In fact, the process of collecting information in Dali City (now Beixizhou Town, Dali, Yunnan) by the caravan caravans traveling to Nanzhao was not as difficult as imagined; it was even unexpectedly popular.
Because Dali City is located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau with few digits, it is suitable for large-scale farming in the two plains and rivers—the Erhai Basin. The main local population are the highly civilized Baiman (today the Bai nationality) and Han Shangman (the old part of Pingnan known as Zhuge Wuhou); in terms of language and writing, they are not much different from the southwestern states in Tangdi. Some are even Tang Jiazi and their descendants from Xichuan, Qianzhong and other places.
(This also provided some convenience for later dynasties to explore and manage Yunnan, except for the Song Dynasty, which had the highest victory rate in foreign wars.)
On the other hand, there are local political reasons. To speak of it, it is related to the achievements of the Gao Pian, who is now captured in the convenience courtyard, and who has managed to prepare for the border more than 20 years ago. For example, he personally led the sea crossing expedition to recover Annan; he also defeated the Yanbian tribes that were invaded by Nanzhao, and killed tens of thousands. Qingping official Yang Jisi fled alone.
Later, when serving as the Jiedu Envoy of Xichuan, he defeated Nanzhao's spies and incursions on the Dadu River many times. Since then, the Qionglai Pass and the Dadu River Zhucheng Gate have been repaired, and the city has been built in Mahu Town, Rongzhou, known as Pingyi Army; and built the city in Muyuanchuan, both located in the important area between Nanzhao and Xichuan, each set up thousands of soldiers to guard, so that Nanzhao lost the courage and credentials to fight again. (Just looking at these deeds, the Taiping Army will not kill them casually.)
Therefore, the Nanzhao Kingdom, which has been in decline since Zhenyuan, suffered successive defeats ("repeatedly overthrow, the country was depleted"), and all men over the age of fifteen in the country were pulled out to prepare for war. As a result, the fields are full of old and weak women and children working. This has had a great follow-up impact on local economic production. Subjects whose interests have been damaged even more complained.
And this series of defeats also caused serious damage to the power and authority of the Nanzhao royal family's Mengshi. A large number of experienced and loyal soldiers died in battle or disappeared. As the capital of the country, the Yang (yang) Jumei city (near Dali, Yunnan) In the city, as the saying goes, every family wears filial piety and loses their families. As a result, the political contradictions and disputes in Nanzhao have been intensified for a while.
And this is related to Nanzhao's own state system. Since the leader of Mengshezhao in the Zhenguan period, Xinuluo unified many small countries (tribes) in the Erhai Basin and established the "Great Mongolian State", he also imitated the Tang Dynasty and established a system of rules and regulations. The six Qing officials (prime ministers) were established in the center. The nineteen-level civil and military bureaucracy headed by the twelve generals (Zhuwei) and Liu Cao (six divisions).
Since then, the country has been divided into ten places: Yunnan Yuan (now Xiangyun, Binchuan), Pindanyuan (now Xiangyun County), Baiyayuan (now Midu Hongya), Zhao Chuanyuan (now Dali Fengyi) , Mengshezhen (now Weishan), Mengqinyuan (now Yangbi), Lichuanyuan (now Dengchuan), Daheyuan (also known as Jingheyuan, now Taihe Village of Dali), Juweiyuan (now Dali Ancient Town) ), Da Li Yuan (also known as Shi Yuan, now Dali Xizhou).
In local areas, every one hundred houses has one chief officer, one thousand houses have one officer, and ten thousand houses have one captain. It also followed the Tang Dynasty's system of government soldiers and rented yong, and established a system of village soldiers. Civil and military officials and freedmen are all cultivated, and they are also obliged to perform military service. Ding Zhuang people serve as war soldiers, and those with horses serve as horse soldiers. Each soldier prepares its own equipment.
The military organization is dominated by village soldiers. According to the distance of residence, they are organized into four armies in the southeast, northwest and north. Each army has one general, and one thousand or five hundred people. Officers who lead the four armies are called generals. The population of each place is large or small, and the number of army formed varies. Because of the four levels of the government governing the army, there are four levels: big, middle, lower, and small. They also set up six major jundu envoys at dangerous places, and stationed them in key peripheral areas to rule the tribes outside the Liuzhao.
However, Nanzhao, who was born as the leader of the Wuman tribal alliance in Mengshan, has a large number of residual influences left by the early clan alliances in the state system. Therefore, there are also many lineages of tribal leaders in Nanzhao. The nobles of the territory, or the family of ministers surnamed Wang who occupied the land with military exploits, played an important role in the political life of the country.
For example, the Duan Chiefqian who was beheaded during the invasion of Annan is the ancestor of the Duan clan in Dali, who is known for Jin Yong's novels. It is said that it can be traced back to the southern branch of the Duan clan in Wuwei in the Northern Dynasties. He is also the grandfather of Duan Siping, the founding emperor of Dali a few decades later. Dali City is the traditional settlement of the Duan family.
The Qingping official Yang Jisi, who was defeated and fled, was severely punished and died of illness. But behind him, he also passed the position of Qingping official to his nephew, who also came from Yang Deng, one of the high-ranking surnames in the country, the new leader of the Yang family. It can be said that it is a variation of power politics in the southwest since the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Nanzhao is also a country dominated by agriculture. It cultivates paddy fields in plains and rivers, grows rice, and also grows beans, hemp, millet, and grass. Rice is ripened every year. After harvest, barley is planted and wheat is planted on Gangling. Wheat and barley are harvested at the same time. In addition to farmland production, mulberry, zhe, hemp, bamboo, peach, plum, orange, kapok, lychee, betel nut, coconut, etc. are also planted. "In villages, there are many Zhellins for a few hectares, towering thousands of feet." They also used silkworms to weave silk cloth.
Therefore, although the small peasant economy can be self-sufficient in daily production activities, it is necessary to import a large amount of foreign Tang Dynasty products to maintain a daily life that matches with those of the upper-middle class in the country, which is quite civilized. Levels and needs, and even the basic needs of the operation of the regime. Among other things, just pen, ink, paper, inkstone and books are not what Nanzhao can produce and provide.
However, one of the long-term effects of the war with the Tang Dynasty and one of the costs of Houxi was the disguised economic sanctions of severing contacts for a long time. Although there is no obvious concept, the circulation of salt, iron, goods and other materials sent to Nanzhao was severed. , But it is the most basic operation. Therefore, this is also one of the usual methods used by the Tang court to negotiate and negotiate with Nanzhao in history.
After the failure of the previous Wang Shilong’s attempt to invade Annan, the successor Nanzhao Wang Longshun changed his country’s name to "Dafengmin" again in order to negotiate peace with the Tang Dynasty, which led to a further decline and arousal of his domestic prestige. More contradictions. So he had to rely more on Yang, Zheng, Wang, Zhao and other high-ranking surnames in the court to reconcile and maintain the situation and surrender more power.
The result of such a series of operations is that the current Nanzhao king Longshun is already in the military affairs and is gradually controlled by the power minister Zheng Maisi and others. And this Qingping official Zheng Maisi is not an idle figure. He is the seventh grandson of Zheng Hui, the magistrate of Xilu County who was captured in the Tianbao War. He has been Nanzhao Qingping official (i.e. prime minister) for generations since Zheng Hui. One of the few high-ranking surnames in the Zhao country.
According to Zhou Huaian's fuzzy network memory. If this time and space is not unexpected, this Zheng Maisi will join another Qingping official Yang Deng to kill Nanzhao Wang Longshun a few years later, and his son Shun Huazhen will become a puppet. Then, after a few years, Zheng Maisi launched a mutiny to wipe out the powerful ministers Yang Deng and Shun Huazhen and the other 800 members of the Nanzhao royal family.
Then in history, the short-lived Wuman forces established in Nanzhao will also withdraw from the stage of history and hide into the mountains, and become the ancestors of the Black and Yi in the Liangshan Mountains. Continued in the barbaric slash-and-burn cultivation of slave clans, the liberation and reform movement of New China has been ushered in. So the strange news about Liangshan in the new era actually has ancient historical origins.
But in any case, the caravan caravan that arrived in Dali after a long journey was eagerly welcomed by the local military and civilian officials headed by the local Duan family under a certain unspeakable rigid demand. Almost all the goods from Tangdi were swept away by this generation according to their high status, and there was no chance to sell them on the street.
Moreover, because of its location on the border, the news was seriously lagging and delayed. The other party seemed to directly regard the horse brigades sent by the Taiping Army as the private representatives of a certain vassal force in the Tang Dynasty. And under the involvement of a certain direct interest, most of them have answered many side-by-side questions without saying a word.
Even the local manager Duan Baolong also asked whether he could stay in the local area for long-term contact, even if his father Duan Qianqian died in the hands of the Tang people in the land of Annan; but he still has a lot of poems, books, and poems in the Tang Dynasty. Showed enough interest and respect, and even hoped to get a channel of communication with Jinghu and other local scholars.
This is the basic principle that after getting used to the Tang-style values and lifestyles that are in the upper reaches of contemporary civilization, it is difficult to go back to the original recklessness and ignorance to live a hard life. It is also the basic driving force for later generations of European and American countries to spare no effort to export values in backward countries and regions after the colonial tide declines, because they can cultivate corresponding interest markets and potential middle- and upper-level leading parties.
The Duan family, as the local leader in Dali City, although not comparable to the Yang family and Zheng family who have served as the top officials of Qingping for generations, is also one of the most prominent in the locality. Since the ancestor Duan Jianwei has served in the south The generals and governors of the edict can be described as prosperous eunuchs. Therefore, under the kind invitation of the other party, hundreds of people in the caravan had to stay there for more time before they were able to send back the first batch of news.
This was mainly because they entrusted Duan's family to buy a variety of light, expensive and rare characteristic local products on the one hand; at the same time, they collected various geographical and hydrology of the Erhai Lake basin on the grounds of investigating the terroir and products that can be subsequently operated. , Information on the output of various resources.
From this, we also discovered a certain local trend that cannot be concealed. As the surnames headed by the power minister Zheng gradually forced the royal power to take them off the ground, the Duan family represented these local rich family surnames inevitably feeling the crisis and pressure, and began. Hoard food and gather Ding Zhuang, and actively seek the possibility of foreign exchanges for profit and foreign aid. Of course, after knowing this, Zhou Huaian thought of another public case about the Duan family.
Probably in the second year of Tianying (928) thirty years after the demise of the Nanzhao royal family by the Zheng family, the power minister Yang Ganzhen killed the Dachang and the emperor Zheng Longquan, destroyed the Dachanghe, and embraced Qingping official Zhao Shanzheng as the puppet monarch. In the following year, Yang Ganzhen abolished Zhao Shanzheng and proclaimed himself emperor, and changed the name of the country to Dayining and the name of Xingsheng. But Yang Qianzhen was deposed by his younger brother Yang Zhao after only one year as the emperor. In the seventh year of Ming Dynasty (937), Tonghai Jiedu made Duan Siping rebel, Yang Zhao committed suicide, and Dayining perished.
Then it opened the legend of Tianlong Temple and the Six-Medition Divine Sword. . . Ah no, it was the two hundred years of love and killing between the Dali Duan family and the power official Gao family, until the country was destroyed by the conquerors of the Yuan Dynasty, and then as the loyal Yunnan chief executive family of the Yuan Dynasty, it continued to resist the army of the Ming Dynasty until the family was destroyed. The so-called Sinicization is very high and the ultimate model of great doctrine.
During this period, the local government in Yunnan can be said to have always been moving between several powerful officials, and never became a scabies on the border like Nanzhao, who was born in the wild. Maybe, Zhou Huaian thinks he can do something, such as putting Duan on the stage of history through some kind of operation, and a few years later, in the Nanzhao civil strife initiated by the Zheng clan, would he get a share of the pie in disguise
If it can achieve results, it will not only bring economic and political double benefits, but also support a prone agent regime; even if it fails, it will only be more chaotic in Nanzhao, and it will only pay a few branches. Caravans and some delivery channels for supplies. But it can cut off the potential foreign aid that the small court in Shu can use.
Because Zhou Huaian could not guarantee that in the future, under the crisis of life and death, would the small court in Shuzhong still sacrifice the traditional arts of "receiving teachers and assisting in battle" and "introducing soldiers". (End of this chapter)