The empire has been waiting for the arrival of the envoys from Donghu, not only Lu Zhe is waiting, everyone in the center is waiting, and even the generals who were ordered to return to Nanling have also become a member of the waiting.

The reason why the Donghu envoys are waiting is not without reason, the Hu people in the depths of the grassland are gathering in a big way, and with the passage of time, the assembly of the Hu people in the depths of the grassland seems to have a tendency to become more and more intense, which can be described as a huge momentum.

Lu Zhe was actually not so worried about the grassland Hu people gathering a large army to attack, in some ways he hoped that the more Hu people would come, the better, his concern came from another level.

"Donghu is a powerful tribal alliance, and it has gathered more than 200,000 people to control the strings, and the full mobilization can even pull out at least 450,000 soldiers," Lu Zhe looked around at the people present: "The territory occupied by Donghu is from outside the old Great Wall of Yan to the ice field, and the eastern line is from the area of the water to the distant sea in the east, occupying a vast forest area, and even occupying a large plain with a radius of more than 3,000 li in the northeast. ”

The so-called Yan Old Great Wall is actually the modern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the closest to the grassland is the modern Zhenglan Banner, that is, the Lightning River area, which is the territorial boundary between Donghu and the Xiongnu, but because the boundary between the Xiongnu and Donghu is not so clear, the boundary between the two tribal alliances is often crossed.

As for the so-called "plain of more than 3,000", there is no doubt that it is the modern Heilongjiang generation, and it is indeed within the territorial scope of Donghu, where there are now living Fuyu, Wofu, Jin and many other tribes, and these tribes are all joining tribes under the command of the Donghu tribal alliance. In fact, there are some tribes further northeast, they are the Tunguska group, but the Tunguska group is not a member tribe of the Donghu tribal alliance, in fact, the Donghu member tribes often fight with the Tunguska group, if Donghu still has a trace of civilization, the Tunguska group is a complete primitive and quite barbaric.

"The king of Donghu has repeatedly stated that the purpose of gathering a large army is not to be an enemy of the empire, but to settle old accounts with the Xiongnu in the border conflict." Kuaitong came over later, and temporarily added a few tables and tableware. The position was ranked first on the left, and it was just face to face with Xiao He's right. As the first lieutenant of the military attaché, he said something just right: "Those words are a lie." ”

This burst of laughter appeared unsurprisingly, especially with the military attache laughing most presumptuously.

"Taiwei is right, the old boy of King Donghu didn't have any good intentions when he gathered the army."

"He saw that we were fighting with the Huns, and he hoped that he could pick up the cheapest, right?"

"That's right, Touman is trapped in the northwest, and our army is also pinned down in the northwest, he is waiting to see who is defeated, waiting to pounce and take a bite."

"Yes, extremely. Yes, extremely! It is estimated that he received unfavorable news about the war in Touman, otherwise it is estimated that he would not have sent an envoy to come, and even sent an envoy to us at the same time, and the envoy sent to the Xiongnu royal court was also sent out! ”

There has never been friendship between Donghu and the Xiongnu, and there is no friendship between Donghu and the Chinese ethnic group.

As a nomadic group, the competition between Donghu and the Xiongnu has never stopped, the two sides have fought more than once for the fertile pasture, and the Donghu people have even forced the Xiongnu to escape from the Wolf Juxu Mountain to the Junji Mountain in a certain historical stage, and it is only recently that the Xiongnu have recaptured the pasture of the Wolf Juxu Mountain.

Donghu and Yanguo, a member of the Chinese ethnic group, were not without confrontation. I vaguely remember that at that historical stage, the Yan State was almost attacked by Donghu and perished, at that time, the princes under the command of the Zhou royal family sent troops to help avoid the destruction of the Yan State, and it seemed that the Jin State and the Qi State had the greatest strength?

The Yan State was almost beaten by Donghu, and the Yan State, which had regained its standing with the help of many princes, launched a fierce revenge on Donghu. After that, the Yan army was rarely defeated in the confrontation with Donghu, and the Yan State also captured a lot of land from the Donghu side, so that those lands were included in the habitat of the Chinese ethnic group.

At a time when the historical process entered the point where the Chinese ethnic group threw all its attention on the infighting. For a while, the Qi State almost wiped out the Yan Kingdom. It may be that Donghu was frightened in the battle with the Yan army, and when the Yan State invested the whole country in the confrontation with the Qi State, Donghu did not send a single soldier to the Yan State.

It has always been the historical stage until the Yan State was destroyed by the Qin State. For almost 150 years, Donghu had been avoiding wars with the Chinese people, so the records of the Chinese princes about Donghu were relatively vague.

Donghu was indeed frightened by the revenge of the Yan army for decades, and for a while he even carried out a full-line retreat. So what did Donghu do after he shrunk? They set their sights on the confrontation with the Tunguska primitives, and also on the battle of a tribe called the Huns, who set foot in the North Sea region (Lake Baikal) even earlier than the Huns.

"So, Donghu's territory is huge?" Ji Bu only had this emotion after listening to Lu Zhe's description of Donghu's sphere of influence.

I have to say that Donghu is really not small in terms of territory, if it is not smaller than the Qin Empire that once unified the situation in terms of area, it can even be said that the control scope of Donghu is larger than the Qin Empire that unified the situation, and it is twice the land area of the Western Han Dynasty created by Liu Bang later.

"The northeast of Liaodong is too cold, the grassland is close to the south climate, and there is an ice field all the way north of the Beihai," Lu Zhe is talking nonsense according to his impression, he doesn't really understand it at all, but it should be eight or nine without leaving ten: "Donghu has a large land area, but most of it is an ice field climate. ”

"So, it's not much use for us to occupy Donghu's land, right?" Jibu was not messing around, he was deeply disappointed: "It's hard to adapt to the climate, and the second is the inability to farm and graze. ”

Xu Zhi's eyes froze: "It's useless or not, it's just to capture it and make the land a part of the empire's territory." ”

"Actually...... it's useful" Yan Bi's voice was not loud: "We have already had spies go deep into the territory of Donghu, and found rich timber resources there, and even explored the three-thousand-mile plain mentioned by the king. ”

"Oh?" Ji Bu and Xu Zhi spoke at the same time, but their words were different.

Ji Bu is a little disdainful of those resources, after all, the current land area of the empire is not small, the south is full of primeval forests, timber resources show a state of surplus, as long as the Lingnan side is developed, there are more than 3,000 miles of cultivated land available.

Xu Zhi's eyes lit up. In his opinion, it doesn't matter if it's useful or not. Anyway, as long as it belongs to the empire, even if it is useless, it should not belong to another race, not to mention that there are timber resources and plains for cultivation in the territory of Donghu.

"That plain is very fertile, and the degree of fertility is beyond imagination," Yan Bi did not sell anything: "We have found land in the south that can be well preserved if the seeds are dropped, even if they are left alone. The situation is similar in the plains to the northeast, but they are not cultivating rice, but a kind of wheat. ”

Xiao He didn't say anything, and when he saw that almost everyone moved their eyes to him, he was confused for a while. Then he suddenly said: "I have been experimenting with wool clothing for a long time, and some results have been achieved. He paused and thought again: "We are also trying to find the cotton that the king said, and now we have some eyebrows. ”

"Got eyebrows?" Lu Zhe looked very concerned: "Is it the news that those envoys from Central Asia got it?" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." Xiao He smiled with a smile on his face: "The Hongru Pavilion didn't spend much effort, but I got the news about cotton from Aracosia, saying that there is a special product in India that is very similar to the species described by our people." ”

Lu Zhe was stunned, his memory was that cotton was transmitted from Kangju to the Central Plains, at first as a strange flower and plant. It seems to have been introduced by the Pei clan during the Sui and Tang dynasties? How is it that cotton has become a specialty of India here, and it seems to be only available in India?

That's right, the introduction of cotton to the Central Plains was indeed the credit of the Pei family, and that was when the Sui Empire was established. The Pei clan was appointed to run the Western Regions, and then the Pei clan brought it back to the Central Plains from the Western Regions, and there is no historical record of which country it obtained from it.

And then the cotton did come from India. It is a local specialty of India, which was brought to the Mediterranean region and first spread to the Greek city-states, and the Greeks did not find that cotton could be processed into clothing materials. It is estimated that it is also regarded as a kind of entertainment curiosity.

In addition to the spread of cotton to the Mediterranean region, it also flowed into Central Asia, where the Central Asians discovered some uses of cotton, and first completed the technology of processing cotton into cotton threads, and even found that cotton has a strong water absorption function for some fire-spraying oil applications in navigation, and took the lead in processing it for various blanket making.

I don't know what it's about, the topic was brought to Central Asia, and it seems that the whole thing that was supposed to talk about Wusun was forgotten.

The empire had a very vague understanding of Central Asia, but not only Lu Zhe, many people had a lot of interest in Central Asia.

"Anyway, there are so many envoys here, I thought they were wearing a pair of pants, but they all seemed to contradict each other?"

"Many countries only have the same position on dealing with Seleucus, and other aspects have their own interests."

There are a lot of people who laugh and laugh, and only a few people attach great importance to state-to-state relations among Central Asian countries.

The countries of Central Asia seem to be very closely connected? This can be seen from the fact that they go out to gang up.

In addition, the relations between the Central Asian countries also seem to be relatively chaotic, for example: country A and country B are enemies, country A and country C are allies, country B and country C are allies, the triangular relationship is really chaotic, and there will even be country D, country D and country B and country A are enemies, but country C is an ally, it is simply difficult to figure out the relationship.

In short, it seems that in Central Asia hostility and alliance with each other basically varies from time to time, they can be hostile locally, but they can be allies in the big picture, and it is likely that the two countries are desperately fighting hard one moment, but the next moment they are united to defend against or attack a third party.

According to the preliminary information obtained by Lu Zhe, there are at least 20 countries in Central Asia, the most powerful is the Seleucid Empire, followed by Parthia and Bactria, and then Alacosia, Kashmir, and Palpalmaises...... and so on.

The first power in Central Asia was the Seleucid Empire, which was also the largest country in Central Asia, and since its creation in 311 BC, Seleucus I had defeated countless countries and tribes in a row, and had won successive victories in the alliance with the Greek city-states, laying the foundation for Seleucus to become an empire.

It has to be said that Seleucus I rose to prominence after the death of Alexander the Great. At that time, he started with the slogan of avenging the Darius family, and after establishing his own country and making the family a dynasty, who was Darius? It was quickly thrown aside.

If the Seleucid Empire is the first power in Central Asia, then Parthia and Bactria, which were separated from the Seleucid Empire~, stand in the second echelon. Parthia and Bactria were independent~ through the fierce war between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Dynasty of the Egyptian Empire, and because the two countries were also separated from the Seleucid Empire~, they had the same political demands, so they also became allies fighting side by side for the first time.

The Seleucid Empire is in the first echelon, and it is not a good thing to be in the first echelon, for example, she needs to deal with many rebel forces in the east, the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt in the west, and even the Greek city-states on the Mediterranean side, which is not in a good situation.

"If we knew the truth, Seleucus would definitely be dragged down, but the world was long or short." Kuaitong came to such a conclusion.

The empire's impression of the Central Asian countries is really quite vague, and even unreliable, and many of them are one-sided words of Egyptian chicks. Maureus? Yadi is also subjective in his descriptions of Central Asia, with an unusually hostile hatred of the Seleucid Empire, a close stance, and a favorable impression of Parthia.

“…… So, we need to send an envoy group," Lu Zhe smiled heartily: "For a long time, it was difficult for our hands to stretch out so far, but the preliminary arrangement can be carried out first. ”

In an instant, more than one person realized that the empire was dispensable for the friendship of Parthia and other countries, and they did not need dispensable friendship for the time being, and even suppressed and suppressed in some aspects if necessary.

"I suppose we should engage with Seleucus before we can?" "Parthia and Bactria have strong ambitions for Usun, which we don't want to see, and perhaps it's a good idea to use Seleucus to contain Parthia and other countries from overexpanding eastward." ”

I have to say that Lu Zhe liked Kuaitong's proposal and felt that there was a lot of room for manipulation. (To be continued......)