Chang Sun Ze's evaluation caused dissatisfaction among a number of the original generals of the Tang Dynasty, but everything he said was true. If you lead troops on the front line of the battlefield, you will know how powerful the soldiers in the mountains of Sichuan are.
The reason why they didn't show it originally was because they were not trustworthy, so they were not given the weapons that the Tang army should have. They were only given some cold weapons, so their combat effectiveness was not brought into play. Apart from their fearless enthusiasm, they had no other advantages.
However, when these people got the standard weapons of the Tang Dynasty army, they immediately became different. The spirit of fearlessness on the battlefield remained, and they were very focused during training. This was mainly because they had to fight hard. Only by fighting hard to gain military merits could their families live a better life. Otherwise, they could only continue to live a hard life. They were different from other Tang Dynasty soldiers.
The other Tang soldiers have been in the army for more than a year. Thanks to the generous military pay over the years, their families have lived a good life, but the soldiers in the mountains have to start all over again. Fortunately, the Tang army will not erase their merits. As long as you have made contributions to the Tang court, these merits will be converted into money and official positions. No one will suffer, so now their lives are getting better and better.
This is like a mutually reinforcing thing. When their lives are good, they want to keep everything even more. Then when the Tang Dynasty encounters war, they will rush forward even more recklessly. As long as the Tang Dynasty court still exists, their family's life will get better and better.
"If you all have no objections, then starting next month, the chieftains' army and our army will also receive the same salary. Previously, there was a 20% gap, which was also to test them properly. Now this gap cannot exist."
No one else had any objection to Li Xiang's proposal. The military composition of the Tang Empire was too complicated. Tuyuhun was the first one we captured, but their army still received 80% of the salary.
Because there are still many gaps between Tubo and Tubo on the land of Tuyuhun, and since we haven't defeated you for so many years, you people cannot enjoy the salary of Tang soldiers. We can give you 80% of the salary because of your past merits, otherwise it would be at most 60%.
Next are the Turkic and Xueyantuo soldiers. They surrendered relatively early, but did not make many contributions on the battlefield. At most, they were just some guard troops, so their salary was only about 70%, and sometimes it might be even less.
As for the soldiers from the Western Regions, their wages were even lower, generally around 50%, and their food and drink would also be reduced. After all, they had only surrendered for a relatively short time, and even deserters were found in their barracks.
Of course, the people who spend the least money and are the most efficient are the Fuso people. These people only get 20% to 30% of the salary, but they can do one to three times the work without any complaints. As long as these people work for the Tang Dynasty court, they are all very excited.
People are not here to ask for money, they are here to ask for points. According to the regulations of the Tang Dynasty court, as long as you have enough points, you can enjoy the identity of half a Tang Dynasty person. Of course, this opportunity is very rare. Even if you work hard all your life, you may only be able to accumulate enough points to meet the standard, but it is more likely that you will not reach the standard.
The reason why Li Xiang formulated this plan was to motivate the people of Fuso and Goguryeo to strive, and he would introduce one or two people who met the standards every year and use them as propaganda targets to fool them, but more people, even ninety-nine percent of them, would not have such an opportunity.
However, it is obvious that Li Xiang's deception strategy is very effective. So far, whether it is the Fuso people or the Goguryeo people, they have only one goal in their minds, that is to add their own points. Only by adding their own points can their descendants become real Tang people, rather than so-called colonial people.
This name was also proposed by Li Xiang recently. Although all people are not divided into different levels on the surface, everyone has a level in their hearts. The reason why Li Xiang did not divide them openly is that he was afraid of confrontation between different levels, so he adopted a more obscure method.
However, Li Xiang's approach was different from that of other feudal dynasties. Other feudal dynasties would assign you a rank and not allow you to skip levels without permission. But that didn't matter to Li Xiang. He could arrange a path for you to rise, but it would be extremely difficult. How difficult was it? The success rate was only about 0.1%.
But even so, the people in the colonies were very happy because they had a superficial channel. As long as they worked hard for the Tang army, made contributions to the Tang court, and shared the worries of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, then although we might not be able to become Tang people, our descendants definitely could. When people died in battle, the points would be directly inherited by a male in their family, which was also very good.
Therefore, on the battlefield in Vietnam, countless Fuso and Goguryeo people sacrificed their lives one after another, just so that one day their descendants could become ordinary citizens of the Tang Dynasty, and not have to work hard in Fuso and Goguryeo and never get ahead in their lives.
After talking about the things here, Li Xiang suddenly remembered the things in the Western Regions. You know, the war here has been going on for half a year, and there should be some new situations in the Western Regions. The Arab Empire sent so many troops, but did not fight with us. I wonder what level their war in the West has reached.
When Li Xiang asked this question, no one knew how to answer. After all, the Western Regions were too far away from us. News only arrived once every two months, and the news from two months ago was still there. The entire Western Regions were slowly recovering. As for the situation in the Arab Empire, since the intelligence personnel had not been there long, they had not been able to gather much useful information...
