The Great Wei Music Bureau

Chapter 264 Departure

Because the trip to the Western Regions is of great significance to Li Yi, and this chapter is about to start again, so there are more introductions to the characters. Last time, we talked about how Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva actually said that he had a great cause and effect with the Pearl Conch, and Li Yi received a letter from Tao Zhongwen, so how will the story develop next? Let's read on.

After reading the letter, Li Yi said to Yuehua, "I have something urgent to do. You take Aunt Baozhu and the others to look around, and then we'll go back to the mansion." Yuehua nodded in agreement. Li Yi then set off for the teahouse opposite the Li Mansion. Tao Zhongwen's letter said that Yuanjun was waiting for him there. Since the emperor was coming out of the palace to see him, he naturally did not dare to neglect him. Because Hongen Temple was in Zhongdu City, he did not spend much time on the road.

Arriving at the teahouse, Li Yi greeted the steward Zhou who was guarding the door, and then went to the private room on the second floor. Yuan Jun sat in front of the window and looked at Li's house and asked, "Xiu Yuan, is this courtyard comfortable to live in?"

Li Yi sat opposite him and said with a smile: "I am satisfied, but it is too big and there are more servants than before. It is hard to manage without Shiyu."

"In that case, isn't Ziyi just right..."

"Hey, stop it! I've already told you, don't force your sister on me just because of Nangong Xue's matter! Tell me what you want from me."

"If it's a matter of state I can come to see you privately, it must be Ziyi's matter."

"what's the situation?"

"The Tianzong sent someone to say that Ziyi's heavenly tribulation seems to have come earlier, so my mother asked me to urge you to leave as soon as possible."

"Okay, I can leave anytime, what about you?"

"The five thousand Qiang cavalry must go slowly. The imperial guards have already been transferred there, but they only have ten thousand elite soldiers."

"Are they really elite?"

"Of course you want to attack Dunhuang City with only 10,000 imperial soldiers, right?"

"Isn't ten thousand enough? How many more people are needed for a small city like Dunhuang?"

"In the old age of the previous emperor, the Xiongnu sent 30,000 troops to attack Dunhuang. The defending general Yuchi Li held the city for three months before driving the enemy back. However, four months later, the Xiongnu attacked again. The succeeding generals failed to hold the city firmly, and Dunhuang was lost. When I succeeded to the throne, my mother took charge of the government. The Gaoche Kingdom revived. My mother joined forces with the Gaoche to attack the Xiongnu and drove them out of the Western Regions. Later, they fought with the Gaoche again. Erzhu Hui swept through the Qiang and Di tribes, but failed to capture Dunhuang. The King of Zhenbei recalled him and never sent troops west again, which led to the current situation of Dunhuang.

"There are no less than 30,000 soldiers defending Dunhuang. You want to capture Dunhuang with only 10,000 soldiers. Isn't that just wishful thinking? You should wait for me to gather forces. With 70,000 soldiers, we can besiege the city and then attack it. We should take our time. This battle is the first step in the Western Regions conquest and we cannot afford to lose."

Li Yi waved his hand and said, "I can't wait. I have too many things to do on this trip to the Western Regions. I need to help Old Silver Coin plan, help Ziyi survive the catastrophe, verify the strategy of "Ping Hu Ce", find out the truth about Zoroastrianism, and I also have my own things to do. So if Dunhuang cannot be conquered for a long time, everything will be delayed."

Yuan Jun said in embarrassment: "If that's the case, you may not be able to come back for a year or so. But don't worry, I will help you take care of your family. I have bought this teahouse to protect the Li Mansion."

Li Yi smiled and said, "Then you have to worry about it, brother. As for the attack on Dunhuang, I will go there to test the situation first and then make plans. I will not let you get off to a bad start."

"Then I'll leave it to you. When do you plan to leave?"

"Go back and prepare. We will set off in three days."

"Okay, I will send someone to accompany you. It will be convenient for you to contact the imperial guards and can also help you, so that you don't have to do everything yourself."

Li Yi asked excitedly, "Hey, are you going to prepare two personal maids for me?"

Yuan Jun said awkwardly, "Well, the journey is long, it might be inconvenient to bring a maid with you, right? As for women, besides Ziyi, Aunt Yun must go with us."

Li Yi said with a disappointed look on his face: "She? She is not funny and boring. Oh, it seems that this journey will be very boring!"

On the day of departure, three carriages drove from Li's Mansion to the west gate of Zhongdu. Ten miles outside the city, Yuan Ziyi's carriage joined the convoy. The journey segment was a good opportunity to introduce the personnel arrangements for this trip to the Western Regions.

The first car was driven by Yu Jiu, with Li Yi, Yuehua and Amina sitting inside.

Yu Jiu, the Fire Spirit Boy, is Li Yi's apprentice and book boy. He is now at the fourth level. Needless to say, Li Yi is the first color embryo in Wei. Although he has not yet entered the extraordinary realm, he has the strength of the early stage of the extraordinary realm. Yuehua, Li Yi's adopted sister, is beautiful AKA Xiaoreba. Although she is a scumbag, Gu Zhou, the son of the chief of the Di tribe in the northwest grassland, has admired Yuehua for a long time, and Li Yi also intends to make some use of this.

To explain, the leader of each tribe on the grassland is called a patriarch or chief. There will be an alliance between the tribes, which usually does some arbitration and sacrificial work. Once a war occurs, this alliance becomes a coalition command center, and the leader of this alliance is the big chief.

Amina is Yuehua's good sister in Younvyuan. The two have always taken care of each other. Although Amina is not outstanding in appearance, she is a resilient woman. How should this resilience be explained? It can be understood as the ability to stick to one path to the end, not afraid of hardship or fatigue, and having the stubborn quality of not being convinced even if one says one thing and not one's heart believes one's opinion. She has been beaten and suffered a lot in Younvyuan. Although she doesn't say it, everyone knows that this 18-year-old Di girl has never been convinced.

The second car was driven by Wei Lue, and inside it sat Baozhu Faluo and Aitaji. These two deserve special mention:

Baozhu Faluo is the wife of the chief of the Di tribe, Guli, and Aitaji is her eldest daughter-in-law. Her husband and son died on the border. It was said before that it was her brother-in-law, who is now the chief of the Tianhuo tribe, who used a trick to seize power. Later on the road, Li Yi also talked with Aunt Baozhu and learned the truth of the year:

In order to get the position of the patriarch, Tianhuo first encouraged his brother Guli to lead his troops to harass the border of Wei many times, and indeed they robbed a lot of things, such as gold, silver, copper, iron, and women and slaves. It can be said that they had a great harvest. Then he and his men promoted how wise and brave the patriarch Guli was, and how he was a great hero of the grassland. Under such flattery, the patriarch lost his mind and actually thought that he could march straight into the Wei border and plunder the city with his cavalry.

Later, Guli was really tempted and personally led his cavalry to the northwestern border city of Guazhou. On the way, Tianhuo used the excuse of dividing the troops to attack from both sides and escaped with his confidants. The arrogant chief Guli did not realize how naive he was until he arrived at the city of Guazhou. In the end, his entire army was surrounded and killed by the Zhenbei Army defenders and the Erzhu tribe.

It is said that Tianhuo ran back to the tribe to report that his brother and nephew had died in the battle, and he saved his life by leading his troops to break through. The grassland people have the tradition of brother-to-brother succession, and what is inherited is not only status and rights, but also women and slaves.

That night, Tianhuo called his sisters-in-law Baozhu Faluo and Aitaji, two widows, to talk about life. Of course, this man was very purposeful and started to make advances after just a few words into the tent.

Baozhu Faluo was pregnant at that time, so she would not tolerate humiliation and fought back desperately. If Aitaji had not offered herself voluntarily and appeased the future leader of the Tianhuo tribe, Baozhu Faluo would have died that night.

After the beastly behavior was unleashed, Aitaji took advantage of Tianhuo's deep sleep and escaped from the tribe with the precious conch. He was captured by the patrolling Zhenbei Army on the border and taken back to Guazhou.

On the city wall, Baozhu Falui saw the bodies of her husband and eldest son. She was almost collapsed and tried to commit suicide several times, but was stopped or rescued by her eldest daughter-in-law Aitaji at all costs.

It was the companionship and comfort of the eldest daughter-in-law that finally moved Baozhu Faluo to give up the idea of ​​committing suicide. Later, under the arrangement of Tao Zhongwen, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law came to the Younvyuan, and the story of giving birth in the Younvyuan came about.

Some people may think that the practice of inheriting the throne from the elder brother and Tianhuo wanting to sleep with both the sister-in-law and the niece-in-law at the same time is against human ethics, but this is reasonable and legal on the grassland.

There are also many cases where the sister-in-law becomes a good wife and later a helpful wife, and they are widely circulated on the grassland. So don’t regard this tradition as unforgivable. It is just a difference in customs between different civilizations. Don’t look at this kind of thing with a critical eye.

Take Aitaji for example. She sacrificed herself to protect her mother-in-law and stayed by Baozhu Faluo's side. Isn't this kind of character worthy of praise? It was precisely because of this situation that when Baozhu Faluo had the opportunity to return to the grassland, the first person he thought of was Aitaji, who depended on him for life.

In addition, I would like to reveal in advance that Aitaji later became Wei Lue's wife. Of course, she was not Wei Lue's only woman. This was arranged by Baozhu Faluo.

Wei Lue also accepted this woman who was 17 years older than him, and Aitaji did become Wei Lue's good wife. Although it was a melodrama, this was the tradition of the grassland people at that time.

After talking about the second car, let's talk about the third car. The driver is called Wei Zhen, and the car is loaded with tents, dry food and other supplies. Wei Zhen is Wei Lue's brother, and one of the four Wei Hu raised by Tao Zhongwen in Wei Yong's home. Wei Lue is a Di people, Wei Zhen is a Qiang people, and the other two Wei Mou and Wei Jun are Xiongnu people. We will talk about these two later, and here we will only talk about Wei Zhen.

Wei Lue has appeared on screen several times, so there is no need to elaborate on him. He is a child with a mind far beyond his peers, calm and trustworthy, which is the result of Tao Zhongwen's special training. Wei Zhen's personality is quite different, or Tao Zhongwen's training direction for Wei Zhen is quite different from Wei Lue's.

Wei Zhen is a cheerful and friendly child. To put it bluntly, he is very outgoing, but the key point is that this child has a spirit of never admitting defeat.

The last carriage was driven by a eunuch named Zhou Bo. He was the adopted son of Chief Steward Zhou. His strength and skills were unknown. Although Li Yi did not feel any evil energy from him, he was definitely the same as Chief Steward Zhou.

In the car sat Yuan Ziyi and Liu Ruyun. Yuan Ziyi's heavenly tribulation was one of the main tasks of this trip to the Western Regions. She was currently in the middle stage of the fourth rank, practicing swordsmanship, and had supernatural powers. The key was that she was interested in Li Yi. Liu Ruyun was familiar with her. She practiced martial arts and swordsmanship, and also practiced Confucianism. In terms of strength, she was also a master at the peak of the fourth rank, and had many years of experience in the martial arts world.

At the end of the convoy was a single rider, his name was Zhang Biao, the commander of the imperial guards, a newly promoted fourth-rank official. Apart from being a rear guard, his main job along the way was to teach Wei Lue and Wei Zhen martial arts. Yu Jiu would often go to join in the fun and learn some interesting things.

It is more than 3,000 miles from the capital Luoyang to Guazhou, an important border town of the Northern Wei Dynasty. It is a long journey. Starting from Wuwei, you can feel the increase in the number of Qiang and Di people and mixed races. After passing Zhangye, there are fewer people from the Central Plains. Before leaving Yumen Pass, it was still the style of the Wei Kingdom. There was no need to sleep in the open air, and the caravan was moving normally.

Beyond Yumen Pass is the garrison territory of the Zhenbei Army. The local customs and scenes are more like grasslands. Except for towns, people basically live in tents, and the journey has become slower.

On this trip to the Western Regions, Li Yi had three main tasks: Yuan Ziyi's tribulation; going to Buzhou Mountain to find Chang'e; and the most important one was the task given to him by the Heavenly Dao, worshipping Zoroastrianism. This task was given to him after the battle with Zhai Baishan before, but he had delayed doing it because he went to Nanliang, so he couldn't delay it this time.

Speaking of Zoroastrianism, before the Li family moved from Shangjing to Zhongdu Luoyang, he went to the Vajra Temple to look for Zhengyuan, because their master, the Laughing Lion Arhat, came from the grassland to the Middle Earth. Deli had been reincarnated and no one knew where he had gone. He wanted to find out the news, so he could only ask his two senior brothers Zhengyuan and Zhengjue for a general idea.

From what they said, when Laughing Lion Arhat crossed the sea to the east, the whole world was in chaos, and there were wars everywhere, including on the grasslands. Laughing Lion Arhat wanted to dissuade them and preach, but ended up fighting with the high priest of Zoroastrianism. The key is that he never fought!

It is said that the high priest of Zoroastrianism would use a black flame which was not very hot but could burn everything. Even the golden body of Arhat could not withstand it. It was very powerful.

It is said that Li Yi's master, the Laughing Lion Arhat, ranks eighth in strength among the Eighteen Arhats of Buddhism. Since we have mentioned the Eighteen Arhats, let me give a brief introduction here.