At the foot of Kungang Mountain (Kunlun Mountains), Baiyu River, Wuyu River, Qingyu River and other water systems formed by melting glacier snow are irrigated and nourished by a large area of oasis and plain rivers along the way, and finally at the junction in the north. It was the location of the Xicheng (now Hotan Yotegan site), the capital of Khotan, a great state in the Western Regions.
And here is the Hetian River, the Kunlun Mountains in the south, and the Taklamahan Desert in the north. It is the largest oasis in the southern road of the Western Regions. Since ancient times, it has been a place with a smooth climate, abundant water sources, and lush vegetation. Since ancient times, farming and animal husbandry have been developed, and it is the only area in the Western Regions that can produce sericulture; and because of the proximity of the Kunlun Mountains and the crisscrossing rivers of the sky, Since ancient times, precious jade has been abundant and sold to the east.
According to Tang Xuanzang's "Story of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty": Yutian is an ancient country from the Han Dynasty onwards, located on the main road of Tianshan South Road and Western Region South Road; it is also a hub of the eastern section of the ancient Silk Road. Therefore, the business travelers from Chang'an in the past along the Hexi Corridor, out of the Yumen Pass in the lower Shazhou of Qilian Mountains, passed through the Shanshan/Shicheng town known as the Grape City, and finally gathered here.
However, after supplementing and refurbishing from here, to the southwest via Dabolu (now Kashmir region) is also the Bulu prefecture that Li Siye conquered once, and you can pass (Wahan Valley Road) to Dongtianzhu or Spitfire, one of the five Tianzhu areas. Luo Guo (now northern Afghanistan). If you continue to look northwest through Ya'er (now Yeerqiang) and Stone Pagoda (Tashkorgan), you can arrive at Shule Town, one of the four towns in Anxi.
After crossing Congling (Pamir Plateau) from here, you can reach Bahana (now Fergana Valley in Central Asia) in Lingxi. This was also the number one loyal dog of the Tang Dynasty in the Outer Western Regions. It has been defeated many times. Through the tentacles of the Western food; and the countries in the river between Yaoshashui (Syr River) and Wuhushui (Amu Darya), this is also the birthplace of the nine surnames of Zhaowu, known as the Lite people in Central China. Where.
From the territory of Yutian directly to the north, along the seasonally existing Yutian River flowing into the depths of the desert, the massive oasis formed along the way can traverse the western part of the Tarim Basin known as the Great Sand Moraine. Arrive in the Qiuci River Basin near the western foot of the Tianshan Mountains, and use this to enter Yanqi, the capital of Qiuci Town/Kunling Dudufu. The Silk Road business travel from here has also split again.
Since then, traveling along the Tianshan South Road to the northeast, it enters the Beiting Duho Mansion, which controls the grassland and separates the Western Regions. After passing through Xizhou (hence Gaochang Kingdom), it arrives at Jinmancheng in Tingzhou where Beiting Duhu Mansion is located. The Palace of the West Turkic Palace (now North Pochengzi of Jimsar, Xinjiang); after repairing and supplementing, it crossed the Jinshan (Altai Mountains), and after the collapse of the Uighur Khanate on the Mongolian Plateau, it revolved around and destroyed various parts of the chaotic grassland. trading.
Or go north to enter the mansion called the governor of Jiankun, and another ancient tribe in the Yesenia River valley that has existed since the Han Dynasty and the Western Regions Changshi Mansion. It is also the Pygaz people who have known the ancestors of Li Tang. To trade; or from Qiuci to the west along the Hulu River in the lower reaches of Suye Town (near Tokmak City in Kyrgyzstan, and also the hometown of poet Li Bai), then it merged into the north of the Silk Road. In the middle of the line.
Passing west from here, the vast deserts, grasslands and rocky beaches where the Post-Turkic Khanate, Wuluohu Nine Surnames, Glulu, and Huangtou Tuo nomadic pastured one after another, arrived at the only one in the history of the Tang Dynasty and the Great Food. The city of Dan Ross, which had been in war and indirectly affected the fate of the two empires, is now the Black Khanate from Anxi Uighurs, and it is the deputy capital within the border of Lingxi.
Continue to the west and you will reach the Aral Sea basin known as the Kharazmo region. From here, you can enter the southern Russian grassland. This is the birthplace of the Slavs, and it is also the Khazarian who believes in Judaism across the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The Turkic Khanate was a private plot and backyard used to hunt and sell slaves, while Slavic originated from the Turkic word for herders.
Turning to the south is to enter the Khorasan region ruled by the Black-clothed Food/Abbasid dynasty, and now it is also under the rule of the Saman dynasty, which was born in a local warlord and surrendered to the city of reward (Baghdad) in name; Through continuous preaching and infiltration, they have formed long-term stalemate and conflict with the Anxi Uighur/Black Khanate nomadic in Lingxi.
In the end, the two mainland business roads that passed through the Khazanite Khanate in the north and the black-clothed food in the south, and finally passed through the small Asian region (now Anatolia region in Turkey), and converged to the east known as the Baizhantong. Within the Roman Empire; and completed this thousand-year commercial road called the Silk Road (East)/Avenue of Gold and Spices/Mainland Highway (West).
In the south of Yutian, the various tribes of Tubo on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are connected through the Kunlun Mountain Pass, and another branch of the ancient commercial road called Qinghai Road, or Qiangtang Road. From here, turn to the southwest and pass through the barren Qaidam Basin. After passing through places such as Luoxiechuan where the ancient capital of Tubo is located, you can reach the mountain pass where Nibula (now Nepal) is located, and then go south to the land of East Tianzhu and South Tianzhu.
The Yuchi clan, whose surname is Wang, has been passed down for thousands of years. And the biggest reason why the Yuchi clan has been able to experience chaos and changes repeatedly, and has always been in charge of the country, is that no matter which family or surname is in power, no matter how the dynasty is changed, they can always serve the Middle-earth in a soft body.
("Since Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, the Chinese imperial scripture festival has been taught by the king" "New Book of the Tang Dynasty · Biography of the Western Regions")
Therefore, after the rise of the Tang Dynasty, compared with the rebellious attempts to cut off the trade routes and the envoys, but they were already dead and there were no bones left. Therefore, the Khotan Kingdom was the representative of the earliest courtiers in the Western Regions. Therefore, the children of the Khotan royal family in the past dynasties not only traveled in the Tang Dynasty to study, serve as officials and intermarried, but many kings in the past also wives as the wife of the Li Tang clan, and they have always been a model of the king of loyalty to the country.
(For example, the father of the famous Tianbao general, Shuhan, is the captain of the tutor, and his mother is the queen of Khotan.)
It’s just that now this rich and prosperous city, with its warm seasons in four seasons, the fragrance of melons and fruits, and the sericulture all over the place, presents a scene of slaughter and depression, and the air is filled with an atmosphere of turmoil and danger; because, since it has the blood of the Tang Dynasty His eldest son died early, and the rest of the sons were all underage, so Chi Wa Na, the chief of the country when he was in his prime, did not specify the heir and ordered the ministers to jointly supervise the country when he led his troops to King Qin of the Central Plains.
As a result, when the news that the king’s lost his teacher was not in Middle-earth finally came back with the scattered fugitives, the ruling ministers who had different backgrounds and were able to co-supervise the country as a check and balance would inevitably have different ideas; One after another, they professed to support one of the older princes, and began to quarrel with each other in the Golden Book Palace of the King City, and developed to their own guards and the mansion to stay in love with each other;
Things swiftly collapsed in an unmanageable direction. With the opening and closing of the city gates that were bought and occupied, various messengers and servants were constantly rushing in and out; slaves and servants in many farms and gardens outside the city Qu He Fukou was summoned; then, it spread to the children of the tribes who were working or operating businesses in more distant places.
As the Khotan royal family, which has just recovered from the Tubo occupation, but only two or three generations, in fact, it was relied on the support of the ministers and the surnames of the country to be able to attack and expel the Tubo garrison and reset; therefore, in addition to the royal family’s army and official positions In addition, these noble surnames also have considerable authority and resources in the ten states and cities, and even their own private army.
And in the territory of Yutian, where the territory "reaches Congling in the southwest to meet the Brahmins, and travels three thousand miles. It is connected to Tubo in the south, and is more than two thousand miles to Shule in the west." There are also remnants of Tubo tribes and migrating Uighurs. The Ministry of Animal Husbandry, they are also attached to the State of Tian as ministers, and on the oasis between the living and unsuitable pastures in the Gobi, they are appointed to provide the genus of cattle, sheep, livestock and horses with official positions.
So when these forces, following the call of the ministers in the capital, began to support them in various forms or take practical actions to stand in line, the situation in Khotan became more complicated and chaotic. Therefore, a mere accident involving a slave and maid throwing a book from inside the palace easily detonated the tense atmosphere in the capital.
In fact, most people did not expect that, compared with the undercurrents of the various forces in the Western Regions after the defeat, they did not expect that the Khotan Kingdom, which seemed to have the best relative strength, became the first contradiction and hidden danger to erupt. fuse. Then, the governors and chiefs of the states who came one after another became a catalyst to add fuel to the fire.
However, against the background of the faint sounds of assaults and killings, there was a young man dressed in Tang Dynasty. Surrounded by dozens of purple-clothed monks, he bypassed the inside and outside of the main entrance of the east side of the king's city. The Golden Book Palace in the fierce competition, and the Seven Phoenix Tower, which was specially used to greet the angels of the Central Plains with a ceremonial tribute; thus, the small gate of the waterwheel that transported firewood from the south side of the king's city galloped away and disappeared into the southern skyline.
But in the ears of the young, there is still an echo of the teacher who teaches his daily art classics, the attendant monk from the Wangxingda Temple in Xishan, and the calendar before leaving:
"Pi Lao'er, today's kings (the ministers of the state government) are not allowed to rely on it, and the kings and generals on the left and right are based on the king's city and the two ends of the mouse. Seeing misfortunes and good luck for the kings, they should go to Nantou to get alive..."
"The country’s four borders and nine neighbors are all Fanyis, and they have more foreign roads. It is difficult for the foreigners to contempt our country and covet it. It is inevitable that there will be more disasters in the future; only Guasha (Guiyi Army) is a good alliance for generations, and When the new master is on top, there should be a shelter for your generation, and there is room for advance and retreat..." (End of this chapter)