Chapter 2 Changan Special Envoy ()

The cheek on the left was still so hot that it hurt, but the lips felt a little cool, as if it was water.

My body seemed to gradually gain strength. Before I saw something, I heard the sound first. Many people were talking. The accent was a bit weird, a bit like Cantonese, but it wasn't exactly. It seemed that the factors in Southern and Northern dialects were a bit, but I still could understand it - it was Chinese.

Saved?

"Ah! The envoy seems to be awake!"

special envoy?

Zhang Mai opened his eyes with difficulty and found that he seemed to be lying in a cave. Several people surrounded him, two of whom were old guys in his fifties and wearing ancient clothes, a middle-aged man and a young man. But what is gratifying is that the heroic beauty is also among them. However, when she was in contact with Zhang Mai, she quickly opened her eyes and looked a little shy.

"Entertainment, are you awake?" the oldest man said. Zhang Mai is not a linguist and cannot tell where he is from his accent, but it sounds like a person in a dialect area speaks Mandarin, which is not "standard".

"What special envoy?" Zhang Mai found that his voice was a little hoarse, maybe because he was thirsty for too long.

What are these people doing? Are they acting? Zhang Mai knows that there are occasionally crews coming to visit the desert.

"Isn't the Master of the Lord a special envoy? Isn't it a special envoy from Chang'an?" Another old man said that his appearance was a bit fierce.

"What special envoy from Chang'an?"

Chang'an? What a classical name. Is that city no longer called Xi'an?

"The Lord is not a special envoy, then..." The old man took out the imperial edict: "How will this imperial edict be on you?"

Zhang Mai's head buzzed a little, and he felt something amazing. Seeing the old man's eyes emitting a light of vigilance or even questioning, he felt that if he had a bad response, something might happen.

"Where is this place? You...who are you?"

The people looked at each other for a few seconds, and the girl said, "I think... the envoy may be tired and his body has not recovered yet, so his consciousness is a little blurred."

The oldest man nodded, as if he agreed with the girl's statement.

"Fen'er, stay and take care of the special envoy."

They walked away, gathered around seven or eight steps away from Zhangmai, discussing something in a low voice. Zhang Mai vaguely heard something: "Isn't he a special envoy?" "But what he said was Huayan..." "Huayan is Huayan, but his accent is wrong." "Although it is not right, it is not Huyin. Our Tang Dynasty has a vast territory and many dialects... Maybe... he is from somewhere."

As he gradually woke up, Zhang Mai's mind became clearer and clearer. He wanted to ask the beauty: "Where is this? Who are you?" But when the words came to his mouth, they turned into: "Your name is Fen'er?"

The girl nodded, seemingly unanswered.

"I seemed to be treating you before I fainted... I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

The beauty blushed and suddenly shouted, "Dad, he seems to be awake."

The strangely dressed people surrounded him again, and the fierce one said again: "Young man, are you the special envoy from Chang'an?"

Zhang Mai intuitively felt that if he honestly denies it now, he would be afraid that nothing would be good.

It's better not to answer, first ask what's going on.

"As soon as I woke up, you suddenly asked this and that..." Zhang Mai said: "I want to ask you, who are you! And, where are my things?"

He found that his baggage and those three antiques were gone.

Several old men looked at each other again, and finally, the oldest one patted his forehead: "Oh, it's ours."

“How?”

The old man said, "We only want to distinguish his origin, but the envoy also needs to know our origin to show our identity. The envoy came here from Chang'an, and suffered a lot along the way, and he couldn't tell anyone about it."

The other old man said, "Yes, yes."

Zhang Mai heard that they still believed that he was a "special envoy". He was amused in his heart, and then he heard the old man say, "Special envoy..." He thought that before Zhang Mai admitted that he was a special envoy, he changed his words: "This gentleman, I call Guo Shidao..." He pointed to the old man who was facing a bit fierce: "This is Yang Dingguo..." and then pointed to a middle-aged man in his forties: "This is my brother An Shoujing." He pointed to a young man in his early twenties who looked a little like him: "This is my son Guo Luo." Finally, he pointed to the beautiful girl: "This is my daughter, Guo Fen."

Oh, her name is Guo Fen, but-

"Wait!" Zhang Mai intercepted his words: "What's the use of telling me these names! I don't know you at all."

As soon as I thought about it, I was about to ask if you were missing a supporting role. I was memorizing the script and asking me to make up the number? Then Master Guo sighed: "What Langjun said is, how can people from Chang'an know the names of our people? However, Mr. Wang should know the name of Guo Xin?"

Guo Xin? I'm a little familiar...

Suddenly, the words in the imperial edict passed by in my mind—

Guo Xin!

Zhang Mai blurted out: "Anxi Grand Protector? The Jiedushi of the Four Towns?"

When several old men saw that he had revealed Guo Xin's origin, their faces showed joy. They became more and more convinced that Zhang Mai's words were in line with each other. Guo Shidao shouted: "Do you remember the special envoy?"

Remember? Not remember, just seeing that name in the imperial edict, and-

He looked around the people in front of him: "What does Guo Xin have to do with you?"

"Guo Xin is my ancestor. We are all descendants of the soldiers and generals in the four towns of Anxi."

"Ah!" Zhang Maiguo said that Guo Fen had taken a look from old age to underestimate, with disbelief in his eyes.

What a joke, the descendants of the Tang Dynasty soldiers stayed in Central Asia?

Zhang Mai has heard of the descendants of the national army in Myanmar. After decades of blood and even military establishment, he also heard that some of the people who were stranded in Africa for hundreds of years when Zheng He went to the West had descendants, but they have become different from the Chinese. If you want to say that the soldiers and generals who remained in Central Asia in the Tang Dynasty still have descendants...

It's really hard to believe.

More than a thousand years! How is that possible?

He didn't say it, but his eyes had already shown everything. Guo Shidao and Yang Dingguo looked at each other. Guo Shidao said, "It seems that the envoy still doubts our identity. Well, I will tell you about our origins one by one, so that the envoy will undoubtedly have a doubt in his heart. However, Chang'an has been isolated from us for a long time, and I don't know what you know, what you don't know, and what you really don't know where to start."

"Then let's start from the beginning."

"Start from the beginning? Okay. Let's talk about our Anxi Protectorate first. The rule of the Tang Dynasty over the Western Regions was mainly to set up the Beiting Protectorate and the Anxi Protectorate. The Beiting Protectorate is north of the Tianshan Mountains, and is now behind us. The south of the Tianshan Mountains and to the west of the Pamir Mountains, are under the jurisdiction of the Anxi Protectorate."

Zhang Mai still knew about the Anshi Rebellion, and Zhang Mai also knew about the Chinese topographic map in his bags. But where is the Pamir Plateau? By the way, when passing by Kashgar, the tour guide seemed to mention that the Pamir Plateau is the "Pamir Plateau" on a modern map.

"The Anxi Protectorate has four major military towns, Shule, Khotan, Kucha and Yanqi, collectively known as the Anxi Towns. However, after the Anshi Rebellion broke out, most of the garrisons of the Anxi Towns were transferred internally, and the Hexi Corridor was cut off. In other words, the Anxi Towns not only weakened their own strength, but also isolated the passage from the imperial court. At that time, it could be said that this place had become an enclave."

When Zhang Mai heard this, he remembered Alaska, the United States. That place was also an enclave in the United States, with Canada being separated by the middle. However, after hearing what Guo Shidao said, the enclave in Anxi was obviously isolated due to the human factor of war.

Guo Shidao slowly told the story: Back then, the Tang Dynasty's territory in the Western Regions fell step by step, and the Hexi Corridor was separated. The Tang people stranded in the Western Regions were wandering around the Uighurs, Tubos, and Arabs. They were surrounded by alien races, and they were all eyeing the Tang people...

His words made up Zhang Mai'e a little knowledge about the four towns of Anxi. From Lanzhou to Kashgar, the tour guide along the way told many stories related to the Tang Dynasty, but after going abroad, foreign tour guides rarely mentioned what this land had to do with the Tang Dynasty. At most, in Kyrgyzstan, the tour guide said that their country contributed a world-class poet Li Bai - what a joke! Li Bai is a foreigner?

Zhang Mai suddenly thought: "So that's it. So that's it. The five Central Asian countries I came to visit, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, etc., all of them belonged to the Tang Dynasty before. Of course, the desert I lost also belonged to the Tang Dynasty. And Afghanistan, is it from China? Hey, why didn't that Central Asian tour guide say this?"

He suddenly thought of a very realistic question: Is this group of people claiming to be descendants of the four soldiers in Anxi Towns. Is it true? Because there is no reason for the other party to make such a big battle to deceive himself, there is no benefit. If this is really a prank, then the acting skills of these people are really good!

"Did these people hide in deep mountains and forests, or small oasis in the desert, for more than a thousand years and have never been discovered? Just like those who hide from Qin Shihuang in the Peach Blossom Land, they hide for hundreds of years and do not know that there is a Han Dynasty, regardless of Wei and Jin Dynasties?"

But soon he denied the speculation himself: it would be too low to be isolated from the world for more than a thousand years!

At the same time, he stared at these people, but he felt that these people were not joking. Their eyes were all very serious.

Guo Shidao seemed to see Zhang Mai's suspicion and said to the heroic young man: "It seems that the envoy still doesn't believe it. Luoer, let the fish talisman left by his ancestors come out."

The young man Guo Luo turned around and took a small box. The box was very old, but it was well preserved. Guo Shidao took out a key from his arms and opened the box with precious land. There were some old documents hidden inside. He took the documents and found a fish-shaped token at the bottom.

Zhang Mai's eyes lit up. Because he was staring at a large group of people, Yang Dingguo actually noticed this subtle expression. He said: "The special envoy really recognized the fish talisman."

Fish Talisman? What is a fish Talisman? Zhang Mai didn't know that the fish Talisman was a tiger Talisman, which was the seal of the dispatched soldiers and generals in all dynasties in China. The Tang Dynasty avoided Li Hu's taboo (Li Hu was Li Yuan's grandfather), so he changed the tiger Talisman to a fish Talisman, but Zhang Mai didn't dare to ask casually at this time. His eyes lit up just now, not because he knew, but because he found that the fish Talisman was almost the same as the fish-shaped token he found next to the skeleton.

Then, Guo Shidao took out the fish talisman brought by Zhang Mai: "My Duke Guo Xin sent fifteen groups of envoys to Chang'an, but he had been waiting until the four towns fell one after another without any response. We were waiting hard in the Western Regions for this fish talisman and this imperial edict..." He had tears in his eyes: "After Mr. Guo Xin's death, the descendants of our four towns still refused to despair. Until today, we have been waiting for countless years!"

"So you have been waiting for more than a thousand years?" Zhang Mai was a little moved by the loyalty of these people, but he still couldn't believe it.

"More than a thousand years?" The two old men looked at each other and said together: "No more than a thousand years."
Chapter completed!