of this. Instead, they respect him from the bottom of their hearts.

This alone makes it much stronger than any other dynasty recorded in history books. There is no need to look for the truth in history books anymore. It is much easier to just use what is available.

"It seems that you have not made any progress. The truth is to apply to everyone, but my method is not suitable for everyone. If there is no history book to compare, changing an emperor to copy and paste will not only be useless, but will also bring disaster to his life.

Oranges grown south of the Yangtze River are oranges, while oranges grown north of the Yangtze River are tangerines. My way of governing the Ming Dynasty may not work here. These principles cannot be summarized by just looking at my actions. We still need to analyze them slowly in history books, discard the dross and retain the essence. "

Being hailed as the greatest emperor of all time, especially during grand court meetings, when he would sit on the high throne and look at hundreds of carefully selected top elites prostrating themselves below, that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction would be addictive and could also make a person lost.

But Hong Tao would not do that. Not only was he not addicted, he was also a little disgusted. Because he knew that all this was an illusion. What those people worshipped was not him, but power. And power is not innate. When it is gone, it will be despised by those who once worshipped it.

"I think that with time, they might also realize how good Your Majesty is."

Wang Chengen was most likely not among these people. He truly worshipped the emperor from the bottom of his heart, and whenever a controversial topic arose, he would always habitually take the emperor's answer as the standard.

"Well, that's a bit philosophical. As long as one is strong enough and communicates enough, even if one does nothing, it will be difficult for the weaker party to resist the centripetal force. It's just that it may take a little time... Fortunately, I don't care too much about time, hehe..."

This plain sentence made Hong Tao feel enlightened. Although there was a battlefield in front of him, he was not worried about how to win. He was always thinking about what to do next after winning.

(End of this chapter)