Chastity Layman

July has passed, and it is autumn in a blink of an eye.

The 200,000 Tubo people are still gathered at the border of Songzhou. Even though they have divided so many horses into several parts and garrisoned them in various places, each of them grazes, and each of them is twenty or thirty miles away, they must keep vigilant and keep in touch with each other. thing.

It's just that Tubo Zanpu at this time is also riding a tiger to the south, and is in a dilemma.

We talked with each other for a long time, and now everything else is pretty much the same, but we got stuck because of one thing.

The envoy of Tang claimed that Tubo's invasion of Datang was a crime of instigation by important ministers who assisted Zanpu, so he asked Zanpu to kill nine ministers and send their heads to Datang to plead guilty, so as to calm Datang's anger.

It was Han Wei who said this. He patted the table and pointed at the nose of the Tubo ambassador Gal Dongzan, and his saliva sprayed Dongzan all over his face.

Dongzan can only do his own thing.

Although I have long been used to Han Wei being a shit-stirring stick, he would jump out to disrupt the situation at critical moments, but this time, the chief envoy of the Tang people, Taichangqing Wei Ting, did not say a word, and the deputy envoys Li Baiyao and Cui Renshi ignored Han Wei. Wei's rudeness.

The attitude of the envoys of the Tang Dynasty was unanimous, and they acquiesced to Han Wei's request.

Gal Dongzan said good things for a long time to no avail, so he had to leave again and return. Before leaving, Wei Ting, the former prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, said a few words to him.

"Although General Han was a bit rude, his words are correct. Someone must be responsible for Tubo's invasion of the Tang Dynasty this time. This person must also have a high status. You can't just throw a kitten or a dog. Sent."

The implication is that it is of course impossible for Datang to ask Zanpu to commit suicide as an apology, but at least it must be an important Tubo minister with the status of the Nine Ministers to bear this responsibility.

Han Wei said that he wanted to kill all nine ministers, which is of course a bit excessive, but he must kill one or two to give Datang an explanation, right?

Dong Zan also has to thank Wei Ting.

When the warrior in tiger clothes left the customs, Han Wei called to stop him.

"If your family's Zanpu protects you, I, Han, will lead the troops into your camp to take the heads of the nine ministers in person!"

Faced with such aggressive words, Gal Dongzan could only swallow his anger. After two months of peace talks, he was basically used to Han Wei's harsh words.

Return to Tubo Camp, meet with Zanpu, and make a routine report.

"It can't be delayed any longer. It's already the beginning of the year, and it will soon turn into winter. It's impossible for us to stay here by then."

Songtsan Gampo sat in the tent drinking tea and reading. Staying here was boring. In addition to hunting and riding horses, the young Zanpu also started reading. He read Han books, and he read all kinds of books. He also specially found many teachers. Half of the day is spent reading.

Although it is still just getting started, the harvest has been not small.

After Songtsan Gampo succeeded to the throne to suppress the rebellion, he felt that Tubo had no script and had always used the Shangzhung script, so he sent a mission to Tianzhu to learn Sanskrit, and wanted to create Tubo's own script based on Sanskrit.

It took several years to send three missions, and finally imitated Sanskrit and combined Zhang Zhung characters to create Tubo's own characters.

It has only been implemented for a few years, but the effect is not great, mainly because this newly created text is not mature enough. During this period of time, he learned Chinese characters, but he made rapid progress, and now he feels that Chinese characters are profound and profound. He should have sent a mission to the Central Plains to learn Chinese characters, and then borrowed them to create Tubo script.

Even in the past few days, I have simply used Chinese characters as the official language of Tubo, because these Chinese characters are really easy to use, concise and precise, but they are infinitely varied, especially since the Chinese civilization has a history of thousands of years, and there are already countless characters. The classic masterpieces of our ancestors and sages, if you directly study Chinese culture, then these can be used by Tubo.

Holding a volume of military books in his hand, it was the military books written by Qin Lang that he spent a lot of money to collect. He had read the Han Chinese military books and Sun Tzu's Art of War. Let me read carefully several military books written by Lang.

The more I read, the more amazed I became.

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The young Tang Shuai opposite him who frustrated him so much had such a profound understanding of how to use soldiers. No wonder they lost, and it can only be said that the defeat was not wronged.

But after listening to Dongzan's words, Songtsan Gampo couldn't help but get angry.

"Kill the nine ministers? The nine ministers are the pillars of my Tubo kingdom!"

"Emissary Tang insists on this point now, and what Ambassador Wei Ting revealed is that one or two of the heads of the Nine Ministers must be used. Otherwise, the peace talks will not continue."

"My Dafan is willing to exchange five thousand taels of gold for one of the nine ministers?"

"Zanpu, the Central Plains Tang Dynasty is not short of money. Their annual tax revenue exceeds 100 million. If it is converted into gold, it is tens of millions of taels. Five thousand taels of gold is not very attractive to them. , Their yearly military expenditure is tens of millions of taels, and it would be several million taels when converted into gold." Dong Zan persuaded with some helplessness.

For the past two months, he went to the Tang people every day. Apart from the peace talks, he also took the opportunity to collect various news about the Tang country. The more he learned, the more amazed at the huge gap between Tang and Tibet.

Only one Jiannan Road can far surpass Tubo in strength.

The population of a Tang Dynasty is nearly a hundred times that of theirs.

Other people's financial income and other people's military expenditures can scare people to death. And they, Tubo, have not yet had a more perfect tax system. Tubo is still considering imposing a tax on cow legs, that is, when taxing the herdsmen, the tax on one leg of each animal is actually a tax of one leg per animal. Livestock are taxed by a quarter.

With this as a condition, pastures and livestock were confiscated layer by layer, and were collected by officials from Dalun and below.

The tax rate of the corbel tax is very high, after all, it is a quarter, but the tax cannot all go to the Tubo court, because it needs to be conferred layer by layer, and those officials and nobles have to be skinned layer by layer, and finally can reach the Tubo court There are not many in hand.

And after learning about the current tax system of the Tang Dynasty, the two-tax law was changed to the two-tax law, and the land tax was levied per mu, and the household tax was collected per household. The tax rate was set very low. The land tax was two liters per mu. One liter of grain in Jiayi warehouse is only three liters per mu, and the tax rate is actually less than 30 tax one.

Moreover, nobles and officials also have to pay taxes, and there is no privilege of tax exemption. Therefore, although the tax rate is very low, the two taxes are less than 30 taxes, and the industrial and commercial taxes are often around 20 taxes. The annual income is very astonishing.

People can spend tens of millions of guns a year to raise soldiers and supply the army. There can be a government soldier of 600,000 to 700,000, or a standing frontier army of hundreds of thousands.

Five thousand taels of gold is already a lot of money for Tubo. After all, although Tubo has expanded year after year, the foundation is there after all, especially before Tubo, and even now it is still a society of slavery. The pastures and fiefdoms owned a large number of fields, livestock, and slaves, and they enjoyed various privileges.

For example, the cow leg tax is still being drafted, but the objects that can be collected are limited to the common people and slave households, that is, Yong. Noble officials are not recruited.

Tubo's finances in recent years have mainly relied on foreign wars and plunder, as well as foreign trade.

Five thousand taels of gold is a lot of money for Tubo, but it is only a few dollars for Tang Dynasty. Not to mention, Qin Lang, the emperor's favored minister, is said to have spent millions of dollars to build a castle in his fief, his family's property is all over the world, and his annual income is more than a million dollars?

It is said that in the eastern and western capitals, there are countless super rich houses nowadays, and those with Wanguan family property can only be regarded as middle rich. Only a million can be rich, and only a million can be called the top super rich. As for the ordinary small rich and middle class, they all have to have a family property of more than a thousand guan.

The family of Baiguan is not even considered middle class.

Those with less than 100 guan can only be regarded as small farmers.

Those who guard the gates of Chang'an and Luoyang can wear brocade robes and silk boots, and the annual income of a small officer of the imperial army can reach 50 guan.

"Ten thousand taels of gold!"

Zamp gritted his teeth.

"We can't afford so much gold, and we can't now. If the peace agreement is reached, we have to pay the first tribute to Tang Guo, three thousand taels of gold and ten thousand taels of silver, plus ten thousand cattle and horses." Gal Dongzan had to remind Zanpu.

The annual tribute conditions proposed by the Tang people cannot be changed. Although Dongzan bargained several times, the Tang envoy did not let go at all, and even said that this figure was already the minimum standard.

That Han Wei said more than once, there is no need to talk about it, let's fight directly, and the gold, silver, cattle and horses in Tubo will all belong to my Tang Dynasty.

Three thousand taels of gold and ten thousand taels of silver a year, which can be converted into about 30,000 guan of Tang copper coins, and 10,000 guan of cattle and horses can be converted into about 100,000 guan. For Datang, it is really not worth mentioning.

But for Tubo, if so many tributes have to be paid every year in the future, it will be an extremely heavy burden.

Especially gold and silver. Tubo itself does not produce much gold and silver. It mainly earns money from trade with Tang, Nivalo, Tianzhu, Khotan, and Zhang Zhung. How much is exchanged, such tributes every year, of course it is not enough.

But the people of Tang did not back down, so Songtsan Gampo had no choice but to let Dongzan respond first, and then deal with it later. The year-old tribute is barely passable, after all, it is only necessary to pay the year-old tribute for one year after the peace talks are concluded, but now the Tang people want to kill nine ministers, and Tubo can't agree.

Can't kill a single one.

Three opinions and one theory, five general managers, who to kill?

Everyone is the pillar of the country. Sanshang is a hereditary nobleman who has been married to the three Zanpu royal families of Tubo for generations. He is also a top nobleman with a very prominent reputation and strong strength.

That Lun is also the top contemporary figure in the Lun Clan, otherwise it would be impossible for him to be elected to form a meeting of princes and princes to participate in politics with Sanshang.

The five general managers are all top ministers who entrust and guard Yiru.

Anyone who is killed will cut down a pillar of Tubo.

For this reason, he would rather spend 10,000 taels of gold to redeem.

But Dongzan said that he had no money.

Dong Zan is one of the six internal ministers. He said that if he has no money, he really has no money.

"Let everyone join in, I am willing to pay half."

Zanpu is willing to take out five thousand taels of gold from the Siboye royal family's own treasury, and let each family contribute the rest.

"Even if they can make up 10,000 taels, the people of Tang will not be willing. They have a clear attitude that they want to kill a Tubo minister."

Songtsan clenched his fists angrily and had nowhere to hit.

"Zanpu, why don't we just stop talking and just withdraw our troops!"

Songtsan Gambo glared at him, "Withdrawing now? Let's not talk about it? Now Tang has deployed 100,000 elite troops on the border of Songzhou. If we fail to reach a peace agreement, we will withdraw. They will definitely come after us. What will we do then? Also, We withdrew like this, from now on, how will Dangxiang, Bailan and other Qiangs intimidate orders, and how can we make them abandon Tang Dynasty and go to Tibet? Now that we are withdrawing, we will never get our hands on Tuyuhun again!"

"However, the conditions of the Tang people are too harsh now. If we continue to talk, I'm afraid it won't work out. We can't do what the Tang people want, give up Su Pi, kill the nine ministers, marry the princess, and pay gold and silver every year, right? In that case, Even if the Tang people don't come to attack, what's the difference between Tubo and Dabai?"

"Let's talk again, talk again." Although Songtsan Gampo was impatient, he was not reconciled to the breakdown of the negotiation. "We still have 200,000 soldiers in our hands, and the Tang people have not yet sent troops, which means that they don't really want to fight a decisive battle, so there is still talk."

"Call the nine ministers to discuss the matter and see how to deal with it!" Zanpu said irritably.