The next day, Wang Dashan took out a list of nine people, and Vladimir Granath took out a list of three people.

Finally, Yekazelina Krimova, Wang Dashan and Vladimir Granath selected Zhang Haobo and Gao Yitong as the main and deputy officials, and led a team of 200 elite cadres and soldiers, and more than a dozen senior agents who were familiar with Afghan terrain and customs to form a sharp knife company and rushed to Kandahar.

In 1747 AD, Ahmed Khan, a Pashtun native, was elected as the supreme leader of the tribes of Kandahar. Ahmed Khan was renamed Ahmed Shah (meaning the emperor), and announced the establishment of the Dulani Dynasty and established the capital of Kandahar.

Later, Ahmed Shah's son Timur moved the capital to Kabul, but Kandahar has always been a commercial center and military center in southern Afghanistan. In addition to producing fruits, Kandahar is also an important supply base for Afghanistan cattle and mutton and a distribution center for wool.

Kandahar is located in southern Afghanistan and has an important geographical location. To the west, it is located at the intersection of highways in Kabul, Herat and Quetta (Pakistan), and its transportation status is very important.

It is also located in an oasis at an altitude of 1,000 meters at the northeast end of the Lezistan Desert, which is of great strategic significance.

Most of the residents of Kandahar are Pashtuns and Tajiks, and there are also a small number of Baloch people, with a population of about 210,000. Kandahar was originally built by Alexander the Great. It was destroyed by the Mongols in 1221. It was destroyed by Timur in the 14th century. It was incorporated into the rule of Babur in 1522. It became the capital of the Dulani Dynasty in 1747.

The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group of Afghanistan, also known as "Afghans". About tens of millions of people living in western Pakistan, accounting for 16% of Pakistan's total population, also known as the "Pathans".

The ethnic groups in southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. In Pashto language, they are the main ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Before the word "Afghan" refers to any ethnic group in Afghanistan in the early 21st century, Afghans were unique to Pashtuns.

The Pashtuns believed that they originated from Afghanistan and were descendants of a common ancestor. Some tribes moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the 13th to 16th centuries.

The Pashtuns were farming, grazing, and warlike. Most of the tribes were settled farmers, farming and engaged in animal husbandry. Some were migrant herders and horse gangs. Most of them were willing to serve in the military. It is estimated that the population of Pashtun in Afghanistan is about 7.5 million, and there are tens of millions in Pakistan. They formed about 60 tribes, of which are of different sizes and importance, and each occupied one area.

The Pashtuns belong to the Europa-based Indian Pamir type. The language belongs to the Eastern branch of the Indo-European Iranian tribe and is greatly influenced by the Indian tribe. There are many Arabic and Persian borrowing words, and there are also some ancient Iranian characteristics. Pashtuns are written in Arabic letters.

The Stampashtuns in Afghanistan are divided into two major branches: Dulani and Girzai, which are divided into several small tribes and tribal groups, and the leaders are king.

In 1747, Ahmedsha Dulani, the leader of the Dulani tribe, established the Dulani Dynasty and once formed a huge military empire.

Since then, the Dulani people have played an important role in domestic political life. The Pashtuns in Pakistan also retained the remnants of ethnic tribal organizations. Among them are more than ten ethnic groups, including Yusufzai, Afridi, Momanda, and Arakzai. The ancestors of the Pashtuns were nomadic peoples migrated from Central Asia to south of the Hindu Kush Mountains in centuries circulating around the 10th to the 11th century, some Pashtuns began to turn to farming.

About one-fifth of the Stampshtun people in Afghanistan still engage in seasonal nomadic economy, and most of them engage in irrigation agriculture. Most of the Pashtun people in Pakistan are settled farmers who are semi-agricultural and semi-annequinated.

Before Islam was introduced, the Pashtuns mainly believed in Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Around the 9th century AD, a Muslim named Ibn Kalam began to spread Sunni teachings. Later, he became the founder of the Karamiye Sect of Islam in Afghanistan. Since then, Islam began to spread in big cities and commercial centers.

In the 15th century, Herat had become the center of Islamic culture. Most of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan belong to the Sunni Hanaifi school. The Sunni sect is actually the state religion.

There are also a small number of Pashtun residents who believe in Shiites. Most Pashtuns in Pakistan also believe in the Sunni Hanaifi jurisprudence, and some believe in the twelve Imams of Shiites. The Pashtuns believe in piety and strictly observe Islamic doctrines and customs.

These tribes distributed in the mountains of Pakistan can be said to be "country among the country". For the closed Patans and the British colonial rule had almost no direct impact on their lives; almost all the people in the tribe survived according to their custom laws and traditions.

Therefore, Wang Dashan initially had no hope of entering this area without using force, but with the support of Vladimir Granath, Wang Dashan also changed his view and believed that it would be okay to give it a try.

The Tajiks call themselves "Torjiks", belong to the Europa-based Indian Pamir type, use Tajik (Eastern Persian), have written characters, believe in Islam, and are mostly Sunnis (the worship system is very particular, and some sects dominate life by religion), and some belong to Shiites (mainly secular life and taking into account religion), distributed in Afghanistan, Iranian-speaking residents of Central Asia.

The Tajiks refer to a traditional settled nation, among whom the Tajik and Uzbek, spoke Tajik, a dialect of Persian, and the other part of whom lived in Afghanistan, spoke Dari Persian.

The Tajiks were the heirs and disseminators of Central Asian settlement culture. This culture spread from the Iranian plateau to the area from the sea to the border of China in prehistoric times.

They gathered in villages and lived in flat-topped houses, which were made of soil or stones. They planted wheat, barley, millet, and cultivated land for irrigation.

The Tajik towns followed the commercial roads, connecting Persia, China and India, and thus the towns formed a business and travel center. Later, the Turks moved westward and entered the Tajik areas inhabited by the Tajiks.

Although the Tajiks still maintain their Persian language, they have become culturally Turkic.

Most Tajiks are Sunni Muslims, but a few people who live in remote mountainous areas belong to Islamic Shia.

Wang Dashan marks the main distribution areas of the Tajiks on the map. "The Tajiks are an ancient ethnic group in Central Asia, and their distant ancestors can be traced back to some Iranian-speaking tribes from Eurasian grasslands around the 10th century BC. These tribes combine with the Amu River Basin, the Zelavshan River and Kashkadar River Basin, the Fergana Basin and the south of Central Asia. They gradually form Tajiks in combination with the Daxia people, Sogdians, Palkans (Gold Fergana farmers), and the Sergeans who were nomadic in northern and northeastern Central Asia."

"They have always had a connection with our Chinese country. In the 2nd century BC, the Yuezhi people came to the Daxia area, and the ethnic components of the Yuezhi people included the factors of the Seed. A branch of the Seed, the Kushan people, established a powerful Kushan country. From the 4th to 5th century, due to the decline of the Kushan country, the Eftalits invaded, and the latter established a vast country. By the 6th century, with the rise of the Turkic Khanate, the Turkic components increased day by day. From the end of the 10th century, they gradually gained the upper hand in the political life in Central Asia, and from then on, the Turkic process that lasted for hundreds of years began. Many Tajiks were assimilated, but Persian was always retained and became a Mandarin in the Turkic areas ruled by the Turkic people." Yekazelina Krimova said.

"This is the most troublesome thing for me. There are a lot of regions, ethnicities, and religions. I guess Afghans may not be able to distinguish them very clearly. I remarked them based on the information given by the Bureau of Statistics. It took me a whole week to figure it out a little bit." Wang Dashan said depressedly. "If you are facing a single army like Britain and France, it is simpler. I am most afraid of facing such places that have not formed a country."

In the past, the Tajiks in the plains mainly engaged in agriculture, mostly relying on manual irrigation, and also engaged in horticulture and animal husbandry. Agriculture mainly planted cotton, wheat, barley, rice, and potatoes. The farm tools were very simple, such as iron plows, rakes weaved with branches, homemade hoes and sickles, etc.

"Try not to involve conflicts between nations. We must uphold His Majesty's purpose of respecting the nation, respecting religious beliefs, and maintaining regional peace, and there will be no problem." Vladimir Granath said, "We respect it whether it is the Pashtuns, the Tajiks, whether it is the Sunnis or the Shiites."

Zhang Haobo and Gao Yitong both nodded and said, "I understand."

"If all your actions are not too late, you must pass by me and keep in touch with me at any time. If you are too late, you can use force to protect your own safety. Our guide is proficient in their languages ​​of several ethnic groups, so don't worry about this." Vladimir Granath continued to instruct.

Zhang Haobo and Gao Yitong wrote down Vladimir Granath's instructions one by one.

"When you go to the periphery of Kandahar, see who is occupying it. If it is Afghan, enter and keep in touch with their Mohammed Yakub Khan. If it is already British, enter, but it is just to protect the embassy." Yekazelina Krimova ordered, "Look at the situation clearly. If the safety of Chinese merchants cannot be guaranteed, you can evacuate them all."
Chapter completed!