Han Khan

Chapter 65, At the Foot of Jinshan Mountain

Every hundred households were organized into a hundred households, three hundred households into a battalion, and three battalions into a regiment. Through this reorganization of the tribe, the chaotic organization system of the Jinhan tribe's guards and hundred households was resolved.

Nominally, there are now four captains of the Royal Guards, and the number of soldiers under their command has increased to 900 elite warriors.

However, in reality, the regiment commander could only directly command a battalion under his command, and the remaining 600 people were divided into two battalions on the left and right wings.

The leaders of each centurion and battalion were appointed one by one by Zhang Sheng, and only he could appoint them.

He could arbitrarily draw battalions and hundred households from each regiment to fight, or mix them up.

In other words, the regiment commander actually only manages one battalion, and the battalion commander actually only manages one centurion, while the centurion remains unchanged, and the ten ten-household heads under his command can still be appointed by him.

This can prevent a rebellion from happening. If a regimental commander wants to rebel, he must deal with the other two battalions. In this way, power is effectively dispersed and checked, greatly reducing the possibility of rebellion.

At the same time, this reorganization method also makes the command of the three battalions of each regiment more flexible and able to better adapt to various combat scenarios.

Zhang Sheng's eyes became more steady and resolute. He stood up suddenly and said to everyone in the tent in a deep voice: "Tomorrow morning, the whole army will reorganize and march towards the Great Lake Basin!

During Koza's migration this time, you will lead three battalions of guards to conduct reconnaissance in three routes a hundred miles ahead, continuously report the situation ahead to our army, and lead your troops to set off immediately.

"Yes, sir!" Upon hearing the order, Koza immediately knelt on one knee to receive the order, and then quickly stepped out of the tent to inspect the troops.

"Zhang Xibao"

"exist!"

"You will lead two battalions of troops to guard the left side during the migration."

"As you command, Your Highness!"

"Boniec, you lead two battalions of troops to guard the right side.

Yin Shanxiong, you will lead two battalions of troops to guard the rear of the team.

I will personally lead three elite battalions of the central army and eleven battalions of troops."

Everyone in the golden tent responded in unison.

These military generals of the Jinhan tribe firmly believed that under the leadership of the emperor, the Jinhan tribe would be able to create a new world of their own in this unfamiliar land.

At this moment, Zhang Sheng and a group of Jin Han military generals who were in Zheluoman Mountain had no idea that Beiting was thousands of miles away.

In the summer capital of the Gaochang Uighurs, inside the Khan's fortress, the leader of the Uighurs from all over the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, the leader of the Gaochang Uighurs, Pijia Yidu Hu, was spending the summer here.

When he learned that Yizhou, under his jurisdiction, was attacked by troops led by Zhang Chengfeng's son, and that his own relatives had died on the battlefield, the anger in his heart was instantly ignited and burned fiercely.

His eyes were wide open, filled with anger and shock.

What’s infuriating is that if Zhang Sheng conquered Yizhou, the entire northern Tianshan area would lose its defense.

If an enemy attacks, they can go straight to the city of Beiting along the flat Tianshan grassland in the north, and then turn south, thereby directly threatening the Uighurs' decades-long rule in the Western Regions.

Shockingly, Zhang Chengfeng's descendants were actually expelled from Dunhuang by the aristocratic families of Dunhuang.

Pijia thought of his grandfather Pugujun, who had followed Zhang Chengfeng's grandfather to defeat the Tibetans in the Western Regions and Hexi, and was awarded the title of General of the Right Guard of the Tang Dynasty.

Then, openly or secretly, they began to occupy Beiting and Gaochang, two of the most important fortresses in the Western Regions, which originally belonged to the Tang Dynasty. Then, with these two places as the core, they occupied many cities north and south of the Tianshan Mountains and established their Uighur rule.

Zhang Chengfeng's grandfather Zhang Yichao was also promoted to the governor of Hexi because of this. However, the Zhang family was now expelled from Dunhuang, and Yizhou under his jurisdiction was captured.

He was extremely shocked that the Han boy named Zhang Sheng could successfully occupy Yizhou.

He knew very well how many troops and horses there were in the small Guiyi Army.

After being defeated by the Khan of Ganzhou, Zhang was still able to defeat the Yizhou army consisting of a thousand elite cavalry and a thousand heavy infantry.

That was an army that defeated and killed tens of thousands of elite soldiers from the Tatar and Khitan tribes who migrated from the northern desert. How did Zhang Sheng defeat his own relative, Anpolla, with only three or four thousand soldiers?

He tried to calm himself down, but the Serb concubine beside him kept saying to him: "Buddha! My husband, please avenge my brother!"

In fact, he didn't care about Anpolla's life or death. He had many children now, and most of his sons had obtained fiefs. However, the son born to him by the Serbian woman next to him did not have a suitable fief.

Now, as long as he defeats the Han bandits who occupy Yizhou, his descendants will have a fiefdom.

Moreover, they have Sai people's blood, and then they can transfer Sai people from Kucha to garrison Yizhou, and then send more Uighurs to Kucha. Isn't this what the Tang people called killing two birds with one stone?

"Don't worry, my brother-in-law is a warrior of my Great Uighur Kingdom. He did not flee in cowardice, but died on the battlefield. I will definitely avenge him."

Then, he immediately summoned his generals to discuss countermeasures. Finally, he organized a 5,000-man elite cavalry and 3,000 Tocharian and Sai people infantry, and personally led eight thousand households to Yizhou.

He was determined to make Zhang Chengfeng's son pay for his invasion of the Great Uighur State in order to recover and control the Yizhou territory and prevent the westward migration of the barbaric tribes coming from the desert in the east.

At this time, the news that a tribe from the south defeated the Uighurs of Yizhou was known to some spies from the northern desert tribe close to Yizhou. They returned to the tribe without stopping and reported the information to their leader.

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The next morning, the sun shone quietly on the camp where the Jinhan tribe was ready to go.

Last night, the captain of the guards and the holy warrior Koza led three battalions of troops and rushed towards Jinshan. They were scouts of the Jinhan tribe who migrated north to Jinshan, responsible for exploring the situation ahead for the tribe.

In the camp, the tribesmen had already packed their tents and supplies, silently waiting for the leader's orders. The guards were fully armed, sitting upright on their horses, leading two other horses, waiting for the leader's instructions.

Zhang Sheng jumped onto his warhorse, faced north, and waved the lance in his hand vigorously. The guards beside him also waved the blue eagle flag and the holy flag in their hands, pointing to the north.

The Jinhan tribe rested for two days in the Zheluoman Mountains, and then set off again. This time their destination was Mobei!

Zhang Xibao and Boniek each led two battalions of troops and rushed towards the left and right wings of the main force. They would serve as left and right guards and scouts for the main force during the migration.

Zhang Sheng led three battalions of guards and eleven battalions of slave soldiers, leading the Jin Han army northward.

Then, in the fourth year of Qianhua in the Later Liang Dynasty (914), on the third day of the eighth month of the Year of the Dog, Zhang Sheng personally led more than Jin and Han people and marched towards Jinshan and Mobei.

It is eight hundred miles from here to Jinshan. We have to march every day without stopping. We can advance sixty miles on horseback or by camel.

Compared with the pure desert area, the area extending from Qingshan Gobi to Jinshan Gobi in the southwest has a large amount of meltwater from ice and snow from Jinshan, and there is lush pasture along the waterside.

This provided the necessary living conditions for the Jinhan tribe's migration northward to the northern desert, so it was relatively smooth. There were some small nomadic tribes scattered around, and when they saw this huge migrating team, some of them came to Zhang Sheng and asked to join them.

Some of them wanted to secretly attack the migrating Jinhan tribe, but they were killed by the guards.

The forces in the north and south of the desert travel back and forth between the north and south of the desert and the Western Regions through these channels.

This is also the main reason why grassland forces often penetrate deep into the Western Regions and the Central Plains to plunder, creating pressure.

After marching for more than ten days, the Jinhan tribe had already been more than 700 miles away from the Zheluoman Mountains in the Western Regions, and now they were approaching Jinshan.

The Jinhan people had no idea what challenges they were about to face.

However, if Zhang Sheng could overlook the north and south of the desert from the sky at this time, he would see that the Mobei Plateau extends from the Daxianbei Mountains in the east to the Jinshan Mountains in the west. These two majestic mountain ranges separate the Songliao Plain, the Mobei Plateau and the Western Regions.

There are two small mountain ranges inside the Mobei Plateau, namely the Yanran Mountain (Hangai Mountain) where the Yanran Stone was engraved and the Langjuxu Mountain (Kent Mountain) where the Wolf's Lair was sealed.

The Selenge River grassland located in the central area has always been the core of Mobei. The Xiongnu's Dragon City and the tents of the Turks and Uighurs were all located here.

Today, this place is occupied by a large number of nomadic Tatar tribes. In the future, the descendants of the Tatars will launch a bloody conquest here.

This is the situation in Mobei.

To the west of Mobei is the Jinshan Mountain Range, which runs from northwest to southeast and stretches for more than 5,000 miles.

On the east side of Jinshan are the Tangnu Mountains and the Yanran Mountains. These two mountains and Jinshan together surround a huge lake basin and Gobi lake valley.

Around the basin, above and below the Jinshan Mountain and in the Yanran Mountain, there lived many nomadic Kyrgyz, Uighur, Tatar, Wulianghai and Buryati tribes. They all migrated from the north and east after the Uighurs fled.

They all nominally submitted to the Khitan Khan named Gutlug Yarkhas, but this was only a nominal submission, and many Khitan tribes no longer obeyed his control and orders.

The backward mode of production leads to a backward organizational system. People who accept the advanced system do not want to survive under the old system with the old way of life.

The ancestors of the Kyrgyz conquered the Uighurs, but because of their backward cultural level and the fact that they ruled over a large number of Uighur tribes, they were deeply influenced by them and gradually began to merge with the Uighurs.

They gave up their original fishing and hunting life in the Jianhe Forest and turned to a nomadic lifestyle following the water and grass. Many tribes began to call themselves Naiman people.

In the future, the Naiman tribe, which was nomadic in the Great Lake Basin and Jinshan, gradually began to use the Uighur script created by the Uighurs' transcription of the Sogdian alphabet due to long-term contact with the Gaochang Uighurs, and converted to Nestorianism due to the missionary work of the Nestorianists in the Western Regions.

This is all a story for later.

On August 15th, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the cold wind coming from Mobei made Zhang Sheng feel a little nervous. He had never thought that the weather was still very hot when he came from Zheluo Mountain, but now it felt as if the cold winter was about to come.

At the foot of the Gobi Jinshan Mountain, in a camp of the Jinhan people, the chief priests led the people from each camp to kneel in front of the holy flag and pray!

The tribesmen celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival together, holding the naan given by their leader.

(End of this chapter)