The first snow in Bashang Grassland this year was a few days earlier than last year. It also scored extremely heavy! Just the first snow turned the world into a vast white patch. The cold wind swept over, and the snowflakes that had not frozen on the grassland flew up like fog. Several rivers flowing through the Bashang Grassland also formed a thin layer of ice. Occasionally, you can hear the crackling sound from the river, which is the ice layer being thicker!

At this time, most of the Khitan herdsmen on the grassland concentrated in the valleys on the northern foot of the Yanshan Mountains to avoid the cold.

The plan to resettle Khitan herdsmen and knights on the Bashang Grassland and Korqin Grassland has not been completed yet. Now the grassland has been preliminarily divided and the location for the construction of the fortress has been determined. As for the construction of the fortress, it is a major project and it will not be fully completed in a few years.

Before the wall that can withstand the cold wind in winter was built, the Khitan herdsmen had to go to the valleys in the Yanshan Mountains to avoid the cold. The valleys that provided them with cold were not a warm place to go in Wu Haogu's opinion. They were also extremely cold!

However, compared to the extremely cold on the grassland, the valley is still much warmer and comfortable. At least it can help the elderly and weak herdsmen and most livestock survive the bleak disaster in winter.

It is difficult for people who live in later generations and are used to warm climates to imagine what the extreme cold on the northern grasslands during the Little Ice Age is like.

It’s just early winter now, and there is already a piece of ice and snow on the grassland, with a little bit of snow falling from thousands of miles away and frozen from thousands of miles away. However, what Wu Haogu thought of at this time was indeed not a poem full of revolutionary romanticism, but "Winter is coming."

You should know that the Bashang Grassland north of Yanshan is still very warm compared to the northern desert grassland. The cold winter that most grassland tribes have to face is more terrifying than the winter in the Bashang Grassland!

This cold weather will be the biggest enemy the Great Zhou Republic will face in the next one or two hundred years!

Because of the extreme cold, the nomadic and fishing and hunting peoples in the north will continue to move south to find a warm living environment. The territory currently occupied by the Great Zhou is just the gateway to protect the Central Plains.

At the same time, this extreme cold will greatly limit the Republican army's combat operations in the north, and will also prevent the Republican army from establishing rule on the grasslands in the north for a long time. This will turn the war in the north into a long and protracted war.

From a certain perspective, the Great Zhou Republic and Wu Haogu are the "night watchmen" in the Chinese world.

As a "commander-in-chief of the Night Watch Legion" who was a prophet, Wu Haogu knew very well that in this long struggle, time was on the side of the Great Zhou Republic.

The Great Zhou Republic, which has the dual blessing of the Age of Discovery and Capitalism, will inevitably become stronger and stronger. The ultimate future of the nomadic, fishing and hunting nations in the north is only to join the big family of the Chinese nation.

It is to join, not to conquer!

But in the short term, the strategic initiative is in the hands of the barbarians in the north.

Now is the Little Ice Age! The frozen barbarians in the north have enough motivation to move south, but the Han people living in a warm environment have no need to go north.

Moreover, Wu Haogu has opened the prelude to the Age of Discovery. Compared with the cold northern grasslands, the overseas world is much more exciting.

The Great Zhou Republic cannot leave the overseas world alone and use all its financial and material resources to fight against the barbarians in the north. This may be very passionate, but it is really irrational.

Therefore, the current northern policy of the Great Zhou Dynasty is a very complex combination of punches, and military means are only one of them. Allied, missionary, trade, investment, marriage, bribery and other means can be used when it is time to use them.

This time, Wu Haogu led more than 10,000 cavalry from the First Cavalry Division to Wujiakou to make an appointment with Wanyan Aguda Alliance.

In the past few months, the relationship between Zhou and Jin has become very tense because the Great Zhou Dynasty brought Dong Liao under the protection of the Great Liao Dynasty.

Aguda even threatened to gather the grassland tribes to seek the treacherous Zhou.

Wu Haogu was not willing to be outdone. He not only ordered the Senate to pass the "Dongliao Protection Law" and regarded any invasion of the Eastern Liao as an invasion of the Great Zhou territory! He also issued a Class B mobilization order to expand the "duty" troops to 10 divisions.

However, these are not the most troublesome thing for Agu. The ace sacrificed by the Great Zhou was to send an expedition fleet, carrying the edict of Empress Dowager Xiao and a large number of weapons and cloth, starting from Busan, Andong Prefecture, passing through Bohai Island (Hokkaido), Koshu Island (Sakhalin Island), entering the Huntong River mouth, and finally arrived at the Nuergan City, which theoretically surrendered to the Great Liao Kingdom.

Then he played the sign of the Great Liao Beihai King's Mansion in Nuergan City, and deployed a battalion of Marines in Nuergan City (most of the soldiers were yellow-headed Jurchens). At the same time, he also sent silver angels to reward various barbarians on the lower reaches of the Huntong River and the Cave Stories Island, to win over and preach.

After some operation, the lower reaches of the Huntong River and the Kushuo Island, which were originally in a power vacuum, have now become the territory of the Great Zhou and Dongliao.

This is not a joke!

The Qilie in the lower reaches of the river and the Kushuo Island area is charming. The Kushuo people, like the Jurchens, all came from the Hei Shui Mori, but they were even more barbaric, so they were known as the savage Jurchens. Even the Jurchens born in Aguda had a headache when they saw them.

If these savage Jurchens were attracted and supported by Wu Haogu, then the backyard of the Great Jin Kingdom would catch fire. In the original history, the savage Jurchens's Cave said that the tribe often crossed the sea to rob in the early days of the Yuan Dynasty, which gave Kublai Khan a headache!

The Great Zhou now has absolute control over the northern seas. The lower reaches of the Huntong River and the Cave Island, which are difficult for Dajin, are just three or four thousand miles of sea routes for Dazhou... In other words, Wu Haogu could have hired a savage Jurchen army to deal with the birth of Jurchen entrenched in the snowy field of Linhai!

So after being controlled by the "Great Liao" from the sea, Aguda immediately went south under the escort of 5,000 Jurchen cavalry, and made a request for a meeting to sign a contract with Wu Haogu.

...

The meeting place between the elders of the two sides chose to be in a sheltered valley near Yanzi City. A cowhide tent had been set up on the flat ground in the valley. In this small valley, there was also a small mirror-like lake. The lake had not yet frozen, and even the surrounding trees and grass still had a hint of green. Heavy snow fell and fell into the lake water, and disappeared.

There are two valley entrances in the valley, one leading to Yanzi City. Empress Dowager Xiao arranged thousands of cavalry there, and most of the iron-armored cavalry escorted Wu Haogu north were also stationed there. The order leads to Yuanyanglu, which is where Aguda's imperial tent is located.

Wu Haogu and Aguda each led 1,000 cavalry to meet in this valley. At this time, there were cavalry wearing thick winter clothes waiting everywhere outside the valley. Inside the valley, there were music and laughter in a large golden cowhide tent.

The head of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the emperor of the Great Jin Dynasty were eating and drinking while enjoying singing and dancing.

The performers of singing and dancing were more than a dozen yellow-haired women with plump and somewhat stunning appearances. They were not blondes like Oliga, but were the same as the Arhat maid. The Arhat maid himself was leading the dance, not a graceful dance, or a hunting dance for the Jurchens.

Aguda looked at the dance with a expressionless face. Wu Shu, who accompanied him, frowned slightly, and seemed a little dissatisfied.

Wu Haogu glanced at the two of them and said with a smile: "These women are all girls from the same clan of the Arhat maid, and they are all my slaves. If you have any of them you like, just take them away."

After hearing this, it was nothing to beat Agu, but Wanyan Wushu's face changed drastically. He lived in Tianjin for many years and knew that the Great Zhou still retained slavery! However, he was not allowed to turn free people with citizens and civilian status into slaves.

Therefore, there are very few slaves in the Great Zhou territory, basically all domestic slaves, mainly from Goryeo. It is rare for residents in the Great Zhou territory to become slaves - this situation usually occurs in a short period after being conquered in one place and before being officially incorporated into the territory of the Great Zhou Republic.

When Wu Haogu conquered the Jurchens of the Hosu Pavilion, he received the women dedicated by the leaders of the various departments of the Hosu Pavilion, and all of them were handed over to the Arhat Maid to manage and registered a slave.

Now, in front of Aguda and Wushu, letting these female slaves surnamed Wanyan perform dance, of course, have the intention to show their position - the belonging of the Juzhen in the Hesu Pavilion is also a dispute between the Great Zhou and the Great Jin.

Because the Jurchens in the Hosu Pavilion are one of the three Wanyan tribes and are distant relatives of the Wanyan tribe of the Hosu Pavilion, Aguda has always wanted to get them. However, Wu Haogu firmly opposed it and turned the Jurchens in the Hosu Pavilion into an important source of mercenaries in the Zhou Kingdom.

Even the Jurchens in the Hosu Pavilion surnamed Wanyan refused to give up. So what reason does Wu Haogu have to give up the savage Jurchens in the lower reaches of the river and the caves?

Agu laughed: "Our Dajin is not as rich as the Dazhou. It is a place of bitterness and coldness. Wouldn't it be a bitter and cold place to let these girls from the Hesu Pavilion go to Dajin? I'm afraid they don't want to do it themselves?"

"Aguda, you are the emperor now! And you are the co-lord of the grassland. Why are you more noble than me, the head of state? Why are they unwilling to do so?"

Aguda just shook his head and said with a smile: "We are just the leader of the tribal alliance, the emperor, etc., but just a false reputation. Moreover, Linhuang Mansion and Huanglong Mansion are really bitter and cold. We are old and cannot bear the suffering, so after this alliance, we will go to Datong Mansion to spend the winter. If Datong Mansion is not bad, we will retire in Datong Mansion in the future."

This time it was Wu Haogu's turn to frown. What does Aguda mean? Want to move westward to Datong Prefecture? Or Datong - running at both ends of Linhuang?

"Will Dajin take Datong as Xijing?" Wu Haogu asked.

Aguda nodded with a smile: "Yes, in the future, the Dajin will be the road of the two capitals, Linhuang Prefecture will be the road of Tokyo, and Datong Prefecture will be the road of the Xijing. From now on, the Dajin court will learn from the Liao people's court and go back and forth between the two capitals. You must pass by the Bashang Grassland, and ask the Dazhou Kingdom for convenience."

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Chapter completed!