Chapter 41 The crisis caused by drinking alcohol!

Li’s ancestral home - under the dragon scale cypress tree.

Li Zhao and Cui Zongzhi sat opposite each other, their eyes full of fighting spirit. There were dozens of wine jars of various sizes, and two blue and white sea bowls next to them... In this situation, we naturally have to fight for wine!

Cui Zongzhi has already experienced Li Zhao's alcohol tolerance. It is quite powerful. The three of them are probably not the opponent.

Therefore, this time I changed my new way of playing, no longer comparing the amount of alcohol, but comparing the level of alcohol culture.

The two of them prepared more than a dozen kinds of fine wines, removed the logo on the wine jar, and asked the other party to taste it, guess the name and year of the wine, and recite a poem, which must be related to the wine they drank.

This new way of playing is not only fun, but also difficult. Those who are not addicted to alcohol and are not talented!

The competition begins.

Cui Zongzhi poured a bowl of wine first, which was as beautiful as jade and had a strong fragrance, and signaled Li Zhao to come and taste it!

"Lanling wine - three years old - Lanling wine tulips, jade bowl holds amber light, but the owner can get drunk with guests and don't know where it is a foreign land."

Li Zhao took a sip and guessed the name of the wine. This is a wine made of glutinous rice and has a very good taste. It is said that the poetic immortal - Li Bai likes this wine very much!

Next, Li Zhao poured a bowl of wine, which turned into bamboo green and had a faint fragrance of flowers.

"Xinfeng wine - eight years old - Xinfeng wine fights ten thousand, Xianyang's ranger has been there for many years, and weeping willows are drunk with each other, and weeping willows are all horses and tall buildings!" Cui Zongzhi took a sip and also gave the answer.

In the first round, both sides tied!

continue!

"Wine - newly brewed - grape wine luminous cup, you can drink the pipa immediately, don't laugh at me when you lie drunk on the battlefield, how many people have returned from war in ancient times?"

"Du Kang wine—Ten years of old—how can we relieve worries? Only Du Kang!"

"Amber wine - six years old - Lu wine is like amber, Wenyu purple brocade scales!"

...

To put it short, an hour passed and dozens of jars of wine had been tasted. The two of them still had no choice but to win or lose. This is really a match for the opponent and a good talent.

"Yulang's alcohol content, wine taste, and talent are really admirable. But, I still have a kind of wine here. If Yulang can taste it, you will win this game... Come and get the wine!" Cui Zongzhi asked his servants to bring a kind of wine, but it was not in a jar, but in a cowhide wine bag.

Generally speaking, only nomadic peoples use skin bags to hold wine.

Poured in a sea bowl, the wine is light yellow and there are some grain residues floating on it. It looks like it is not rice, wheat, nor sorghum, buckwheat, corn... What exactly is it?

Li Zhao smelled the taste and tasted it for two more bites. He felt that it was sweet, sour, spicy, and bitter, and there was a faint milky aroma, but he didn't know what kind of wine it was?

But, the taste of this wine makes me feel familiar... Li Zhao closed his eyes and thought.

"Yulang, if you don't have it, just admit defeat. In fact, it's not embarrassing to lose. This kind of wine is rare in the world, and I can't guess it." Cui Zongzhi was very proud and thought he was sure to win.

...

On the other side, Li Zhao thought about it for about a cup of tea, suddenly opened his eyes and his eyes shining.

"Cat slave, if I guess correctly, is this wine produced in Tubo in the southwest?"

"How did you guess? It's right? This was a few months ago, a group of Tubo merchants sold them to Chang'an City in camel brigades. They sold them on the western market for a long time... Do you know the name of this wine?"

"I know, this is called barley wine. It is brewed with a plant called barley. It is a variant of barley. It has strong cold resistance, short growth period, high yield and premature maturity... It is very suitable for planting in plateau areas, and it is brewed with snow-capped water to make wine. It will not drink too much, and it will not sober up, sober up quickly, and it is suitable for both men and women!"

Before traveling through time, when Li Zhao was traveling to Tibet, he was fortunate to drink purely hand-made barley wine in the herdsmen's tent several times. Although it was slightly different from what he drank now, the wonderful taste was not wrong.

The wine tasted, but the poetry is difficult!

You should know that in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty, when Princess Wencheng married Tubo far away, she brought the brewing technology of the Han area over, and Tubo people began to use barley to make wine, and it has been less than a hundred years since then.

The time when barley wine flowed from Tubo to the Tang Dynasty was shorter. It was just in recent years. The poets of the Tang Dynasty had no time to sigh for such strange wine. What should I do without poetry in this regard?

If you can't recite the poem, you can only be considered a tie.

Li Zhao racked his brains to think... There is, there was no before the Tang Dynasty, but in the future, I will be the copycat.

The scenery is coming to the west, and the depression is in the distance;

The water Qiang tribe has the mountains and the Han territories.

A few places of barley are ripe, and the white rain is hurt.

Who is guarding the deserted city? Nine out of ten houses died!

...

"Okay, okay, Yulang Dacai, Brother Yu is really convinced this time!" Cui Zongzhi stretched out his thumbs with both hands, his eyes were full of little stars, and he was almost asking for an autograph with Li Zhao.

You know, in Chang'an City, our little Duke of Qi is also a leading figure among young heroes. It is really not easy for him to say something he admires!

"How can I admire the matter in the cup? However, wars in the southwest border are about to begin. I don't know how many soldiers will die on the battlefield, and the horses are covered with corpses!"

"Oh, why did Yulang say this?"

Cui Zongzhi was a little confused. Why did he talk about barley wine involve war?

What's more, since Zi ascended the throne today, the relationship between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo was quite friendly. There had been no wolf smoke in the southwest border for many years. How could there be a sudden war?

"It's very simple. After the Tubo people occupied the snowy plateau, they kept peeking at the Hexi Corridor and the four towns of Anxi, intending to take it into their own pocket, and then cut off the connection between the Tang Dynasty and the countries of the Western Regions to achieve the goal of dominating the southwest.

The reason why we have not been able to do it for a long time is that our Tang Dynasty has strong national strength and stationed heavily in the southwest border, and its defense is like iron-clad; the second is that the Tubo people's living environment is harsh and agricultural production is backward, so it is difficult to accumulate strong national strength and cannot use troops to the outside world in large quantities!

Besides, the output of barley wine has always been very rare. Only Tubo Dazanpu and the great nobles can enjoy it. But now it is sold to the Tang Dynasty by Tubo merchants in large quantities. What does this mean?

This shows that in recent years, the Tubo people have attached great importance to agricultural production and have achieved a bumper harvest of grain. While raising the military and civilians, they also have the remaining grain for large amounts of wine and are sold to the outside world. The Tubo people have always been brave and good at fighting, have excellent weapons, and now they have sufficient food. Will they still stick to their own affairs?

Look, it takes two or three years to slow down, and one or two years to fast, the Tubo people will definitely launch large-scale troops, and their target of attack must be here - Hexi Corridor!"

Li Zhao picked up a small number fork and drew a topographic map of the Tang Empire on the ground. Although it looked small, it was still true. He focused on the Hexi Corridor twice.

"This place is located west of the Yellow River, sandwiched between the Qilian Mountains and Heli Mountains and Longshou Mountains. It is about 1,000 miles long from east to west, and several miles wide from north to south to more than 100 miles. It is shaped like a corridor, so it is called the "Hexi Corridor."

From the terrain, it is like a shoulder pole, carrying the innermost part of the Central Plains in the southeast and the Western Regions countries in the northwest. The military value is extremely important. Once the Tubo people captured this place, it is equivalent to breaking the shoulder pole. It can eat the Western Regions countries in the northwest and connect it with the Turks. It can directly hit the hinterland of Guanzhong in the southeast, and even threaten the security of Chang'an City..."

Li Zhao talked freely through the drunkenness, while Cui Zongzhi was sweating profusely and frowned.

You should know that since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, in order to compete for land in the west, there have been many wars with Tubo. As a result, not only did they not gain any advantage, but they also suffered several major losses.

For example, in the first year of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, in the Battle of Dafeichuan, a famous general Xue Rengui led 100,000 Tang troops to fight, but ended up being ambushed by the Tubo people and almost destroyed the entire army.

In the third year of Emperor Gaozong and Yifeng, in the Battle of Qinghai Lake, the entire 180,000 Tang troops were destroyed, and the chief general Liu Shenli was captured and died in Tubo.

In the first year of the Zetian Emperor - the first year of Tongtian - the battle of Taozhou, the Tang army was defeated in front of Suluhan Mountain, and more than 100,000 were killed in battle. The corpse was high and Tianqi.

...

They were defeated repeatedly and suffered heavy casualties, which made the monarchs and ministers of the Tang Dynasty disliked and could not sleep or eat!

To be fair, the reason why the Tang army suffered repeated defeats was not because the soldiers were incompetent or were afraid of death, because they were really affected by many objective factors: First, the Tubo people were condescending and occupied favorable terrain, while the Tang army attacked from the bottom to the top, invisibly suffered a great loss. In addition, the road was far away and difficult to move, and logistics transportation became a big problem.

If the supply of weapons and food is not enough, no matter how elite the army is, it will inevitably suffer a defeat.

Second, the air on the plateau is thin and the weather is changing. Sometimes it is windy, sometimes it rains, sometimes it is hail... Tubo people live on the plateau all year round, so naturally they don’t care about these things.

But the Tang army was not successful. In harsh environments, most of the soldiers fell ill before the war even started. The combat effectiveness was seriously affected and they could not even lift swords and guns. So how can they fight?

Of course, another important reason is that a war god was born among the Tubo people at that time - Lun Qinling!

This man is the son of Lu Dongzan, a famous prime minister of Tubo. He is extremely smart, both civil and military, and has strong command ability. Since he led the army, he has never been defeated in the battlefield for 30 years. He is the most troublesome enemy of the Tang Empire. He has been defeated by him many times, and even the four towns of Anxi almost fell into the hands of this man.

Fortunately, Empress Zetian was skillful and used a small trick of disagreement to make the Tubo war god die at his own hands, otherwise the Tang Dynasty would have a headache!

Nowadays, if the Tubo people make a comeback, whether the Tang border troops can win the battle and whether the Hexi Corridor can hold on to it is probably still unknown. Even if they hold on to it, they will probably have to accumulate like mountains and blood flow into rivers.

When the Tang Dynasty fought bloody battles with Tubo, the Turks, Tuyuhun, Dangxiang, Nanzhao, Khitan... When the tribes attacked the enemy, they would be dangerous.

Thinking of this, Cui Zongzhi frowned and lost his mind to drink!

Seeing this, Li Zhao hurriedly comforted the good friend: "The cat slaves don't have to be so worried. Although the Tubo people are strong and dominate the southwest, they also have three major weaknesses. As long as they grasp these weaknesses, they can make them turmoil without fighting and resolve the war invisibly!"

"Oh, please let Yu Lang say clearly, what are the weaknesses of the Tubo people? How can they grasp these weaknesses? If the Tubo people can really make themselves turmoil without fighting and resolve the war invisibly, then Yu Lang will have great merits. I will definitely call the emperor to reward you with heavy rewards, high officials and generous salaries, and jewelry and beauties! "

Cui Zongzhi raised his ears, wanting to hear what Li Zhao could do to put a powerful country in civil strife?

(End of this chapter)
Chapter completed!