The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 424 The Silk Road and Luoyang

Hexi.

At noon, the sun was shining brightly. Outside the city of Ganzhou, Ganzhou Uighur Khan Yaoluo Gerenyu led the Ganzhou Uighur royal family members, as well as the household registration lists of Ganzhou and Suzhou, and the official seals bestowed by the former Tang Dynasty, out of the city to surrender.

Not long ago, the Ganzhou Uighurs gathered an army of 100,000 for a decisive battle with the Western Expedition Army. As a result, Li Chongjin and Han Tong led 30,000 infantry and cavalry and 30,000 light cavalry battalions to attack and defeated the Ganzhou Uighurs.

Thirty thousand Uighurs from Ganzhou were killed in battle and more than 30,000 were captured. The rest were frightened and fled back to Ganzhou City. Then Li Chongjin and Han Tong led their troops to besiege Ganzhou City. With no reinforcements outside and low morale inside, the Uighurs from Ganzhou finally surrendered.

Li Chongjin agreed to the surrender of Ganzhou Huihe, and then sent troops to escort the Khan of Ganzhou Huihe and his family, as well as members of the royal family, to Bianliang. Only Guo Rong was qualified to deal with these people.

Originally, Li Chongjin had some thoughts of competing with Guo Rong. After all, he was the nephew of the late emperor Guo Wei, and Guo Rong was the late emperor's adopted son. It was hard to say who was closer between the two. However, after the last arrival of the phoenix, Guo Rong's prestige reached its peak, and he no longer had this thought.

So he would naturally not do anything that would overstep his authority, especially since he had Han Tong, Guo Rong's confidant, by his side.

After conquering the Ganzhou Huihe, most of the Hexi area had been occupied by the Zhou Kingdom. Next, Li Chongjin sent people directly to Guazhou and Shazhou to ask the Guiyi Army to submit to the Zhou Kingdom.

The Guiyi Army at this time could only survive in Guazhou and Shazhou after being defeated by the Ganzhou Uighurs decades ago. If nothing unexpected happened, they would eventually die at the hands of the Western Xia, and would not return to the Central Plains dynasty until more than 300 years later.

But this time, with the arrival of Richard, the Guiyi Army returned to the Central Plains Dynasty hundreds of years earlier.

After meeting Li Chongjin's envoy, Cao Yuanzhong, the governor of the Guiyi Army, learned that the Great Zhou had unified the north and the world was about to be unified again. He immediately expressed his willingness to submit and personally went to Ganzhou to meet Li Chongjin, bringing the household registration lists of the two states of Gua and Sha, as well as the flags of the Guiyi Army.

When the Guiyi Army first submitted to the Former Tang Dynasty, it was almost their most glorious period. However, due to internal strife and the Tang Dynasty's distrust, the internal struggle for power became extremely brutal.

The mutual fighting has severely damaged the Guiyi Army, and now they can only survive.

Finally, in the Hexi area where there were Hu people everywhere, they compromised and survived in the cracks. When they learned that the heavenly soldiers from the Central Plains had arrived, they were as excited as children who had suffered injustice outside and saw their parents.

It can be said that the Guiyi Army is the one in the entire world that most hopes for the arrival of the Central Plains Heavenly Soldiers.

Ganzhou.

"Don't you see, the Han army is about to end, and the young man will be tied to the captives and ask for a long rope!"

"Have you not seen Ban Dingyuan and Cui Zhanyun, the Light Cavalry of the Extreme Region?"

It was noon, the sun was shining brightly, and in the camp outside Ganzhou City, thousands of soldiers were training. War songs were loud, flags were waving, and countless men were singing military songs in unison.

This military song was naturally given by Richard to the Western Expedition Army.

The Western Expedition was not an easy task. The environment in the Western Regions was very bad. Once you left the Hexi area, you would face thousands of miles of desert. Without sufficient will and courage, it would be impossible to complete this journey of thousands of miles.

Richard gave them military songs in order to build a military spirit in them, and now it seems that the effect is very good.

At this moment, a group of people came running from a distance. They were carrying the flag of Cao, the governor of Guiyi Army. There were about a hundred of them, and they soon arrived near the military camp.

When Cao Yuanzhong heard the sound of the enthusiastic training coming from the military camp and saw the soldiers, he couldn't help but sigh: "The Central Plains Heavenly Soldiers have arrived, and we finally have someone to rely on!"

"After a hundred years, I hear the accent of my hometown again! I never thought that I would be able to return to the Central Plains one day!"

The surrounding Guiyi Army also cried bitterly.

Cao Yuanzhong and his followers came to Ganzhou and met Li Chongjin, who warmly entertained the Guiyi Army. When Guo Rong went on his second expedition, he repeatedly told him to treat the Guiyi Army well.

Li Chongjin first appeased Cao Yuanzhong, then took out Guo Rong's imperial edict to the Guiyi Army, praised the Guiyi Army, and then allowed Cao Yuanzhong to come to the court for an audience.

Cao Yuanzhong happily brought the imperial edict and his entourage, and went to the court to meet the emperor under the escort of troops sent by Li Chongjin.

The Guiyi Army began to integrate into the Western Expedition. As a force in Hexi, the Guiyi Army was very familiar with the situation in Hexi and the Western Regions. At this time, the Western Regions had been occupied by the Karakhanid Khanate, and the Karakhanid Khanate also began to attack the Kingdom of Khotan and Gaochang Uighurs.

After changing its faith, the Karakhanid Khanate received support from many Central Asian countries, and they were ready to spread their faith eastward.

The goal of the Western Expedition Army was to recover the Han and Tang territories, establish the Western Regions Protectorate, and reopen the Silk Road. After the army occupied Hexi, it did not continue the Western Expedition, but began to station troops and cultivate land in Dunhuang, Shazhou, Ganzhou, and Liangzhou.

At the same time, the Shandan Military Horse Farm in Hexi was restored. As the largest military horse farm in China, the Shandan Military Horse Farm was of great significance to the Central Plains Dynasty. With this Shandan Military Horse Farm, the Central Plains Dynasty had enough war horses and could easily go to the frontier, and the grassland peoples would be beaten by the Central Plains Dynasty.

After the Zhou State recovered Hexi and Longyou, it obtained the Shandan Military Horse Farm and immediately rebuilt it.

The army planned to establish farming in Hexi for a year before continuing the expedition. On the one hand, it was to adapt to the climate of Hexi, and on the other hand, it was to store up food and fodder.

After continuing westward from Dunhuang, one needs to cross thousands of miles of sand sea. In this environment, it is extremely difficult for a large army to pass through, so good planning must be carried out and the troops must pass through in batches.

So training is necessary.

Time passed quickly. The Khan of Ganzhou Huihe and the Jiedushi of Guiyi Army arrived one after another, which made Guo Rong very happy. Guo Rong ordered the Ganzhou Huihe to migrate to Hebei, Shandong, Henan and other regions in batches. He also ordered all Ganzhou Huihe to change their Chinese names, learn Chinese, and change their customs.

At the same time, an order was issued to prohibit intermarriage among the Ganzhou Huihe people. The more than 200,000 Ganzhou Huihe people were considered a force in Hexi, but when they were separated and moved to the Central Plains, they could not even make a small splash.

After issuing the order to relocate the Uighurs in Ganzhou, Guo Rong again ordered the transfer of 30,000 households from Henan, Guanzhong and Shandong to Gan and Liang provinces.

There are not enough Han people in Gan and Liang states. If the Han people are not added to the population, the rule here will not be stable.

At the same time, the natural environment in Ganzhou and Liangzhou is good, and there is abundant water resources. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land can be easily cultivated, and grazing can also be carried out. If managed well, feeding hundreds of thousands of people is not a problem.

All the people who migrated to Gan and Liang states could obtain 100 mu of land, one ox, one horse, and five sheep when they arrived here. It can be said that as long as they came here, they could immediately become wealthy, which was much better than the Central Plains.

Seeing that the court's rewards were so generous, many people took the initiative to sign up, but in the end they still failed to gather 30,000 households. After all, only a few people were willing to leave their homes and migrate to Hexi.

Richard could only migrate by force.

Thirty thousand households migrated to Hexi. At the same time, Richard began to discuss with Guo Rong about moving the capital to Luoyang.

Although Tokyo Bianliang was prosperous, with canals connecting it to all directions, booming commerce and a large population, it also had a huge drawback.

There is no strategic location to defend Bianjing.

Kaifeng was surrounded by plains, and the cavalry could march straight to Kaifeng as long as they broke through Hebei. In addition to having no strategic advantages, Kaifeng was too narrow inside to be suitable as a capital. At the same time, Kaifeng was very close to the Yellow River, which had become an above-ground river at that time. Once the Yellow River broke its banks, Kaifeng was likely to be flooded.

Of course, in addition to these reasons, there is another reason that Kaifeng's geographical location is not suitable for the development of the Western Regions. In fact, if you want to develop the Western Regions, Chang'an is more suitable, but after hundreds of years of development, Chang'an is no longer suitable as an imperial capital because of excessive development in the Tang Dynasty, felling of trees, and serious soil erosion.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Luoyang is more suitable as the imperial capital. Luoyang is connected to the Yellow River by the Luo River. Although it is not as smooth as the canal in Kaifeng, it is also connected by a canal, so water transport is convenient. In addition, there are pass protections around Luoyang, which is much better than Kaifeng, which has no protection at all.

In addition, Luoyang is closer to the Western Regions and is more suitable for developing the Western Regions and restarting the Silk Road. In this way, Luoyang is very suitable to be the imperial capital.

As for conducting ocean trade in the future, it is also possible to transport goods from Luoyang via the Yellow River to the sea, which can also promote ocean trade.

Therefore, after discussing with Guo Rong, Richard began to prepare to move the capital to Luoyang. However, before moving the capital, Luoyang still needed to be repaired.

Luoyang at this time was no longer the eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty. After the wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in the late Tang Dynasty, the city of Luoyang was almost destroyed. Several major wars surrounding Luoyang made it dilapidated and it had long lost the style of an imperial capital.

So Richard personally sent people to Luoyang to rebuild it, and at the same time recruited a large number of refugees to go to Luoyang to reclaim land.

Luoyang has fertile land and is very suitable for cultivation. Richard transferred a large amount of money and grain to Luoyang City to build a palace. The palace city in Kaifeng is too small. Since Luoyang City needs to be rebuilt, it is natural to make reasonable plans.

In addition to the imperial city, Richard also requested the establishment of official residences, which were prepared for high-ranking officials of the court. There are many benefits to building official residences, the biggest of which is that it can prevent officials from secretly colluding.

Official residences would be built in a unified manner so that officials could live together. Only one person would need to send some people to guard them, and if officials wanted to collude with each other, the emperor would basically know about it.

This is very important for the emperor, and building an official residence is also an opportunity for those honest officials. You know, living in the imperial capital is not an easy thing.

In the current Kaifeng City, any courtyard would cost one or two hundred strings of coins, while the courtyards closer to the imperial city would cost five or six hundred strings of coins. Even considering the salaries of officials, it is not a small amount.

Those officials cannot even buy a house, so how can they balance their mentality? They might start to engage in corruption or abuse their power for personal gain. Therefore, official residences are also a guarantee for those officials who come from humble backgrounds.

(End of this chapter)