Just because you don't need allies doesn't mean you can't form alliances with others. After some deliberation, it was concluded that the empire could become allies with strange powers or nations, including Usun, so Parthia and Bactria went away with a heart full of joy, and their next arrival would be a more noble person, at which time they would be more formally discussed, waiting for the treaty to be approved by the participating countries before submitting their covenants to each other, and the two sides would affix their respective national seals and the personal seals of their monarchs to confirm their allies with express treaties.

"The Wusun people didn't submit a written covenant, and they didn't even have their own writing," that encounter in the council hall seemed to make Xiao He mind very much, even if he was talking, he didn't look at Kuaitong: "Without a written template, the two sides will not rise to the level of an alliance, it is only military cooperation, that is a military matter, and the ruling government cannot participate." ”

Of course, Kuaitong knew that he was a little too much last time, but he didn't expect Xiao He's reaction to be so intense, and the two would contact and talk on business from then on, even if they walked face-to-face the rest of the time, Xiao He ignored Kuaitong's greeting.

The nations have succumbed, the wars are going well, and as long as Lü Zhe agrees to hold a merger ceremony anytime and anywhere, the empire will be officially established after a grand celebration.

It is precisely because the pace of the establishment of the empire is getting closer and closer, and the minds of the civil officials seem to have changed somewhat, and the general thinking is that it can no longer be as casual as in the past, and that the departments should also keep an appropriate distance, and the rulers of the empire should not be jealous.

That is to say, the civil officials have a lot of eyes, and the military attaché doesn't think there will be any difference at all, whether Lu Zhe is a king or about to become an emperor, his temperament has not changed, and Kuai Tong is actually very unimpressed with Xiao He's desire to create a situation.

"The ruler, the king is not like that, you may have thought a lot." Kuaitong nodded unceremoniously: "Deliberate actions will make the king dislike." ”

Xiao He seemed embarrassed, but he didn't spread out the conversation.

Kuai Tong smiled when he saw that Xiao He was unwilling to talk deeply, and brought the topic back to the incident about Wusun.

A covenant that was not endorsed by the ruling government. Is that really a covenant? Imperial law strictly stipulates that any form of alliance needs to be approved by the king, the ruling government, and the imperial lieutenant, which is stamped with the king's personal seal, the consul's seal, and the taiwei's seal, and the monarch, consul, and taiwei are given their signatures.

Why does the law say that there is no general's house? That's because the General's Mansion does not have a direct supreme commander, and their supreme commander is the ruler himself.

"Isn't the government of the private trade proposed by the hunter going to handle it?" Kuai Tong felt helpless when he saw that Xiao He did not go around the corner.

One is a lieutenant, the other is in the side hall of the government affairs hall, and the seats are distributed face to face, it is difficult for Xiao He to squint at the side wall and not look at Kuaitong who is sitting opposite, Kuaitong only feels speechless for a while.

There has never been much contradiction between the Taiwei Department and the ruling government. On the contrary, the two sides have always been sincerely united and cooperative, with the Taiwei Administration deploying the military's battle plan, the ruling government cooperating with the plan formulated by the Taiwei Administration to dispatch materials and people, and the military government as the executor to expand the territory.

Under this kind of cooperation, the Imperial Commander's Office, and the General's Office have made meritorious contributions because of their effective planning, the Imperial Governor's Office has also made contributions to the logistics scheduling, and the General's Office, which is the executive side, has even benefited from the war exploits, and the ruling government has also obtained the most practical benefits after the army has expanded its territory, that is, the counties and counties where civilian officials can be arranged.

It's been a friendship for more than ten years. Kuaitong only had a disagreement with Xiao He on official affairs before, that is, the ruling government's pursuit of a stable environment and the development of internal affairs will directly affect the interests of the military. Xiao He's response was too surprising. It is estimated that not only Kuai Tong noticed that Xiao He was using such a thing to adjust the way of getting along, but Lu Zhe, as a king, must also be clear.

"The only thing Wusun can do is the war horse," Xiao He still stared at the wall without any ornaments: "The trade road has not even been opened. ”

The Hetao and the grassland are separated by a Yinshan mountain range, and if you want to go to the grassland, you must either take the Yanmen Pass line of the Great Wall during the Zhao period. Or the Hexi Corridor.

At present, there are some passages found in the Yinshan Mountains, but there are basically valley landforms, and the war with the Xiongnu has not been decided before the victory. Yin Mountain is easy to ambush, so it is not a good trade route.

The Hexi Corridor is not divided as it is in the original history, compared to the Hexi Corridor in the original history, the definition of the Hexi Corridor in the empire under the rule of Lü Zhe is about 200 miles northward compared to the Han Dynasty, not on the side of Longxi County.

At present, whether it is the Yingu Valley Road or the Hexi Corridor, it is considered a war zone, and Wusun, which is far away from the border of Balkhash Lake, is about 2,200 miles away from the imperial border from the plane map, and there are not only the natives of the Western Regions and the various ethnic groups that have migrated from west to east, but also the nomadic tribes such as the Xiongnu, Hutu, and Hun Evil are also roadblocks.

Not to mention the distance between the empire and Wusun, there are so many chaotic forces between the two sides, and the two sides do not have any trade conditions at all, Xiao He has more things to worry about, how can he have any spare time to pay attention to the trade demands put forward by Wusun.

"General Meng Tian sent a report, calculating the time, the army of the expedition to the west has started a battle with the Touman Division." Meng Tian sent documents from the north, and sent them to the center of Nanling through various post stations, and it took four days on the way, and Kuaitong estimated that the small-scale tentative operation had just started: "According to Meng Tian's deployment, half a month of tentative attack, within a month, Touman would not lead the army to retreat to the direction of the Western Regions, and it would evolve into a decisive stage, and the battle would have a result within three months." ”

Why is Kuaitong saying this? If Meng Tian can defeat or drive Touman to the Western Regions within three months, then the army will take advantage of the situation to attack the Western Regions, although the army of the Western Expedition will still have to be transferred north to participate in the great war in the northern frontier of the empire, but the first stage of preparations for the invasion of the Western Regions will be completed.

In the plan of the Taiwei Agency, if Meng Tian can annihilate the Touman Division, of course, it is the best, and if he can't achieve the goal of annihilating the Touman Division, he will drive into the Western Regions, and the Western Army will pursue along the way, and has always invaded the Xihai (Qinghai) side, occupied the land along the way, and directly grabbed a natural salt pond less than five miles away from the Xihai.

The expeditionary army that occupies the periphery of the West Sea requires two mixed legions to be left behind. That is, to return to the 21st and 22nd mixed corps of Fusu, the two corps built a defensive line on the spot to arrange defense, and cooperated with some special personnel to explore the geographical landscape, while Meng Tian rushed to the direction of Woye with the Fifth Cavalry Corps and the 13th Cavalry Corps.

According to the results of the discussion between Kuaitong and the Wusun envoys, once the empire expanded its territory to the West Sea, they would also mobilize some troops and clansmen to Puchanghai (Lop Nur), and the distance between the two sides would be directly shortened from 2,200 li on the plane map to less than 1,000 li.

The Wusun people said that because of the continuous plundering led by Maudun, there were actually not many people in that area anymore. As Maudon continued to move north, the area had become a vacuum. Kuaitong didn't know if he really believed the words of the Wusun people. With a hint of expectation: "They will take at least 30,000 horses eastward in exchange for our iron tools and grain and cloth." ”

"Thirty thousand??" Xiao He didn't know if he was shocked by this sentence or what, and finally looked at Kuaitong, but when he saw Kuaitong's smug face, he immediately tilted his head to the side: "That's really a great thing." ”

Kuaitong is indeed proud, although the war horses in China and even on the grassland can form cavalry, they are slightly shorter than the war horses in the Western Regions. You must know that the cavalry's war horse is equal to the first life, and the height of the cavalry war horse can also reflect many problems, and the gravity is the key to it. There is no one who is destined to attack from a high place to attack from below, and no one does not like to ride a tall horse.

"Yes, it's a very good thing, we have only selected less than 70,000 horses from nearly a million horses that can be supplied to the heavy horses, which is really too few. The military sent hundreds of war horses to Nanling in the early stage. More than seventy percent of them can be used as heavily mounted war horses, which makes us look forward to the trade that Wusun proposes. As if he was sighing, Kuaitong also inadvertently said the future tendencies of the military.

In the face of Kuaitong's exclamation, Xiao He despised it in his heart. It's not that when the military chooses a heavy mount, the standards are too strict.

The requirements for war horses are not only limited to endurance and gravity, but also have a strict division of the size of the war horse, after all, you can't let a horse with a height of less than one meter four to carry a group of cavalry with an average height of more than one meter seven or five, right? In that case, even if the war horse is qualified for gravity. Because the horses are too short, there will also be a very funny scene, and the cavalry can step on the ground with their legs flat.

"Western Regions horses, at least the Western Regions horses we know so far, have an average height of one meter seven, and their posture is also slender and majestic, and it has been confirmed by experiments that they have strong negative gravity and short-distance explosive power, but there is a lack of endurance." Xiao He also seems to be very concerned about this matter?

The horses they call the Western Regions are actually the Wusun horses, also called the West Pole horses, but whether it is the Wusun horse or the West Pole horse, in fact, there are differences in the division of bloodlines and horse breeds, such as the pure Ili horse bloodline and Kazakh blood.

There is also a distinction between pure Ili horses, such as ordinary Ili horses and a kind of horse that is a little special because of the sweating of blood vessels...... That is, the sweat and blood BMW that often appears in Chinese history. In fact, the Ili horse is not the first in terms of military value, at least it does not have the diverse use value and easy support of the Hetao horse (scientific name Mongolian horse), but it is extremely valuable for an army that wants to develop heavy cavalry.

The Hak Sak horse is very far away from the Chinese region, probably in the Eastern Han Dynasty only a small part of the flow into the Central Plains, this kind of horse breed is taller than the Ili horse, whether it is the gravity or the explosive force is more powerful, than the Ili horse is more suitable for arming heavy horses.

Because of the limitation of information, no one in Huaxia probably knew so much except Lu Zhe, they just saw the horses captured by the Han army from the battlefield, and then the Wusun envoys brought a batch of horses from the Western Regions, and immediately felt that those horses were simply for the purpose of serving as heavy horses. Of course, Lu Zhe would not say that there were Kazakh horses or Arabian horses that were more suitable for heavy riding, after all, the distance was too far, and it was impossible for the army to expand to that level in the short term.

"If this thing is done, the breeding farm in Longxi will speed up, and if there are more than 10,000 new horse breeds as a foundation, it will become 100,000, 200,000, or even more within five years." Xiao He's face couldn't help but have the same expectation as Kuaitong.

After the judgment of the Taiwei Bureau, the Hu people on the grassland have fully accepted the reform of stirrups and saddles, and in order to gain an advantage in future cavalry battles, it is a trend for the imperial army to develop more equipped cavalry, so the emergence of new war horses brought by Wusun also brought opportunities.

According to the plan drawn up by the Tai Lieutenant Administration, in the next five years, the number of mounted heavy cavalry in the military should not be less than 50,000, but these 50,000 mounted heavy cavalry are not gathered separately to form a heavy cavalry corps, but are placed separately in each cavalry corps.

The emphasis on mounted heavy cavalry is a feedback from the battle situation ahead, which has proved the absolute superiority of mounted heavy cavalry in cavalry battles, especially when also as cavalry charging each other is extremely exciting, and even shows shocking strength against infantry.

"Our army has fought with those alien races who moved eastward, and only five hundred heavy cavalry defeated three thousand alien forces," Kuai Tong touched his chin: "After marching into the Western Regions, we will encounter more infantry." ”

In fact, the Hu people are not all cavalry, and many times they also participate in the battle as infantry, which is not because the Hu people lack war horses or are not good at riding, but the combat situation in today's era is like that.

Long before the stirrup was not used, the cavalry was often a mounted infantry, borrowing war horses to complete the march, and after arriving at the battlefield, dismounted and fought on foot, or because the stirrup was gradually popularized, the group of Hu who went south first had the normal state of riding and fighting.

"That's why we taught the Hu cavalry to fight!" Kuaitong didn't know whether to be proud or entangled: "Especially the Xiongnu prince named Mao Dun, he learned the fastest, armed a group of people with the technology he learned from us, just 50,000 people stirred up the chickens and dogs in the Western Regions, and forced many people to die for it by force." ”

"Maudun?" Xiao He knew this person, and he also knew that the object of his allegiance attached importance to this Xiongnu prince. (To be continued......)