Daqin: Zulong's Traveling Frog

Chapter 301 Destiny
"The name of Loulan first appeared in the "Historical Records." According to the records related to Loulan in the "Historical Records", the country of Loulan existed at least before the 2nd century.

The Central Plains regime did not know the existence of Loulan before. One reason was that Loulan was a very small country, and the other reason was that compared to the Xiongnu who fought bravely and posed a certain threat to the Central Plains dynasty, Loulan's presence was relatively small. Low.

Loulan's growing sense of presence began when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made the determination to attack the Xiongnu.Although the country of Loulan is small in area, its location is very important.

Loulan is located in "the only place where exchanges between the Western Han Dynasty and various countries in the Western Regions must pass." The important geographical location, and there must be a battle between the Western Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu, made the Western Han Dynasty begin to pay attention to Loulan.

Before it was discovered in the Western Han Dynasty, Loulan was a powerful country among the 36 countries in the Western Regions relying on its unique geographical location and excellent business capabilities.Loulan is located in the eastern part of the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang today. It is connected to Dunhuang in the east, and you can go to Yanqi (an ancient country in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang) and Yuli (located in central Xinjiang) in the northwest.

If you go southwest, you can go to Ruoqiang (now the county under the jurisdiction of the Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) and Qiemo (now the southern part of the Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region).According to the records of "Han Shu", the clothes worn by the people of Loulan Kingdom are probably the same as those of the people of the Han Dynasty.The king of Loulan Kingdom believed in Buddhism and knew about Hinayana.

In "Journey to the West", Xuanzang, the prototype character of Tang Seng, gave a simple description of the geographical location of Loulan Kingdom at the end of his travels.

"From then on, we traveled northeast for more than a thousand miles to the homeland of Nabobo, which is the land of Loulan." Loulan, which originally occupied an extremely advantageous geographical location, probably did not expect that the geographical location that originally brought a lot of economic benefits to itself would eventually harm it. He had to face the war.

Because the Loulan Kingdom is small, it basically depends on the Xiongnu for survival.When the Western Han Dynasty did not fight the Xiongnu, the two sides lived in peace, but once the Western Han Dynasty wanted to attack the Xiongnu, it would be difficult to survive if they could neither defeat the Xiongnu nor Loulan in the Western Han Dynasty.

Since she was relatively close to the Xiongnu at that time, Loulan initially chose to be the Xiongnu's eyes and ears, but after the Western Han Dynasty sent troops to attack, she expressed her allegiance to the Han.

"(Loulan) sometimes became the eyes and ears of the Xiongnu, and sometimes belonged to the Han." Loulan lacked enough force to protect itself, and it was difficult to truly obtain complete national sovereignty.

At that time, the power of the Western Han Dynasty was extremely strong. Although the small countries in the Western Regions could not compete with the Western Han Dynasty, some countries still chose to go to the Central Plains to rob supplies when they were short of supplies.

In order to attack the Xiongnu more smoothly in the future, and also because of Loulan's sloppy behavior, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered General Zhao Polu to lead tens of thousands of soldiers to attack the two countries of Loulan and Gushi.

The Western Han Dynasty troops with strong national strength, strong soldiers and horses, and powerful combat capabilities, under the leadership of General Zhao Ponu, successively attacked Loulan and Gushi. Not only did they successfully complete the tasks assigned by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but they also directly captured King Loulan.

The powerful combat capability of the Han Dynasty army deterred Wusun, Dayuan and other countries in the Western Region to a certain extent.After capturing King Loulan alive, facing questioning from the Western Han Dynasty, King Loulan said bitterly that it was not easy for a small country to survive among big countries.It's not that I want to waver, but I have to do it for the survival of the country.

Emperor Wu of Han, who felt that what King Loulan said was reasonable, chose to let King Loulan go back because he "understood his situation".After breaking Loulan, considering that his ultimate goal was the Xiongnu, he deliberately informed the Xiongnu of this news, which made the Xiongnu less close to Loulan later.

Loulan, who was conquered by the Western Han Dynasty, gave priority to telling the Western Han Dynasty the news when King Loulan died, and the Xiongnu and the Western Han Dynasty each had a Loulan proton.

If the proton in the Western Han Dynasty can successfully succeed to the throne, then Loulan will naturally become closer to the Western Han Dynasty in the future.It is a pity that Western Han misunderstood Loulan's meaning and did not agree to let Loulan's proton go back.

"Later, King Loulan died again, and the Huns rushed to send Loulan's proton back to the country to ascend the throne." There was no other choice but to establish a new king, Loulan.

After learning the news, the Xiongnu quickly sent back the Loulan proton they had there.Proton, who grew up in the Huns, naturally became closer to the Huns.

Under the instructions of the new King Loulan, Loulan began to intercept the envoys of the Han Dynasty who were on their way to envoys.Unable to bear it anymore, the Western Han Dynasty sent troops to attack Loulan again. After killing the King of Loulan, he directly gave up the hostage of Loulan in the Western Han Dynasty to become the King of Loulan.After that, in order to facilitate future management, the Western Han Dynasty changed Loulan's name to Shanshan, and specially sent troops to garrison to protect Loulan's safety.

Under the dual management of policy and military, there has been no further disturbance in Loulan.Since then, Loulan, who has ushered in a better life, is still developing herself slowly and managing herself very well even when the Central Plains fell into chaos.

Taking advantage of the war situation in the Central Plains, the Loulan Kingdom successively annexed many countries including "Raoqiang, Xiaowan, Jingjue, and Qiemo".

The powerful country among the original 36 countries has gradually become one of the seven powerful countries in the Western Regions.Because of the many benefits gained from friendship with the Central Plains, Loulan has always attached great importance to contacts with the Central Plains.When the Central Plains fell into chaos during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Loulan bowed down to the Cao Wei regime, Western Jin Dynasty, Northern Liang and many other regimes.

In the period of Fu Jian in the former Qin Dynasty, King Shanshan also expressed very actively that he was willing to be the guide of Fu Jian's westward expedition.Later, after the Northern Wei Dynasty conquered Beiliang, Emperor Taiwu sent General Wan Dugui to go west.

Because General Wan Dugui let his subordinates commit no crime, the people of Shanshan were very moved. Wang Zhijie of Shanshan voluntarily went out of the city gate and surrendered when he was really unable to fight with force.

Since then, Shanshan has become one of the many inland counties, and the Shanshan Kingdom has since perished.It is not difficult to see from Loulan's development that although Loulan is not strong in force, his ability to assess the situation is very strong. When other countries are fighting to the death, Loulan is still able to survive alone.Therefore, the main reason why Loulan disappeared later was actually due to changes in the ecological environment.

"A large number of trees that are already rare have been cut down, making the already deteriorating local environment worse." The environment, which was originally sharply harsh due to climate change, has become more and more desertified under the further destruction of the people of Loulan.When it was finally impossible to survive here, the people of Loulan had to abandon the original Loulan City and move all of them to the south.

"(Ancient Loulan) is one of the most desolate areas in Xinjiang." The once prosperous ancient Loulan country was eventually abandoned by people because of the drastic changes in the climate and environment and the people's failure to improve the local ecological environment in time.

The ancient Loulan Kingdom was destroyed by the Northern Wei Dynasty's attack. Unable to compete with force, Loulan Kingdom was willing to surrender.After the surrender, the reason why the ancient Loulan Kingdom disappeared was due to the rapid desertification of the land.The unlivable environment forced the Loulan people to abandon Loulan City and migrate collectively to the south.

(End of this chapter)