Tuozhe City is a famous city in Hezhong and an important commercial city.

Zhang Qian and Xuanzang both came here, known as the Silk Road hub, with a history of 500 years of city construction. It is a must-pass place on the Silk Road and is also famous for its commerce and handicrafts.

Located on the north bank of Yaoshaoshui, on the east is the western mountain range of the Dayuan Basin.

The entire city is located on such a huge oasis plain surrounded by mountains and rivers, with a unique geographical location and extremely fertile.

But at this moment, the whole city was still bleeding.

The troops in Hezhong Town led by Qin Jun are efficiently and organized to loot the entire city. Because the King of Shi Kingdom's resistance was disrespectful and arrogant and rebellious against the Tang Dynasty, Qin Jun issued a military order to completely destroy Shi Kingdom and Tuozhe City without hesitation.

After breaking through the city defense, rushing into the city, capturing the king, killing the deputy king, and then clearing the remaining resistance from Zhujie Zhufang. After controlling the entire royal city inside and outside, the Hezhong Army began to drive out the remaining population in Tuozhe City.

All survivors can not kill as long as they put down their weapons, but those who refuse to put down their weapons will be shot and killed mercilessly, without any mercy. The prisoners were rushed to the prisoner camp outside the city, and they were not allowed to carry anything except their clothes, and even gold, silver, jade, jewelry, etc. on their bodies were not allowed to be kept.

Some people even have valuable materials on their clothes and are forced to take off and put on ordinary clothes.

Men, women, young and old were separated into different camps and were kept under centralized care.

"Precautions are very valuable."

"Yes, there's a shortage of people everywhere now."

Since the imperial center implemented the new law a few years ago, a large number of soldiers from Guanlong Central Plains and other places directly moved their families with their families to border areas such as the Western Regions, and established a new soldiers here. The soldiers took turns to various military towns, guarding, garrisons, etc. on duty.

They were assigned to many lands and their families also received a good share of land. Zhechong Mansion also obtained large pieces of military farmland. The military towns and guards of the city were also assigned to military farmland next to the garrison. The most fertile land on the border was assigned to the border army and his family.

The land is all good, such as the four major military towns under the vassal states in Hezhong, namely Dayuan Town, Kunlun Town, Mulu Town and Huoxun Town. Among them, the best conditions are the Dayuan Basin where the Shuaifu is located. This place outside the border is full of rain and sunshine. The river water gathered from the snow-capped mountains ensures the water for agricultural planting in the basin plains.

Even because it is located in the Western Regions, the cattle, horses and animals are relatively cheap.

However, there are many fields, but it is still difficult to cultivate and requires a large amount of manpower. Therefore, now, from border troops to government soldiers and families who immigrate with the army, they are all short of labor.

The cheapest and most cost-effective labor is naturally slaves, and they are Turkic tribe herders captured by the Hezhong Army in war, mountain people in the Pamirs and other places, or Sogdians who were dissatisfied with management in the Hezhong Army.

Anyway, these slaves captured by the Hezhong Army themselves have not been trafficked for a long time and have not been transferred several times, so they are both healthy and cheap, and they are digested directly inside first.

After buying it, I sent it home and became a slave to help my family work.

Because of the shortage of people, the more than 100,000 Tang troops in the Western Regions have been rude to the Turks in recent years. They arrested people, arrested people, and arrested people everywhere, no matter what kind of Tuqi Shi tribe, the Gelu tribe, or the moon or the secret.

You don’t want to surrender or surrender. If you encounter it, you will fight. If you defeat it, you will be captured. If you capture it, you will be slaves. There is no second way to speak of.

The Tang Dynasty no longer needed their surrender and surrender.

"When you look back, you will hold an auction. The brothers who go on the battle this time will be given priority to bid."

Hezhong Town has strong troops and a large defense zone, and the situation is not peaceful. There are still some remnants of Western Turkic forces behind him. The Pamirs are in a critical geography and there are many mountain tribes. The Sogdians here in Hezhong also want to fight against the imperial court, not to mention that the south is Tochar and the Persian area occupied by the Dashi in the southwest, and the Turks fleeing west to the west, as well as the nomadic Khasa tribe in the Black Sea.

Fortunately, the imperial court attached great importance to Hezhong Town, and over the past few years, the number of troops stationed has increased. Now it has reached more than 60,000 people, and it has led four major military towns.

It forms a powerful deterrent force on the Hezhong area, but the Sogdian countries in the Hezhong Town will be completely destroyed for a day, so the Tang army in Hezhong Town will not be stable for a day. After all, the four major military towns are located in the four sides of the Hezhong Town, and the Sogdian cities are all in the middle.

Although more than 60,000 soldiers in Hezhong Town are strong and powerful, they can intimidate the Sogdians, and the Tocharians are even cannibalistic, but their survival pressure is not small.

The court would solve the military equipment and even some clothing and cloth of the soldiers in Hezhong Town, but the food must be solved by them themselves, and even military expenditures require them to find a way to solve most of them.

Tens of thousands of soldiers moved to the frontier with their families. These are tens of thousands of families, 200,000 to 300,000 border troops and their families. How much can they grow by farming alone?

The pressure is there, and you must make a living.

Qin Jun, the uncle, had a simple method: rob, catch, and produce.

Of course, robbing the Western Turks, robbing the Sogdians, robbing their cities, their tribes, their land, their livestock, cattle and sheep.

If you rob, you have to catch them. If you catch them, you will be captured by yourself. You will sell them to your soldiers to help you farm, grazle, and even run handicraft workshops in the vassal states. After all, they are on the ground on the Silk Road and the conditions are still very good.

Now everyone is in urgent need of slaves, and the most important thing is to put more cotton.

Due to the special geographical conditions and climate in the Hezhong area, the conditions for growing cotton are very good, and the quality of the cotton produced here is also very good.

Over the years, cotton has become popular in the Tang Dynasty, and cotton has become an extremely popular resource for people's lives. Then cotton jackets, quilts, cotton shoes, and other daily necessities made of cotton are very popular, and the demand for cotton is becoming increasingly large.

At that time, the Qin family took the lead in starting cotton planting in the Central Plains and doing cotton spinning. The cotton planting area was increasing, but it was always in short supply.

Although the price of cotton cloth in the Central Plains has changed from a niche and high-end goods that were more expensive than silk in Wude to ordinary road goods, no matter how ordinary it is, it still has huge demand for supplies. Even cotton in the Western Regions has always been high-end goods due to its good quality, with high prices and no worries about selling.

Anyway, there are so many lands now, and some of them are grown for food and food, and some are sold to the army. The rest of the land is more cost-effective.

However, growing cotton is harder than growing grain, especially picking, and it is harder to grow. It is not easy to plant a few families alone. At this time, it is very urgent to buy slaves to accumulate slaves and grow cotton.

When the river began to grow a large amount of cotton, Qin Jun, the Qin family's son and uncle of the dynasty, would certainly not let go of the local cotton spinning industry. After all, there is cotton locally, so cotton spinning has great advantages. What's more, this is the hub of the Silk Road. The cotton cloth woven and even cotton coats can be sold to both sides of the east and west, whether it is sold by yourself or wholesale to those merchants, which is full of business opportunities.

But cotton spinning also requires a lot of labor. Whether it is the initial processing of cotton, the deseeding of thread, or the finely processed weaving, every process is a labor-intensive industry.

But there is a shortage of people in the Western Regions.

The imperial court immigrated for several years and offered various preferential conditions, but the main population in the river is still the army and the family members.

It takes at least fifteen or sixteen years for a person to be born to adulthood, which is too long.

So it's better to grab the money directly.

With more than 60,000 elite troops in his hands, Hezhong Town attacked everywhere and arrested people everywhere. The Western Turks in the territory almost made them catch all of them, so now they have started to capture the Sogdians.

Originally, a young and strong man from Western Turks was worth at least 40 steadiaries. Even a teenager was worth 15 steadiaries, but the supply was still in short supply.

Hezhong Town has made a lot of money by capturing prisoners in recent years, which not only solved a large amount of cheap labor for the military and family members, but also generated a lot of income for itself.

The construction of castles, the construction of post roads, and even rewarding soldiers and military pay can even save money.

This has to be said to be a result that shocked the prime ministers of the court. He also praised Qin Jun, the ability of the uncle, the governor of the country.

For this reason, the soldiers and horses in Hezhong Town have also worked part-time in recent years to do some military rebate, or armed escorts and escorts, and such as cotton textiles, the court ignored them and turned a blind eye. They could not ask the horse to run away without letting the horse eat grass.

Qin Jun was able to find a way to be self-sufficient, how much financial expenditure would it save the imperial court?

Not to mention, even if the imperial court could take out this money and materials, if it was transported from Guanlong area to Hezhong, it would be thousands of miles away, and the transportation cost would be too high. Even if it was transported from Shuye, Gaochang and other places, it would be thousands of miles away.

Now everyone can rely on their own, which is really something that is undesirable.

The self-reliance of Hezhong Town has captured too many prisoners, and because it is internal digestion, the price of slaves in Hezhong Town has plummeted in recent years.

It turned out that a Turkic young man had 40 stakes, but now he was 15 stakes. A Turkic young man even only had 5 stakes, which was a little more expensive than a cattle and horse.

But for Qin Jun, since he is now able to be self-sufficient, reducing the price is also a benefit for everyone who takes care of the Hezhong Army.

Anyway, slaves are in short supply now, and tens of thousands of Hezhong Army families have not yet achieved sufficient slavery, and other immigrants can only buy slaves with high prices. As for the slave traders in the Central Plains who want to come and sell slaves, I'm sorry, no.

There are only a very small number of particularly high-end slaves, such as some who have superb riding and shooting skills. These people can sell them at high prices to play polo or act as guards. Some are very young and beautiful, and they can also be sold at high prices. Or some special skills, whether they are veterinarians, doctors, stonemasons, blacksmiths, etc., are also valuable.

Then there are some original nobles who can sometimes be sold at a high price.

In fact, not only the Hezhong Army is doing this, but also the Anxi Army and the Beiting Army have also worked for several years. Even the border troops in Liaodong, North Korea, and the border troops in the southwest are the same.

There would be no nerd-like person in the court to jump out and say something unkind. Such people have had them before, but they have long been despised by everyone.

How much is benevolence and righteousness worth?

Although this seemingly barbaric practice now can bring about the stability of the newly conquered territory, and even open up more Xinjiang territory, save expenses for the court, and provide everyone with the cheap labor they need. Who would object?

In fact, the attitudes of the Tang Dynasty have not changed since the Wude Dynasty. They have always supported and liked to save slaves.
Chapter completed!