The fact that the Central Asian countries sent envoys to the empire really opened the eyes of many people, and for the first time the people of the land of China knew that there were many kingdoms in the distance.

The eunuchs and businessmen from Central Asia, they revealed a lot, such as Central Asia and the South Asian subcontinent There is a lot of information, people here in China first learned that Parthia and Bactria are the newly rising powers in Central Asia, and from the merchants of the two countries to buy goods on a large scale to understand that the two countries should be relatively wealthy.

There are more than a dozen countries in Central Asia, what Persians, Greeks, Macedonia, Thrace, Armenia...... There are about a dozen strange ethnic groups whose names sound strange, and they tell about the glory and decline of the Persians, and they talk about the hanging gardens in a mythical tone.

What is the hanging garden Huaxia is not so interested, they are most surprised that a Macedonian king named Alexander can defeat the Persian Empire with a million troops with about 8,000 troops, and they feel ridiculous and at the same time feel that the Persian Empire is really weak.

It is estimated that the Persians, who tell the history with a sad face, see the disdain on the faces of the people who listen to the story, and it is not good to be in a foreign land, after all, the strangers who have clashed with the people on this side of the empire do not end well. He began to introduce Persia, in his story, Persia is not an empire built by Shashuo, the fact is that the Persians are very strong, almost punching Greece in the Alps, and kicking the Mauryan Empire in the jungles of South Asia, once with a territory of more than tens of thousands of miles, and dozens or hundreds of ethnic groups are under Persian rule.

Persia was and did be glorious, constantly attacking the Mediterranean countries, and many of the lost states and city-states of Greece, which is called the cradle of civilization by Westerners, lived in the shadow of the Persian expeditionary force for more than a hundred years, and was even almost wiped out by the Persian army for a time. The reason why I say "almost" is not because there are many heroes in Greece.

Whether the perished Persia is strong or not is a matter of the past, and the people who listen to the story do not dwell too much, only ask about the current situation in Central Asia.

Undoubtedly, the strongest in Central Asia was the Seleucid Empire. It was a superpower stretching from the Aegean Sea in the west to Afghanistan in the east, and the ethnic groups in the country were divided into Greeks, Persians, Medes, Jews, Indians, and a few small ethnic groups, with the ruling class being dominated by Greeks and a small number of Persians and Jews.

Thirty-nine years ago, in 246 B.C., when Seleucus II, the son of Antiochus II, ascended the throne, the Seleucid Empire seemed to have reached its lowest ebb. Seleucus II was defeated by Ptolemy III of Egypt in the Third Syrian War, after which he was busy dealing with his brother Antiochus? The civil war unleashed by Aeolas. Taking advantage of the distraction of the Seleucid dynasty, Bactria and Berthia broke away from the empire.

Thirty-eight years ago, in 245 B.C. Theodotus, governor of the province of Bactria, declared independence and established the kingdom of Bactria; The governor of Parthia, Andragoras, declared independence, but was killed by the Parthian leader Arshak around 238 BC and took over the Parthian possessions, and Arshak established the Sabbath dynasty, although outsiders still called the Sabbath dynasty Parthia according to the old name.

If you want to make a difference on the trade route between the east and the west, the most prerequisite is to be able to open up the Western Regions, and at worst, to restore stability to the Western Regions, otherwise the trade route will not be opened at all.

Zhao Gao talked about the matter of the Western Regions, and Lu Zhe guessed that the people who asked to see him later were probably also because of this matter. So he ordered someone to add a table and a futon, and let those who were waiting come over.

The people who asked to see him probably didn't expect that so many people would ask to see the emperor after the meal, and when they arrived at the place, they couldn't help but be stunned when they saw so many people.

Similar to Lu Zhe's guess, most of the people who asked to see him were to discuss business matters. Only a few of them have other things.

"There are dozens of countries in the Western Regions, the most powerful are Wusun, Qiuzi, Yanqi, Shache, Shule, and the rest are all countries of one or several cities." Zhang Liang obviously understood the situation in the Western Regions, and said: "The so-called powerful but also limited. For example, Wusun, the most powerful country in the Western Regions. With more than 100,000 mouths and tens of thousands of string controllers, it is well-deserved as the first power in the Western Regions. Qiuzi, Yanqi, Shache, Shule and other countries are just more cities. Very few have more than half a million people. ”

Wusun also sent an envoy to the empire, the specifications are the highest among the countries, directly dispatched the nephew of the king of Wusun, hunting master Mi, after reaching a military alliance agreement with the empire, Wusun's current Kun Mo Bo Ximi sent his grandson Hunt Jiaomi to escort to the empire, and the current escort team is still on the way.

"Like Ronglu, Mi, Qule, Pishan, Xiye, Puli, and Yinai...... In other small countries, it is difficult to have more than 100,000 people and thousands to 20,000 troops. The eastern provinces of the Seleucid Empire were eroded, Parthia and Bactria were successively independent~, and many ethnic groups such as Jews, Medes, Armenians, and so on had to flee eastward under the continuous use of troops by the two countries. Zhang Liang really did his homework, and said eloquently: "Under the impact of a large number of fugitives from many Western Regions states, the kingdom has been destroyed, and it is more because the rule of too many fugitives has become weak, and it is difficult to maintain control over the ruling area. ”

Meng Tian waited for Zhang Liang to finish speaking, and seeing that Zhang Liang did not continue, he said: "The Xiongnu were defeated by us at the source of the Yellow River, and some remnants fled to the Western Regions to join Maodun. This part of the Xiongnu, under the leadership of Maudun, has been active in the Changchi (Issyk-Kul Lake) and Beishan area, and they have continued to invade the surrounding states of the Western Regions, as well as the southern frontier of Wusun. ”

There is such a thing, Touman was annihilated by the main force, and there were also Hun generals Hu Yanmi and Hu Jie, a leader named Yitai, and some remnants led their men and horses to Maodun. Among these teams, there are almost 50,000 people of various ethnic groups, and nearly 60,000 are captives who have migrated from west to east, 20,000 Qiang of various Qiang in the Qinghai region, more than 10,000 Qiang of the plateau, and it seems that there is also a tribe named Tuyuhun in it. Including the more than 100,000 horses that Maudun already had, after the remnants of the army joined with it, the number of men and horses under Maudun reached more than 200,000.

"The spies on the Western Regions have reported that the number of people who are attacking the city and plundering the land is expanding, and he has also made several Western Regions states submit, forcing more Western Regions states to pay tribute to him." Meng Tian is a general who will conquer the West, and he will lead the army into the Western Regions in the future, so he is naturally concerned about the situation in the Western Regions: "We also got information from Wusun, and Mao Dun retracted the man's turtle back to the periphery of the pond, and he still did not stop training in winter. ”

As you can imagine. Maudun must have received sufficient logistics, otherwise there would be no way to train the troops without food, but the empire is not very clear about what kind of army Maudun can train with the resources he has.

What Lu Zhe knows is that Mao Dun is not a simple character, this person who killed his father in history, he was able to train a good soldier before he became a Xiongnu Shan Yu, and Mao Dun, who became a Xiongnu Shan Yu, trained a lot of elite soldiers after that, otherwise he would not have leveled the Western Regions in just a dozen years, and then led the army to fight the Donghu people and turtles and retracted into the deep mountains and old forests of the Great Xing'an Mountains.

"It's no secret that our stirrups and saddles are in Maodun, and the Huns and other steppe people are already very good at riding and shooting. The presence of stirrups and improved saddles was even more powerful for them, and it was precisely because of the full deployment of stirrups and improved saddles that the Wusun cavalry, which was not equipped with stirrups, would continue to be defeated by Maudun's army. Meng Tian said these words with a trace of worry on his face.

"Yes, the appearance of these two items allows nomads who have not grown up with war horses since childhood to ride on horseback safely." The lieutenant has a deep understanding of this: "We are fighting with the Huns and other steppe Hu people, and we can have an advantage in the cavalry duel, precisely because of these two kinds of armament. ”

Meng Tian paused for a moment, and when he saw Lu Zhe nodding seriously, he continued: "Fortunately, the Huns are still equipped with bronze weapons. In addition, only a small number of the states in the Western Regions possess smelting technology. It doesn't seem that the minerals over there are also rich, and only a very small part of the nearly 150,000 cavalry under the command of Mao Dun is about 10,000 cavalry named by Mao Dun as the blue wolf cavalry, and a small amount of equipment is equipped with iron, bronze armor, leather armor and other equipment. ”

Stirrups and improved saddles are almost untechnical, and as long as you get a pair of gourds, they are not difficult to make. The stirrups and improved saddles of the Imperial army required the use of metal materials, and the steppe people lacked metal raw materials and smelting skills, but it was not impossible to replace the two things with other materials, and even knotted ropes could achieve the effect. It's a matter of time before it's imitated.

Since equipping the stirrups and improved saddles, Lu Zhe has long been mentally prepared for being learned by the grassland Hu people, and he is also sure that the empire will not lack war horses before he dares to fully equip the stirrups and improved saddles. Otherwise, it's just looking for your own death.

In addition to stirrups and improved saddles, the warhorses of the Empire had one more thing, and that was the horseshoe that protected the horse's hooves. So far, the secret of the horseshoe has not been revealed, and the existence value of the horseshoe is actually no worse than the stirrup or the improved saddle, and it can even be said that the horseshoe is more precious than the two things.

Any hoofed cattle, with a horseshoe and without a horseshoe are two concepts, a war horse without a horseshoe will run because of a stone and jump on the horse's hooves, with a horseshoe is equivalent to putting boots on the horse, so the horseshoe equipped and the horse without the horseshoe will definitely not be the same in terms of hoof loss.

In the battle of the source of the Yellow River, the war horses, cattle and sheep brought by Touman from the grassland basically became the trophies of the imperial army, and the war horses, cattle and sheep sent to the Yangtze River basin before winter were not cut off every day, but they stopped in winter, some were placed in Beidi County, and many were sent to Hetao.

Hu Yanmi and other remnants of the army who took refuge in Maudun, they fled in embarrassment, very few people were able to do one person and one horse, many of them were simply on foot, and many people were abandoned along the way because of lack of supplies, and no one really knew the number of people and horses who could really reach the area of Maudun's activity alive.

"We were not able to kill Mao Dun during the battle at the source of the Yellow River, and the subsequent pursuit failed to achieve the goal, and the plan that was finally formulated ......" Lu Zhe laughed a few times, and said slowly: "It is guessed that Mao Dun will plunder in the Western Regions, stirring up many unrest in the Western Regions, which is conducive to the empire's march to the Western Regions." ”

Mao Dun had a keen sense of danger, as evidenced by the fact that he was able to return to the Xiongnu court unharmed as a hostage on the Yue's side. The last time he went south, the empire also learned some things from some Xiongnu nobles, before Touman went south, Mao Dun was opposed to leading the people to invade the south, and put forward the argument that the Central Plains countries would fight, and when the Central Plains had shed enough blood, the Xiongnu would gather a large army to go south. Mao Dun was more inclined to defeat the surrounding ethnic groups of the Xiongnu first, annex more small tribes to grow, and then continue to target the Yue clan or invade the Donghu tribes in the east depending on the actual situation.

Lu Zhe was not surprised when he listened to the report, in the original history, Mao Dun did this after serving as the Xiongnu Shan Yu, and the Xiongnu really grew stronger step by step under the leadership of Mao Dun, and even completed the occupation of the Western Regions by the way when chasing and killing the Yue people. The Western Regions fell into the hands of the Xiongnu, which directly gave the Xiongnu a large "sheep shearing" land, from which they continuously obtained grain, metal, and slaves, while the Xiongnu also learned from some countries in the Western Regions to complete internal reforms.

Maodun's reform of the Xiongnu was to reduce the influence of various clans and set up positions such as the left and right virtuous kings, which allowed the Xiongnu to enter the primitive feudal era from the primitive tribal era and had a clearer distinction between official positions.

"We have 80,000 cavalry stationed in Wusun, and Maudun immediately shrinks his forces." Meng Tian frowned and said, "There is some news from Wusun, and there seems to be signs of turning to the west?" ”

Where is the west side of the pond? The west side of the pond is actually the country of Kangju. Mao Dun has always wanted to be the Shan Yu of the Huns, and going west is getting farther and farther away from Junji Mountain and Wolf Juxu Mountain, Lu Zhe is very suspicious that Mao Dun will really go west.

"If Maudon does go west, it might be a good thing for the Empire." Zhang Liang pondered for a moment and said, "This time we are using Mao Dun to disrupt the Western Regions and march into the Western Regions as liberators and guardians of the order, and the excuse for Mao Dun to leave us too early will be a bit far-fetched. ”

Meng Tian agreed with Zhang Liang's statement that the imperial army had suspended a series of military movements in the Western Regions and turned its attention to the Junji Mountains and the northern grasslands, which also had something to do with this, that is, they did not want to force Mao Dun to flee too early.

"Perhaps...... Can we approach Maudun and pretend to help him return to Junji Mountain to fight for his position? Zhang Liang said hesitantly, thinking that it was operable, but whether Mao Dun would be fooled was really uncertain.

Lu Zhe is also thinking about the operability of this matter, but it is really difficult to think about it, let's not talk about whether Mao Dun will believe it, first of all, we must get out of the way and let Mao Dun swagger out of trouble from the Western Regions, will Mao Dun act according to their script after getting out of trouble? No one knows for sure! (To be continued.) )