Chapter 107: The Three Treasure Lands of Anxi

"Has there really been a Buddhist uprising in Balasagun? Has Master Titexigu finally made his move? But he should have sent someone to inform me, shouldn't he?"

Li Shengtian's face was full of shock. It sounded like he also had informants in Balasagun, but this Master Titexigu had not sent him any word, so Li Shengtian was somewhat disinclined to believe Zhang Zhao's claim.

"Uncle, Son of Heaven, the roads from Balasagun to our Great Jin Kingdom have all been cut off by tribes that follow the faith of the Heavenly Square. Perhaps something sudden happened and there was no time to send word?"

Zhang Zhao was somewhat anxious. Transportation in this era was terribly unreliable. In later times, even if modern equipment could not be used, messages sent by human couriers were still very hard to intercept, because you never knew which route the messenger would take.

But this era was different, especially in Anxi. The routes were almost entirely fixed. Everywhere else was either the Gobi or snow mountains, completely impassable.

So if Satuq Bughra Khan wanted to cut off direct contact between Khotan and Balasagun, he only needed to spend more manpower on inspections, and he would certainly be able to do it.

A few beads of cold sweat appeared on Li Shengtian's forehead. He turned back and stared fixedly at the map, his eyes ceaselessly sweeping back and forth between Balasagun and Shule.

"But we still aren't ready! The battering rams, the watchtower carts, and the scaling-ladder carts haven't finished being built. The Qiangtang Tibetan tribes from Ritu and Kucur haven't come down from the mountains yet. Arrows and armor are both insufficient."

Ritu is the area around Rituo Monastery by Pangong Lake in later times, and Kucur is in what later became Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Both places are currently occupied by the various Qiangtang Tibetan tribes.

The relationship between Khotan and the Qiangtang Tibetans was actually not as tense as later generations imagine.

Because back when the Tibetans occupied Khotan, they were not about to share many benefits with the Tibetans up in the mountains. On the contrary, they feared the mountain Tibetans would come down and steal their livelihood.

Instead, after Khotan was restored, the Qiangtang Tibetans were able to gain more benefits than they had during the period when the original Tibetans occupied Khotan.

Khotanese traveling merchants continuously brought hemp cloth, kudzu cloth, millet, coarse salt, iron tools, and other essential survival goods up into the mountains to sell.

At the same time, they bought up furs, beef and mutton, and other goods that the Qiangtang Tibetans had previously been unable to sell, and the two sides achieved a certain degree of economic complementarity.

Moreover, the Khotanese royal house every year would bestow gifts on the Qiangtang Tibetan nobles in the name of paying homage to the Buddha, and in exchange, the Qiangtang Tibetans were required to answer the summons of the Khotanese royal house and fight for them.

Historically, the main force behind Khotan's several great victories over the Kara-Khanid Khanate was a heavy infantry formation composed of the descendants of the sons of Tang in Anxi and the Qiangtang Tibetans.

And after these two core infantry forces had been worn away and exhausted, Khotan's own feudal lords' heavy cavalry was powerless to continue resisting.

And it is very likely that after Khotan was destroyed, apart from a small number of the royal house who fled to the territory of the Guiyi Army, many Khotanese who were unwilling to convert to the faith of the Heavenly Square all went up into the Kunlun Mountains, to the territory of the Qiangtang Tibetans.

Zhang Zhao knew that Li Shengtian had reason to wait. At this time, the Tibetans' fighting strength had not yet been completely crippled by deception. Seven or eight hundred Tibetans who fought year-round against the great snow mountains, that natural god of death, once equipped with Khotanese armor, would be a considerably formidable fighting force.

Together with the Divine Might Left Army that Li Shengtian personally controlled — built around just over a thousand descendants of the Anxi Tang troops, supplemented by several thousand Khotanese soldiers — they were the core of Khotan's fighting strength.

Not waiting for the Tibetans to come down from the mountains would be almost like cutting off one of the Divine Might Left Army's own arms!

But now was different from the past. In the past, besieging Shule generally began on a three-month timetable, but now there was no need for that! He, Zhang Zhao, had gunpowder. They were going to blast the walls of Shule into collapse!

"Uncle! Which is more important: waiting for a few hundred Qiangtang Tibetans to come down from the mountains, or Satuq taking Balasagun as quickly as possible?

If Satuq takes Balasagun, what use will those few hundred Tibetans be even if we do wait for them?"

What time is it now, and he's still thinking about fighting only after being fully equipped? This was exactly like when he played games in his past life and a teammate said, "I'll come teamfight once I finish this item!"

Damn it, by the time you finish your item, the enemy's already godlike!

Li Shengtian looked at Zhang Zhao's anxious expression, and only after a long while did he seem to finally make up his mind. He swung his fist down heavily.

"Fine! Then once the spring wheat and millet are planted, we march!"

What? Holy shit! Plant spring wheat? Zhang Zhao almost thought he was hearing things!

Spring wheat is planted in the third or fourth month, which meant that once spring planting was finished, it would be at least mid-fourth month, more than a month away.

Military affairs are urgent as fire. Wait another month, and Balasagun might well have fallen! Speed is the essence of war, hello!

"Uncle! We truly cannot wait! Time is on the Kara-Khanids' side. If Balasagun is captured, our losses will be far beyond what this bit of spring planting can make up for!"

Li Shengtian swallowed with difficulty. He was silent for a long while, then still shook his head.

"Erlang, your uncle cannot make such an all-or-nothing decision. Do you know what the consequences are if spring planting is not done?

At least sixty percent of the people of the Jin Kingdom would go hungry. That is several hundred thousand people!

If they cannot eat their fill, and Shule cannot be taken, then these people will devour our Li family!"

Sure enough, one's position determines one's thinking. Zhang Zhao had come here to gain benefits, earn military merit, and rescue the sons of Tang in Anxi. In his eyes there was only victory or defeat in war, and he only saw the benefits that taking Shule would bring.

But Li Shengtian thought more from the position he sat upon. Complete the spring planting, then go attack Shule. If they won, all the better. If they failed, it would be no worse than Khotan's several historical attacks on the city of Shule — the city not taken, losses suffered, but the kingdom of Khotan and the Li family still able to endure.

But if they did as Zhang Zhao said, ignored the spring planting and staked everything on one throw, then taking the city of Shule would be fine, but if they failed to take it, he did not know about the kingdom of Khotan, but his Li family would certainly be finished.

So Li Shengtian would rather risk failure than give up seeking stability!

There was no way around it! Zhang Zhao walked over beside Li Shengtian and tapped the map heavily with his finger.

"Does Uncle remember when your nephew told you that our Great Jin Kingdom is actually a giant turtle? Look here."

Zhang Zhao tapped the western part of the map. "This is Ferghana. This is Margilan in Ferghana.

Uncle, look at the terrain here. Surrounded by mountains on all sides, with only two routes in and out, one to the southwest and one to the northeast. The northeastern side is northwest of the city of Shule, and the southwestern exit is on the banks of the Yaxartes River."

The place Zhang Zhao indicated was the Ferghana Valley of later times, which at this moment had just been recovered by the Kara-Khanid Khanate from the Persian Samanid dynasty.

In the entire Transoxiana region, there were three areas of the greatest essence. The first was the Land of the Seven Rivers, that is, the Ili River valley. The second was the old homeland of the Nine Zhaowu Clans, centered on Bukhara and Samarkand. The third was the Ferghana Valley.

Given Khotan's current situation, this was already the peak of what a desert-oasis city-state kingdom could achieve, but compared to the Kara-Khanid Khanate to the north, it was still inferior.

Because of the three treasure lands of Transoxiana, the Kara-Khanid Khanate nominally possessed two. The Land of the Seven Rivers and the Ferghana Valley were both in Kara-Khanid hands.

If Khotan wanted to survive, it needed at least one of these three regions. The Land of the Seven Rivers was out of the question. The only realistic option was the Ferghana Valley.

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