Just when Li Xiang was drunk, General Feng Chucai finally arrived at the city of Samarkand.
He could hardly believe that the city before him was the largest city in Central Asia and the seat of the Anton Governorate of the Arab Empire.
The entire city was almost ablaze. No one, including the local gentry who led them here, had expected the entire city to become like this.
It turned out that after they left, a lot of Arab defeated soldiers in the desert came over. These people had almost exhausted all their strength to reach the city of Samarkand. They didn't care who the city belonged to. As long as there were still people here, they had to go in and rob, and then take away everything they could.
When they first arrived, there were only a few hundred people, so the people in the city didn't take them seriously. They formed a city defense team and killed all those few hundred people. But later, more and more people came, and now there are more than five thousand people.
At the most critical moment, everyone was able to burst out their fighting power. Even though these people had run from the desert and had no strength left in their bodies, when they learned that their family members in the city had been killed, these people immediately summoned up their last bit of strength and showed the power of Arab soldiers.
So the whole city was engulfed in flames, and many people inside were killed. You could smell the blood even when you stood outside the city. Can you imagine what the situation was like in the city?
Feng Chucai didn't have time to sigh here, and immediately ordered his men to enter the city. No matter whether they were local civilians or remnants of the Arab Empire, as long as they saw someone killing or setting fire, they would be shot to death immediately.
He still understands that severe punishments are needed in troubled times. If you try to reason with these people, you might not even be able to save your own life. So in this situation, you have to kill them first to let them know that we are not joking.
After two days and two nights of killing, the fire was finally extinguished. There were less than 30,000 people in the entire city, which was one-tenth of the original population. After all kinds of catastrophes, a wealthy city became like this.
The Tang army originally wanted to take over this city, but no one expected that they would take over a deserted city. Various armies had been looting here for several days. If you could still snatch anything, it would be really difficult.
In this situation, Feng Chu ordered the entire Tang army to withdraw from the city and set up camp on the edge of the city. If they stayed inside, who knows what would happen with so many dead ghosts.
As for the common people here, we can only let them fend for themselves. According to some military documents, this city is probably unusable and most of it has been destroyed. If we want to establish a military base here, we can only rebuild it. There are not many usable things here, but there are a large number of dead bodies everywhere.
It makes sense to think about it. Ninety percent of the people in the city are missing, about half have escaped, and the remaining forty percent have died in the city. If you want to clean up the city, you don't know how much effort it will take.
So in this situation, it is better to rebuild a city, which is much better than putting all the effort into this city. Of course, the most terrible thing is that after the war, apart from human resources, we did not get much gold, silver and treasures of various kinds. I don’t know how many times the whole city has been robbed.
However, the Anton Governor's Mansion is very large, and there are other tribes around it. Their warriors died on the battlefield, and there is still a lot of social wealth left. As long as our support troops arrive, Feng Chucai will arrange his soldiers to go out in groups to rob the surrounding areas.
Although this place has become the territory of the Tang Dynasty from now on, your tribe once sent troops to fight against the Tang Dynasty. It is no problem to fine you a certain amount of money. If you pay the money, your tribe can continue to survive here. But if you can't pay, don't blame us for being rude.
In short, one thing is to leave them with the necessities of life, and all the remaining assets should be handed over to the Tang Empire. When engaging in any foreign war, the losses must never be taken on one's own head.
This was also the rule set by Li Xiang earlier. He told everyone what happened in the last years of Emperor Wu of Han. We can afford the losses of a war, but if we are responsible for the losses of every war, no matter how rich the Tang Empire is, it will not be able to hold on in the end. So in the current situation, no matter what the other party wants, no matter how big their demands are, we must take away all their remaining supplies. This is also a mandatory requirement and no one can refute it.
Many civil servants opposed Li Xiang's words at the beginning, but after many wars, these civil servants shut their mouths. If they can bear the loss, then you can do whatever you want.
But if you can't afford it, then you have to choose to shut your mouth. Every link in the Tang Empire is very tense, and there is not that much extra money to pay for the war.
Of course, it is too early to bring up this matter now. We don’t have many soldiers in the local area, especially around General Feng. There are many rioters everywhere. He must pacify these people first, otherwise the local war will continue. This is already our Tang Dynasty, and we will never allow the killing to continue.
After receiving this news, Cheng Chuliang and others were also depressed.
We have made all the preparations, but we are not prepared for not receiving a penny. The Arab Empire has once again refreshed their cognition. We have had various enemies in the past, but after the war, we have always been able to make up the military expenses immediately, but this time is obviously an exception.
The people of the Arab Empire were like a group of locusts. Wherever they went, there was not much surplus value at all. Especially after being defeated in the war, they took away almost everything they could. If they could not take away, they would destroy it on the spot.
There is almost nothing left, including the entire city, so when we fight with the people of the Arab Empire in the future, we must not give them any chance to breathe. After defeating them, we must immediately occupy the city, otherwise our military funds will still be nowhere to be found.
