Qin Official

Panhan is not a city, only a lonely sentry tower, standing at the intersection of Lishui and the river. But at least it was not made of rammed loess, but built with stronger black stones. Looking up, Heifu could catch a glimpse of a few faces with messy beards peering out from between the battlements.

They were the guards left by Li Xin after he took control of the Taoxi area a year ago. There were not many of them, fifty people per group. However, when the leader of the group came to see Li Xin, he said that there were only forty-eight people left.

Five days ago, the two of them went out hunting together and never returned. A group of subordinates went to search, but found nothing. They either encountered wild beasts, or encountered Qiang living in Huangzhong, and were captured and killed...

Li Xin said nothing and nodded to Qiang Huang.

Qiang Huang was so angry that he stopped the village chief from telling him: No need to guess, one of them did fall off the cliff and died. As for the other one, he deserted!

With that said, he waved his hand and the soldiers brought up a Qin soldier who had his hands tied behind his back and was covered in filth.

It turned out that this man was timid when he saw his companion accidentally falling off a cliff and died. In addition, he had been guarding the cold border area for nearly a year. He couldn't stand it anymore, so he had the idea of ​​​​escape. But it was unlucky for him. He walked along Tao While walking along the river, they unexpectedly encountered Li Xin's team. Seeing that he was acting suspiciously, the scouts captured him. They quickly judged from his clothes and his biography that he was a fleeing Qin soldier.

According to military law, deserters die, and according to the law of consecutive sittings, if one person escapes, the penalty will be increased to four of his companions. The remaining three of his companions will also be whipped, and will later go to the deserter's home to hold him accountable. His parents and family...

It was precisely because of this strict military law that most of the Qin soldiers guarding the border did not flee.

Li Xin also knew the suffering of the border guards, so after giving them a slap in the face, he immediately gave them a sweet date to eat.

I am here not only to give you food and clothing to reward the soldiers, but also to replace the garrison soldiers.

Hearing that the hard days of guarding the border would soon be over, the forty-eight people in the entire village of Panhansai cheered.

After letting the army set up camp outside the outpost tower, Li Xin told Heifu about the difficulty of setting up outposts to guard the border areas.

Puhan is one hundred and eighty miles away from Didao. There is no road along the way. We can only walk slowly along the Tao River. The soldiers are garrisoned here and rely on Didao's monthly supply of food and clothing. Although I send people here every month , but there are always times when relief is not available, especially after winter...

Or because he felt that southerners could not understand the horror of winter in Qiang land, Li Xin asked the village chief to come over and show Heifu the result of the cold winter: a rotten ear.

There is also a toe, which is considered a minor injury, but the deserter lost two fingers due to frostbite, and one ear is only a ball of flesh!

Although it was already summer, the village chief trembled when he thought of last winter. At that time, the Huhansai had just been built and its ability to withstand the cold was poor. Because the road was blocked by heavy snow, Didao could not come here for three months, so they had to save food. They lived frugally, relying on hunting to satisfy their hunger, covering themselves with animal skins, and huddled together around the fire to keep warm.

Hei Fu nodded, he could understand that the further west, the higher the altitude, and the harder the winter. In midsummer, it can only be considered cool here, but after autumn, you have to put on winter clothes. Wuhan is already on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and plateau species such as yaks can occasionally be seen. Cattle need thick fur to keep out the cold, let alone humans.

Under such harsh conditions, there are Qiang Rong tribes who cannot understand each other within a hundred miles, and the life is extremely boring. If you stay for a long time, you will indeed have a mental breakdown.

Heifu also asked about his confusion: There are many fertile lands north of the Didao Great Wall and east of the Taoshu River. Although there are some pastures in the west of Taoshan, most of them are mountainous and cold places, making it difficult to grow grains. It’s not easy to garrison an army, so why does the general have to build a fortress in Panhan?”

From the perspective of Heifu, a later generation, the area west of the Taoshui River, until more than 2,000 years later, was also an autonomous county for various ethnic groups where Tibetan and Qiang people gathered. It was not the only way to enter Hexi, and it was not a pity to abandon it.

This inhospitable place must be built!

But Li Xin then taught Heifu a good lesson.

You Shuchang may have heard that the origin of the Western Qiang comes from Sanmiao, which is the difference between the surname Jiang. The four dangers of Shun and the three dangers of migration. The territory of the Qiang people is from the west of Longshan to the head of the river. The land stretches for thousands of miles, bordering Shu and Han to the south and barbarians, and the Yueshi to the northwest. The place where it lives is impermanent, relying on water and grass, with little grain, and its occupation is animal husbandry.

Heifu drew a map in his mind and found that this area would be half of Gansu in later generations.

The history of the Qiang people in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, their deep connection with the Siyue surname Jiang, the love and murder of the royal family of the same Zhou Dynasty without being held accountable, and the entanglement between the Qiang people and Qin, all have to be told from the time of Duke Li of Qin two hundred years ago. .

At that time, the Qin State had already dominated Xirong. Due to the lack of working population, it severely attacked the Qiang tribes west of Longshan and captured many people to be slaves in Guanzhong.

One of the Qiang people named Wu Yi Yuan Jian was a subordinate of the Qin people. Wu Yi means slave in the Qiang language. His wife was a Qiang girl who had been tortured and had her nose cut off.

Later, Yuan Jian mobilized a group of people from the same clan and fled back from Guanzhong. They were chased by the Qin people and set fire to the mountain in order to burn them to death. They hid in caves and survived.

After fleeing to Longxi, the Qiang people were surprised to hear that Yuan Jian had survived the fire. They thought that Yuan Jian was blessed by gods and elected him as a chieftain. Because he had lived in Guanzhong, Wu Yi Yuanjian learned the advanced farming techniques of the Qin people and taught them to the Qiang people. He gained the respect and trust of the Qiang people. The number of Yue who defected to him increased and became the largest tribe.

But the good times didn't last long. When Ren Ji's father, the great grandson of Yuan Jian, became a powerful chief, Duke Xiang of Qin was established. He wanted to restore Duke Mu's legacy, so he came to Wei and wiped out the remaining troops. He also attacked the increasingly prosperous Qiang people. Strike it apart.

Since then, the Qiang people have been divided into three tribes.

Li Xin asked the village chief to spread out a map engraved on a parchment scroll, pointed to the northeast corner of the map, the area east of the Yellow River, and said: Some Qiang people live here mixed with other soldiers. This is one of them. This is what the right commander proposed to seize. The place.

This was the Lanzhou area in later generations.

Li Xin then pointed to the waterway and the large lake in the northwest corner of the map: This is Huangzhong and Xihai. The Qiang powerful chief Ren Ji's father migrated here with his tribe. The largest number of Qiang people are in Hehuang.

His finger then pointed to the south: There are also a large number of Qiang people who did not go to Huangzhong, but chose to move south, thousands of miles west of the Cizhi River, and entered the west of Shu County. They lived scattered in the high mountains and deep ravines, perhaps as yaks. Qin called them Yue Qiang; some were white horses, which Qin called Guanghan Qiang; some were ginseng wolves, and Qin called them Wudu Qiang...these are three of them.

After listening to this, Heifu only felt that, to describe it in one word, that was: miserable!

The history of the Qiang people is almost a history of blood and tears in which they were enslaved and chased by Qin. However, they were forced to flee their homes and migrate to the west or south. It was simply a road of blood and tears.

After talking about the three major areas where the Qiang people live, Li Xin clicked on the black box in the center of the map and said: Puhan is here to guard the corridor between Lishui and Taoshui.

corridor?

Of course, there are high mountains to the west of Lishui and Qinsai to the east of Taoshui. They are blocked by the Great Wall. However, the terrain between the two rivers is low and it is the north-south hub for the Qiang people's migration.

Heifu understood now: The general is setting up a fort in Wuhan. In addition to monitoring the Qiang in Huangzhong, he also wants to prevent the Qiang people from the three places from communicating with each other!?

Of course!

Li Xindao: I have no interest in Huangzhong, but I think there is nothing to fear if the Qiang people are torn apart. But if they unite under Wu Yi Yuanjian and fight against Qin like they did two hundred years ago, the Western Qiang people will be in trouble. , no less than Yiqu back then!”

His judgment is correct. As far as Heifu knows, although the Qiang people seem harmless now, in two hundred years, during the Han Dynasty, the Qiang people will become a serious problem, and the entire Longxi and even Guanzhong will suffer from it. bitter.

And if we could build more of the Phanhansai and turn it into a city, or even extend the Great Wall here, it would be equivalent to isolating the Qiang people in the three places.

Hei Fu held up his hand and said, The general doesn't look down on the Qiang people because they are divided and weak. You really have the style of a calm general.

Li Xin shook his head: How dare those who believe in defeating the army and humiliating the country dare to be arrogant and arrogant again?

However, Li Xin is also worried at the moment. The existence of Huhansai is very necessary, but how to maintain its existence and improve the lives of the garrison soldiers to prevent them from fleeing again is another difficulty.

Furthermore, the garrison soldiers in this garrison finally got familiar with the local environment. Every year, they were replaced with new ones.

I do have an idea that may solve this problem.

After carefully understanding the local situation, Heifu also lost no time in coming up with an idea that was not considered novel.

Having seen the benefits of high saddles and stirrups, Li Xinting looked forward to Hei Fu's endless ideas, clasped his fists and said, I'm willing to hear it!

It's very simple.

Heifu pointed to the open valley by the water outside the Paohan Sai and said: Grow the fields!