Chapter 56: Has That Dog-Slave Lost His Mind?

Aluoduo's eyes flew wide open. He hadn't even informed on anyone yet, and the Tang leader across from him had already guessed the reason.

The reason the Gaochang Uyghur royal clansman Diluo Tagan had recruited them this time was indeed to intercept the Guiyi Army's envoys.

Not just him — Mahashide had also been recruited by Diluo Tagan from Balasagun.

They had already waited more than twenty days at Puchang Lake, and had nearly run out of drinking water without seeing any Guiyi Army envoy. Just when everyone was about to give up and disperse, Fan Running and his group blundered straight into them.

Mahashide, who had been stationed in the outer city, had already been planning to leave. But when he saw that Fan Running's group was small, he took them for merchants coming from the east.

He figured that since they were already here, he might as well rob them once before heading back to Balasagun, so he followed them over — and ran straight into an iron wall.

"How many people are in Loulan City?" This was the question Zhang Zhao cared about most. The Gaochang Uyghurs disguising themselves as Canwei people to ambush Guiyi Army envoys was nothing new; he wasn't surprised in the least.

Cutting off a man's wealth is like killing his parents. The Gaochang Uyghurs wished the Guiyi Army itself would just go around them, so they could monopolize the Silk Road's profits. How could they possibly allow the Guiyi Army and Khotan to join hands?

"Diluo Tagan brought a hundred and fifty men from Yizhou, plus several dozen Yanqi horse bandits he'd gathered up. The rest were us and Mahashide — and now we've all been defeated by you, my lord!" Aluoduo was quite forthcoming and simply confessed everything.

"He's probably not lying. The lakes and oases around Puchang Lake can only support that many people. Any more, and drinking water would become a problem!" Fan Running, who had traveled this route for years, nodded in agreement.

"Then wipe them out! Pugu Jun, the former king of these Gaochang Uyghurs, was once a general under the Grand Guardian. After he made himself king, he never stopped making trouble for us — Yizhou was taken by him."

Old Zhang Zhong stepped forward and said to Zhang Zhao, his face full of righteous indignation. This made Zhang Zhao can't help but suspect that the old fellow had also gone to make contact with the Uyghurs in Yizhou.

But it wasn't only Zhang Zhong whose face filled with fury at the mention of the Gaochang Uyghurs — Ma Yaozi and the others were the same.

Zhang Zhao thought about it for a moment and understood. The founder of the Gaochang Uyghurs, Pugu Jun, had once served under Zhang Yichao. He had been sent by Zhang Yichao to recover Yizhou, Gaochang, and other places; he was a vassal of the Guiyi Army.

But after Zhang Yichao entered Chang'an, Emperor Yizong of Tang, in order to limit the Guiyi Army's power, chose to secretly support Pugu Jun.

As a result, Beiting, Gaochang, Yizhou, and other places that had already been recovered were lost one after another. The Gaochang Uyghurs began to rise, and the Guiyi Army's strategy of restoring Anxi fell completely apart.

"Giving them a lesson is fine too! We have to replenish our water at Puchang Lake anyway. Have all officers above fire leader come to me at once — we'll discuss the specific operation!"

Since there were still nearly two hundred people in Loulan City, including a hundred and fifty Gaochang Uyghur troops from Yizhou, they naturally needed to plan carefully.

A bright moon hung in the sky. The ancient city of Loulan was actually very large in scale — after all, six or seven hundred years ago, this had been the famous center of the Silk Road.

Back then, the Peacock River had not yet changed course, and Loulan City maintained thirty or forty thousand residents at all times. A small city could not have housed them.

So Diluo Tagan's two hundred-odd men occupied only a small area in the western part of the city. Of course, since the ancient city had been abandoned for so long, there weren't many places still habitable, so these two hundred people were spread out fairly widely.

As for the Canwei tribe that had originally roamed this area, the old men and men had all been killed, and the women had become objects of their abuse.

Diluo Tagan was a Uyghur in his thirties. He also had a Han-style name: Pugu Cheng.

The Gaochang Uyghurs were actually a Uyghur group with very close ties to the Central Plains dynasties. When they sent memorials to the Central Plains court, they often called themselves "the nephew of Xizhou."

Historically, even a hundred years later in the Northern Song period, there were still Han people serving as high officials in the Gaochang Uyghur royal court.

Envoys from the Khitan Liao state also acknowledged that Gaochang was originally Han territory, because its politics, military, and culture all bore a strong Central Plains Han style.

However, the Gaochang Uyghurs' display of closeness to the Central Plains dynasties and their vigorous preservation of Han culture was relative to a powerful Central Plains dynasty.

Toward the Guiyi Army, which had only two or three hundred thousand people, their respect was quite limited, and the two sides often clashed over trade. So when Zhang Zhao proposed going to teach the Gaochang Uyghurs a lesson, even Cao Yanming was eager to join in.

Another cup of barley wine went down. Diluo Tagan shook his somewhat dizzy head, feeling quite displeased.

That dog-slave Mahashide — he'd taken a hundred and fifty silver coins as commission, and then run off with his men without a word!

These Tiele people who had abandoned the Buddha truly could not be trusted. He'd wait three more days. If the Guiyi Army envoys still didn't pass through after three days, he would have no choice but to return to Yizhou.

'Squelch!' Just then, Diluo Tagan seemed to hear a strange sound, like a blade cutting into a body, followed by faint startled cries from outside.

Sensing something wrong by instinct, Diluo Tagan hurriedly stood up. He felt for his curved saber, but before he could get out the door, it was kicked open with a 'bang!'

The dizzy Diluo Tagan sobered up instantly, because he saw that the person coming through the door was not one of his subordinates, but a burly man wearing interlinked-ring armor.

Ma Yaozi looked carefully at the clothes on Diluo Tagan's body. Sure enough, it was the roundel-pattern brocade robe that Uyghur nobles often wore. It seemed that Karluk hadn't lied — there really was a big Gaochang Uyghur fish here.

A burst of firelight shot up, flared violently, then quickly died out. This was the 'divine fire thunder' that Cao Yanming had invented under Zhang Zhao's guidance.

Ugh! That name was something Cao Yanming had insisted on. In Zhang Zhao's view, calling this thing a firecracker was already exaggerating. Apart from novelty, its greatest use was signaling at night.

In this not-very-bright night, the sound and gunpowder of the divine fire thunder were exceptionally conspicuous. Zhang Zhao, who had long since crept into the ancient city but hadn't yet found Diluo Tagan, felt his spirits lift. He raised his short lance and waved his hand.

"Charge! Kill them all!"

Likewise, the explosion of the divine fire thunder and the rising flames woke Diluo Tagan's sleeping men.

Like ants, they came running out of every room still barely habitable and rushed toward where Diluo Tagan was.

Diluo Tagan, instantly sobered, did not choose to charge at Ma Yaozi, because he instinctively felt he couldn't beat the man coming at him. So he desperately threw himself backward. The already dilapidated door and window shattered, and Diluo Tagan tumbled straight out through the window.

Ma Yaozi gave a savage grin and followed him out. But the moment he landed, a blade came slashing at his neck.

Ma Yaozi quickly rolled with the momentum, dodging the blow. His hengdao saber swept back at the opponent's thigh. With a piercing scream, a dark figure clutched his leg and toppled headfirst into the darkness.

Ma Yaozi paid no attention to that fellow. His eyes stayed fixed on Diluo Tagan, who was sprinting away in the distance. In a spare moment, he lit another divine fire thunder. It was like a signal flare, and both sides' men began sprinting toward this direction.

Finally, just when Ma Yaozi had chased until he could barely breathe, and Diluo Tagan up ahead had run until he was about to collapse and stopped running, a group of Uyghur warriors wearing leather robes and four-paneled leather helmets appeared opposite Ma Yaozi.

"Ma Yaozi, I'm here!" Just as Ma Yaozi was still considering whether to charge in, a great shout came from behind him — Dunzhu had arrived!

Before the words had faded, two javelins flew from Dunzhu's hands. The two Uyghur warriors charging at Ma Yaozi fell at the sound.

"Thud!" Javelins thrown, Dunzhu charged straight into the enemy Uyghur warriors' formation. He didn't care how many opponents there were, nor whether he would be wounded. He plunged into the crowd and began swinging his black iron hammer left and right!

"You damned Tibetan slave, have you lost your mind?!" Ma Yaozi let out a miserable howl. He had no choice but to charge in like Dunzhu.

Because he knew that Zhang Erlang was tolerant about most things, but on the battlefield, anyone who watched a comrade charge into danger without following would definitely have his head cut off afterward.

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