Han Khan

Chapter 166, Yanran Mountain
Seeing Koza and others slowly approaching, Zhang Sheng felt excited. He immediately jumped off his horse and strode forward, ready to greet them in person.

Kozana's ponytail, which had been neatly combed, became messy, as if it had not been washed for many days, and it was greasy and dirty.

His armor was in a terrible state, covered with stains and holes from arrows.

The once bright blue robe inside the armor now looked as if it had been burned by a fire. It was so tattered that it was almost unrecognizable, and black bloodstains covered the entire body.

The same was true for the guards beside him. Even the fur of the horses under their crotches was disheveled. It was obvious that they must have been in high-intensity battles for the past two months.

Koza rode his horse to Zhang Sheng, dismounted, took off his helmet and placed it on the ground, then knelt on both knees and kowtowed to Zhang Sheng, clasped his fists and said:

"I am Koza, your servant, and I pay my respects to Your Highness! Fortunately, I have fulfilled your mission and swept the Tatar, Menggu, and Shiwei tribes from the northern part of Yanran Mountain to the Zhiju River for Your Highness and Jin Han.

Our army won a great victory in this expedition, capturing nearly 10,000 households of slaves and prisoners of war, more than 50,000 people, and countless cattle, sheep, horses and camels.

There were a total of 628 carts of gold, silver, furs, food, cloth, cheese, iron and other materials.

I also led my troops and successfully persuaded three Tatar tribes, one Uighur tribe, and one Mongol Shiwei tribe, a total of five tribes, to submit to Your Highness and Jin Han.

The chieftain brought his tribesmen, nearly 3000 households, and came to Jinhan with his servants!
In addition, when I defeated two Tatar tribes named Shubugu and Gurhan in the southeast of Yanran Mountain, near the desert, I incorporated nearly 4,000 households of more than 20,000 Tang people who fled from the Central Plains.

So this time, the slaves brought back a total of more than 90,000 people, nearly 100,000 people."

Hearing this, Zhang Sheng was extremely shocked. Tang people, there are actually Tang people in Mobei. He immediately said:
"What Tang people? You met a Tang person?"

Zhang Sheng was very surprised and confused to find Han people on the grassland.

"Your Highness, I am not wrong. I did capture more than 20,000 Tang civilians this time." Seeing His Highness's puzzled look, Koza knelt on the ground, raised his head to confirm and said to Zhang Sheng.

When Zhang Sheng looked up, he saw a hideous scar on his unkempt face covered with a thick beard, extending from his left forehead to his right cheekbone.

Although Zhang Sheng was puzzled about the origins of these Tang people, he was extremely ecstatic in his heart at this moment. He knew what having these Tang people meant.

Today, there are only more than 10,000 Tang people in the Jinhan tribe, about one twentieth of the population, and most of them are Tang people from Hexi, Qilian Mountains, and Yizhou.

These people in the Jinhan tribe were still in the early stages of a nomadic lifestyle, living in felt tents. In order to maintain the number of Tang people, Zhang Sheng did not recruit a large number of soldiers or collect taxes from them.

In the eyes of the generals of Hu origin who are now under the command of the Jinhan tribe, Zhang Sheng is using these people as slaves, because real slaves do not have to fight and their status will never be improved.

But those who truly understand Zhang Sheng definitely know that Zhang Sheng was only trying to preserve the number of Tang people under his command.

Now with the addition of these 20,000-plus Tang people, it means that Jinhan will have about 6,000 households and more than 30,000 people speaking the elegant language. How can I not be happy?

The grassland has always been considered the pasture of many Hu people, and the appearance of the Tang people here seems somewhat unreasonable.

But what Zhang Sheng didn’t know was that since the Qin and Han Dynasties, China had gone through the Three Kingdoms Period and the An-Shi Rebellion.

From the fall of the Tang Dynasty to the establishment of the Liao, Song, Jin, Xia and other dynasties, wars were frequent and turbulent in the Central Plains and border areas.

In order to escape the war, many Tang people fled the border areas and Central Plains such as Hetao, Hexi, Youzhou, and went to the barbaric areas of Monan, Mobei and Liaodong where the intensity of the war was less.

There are now many Tang people on the grassland who have fled from the former borders of the Tang Dynasty and the Central Plains. They have been captured by many Hu tribes on the grassland and used as farmers, craftsmen and pastoral slaves. Especially under the command of the Khitan Yelu Abaoji, the number of Tang people is even greater.

For Zhang Sheng, those ordinary Hu tribes such as the Uighurs, Naimans, Tatars and Shiwei did not move him.

Because these tribes were independent of each other and lacked unified leadership, even their languages, writing systems and beliefs were different.

This situation made them unable to pose much of a threat to Zhang Sheng, and instead they became the targets of his gradual encroachment and annexation. By cleverly exploiting the conflicts and disagreements between these tribes, Zhang Sheng was able to transform them into his slaves and subjects, providing a steady stream of labor resources for his tribe.

At the same time, he could use these tribes as cannon fodder, leading them to conquer more tribes and expand his sphere of influence.

What really moved Zhang Sheng at this moment was that there were Tang people in Mobei. Suddenly he thought of something.

That is, some articles in the future will say that archaeological data have found that the nomadic tribes on the grasslands north and south of the desert may not be real Hu people.

Many tribes originated from the people of the Xia and Han dynasties. They are descendants of the Xia, Tang people, or Han people.

Moreover, among the so-called Hu tribes, there were originally many losers from the Central Plains who fled to the grassland. After fleeing to the grassland, these people brought some technology and culture, as well as the most important blood genes, to the Hu people.

These people were assimilated by the Hu people and were hostile to the Central Plains, and gradually integrated into the Hu people. However, many tribes called themselves the common ancestors of the Xia people.

It turns out that the famous debate between Hua and Yi came about in this way: "If Xia enters Yidi, they become Yidi; if Yidi enters Xia, they become Xia."

That is, the Hu tribes on the eastern grasslands were not much different from the Han people in appearance, but they had different cultures and customs.

It was established that after the Han people accepted the cultural customs and beliefs of the barbarians, they were regarded as barbarians.

After the barbarians respected the culture, language and customs of the Han Dynasty, they were regarded as the people of the Xia Dynasty, the Han people and the Tang people.

The reason for this statement is that the barbarians near the Central Plains do not differ much in appearance.

The Sai people, Tocharians, and many mixed-blood Uighurs with Western Region blood in the Jinhan tribe had significant differences in facial features from the Tatars living on the grasslands in the south and north of the desert, and the Tang people in the Central Plains.

But now that the Jinhan tribe has already eliminated those stubborn elements, all the people under the Jinhan tribe, whether they are Hu people or Tang people of various appearances, will soon be able to integrate together through intermarriage and the promotion of the influence of Han culture and the baptism of the holy religion.

Those further west in the Western Regions, the descendants of the Scythian Aryans, looked like ghosts to the Tang and Han people as well as the Hu people on the eastern grasslands, so they had no burden at all in fighting.

The tribes of the Xiongnu, Rouran, Xianbei, Tiele, Turks, Tatars, etc. who were defeated in the grasslands north and south of the desert chose to leave in the face of the powerful Central Plains Empire and the difficult environment north and south of the desert.

These tribes crossed the Golden Mountains and migrated westward to the vast, warm, and well-watered prairies to the west.

Compared with the descendants of Scythians who had long occupied the western steppes, these tribes migrating from the east seemed more brave and fearless.

They have experienced the baptism of more brutal wars in the East and are stronger and more combative than the tribes on the western grasslands.

They defeated those Scythian Aryan descendants and dominated these Western races.

As time went by, these early tribes that migrated to the western grasslands were unified by the Tiele people led by the Western Turks. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, they were called Turkic hybrids or Turkic tribes.

The Eastern nomads who migrated from the Eastern grasslands across the Golden Mountains to the Western grasslands and the Western nomads who were ruled by them had differences in language, customs, lifestyle, etc., but because of their common lifestyle, they merged together and had common interests and needs.

In the process of mutual influence and integration, the Western nomadic tribes gradually accepted the rule of the Eastern nomads and assimilated with them.

Eventually, these tribes became a transitional race between the East and the West, retaining their original characteristics while absorbing cultural elements of the Tiele people.

Their identity became blurred, neither completely Eastern nor Western.

This enables them to play an important role in the exchanges and conflicts between Eastern and Western civilizations, and become witnesses and promoters of history.

But now, Jin Han's tentacles have crossed Jinshan Mountain and gradually begun to extend to the edge of the western grassland, that is, the grassland area to the west and north of the Western Regions.

(End of this chapter)