The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 949: The World Situation (Part )

At this time, Hou Junji proposed that the Annan area in the southwest of the Tang Dynasty and the Indochina Peninsula had a mild climate and four seasons like spring. If rice was planted, three harvests could be harvested a year. If all the small countries in the Indochina Peninsula were conquered and generals were sent to garrison them, rice could be planted in full force.

Then the Tang Dynasty will have a granary that is richer than Shu and Jiangnan, and even if the population of the Tang Dynasty doubles, there will be no shortage of food.

Li Shimin was greatly excited and immediately sent an envoy to investigate.

After realizing the situation, he brazenly organized a large army, with Hou Junji as the commander-in-chief, and dispatched 100,000 troops south to attack the Indochina Peninsula.

At this time, the several small countries in Indochina were also very backward, and they had almost no ability to resist the heavenly soldiers of the Tang Dynasty.

After a year of adapting to the humid climate of the south and suffering heavy casualties, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty gradually adapted to the environment here, and then launched a massive invasion to the south, with unstoppable force. In just two years, they completely conquered several small countries in the Indochina Peninsula.

At this point, the Tang Dynasty pushed its influence to the southwestern coastline and established three major protectorates of Annan, Pyu Burma and Chenla, completely incorporating these areas into the territory of the Tang Dynasty. As a result, the territory of the Tang Dynasty expanded by more than one third.

During these five years, the Xueyantuo who fled to the Western Regions were not idle either.

The Yinan who returned to their homeland in the northwest continued to shrink their front lines under the pressure of the westward expansion of the Turkic forces. The Western Turks in Central Asia, who were further west, learned from somewhere that the Xueyantuo had suffered heavy losses in the Central Plains and their strength was greatly weakened, so they also began to press eastward.

Faced with the pressure from the two powerful forces of East and West Turks at the same time, Yinan had no choice but to slowly move south.

The Xueyantuo who moved south were inevitably brought into conflict with the countries in the Western Regions. The first two countries they encountered were the powerful countries in the Western Regions, Gaochang and Chechi.

Gaochang and Chechi were both big countries in the Western Regions, with dozens of cities. Among the many forces in the Western Regions, they had great influence, their people were wealthy, their military was strong, not to mention they had the Tang Dynasty to rely on.

In response to the invasion of Xueyantuo, they launched a counterattack without hesitation. After a great battle, both countries were defeated and lost more than a dozen cities.

The two countries immediately sent envoys to ask the Tang Dynasty for help.

Li Shimin also readily agreed, and sent Li Ji and Li Daliang as generals, leading 100,000 cavalry, to help. However, upon hearing the news, the soldiers of the Right Wise King in the Irtysh River Valley, a thousand miles north of Yumen Pass, also marched south without hesitation to threaten Shazhou.

Afterwards, both countries continued to increase their troops and concentrated hundreds of thousands of troops here. Both sides refused to give in and the war was about to break out.

Under this circumstance, many Tang officials advised not to fall out with the Turks for the sake of the small countries in the Western Regions. The Tang was not ready for a war with the Turks. Hou Junji was entrusted by many officials to go to the Turks to mediate.

The aristocratic families also continued to go to the grassland to mediate, and Li Yan received countless benefits.

Faced with such a situation, Li Shimin was helpless and had to retreat. Seeing this, Gaochang Ju Wentai expressed his gratitude to Li Shimin on the one hand, and on the other hand, he went to the grassland without stopping, trying to persuade the Right Xian King to show mercy to Gaochang.

Li Yan was furious, thinking that Gaochang and other Western Regions countries only recognized the Tang Dynasty and not the Turks, and used this as an excuse to angrily denounce Ju Wentai.

In panic, Ju Wentai had no choice but to surrender to the Turks and offer a large amount of wealth.

Unexpectedly, this not only failed to please the Turks, but instead angered the Tang Dynasty, which believed that Gaochang was indecisive and could not be trusted.

As the Turks withdrew their troops, the Tang Dynasty also gave up rescuing Gaochang. Ju Wentai was caught in a dilemma, like a rat in a bellows, being neither a popular figure nor a popular person. He ran to the Tang Dynasty to plead his case, and a lot of time was wasted in this process.

After conquering dozens of cities in the two countries, Yinan was greatly encouraged by the fact that the two great powers, the Turks and the Tang Dynasty, were slow to send troops to the Western Regions. He stepped up his efforts to conquer the Western Regions, and in just half a year, he completely conquered Gaochang and Chechi.

The Tang Dynasty and the Turks still did not send troops to intervene.

Afterwards, Yi Nan completely let himself go. After annexing Gaochang and Chechi, his strength increased greatly. He continued to conquer Qiuci, Yanqi, Suiye, Xiuxun, Qiewei, Shule, Khotan, Dayuan, Kangju, Gumo, Parthia and other places.

It annexed almost all of the Tang Dynasty's major protectorates in the Western Regions, and its influence also advanced to Tingzhou and Xizhou in the east, which were bordering the Tang Dynasty, but the Tang Dynasty still ignored it.

At this point, the Xueyantuo became extremely powerful and became the third most powerful force after the Tang Dynasty and the Turks.

Yinan established a khan tent in the Yili River Valley, which was located in an area with abundant grass and water, far away from the Central Plains, such as the south of the Great Wall. It was officially called the Xueyantuo Khanate. Yinan was called the Great Khan, and he appointed Bodhi as his national teacher. He had an army of nearly 500,000 and dominated the Western Regions.

Just when Yi Nan was ambitiously wanting to return to the Central Plains and ask the Turks and the Tang Dynasty who would be the master of the world.

However, Bote poured cold water on Yinan, believing that among the Three Kingdoms, the Xueyantuo Khanate was the weakest. Although the situation was very good now, it would inevitably collapse if faced with a strong attack from the Tang Dynasty and the Turks.

The only way for now is to continue to accumulate strength.

Looking around, only Tubo on the plateau is large in territory but weak in strength. If we can conquer Tubo and then swallow up Tuyuhun sandwiched between the three kingdoms, we can be in a dominant position and threaten the Tang Dynasty from the west and north, and then we can be invincible.

Even if they lost, Tubo was too weak to retaliate against the Western Regions.

Botie thought about it for a long time and agreed with it, so he organized an army of 300,000 and marched south to invade the snowy plateau, which had not seen war for hundreds of years. Under the leadership of their leader Songtsen Gampo and prime minister Lu Dongzan, Tubo rose up in resistance.

The current Tubo is no longer the powerful country that was strengthened by various technical support from the Tang Dynasty and whose system was reformed. It is still under the most primitive slave rule. Although the entire region is called a country to the outside world, it is actually just a group of tribes that are more backward than the grassland.

Under the attack of the Xueyantuo army, they were defeated and lost territory continuously.

The Yinan army became more and more courageous as the battle went on, and continued to advance. After three years of hard fighting, they finally captured the Tubo capital of Lhasa and Pibo in the 16th year of Zhenguan, completely annexing the entire Snowy Plateau and taking down Tuyuhun in the process.

At this point, the Xueyantuo Khanate became a powerful khanate that was no less powerful than the Tang Dynasty and the Turks, shocking the world.

Yinan also completed his historical mission!

At the same time, the Turks and the Tang Dynasty also completed their respective strategic goals and stopped all actions.

The world suddenly became quiet, as if a devastating thunderstorm was brewing.

Sure enough, in March of the 16th year of Zhenguan, facing the rising Xueyantuo, which had been constantly annexing small countries in the west and incurring the wrath of heaven and people, the Tang Emperor Li Shimin and the Turkic Right Wise King Li Yan met again in Fengzhou.

Defining Xueyantuo as an evil force that endangers humanity and has killed countless friendly nations, the two sides reached a consensus to join hands again and send troops to eliminate Xueyantuo.

This time, the two countries acted extremely quickly, organizing their armies quickly and dividing their forces into two routes in accordance with the agreement.

The Tang Dynasty sent an army of 300,000 to the east, with the military god Li Jing as the chief commander, and world-famous brave generals such as Hou Junji, Cheng Yaojin, Yuchi Gong, Li Daliang, Zhang Shigui, Zhang Liang, and Li Ji as marching marshals of the various routes in the western expedition.

Among them, Xue Rengui, Pei Xingjian, Li Jinxing, Wang Xuance, Liu Renyuan, Sun Renshi, Xi Junmai, Gao Kan, Xiao Siye, Li Jingxuan, Li Jinxing and other outstanding young generals of the new generation also participated in it, advancing from the western front to the plateau in a mighty force.

What is surprising is that at this time, King Shu Li Ke was actually appointed as military supervisor and followed the army on the western expedition.

But if you think about it, everyone can understand it. After all, the scale of this Western Expedition is larger than the Battle of Dingxiang in the third year of Zhenguan. The Western Expedition Army includes almost all the experienced and skilled generals and elite soldiers in the current Tang Dynasty.

It would be really worrying if there was no one to watch over the emperor.

But this was a great encouragement to Li Ke. The Shu King's party in the court believed that this was a sign that the emperor wanted to vigorously cultivate the Shu King.

Li Ke was also ambitious and vowed to conquer the snowy plateau and expand the territory for the Tang Dynasty.

In order to boost morale, Li Shimin took this opportunity to announce to the entire court and the world that the Tang Dynasty would undergo a reform and implement an open strategy of governing the country in which the county system and the feudal system coexisted, with the county system as the main body and the feudal system as the auxiliary.

Since the 16th year of Zhenguan, all the lands conquered by the Tang Dynasty were designated as native territories and would never be divided up, and the county system was implemented.

After that, all the lands conquered will be used as dependencies, except for a few strategic areas. All other areas can be sealed off as territories of the kings.

Various vassal states were established to protect the Central Plains from the Tang Dynasty.

The fiefdoms were divided into three levels according to their geographical location, importance, and merits. The highest level of fiefdom could independently control all military, political, financial, and personnel power within its jurisdiction, and could even be inherited from generation to generation and passed down forever.

Whether it was the royal family members of the Li clan, meritorious officials of other surnames, or aristocratic families, they were all within the scope of being granted titles.

All vassal states were part of the Tang Dynasty and did not enjoy any diplomatic rights or sovereignty.

The Tang Dynasty promulgated a series of feudal decrees to explain the rights and responsibilities of each feudal state.

When this order was issued, the whole country was in an uproar, because this policy included all interest groups, which meant that it would not affect the inherent governance model of the Tang Dynasty, but could also be used to increase the influence of the Tang Dynasty. It was equivalent to making the pie bigger, and everyone could benefit from it.

Regardless of whether they were from the upper class or the common people, everyone supported it.

The dignitaries and generals at the highest levels of the Tang Dynasty were full of confidence and determination. They were united in purpose and were ready to march towards the Western Regions, determined to lay a solid foundation for their descendants.

Under Li Shimin's new policies, the 300,000-strong Tang army exploded with unprecedented fighting power. With bloodshot eyes and everyone marching bravely, they rushed towards the unstable Xueyantuo Khanate like a torrent of steel.

Li Yan even organized an army of 500,000 and marched all the way from the northwest to the Western Regions.

Under the pincer attack from the Tang Dynasty and the Turks from the south and the north, the Xueyantuo was defeated step by step. Although the Tang Dynasty had stronger combat power, the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Snowland was too great. The altitude sickness greatly weakened the combat effectiveness of the Tang army, making it difficult for the Tang army to move forward.

For two whole years, there was no major breakthrough and I was just adapting to the environment.

(End of this chapter)