The Leisurely Life of the Prince of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 423 Riverside
It should be autumn, but India is still hot and humid. I heard that the winter in India is only a dozen days long, and the summer here is very long.

Jiang Shiren rode on the horse and poured water into his mouth.

Siege warfare is what the Tang army is best at. Wang Xuance looked at the Qunu City, which was nearly two meters high, and Alona Shun was hiding in the city.

Jiang Shiren also rode forward and said, "We sent people to check the surrounding cities. He has fortified the surrounding areas and cleared the fields, and took away all the food from the nearby cities."

Li Yibiao also reported back: "Within fifteen miles of the vicinity, sixty cities and towns are empty."

Listening to the two people's reports, it seems that Alona Shun is really determined to defend Kusumu City to the death.

Wang Xuance asked, "So, all the people and treasures are in the city?"

"Exactly."

Jiang Shiren said: "It saves a lot of trouble."

Under the moonlight, a figure was running towards here. The man was an Indian. He knelt on the ground and spoke loudly in Indian.

Rulaijie said, "He said that the old monk who came to see the general died in Kunu City. It was Aronatha who killed him."

Wang Xuance ordered: "Prepare slingshots and ladders, fill the trench in front of their city, and attack the city at daybreak."

"Here!"

Most of the cities in India were earthen cities. They were neither tall nor strong. Compared with the cities of the Tang people, their cities were vulnerable.

The Indians took advantage of the night to carry sand and fill the moat in front of the city.

On the city wall, the enemy continued to shoot arrows, but the shooting efficiency was very low at night.

The Indian man held a shield in one hand and a sandbag in the other, ran to the trench and threw the sandbag in.

When dawn broke, the sky returned to its blue color, and the moon was still hanging in the blue sky.

Wang Xuance ordered the Indians to attack the city first with their elephant soldiers.

The war elephants came all the way to the front of the city. The Indians only had to jump off the elephant's back and climb up once their hands touched the edge of the city wall.

When the Indian soldiers' siege was over but the city gates were not yet taken, Wang Xuance ordered his men to send in catapults and start throwing fireballs at the city.

There was a round of elephant soldiers, a round of catapults, and thick smoke billowing from the city walls.

Ru Laijie had been admiring the leisurely siege battle under the command of the Tang army generals. It was a beautiful sight, and he was secretly certain in his heart that Wang Xuance was good at using fire attack.

There are at least 100,000 people in this city. Let's see how Wang Xuance is going to kill them all.

The city was surrounded on three sides and one was left open. Only the north side of the city wall was left open after the attack on the three sides.

After three consecutive days, the gate of Qunu City was finally broken. The emotions of the Tang, Tubo and Indian armies, which had been suppressed for three days, finally erupted at this time. The elephant soldiers led the way, and a steady stream of people rushed into the city, killing anyone they saw.

Jiang Shiren led his troops and rushed straight to the Indian palace. Seeing that there were still many monks in front of the palace, he was about to hesitate, but the Tibetans rushed over without saying a word. The monks fell to the ground one by one, some of them were fat and some were skinny.

I still remember that the Tibetans said that they would charge into battle for the Tang army. I don’t know whether they wanted to take credit or fulfill their promise with their actions.

"General, Alona has fled to the north!"

Jiang Shiren grinned and said, "Brothers! Kill them!"

"Yes!" All the soldiers responded in unison.

An army of 10,000 soldiers stormed into the city, and Alona fled with his princess, entourage, and teams of guards.

Ru Laijie followed Wang Xuance and a part of the troops to the north of Qunu City. Only then did he understand what the Tang general meant. To the north of the royal city was the Qianduowei River, the upper reaches of the Gandis River. The river was very wide and the water was very deep.

People kept escaping into the river, and the Tang army only had to shoot arrows at those swimming in the river.

It is difficult to kill a group of people, but it is very easy to drive a group of people into the river and let them drown. You can kill tens of thousands of people without much effort.

The battle in the city lasted for a day. Countless Indians jumped into the river. Some were drowned, and some were shot by the Tang army when they came out to breathe. Some swam to the other side, but there were not many, only a few scattered around.

The most people were drowned in this battle. They tried to escape from the city, but were surrounded and blocked, so they could only flee into the river.

Jiang Shiren said loudly: "I will take a detour across the bridge and chase after Alona Shun. I will definitely capture him alive."

Wang Xuance said: "Okay! Bring a thousand soldiers."

"One hundred soldiers are enough!" After saying that, Jiang Shiren rode his horse and chased all the way to the east in the dusk.

The princess led her war elephant into the city of Kumu, the capital of India.

This place was very prosperous in the past. King Rongri invited Xuanzang to convene the Wuzhe Conference here. The conference was crowded with kings from more than 20 countries.

There were tens of thousands of monks in the city, an unprecedented occasion. A monk who came from the Tang Dynasty in the East was famous throughout India.

Now another general came from the Tang Dynasty in the East and destroyed Alona Shun. Qunu City almost became a deserted city, with corpses everywhere, thick smoke coming out of the houses and blood all over the ground.

The guards around the princess slashed and killed those who surrendered around them.

The princess walked up the steps in front of the palace, caressing her pregnant belly, with tears in her eyes, because all her relatives died in Alonashun's rebellion and now she was left alone.

Jiang Shiren and a group of Tibetans caught up with Alona Shun and surrounded him, but at this moment, there was a group of soldiers in the distance. They were wearing strange clothes and seemed to be coming to support them.

Alonashun called out to those people in a strange language.

Not knowing where the troops from the north came from, Jiang Shiren was very alert.

I saw that the other party had loosened the chain, and an animal was running towards me. The animal was running very fast and was in front of me in the blink of an eye.

The warhorse neighed and it bit the horse's neck.

Jiang Shiren fell to the ground, and stood up with a knife in hand. Only then did he see clearly that what was in front of him was actually a leopard.

A man and a leopard are confronting each other.

Several Tibetans drew their bows and arrows as if they were facing a powerful enemy. While guarding against enemies in the distance, they also looked at the leopard in front of them.

The leopard sniffed and pounced.

Jiang Shiren quickly raised his knife and stepped back. Seeing that the beast was about to open its mouth to bite him, he bent his body and stabbed out with his knife.

Feeling the hot blood flowing from the handle of the knife, Jiang Shiren kicked the leopard away again.

I've never fought against this kind of beast before. This thing is faster than a wolf.

The leopard's lower abdomen was bleeding profusely and it was flopping on the ground, unable to get up.

The troops in the distance had already left.

The Tibetans at the side spoke in unfamiliar Guanzhong dialect with a stern and nervous tone, "They are Arabs." Jiang Shiren shook off the blood on his knife and said, "Arabs? Why are there Arabs here?"

Everyone looked at Alonashun, maybe he was the only one who knew the reason.

The battle was brutal, and 16,000 men and women were captured, as well as more than 30,000 horses and cattle. The city was almost empty, and now there are more livestock than people.

In the Qianduowei River, corpses floated silently, connected into pieces and drifted downstream.

Jiang's men captured Alonashun alive and put him in a prison car, along with Alonashun's princess and prince.

Li Yibiao, an official of the Ministry of Rites, was the only civil servant in the Tang army. He took out pen, ink and paper that had not been used for a long time from his bag.

He smoothed out the wrinkled paper, moistened the brush, ground the ink, and started writing.

After the siege, everyone who returned was resting, eating and relaxing.

Li Yibiao wrote a record, then he relaxed his shoulders and looked up. He saw General Wang Xuance, Jiang Shiren, and Ru Laijie sitting around a campfire, and in a cage beside them was the silent Alona Shun.

Ru Laijie understood Indian writing and also read Indian books.

Jiang Shiren said with a smile: "I didn't expect that A Luo Nashun's concubine is quite beautiful."

The Indian princess, filled with endless hatred, killed all the rest. General Jiang was evaluating the heads on the ground.

The princess was having her beloved war elephant washed by a woman.

Wang Xuance asked Rulaijie, "How did the Arabs come here?"

Rulaijie took the scroll he had searched in the palace, looked at the words on it, and said, "The Arabs are now on an expedition to the east. India is a very complicated place. I heard that the king of East India has contacts with the Arabs. The people that General Jiang met were most likely a group of Arabs visiting East India."

Jiang Shiren asked in surprise, "Did the Arabs invade India?"

Rulaijie stroked his gray beard and waved his hand, saying, "Not yet. The Arabs also have merchants. They probably come to India just to buy and sell goods. I went to Persia when I was young, twenty years ago. Persia was very rich at that time. The most distinguished women and men in Persia wore silk."

"It's the silk of your Tang Dynasty." Rulaijie explained, and then said: "At that time, Persia and India had exchanges, and merchants came and went. Xuanzang should have seen this kind of scene, but after Xuanzang left, Persia was destroyed by the Arabs."

"The Arabs are now occupying the Persian territory, so they will naturally go south to trade goods with the Indians."

After saying this, Rulaijie sighed and said, "The animal that General Jiang killed was raised by the Arabs. It is said that only the Arab nobles raise such animals. It is very difficult to tame such animals."

The firelight reflected on Rulaijie's face, and he said, "Moreover, the people who can tame this kind of animal are not ordinary nobles. Most of them are the masters of the Arab forces. After all, the journey from Arab to India is not too far, much closer than the Tang Dynasty."

Rulaijie didn't like Indian food either. He had always eaten dried meat and tsampa to fill his stomach. He was chewing while saying, "Well, these are letters between Alona Shun and the King of East India."

Wang Xuance looked at the words on the silk cloth, frowning for a long time.

Realizing that this Tang general could not understand the Indian language, Rulaijie smiled and said, "The King of Eastern India promised Alonashun that he would help when the Tang army came to attack."

Jiang Shiren said: "No wonder he stayed in the city and refused to leave."

Rulaijie nodded.

Wang Xuance asked back, "Then why didn't he come? We have been attacking the city for three days, so he has plenty of time to come and help."

Rulaijie smiled again and said nothing.

Li Yibiao interrupted, "The King of East India made a promise and then broke it?"

Rulaijie sorted out the scrolls and explained, "It took the Tang army five months to conquer Central India. The other countries must have been terrified."

Hearing this, Jiang Shiren nodded thoughtfully.

This old man was extremely law-abiding and did not touch a single cent in the city. He even ate the food he brought from Tibet and never ate any other food.

When he was in a good mood, he would make milk tea to drink, eat tsampa while making the tea and quietly appreciate the scenery of the city.

But the city was littered with corpses, and it was impossible to move them all away in a short time.

The old man is very old, his hair and beard are all gray, and his taste is very strange.

After everyone rested for a night, Wang Xuance asked the Princess of India to arrange someone to deliver a message to the King of Eastern India, telling him that the Tang army was going to attack him.

Rulaijie, who learned the news, immediately came to ask, "Is the general really going to attack East Tianzhu?"

Wang Xuance looked at the map and said, "Of course not."

"Then why?"

Wang Xuance nodded and said, "I want to see what kind of person the King of East Tianzhu is."

Five days later, as expected, the Tang army had not yet set out, but the King of East India, Shijiuma, sent 30,000 horses and cattle, as well as many bows, swords and a kind of precious ornament called Baoyingluo. Then, the surrounding countries of Central India, with Qunu City as the center, sent envoys to present exotic objects to Wang Xuance.

In order to survive, the King of East India showed his utmost sincerity and even wanted to obtain the statue of Laozi, the founder of Taoism, and submit to the Khan of Heaven.

He was willing to abandon Buddhism, believe in the Taoist ancestor of the Central Plains, and submit to the Heavenly Khan from then on.

This time, Wang Xuance proved that the King of Eastern India, Shi Jiumo, was an extremely weak person, and there was no need to be afraid of such a person.

The Tang army established its reputation in India, and its two major battles shocked other places.

When everything settled down, Jiang Shiren and Li Yibiao went to pacify the area around Tianzhu.

Ru Laijie often walked beside Wang Xuance. He asked, "I thought the general was really going to attack East Tianzhu."

Wang Xuance said: "The King of East India is very weak. A weak person who is willing to submit should not be killed. Besides, you also said that the Arabs are in the north."

"Is the general very afraid of the Arabs?"

"If the Arabs and Qunu City are separated by East Tianzhu, and the king of East Tianzhu is a very weak person, it is not a bad thing to let it exist. There is a saying in the Central Plains that the lips and teeth are cold. If the Arabs want to attack East Tianzhu, we can even join forces to resist."

"Besides." Wang Xuance paused, stood on the city wall, and gave another order: "The people from Chongwenguan have sent a letter. Their people are coming soon. Chongwenguan will send people to govern Tianzhu."

Rulaijie said: "General Wang has an endless stream of Tang people coming to India behind him, so he has nothing to fear."

Wang Xuance shook his head and said, "We must do what we can. It is enough to get here. We need to govern the area later. Governing the area is not my forte. We have to wait for the people from Chongwen Hall."

Another month passed, and Tang Army Deputy General Jiang Shiren and Deputy Envoy Li Yibiao traveled around the country, suppressing rebellions everywhere, and 580 cities in Central India surrendered.

On the same day, thirty people arranged by Chongwenguan arrived at Qunu City in Tianzhu. Their leader was Liu Hongye, the second son of Liu Li, the then Minister of the Secretariat.

The man looked to be about thirty years old, wearing a light blue round-necked robe and had a short beard.

When Jiang Shiren saw people from Chongwenguan coming to help, he was so moved that he cried.

(End of this chapter)