Chapter 590 The Great Showdown ([-])

Autumn of the 400th year of Yan State (611)
The Sui Kingdom officially announced the move of the capital to Luoyang, and notified envoys from various countries to bring tribute to pay tribute at the beginning of the spring of the following year.

In the next few months, Yang Guang ordered the entire Luoyang to be improved.

The streets are covered with red cloth, and the houses in the city are all decorated with cloth of different colors according to their uses, and the walls of ugly houses are covered with beautiful cloth.

The tree is full of rare treasures for envoys from all over the world to appreciate and let them feel the magnificence of the Sui Dynasty.

Prepare all kinds of gifts and present them to the missions of various countries. As many gifts as the envoys bring to pay tribute, Tai Sui will repay the gifts with ten times the value.

All the beggars in Luoyang City were arrested and put in prisons, and they were not allowed to come out to affect the appearance of Luoyang City.

Every Luoyang citizen was forced to wear luxurious silk and satin clothes. After the Ten Thousand Nations Court Meeting, these silk and satin clothes would naturally have to be returned to the court. If they were accidentally damaged, they would be compensated at the original price.

Those who are ugly are ordered not to go out, otherwise they will be punished severely, and they cannot run out to affect the image of Tai Sui.

When the news spread to Yan State, some Yan State people began to cheat the tribute.

Yan State has many aboriginal slaves overseas. If you take a few aboriginal slaves and put them in common clothes, you can pretend to be a prince from a certain overseas country and come to pay tribute to the Sui Dynasty in person, thereby obtaining a gift from the Sui Dynasty.

This tribute fraud soon proved to be very effective.

The second year, the spring of the 611st year of Yan State ([-])
New Year
Envoys from various countries came to Luoyang, including East Turkic, Western Turkic, 36 countries in the Western Regions, Sasanian Persia, Khitan, Kumoxi, Subi, Dangxiang, Funan, Chenla, Tangming, and Hongyan Heavenly Kingdom.

Among them, the Swan Goose Heaven was established by Lu Xun, the second generation pirate king of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After Lu Xun fled into the deep mountains and old forests, he established the Swan Goose Heaven near Tangming Kingdom because he was a follower of the Swan Goose Taoism.

This swan goose heaven is located in the west of Tangming (Laos) and the south of Ailaopu people, which is the Golden Triangle area of ​​later generations.

This place has high mountains and steep mountains, almost everywhere is full of natural dangers, the road of Shu is hard to compare with here, it is considered easy.

The monarch of the Swan Goose Heaven is called "Holy Lord", and the Holy Lord is hereditary from Lu Xun's descendants. Under the Holy Lord, there are three immortal emperors and nine immortal kings, and the leaders of each tribe are also called "emperors". The son of the saint is the saint, the son is the saint of heaven, the eldest son is the saint of the way, the daughter is the saint, the daughter is the saint of heaven, and the eldest daughter is the saint of the way.

One of the Holy Sons of the Swan Goose Heaven brought many tributes and personally went to Luoyang to pay tribute.

Obviously, although they believed in Hongyan Dao, there was already a huge deviation from the orthodox Hongyan Dao.

And in the country of Yan, there are also many little clever ghosts. They bought a few native slaves from the Spice Islands, put them in common clothes, and then swaggered to Luoyang. With the gift from Sui State, he returned to Yan State.

The people of Yan State have a big brain hole, and all kinds of country names have been made up, such as the country of Feitian, the country of escape, the country of daughters, the country of men, the country of children, the country of the elderly, the country of flames, the country of ice, the country of chrysanthemums, the country of peach blossoms, and the country of plum blossoms , Cosmic Kingdom, Void Kingdom, Big Bird Kingdom, Little Chicken Kingdom, and so on.

And the historians of the Sui Dynasty also proudly wrote this period of history into their history books, claiming that on a certain day of a certain year, all nations of the Sui Dynasty came to court, and the Xiaoji Kingdom and other overseas countries admired our heavenly kingdom and traveled thousands of miles. Come to pay tribute.

The face project of Wan Guo coming to the court is just a small episode. Yang Guang, the emperor of the Sui Dynasty, spent money to earn face for himself, making himself extremely beautiful.

After the coming of all nations to the dynasty, Yang Guang toured the world again, supervising the corvee work of officials from all over the country.

Tens of millions of laborers were organized. They were forced to work for the imperial court without wages. Those who were close could get food delivered by their mothers-in-law. Those who were far away had to pay for themselves. Buy gruel from the imperial court to drink, or you will starve to death in corvee.

For the corvée that is relatively close to Luoyang, the government will at least provide free daily rations. This is Yang Guang's good face, and there should be no scandal of large-scale death of corvée near the imperial capital.

But the corvée far away from Luoyang was really close to death, and the common people instantly felt that they had returned to the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Another year later, in the spring of the 200nd year of Yan State, the conscripts and military service in various places have been recruited, and a million troops and [-] million grain transporters have also been assembled.

In fact, according to the calculation method of the Battle of Changping, Yang Guang has an army of 300 million, not a million.

Because the Battle of Changping included the people who transported food from both sides, even so, the Qin and Zhao countries only had a total of 100 million.

As for Yang Guang, the army alone has 110 million to 200 people, and there are still 300 million people who transport food in the rear. If the calculation method of the Warring States Period is used, it will be [-] million troops.

The scale of such a war cannot be said to be unprecedented, but it must be unprecedented.

The last expedition with an army of one million was Fu Jian. Although there were millions, only a few hundred thousand actually went to the front line. Many Qin soldiers were still on the way. Before they reached the front line, they heard that the front line Feishui was defeated. up.

Yang Guang specially waited until the millions of troops had been mobilized and assembled before starting to set off.

Prior to this, a large amount of grain stored during Yang Jian's period was also frantically transported to Zhuojun by the peasants.

A large number of granaries in the Central Plains were opened, but they were not used to distribute rations to the corvee men, but were transported to the front line to supply the army.

Not to mention Yan Guo was frightened, even Sui Guo himself was frightened.

Many Sui scholars wrote various poems and articles to describe the horror of the empire's million-strong army.

The army stretches for thousands of miles, and you can't see the end at a glance. Countless military flags are like a long dragon, roaring towards the northeast, followed by an even more spectacular army of grain transporters, stretching for thousands of miles, just urine and feces excreted every day , can flow into a stream and pile up into a mountain.

Because there were too many people, most of the food was eaten by soldiers and grain transporters during the march, so Yang Guang had to continue to increase corvee, continue to expand grain transporters, and open more granaries.

During this period, the folks in Henan, Hebei, Shandong and other places suffered from famine when they were building the Grand Canal. Local officials opened warehouses to release grain without authorization to save the hungry people.

When Yang Guang learned about it, he was furious and beheaded the official who opened the warehouse to release the grain.

"These grains are reserved for war consumption, how can you just open a warehouse for those common people to eat?"

On the marching road, every night, due to the dense crowd, the mosquitoes were also dense. The mosquito bites alone caused everyone to suffer unspeakably.

If it was a rainy day, it would be even more appalling. The shoes and clothes would be wet and smelly. While marching while enduring the stench, you might not always meet a source of water on the march, and even if you did, it would not be enough for millions of people.

The troops in front had to spend time burying their shit in the pit, otherwise the troops behind would have no place to shit, and there would be poop everywhere, and if they were not careful, they would step on their trousers.

Before the millions of troops reached Shanhaiguan, the low-level soldiers and officers were already complaining. Before the war started, they were already eager to go home.

(End of this chapter)

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