Yunnan, as the youngest province in the empire, please forgive the arbitrariness of this title, but at that time, Liaoyang Province was still just a paper thing, and it was not immediately sent to the commander of the 200,000 army through the extensive post system, which is somewhat similar to the kind established by the Roman Empire, how to say? Simple and effective.

Well, let's get down to business first, it is said that from the capital to the southernmost provincial center of the empire, more than 5,000 li, this 'li' is the unit of measurement of the Han Chinese, as for the conversion relationship between it and Roman miles, this is difficult for me, in short, you know it is very long.

So when the governor of the province, Saichidian Justin, a Saracen, received orders from the Khan, he was almost in agreement with the actions of the capital, thanks to good administrative efficiency and excellent foresight, and we see the following picture.

In the southernmost part of the empire, the soldiers of all ethnic groups assembled, most of the locals, a small number of Mongol nobles, and some of the Han and Semu people, totaling about eight to ten legions, this army, mainly infantry, embarked on the road of attacking the flank of the 'Song' kingdom along the rugged hills.

A little more recently, in the province called 'Shu' by the Han Chinese, an army of the same number divided into two routes and attacked the fortified fortresses built between the mountains and the rivers, which were different from the walls built on flat ground, they had a fairly good defense, which were difficult to destroy with machinery such as trebuchets, and the commander of this army was the third son of the Khan, and the actual leader was a wise man of the Han people.

Back to the frontal battlefield, it was a front of more than 8,000 li long, divided into three parts for the sake of combat efficiency, the easternmost to the sea, about sixteen to twenty legions were used to attack part of the Huai River defense line of the 'Song' state, led by the vice-governor of Henan Province, a fierce Mongol nobleman, whose opponent was said to be the best commander of the 'Song' state, who had recently defeated the army of Prime Minister Boyan.

The target near the center line was another part of the Huai River defense line of the 'Song' state, where more than twenty Roman legions were assembled, and his commander was the governor of Henan Province, Ta Chu, a wise and literary Mongol nobleman, who faced not only impenetrable rivers, but also precipitous mountains and jungles, which were the most heavily defended areas of the 'Song'.

Leaving the Huai River, there is a big river of almost the same length in the 'Song' country, yes, they directly used the word 'big' to name it, you can imagine how wide it is. In order to make a breakthrough on this front, from many months ago, most of the forces of the empire began to concentrate here, until the Khan left, and there was already a build-up there, oh my God, the strength of fifty to sixty Roman legions, it is difficult to imagine so many people gathered together, what did they eat?

If you think that the total strength of more than one hundred and twenty legions is the limit, I will say something else, that on the same day, the ruler of the empire, the great khan, set out from the capital and began his most important expedition. He was followed by sixty to eighty legions of generals who blocked all the roads of the empire from north to south, so much so that many of them had to march between the fields, the harvested fields, and the rocky hills.

I swear, this is the most spectacular march I have ever seen, just to cross a small river no more than two miles wide, they built more than forty pontoon bridges, on which there are a neat sequence of Han troops, they are disciplined, fearless of death, and large in number, except that they are a little shorter, and may not be so skilled in technology, but compared to those advantages, this is already the best source of soldiers in the world at present, and it is said that there is still an equal number of people in the whole south, No wonder the Khan would launch such a large-scale expedition.

And then there were the Mongol knights, who rode dwarf-looking horses, carried fearsome bows and scimitars, and numbered as many as twenty to thirty legions, and it was this force that silenced the Holy See, and if they had been equipped with excellent Han Chinese infantry at that time, I think my hometown would have fallen long ago.

It is said that the wild men recruited from the mountains and forests formed a loose marching procession, and they talked and laughed loudly, using words that no one could understand, and they either did not wear armor or wore armor all over their bodies, some carrying sticks with inverted teeth, and some carried huge single-edged axes on their backs, and their bald heads were shaved with a small braid, like Vikings coming down from Scandinavia, which made people feel terrified to watch.

A group of people who are shorter and thinner than the Han are called 'sticks', and I beg your pardon for not knowing why they call them that, but they are all good archers, and they can still come in handy as a medium- and long-range support force, if the war goes into a tug-of-war.

Their greatest contribution to these 'sticks' was to the navy, yes, the navy, not to use flat-bottomed sloops or brigs on the rivers, and it was said that a large fleet of ships formed a roundabout attacking force, who would be responsible for harassing and striking the coastal areas of the 'Song' country, and they would face probably the most powerful naval force in the world, not one of them.

Forgive me for my somewhat exaggerated descriptions, but in fact I don't think any language can accurately convey the true situation, and in Western history, neither the Persian armies, nor the men of Darius and Xerxes, nor Alexander and his conquerors, nor the Roman legions of Chimsa and Pompey, can compare in size with this expedition, for which they have used a term called .

Seven Roads Song -

Marco Polo, written in the autumn of the twelfth year of the Solstice Era.

Compared with the memories of a Westerner, the most accurate information about the number of people in this war comes from the spies distributed all over the north, and at the moment when the horn sounded in the capital, the spies who had already been aware of it immediately all went out, and entered their own predetermined observation points, with the clairvoyant mirror in their hands, all the movements of the Yuan people were unobstructed.

"Two hundred and twenty-seven, two hundred and twenty-eight, four hundred and one, four hundred and two grandmothers, so many, it's almost dark and it's not over yet, how to count it in a while?" The man lying in the grass set up a clairvoyant mirror, muttering incessantly, but his eyes were staring at the camera without blinking, for fear of missing any detail.

"Don't talk nonsense, keep an eye on it, if you count wrong, you have to start again, the cavalry is so-and-so, you just have to be a foot soldier."

A spy interrupted his grumbling coldly, his mouth was counting the same numbers, the difference was that he was staring at the fast-moving horses, the same groups were arranged in several directions, and they would be compared in the end, and the same or the smallest difference would be reported as the final result, and the tolerance range like this was already negligible, after all, they were facing a huge force that had never been seen before.

"One thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, one thousand eight hundred twenty-three, twenty-four, it's finally over, if you can't do it, you have to write it down quickly." After observing the direction of the city gate for a while, there was no movement, the man took out a piece of paper from his arms, took a black charcoal pen and wrote a string of numbers on it crookedly, and was about to ask his companion what the result was, when he suddenly found that his expression was a little strange.

"Straight thief, what's that?"

The man hurriedly set up the clairvoyant mirror, and the picture that appeared in the camera made him equally stunned, because they saw a palace, a moving palace to be exact!

Hundreds of pure white horses were drawn in columns by long wooden wheels, each of which was beautifully decorated with ornaments, and on the wheel was a huge base frame, supported by several rollers, and at the ends of each shaft were large wheels more than a man high, and on this shelf was the palace they saw.

The eaves are double, the beams are carved and painted, the doors are open on all sides, and there are steps for people to go up and down, surrounded by a circle of railings, and from their lenses, you can clearly see the people standing on the steps, both large and small officials, as well as the samurai who guard. Inserted in front of the palace is a tall trihalberd fork decorated with a white horsetail, and the moment they see this fork, the two spies change color in unison, because according to the data, this thing symbolizes the authority of the Mongol Great Khan.

That Xue Chan Khan in the capital city actually conquered it himself!

This news was more important than the exact number of troops, and the two immediately picked up the microphone they were carrying, and informed it to the shopkeeper in charge of the local business, but when the shopkeeper heard the news, he only said lightly that he knew, because all the spies had passed the news back, and they were not the earliest.

The shopkeeper was walking around the room in annoyance, and what he didn't expect was that no matter how he contacted him, the signal to the direction of Xiangyang was in a busy state, which was never before, but he had the news of his death, how could he not make people anxious.

"What about the other direction? I can't get through. ”

"The line from Xiangyang Mansion to Ezhou is all like this, they are the main station, and all the news is summarized there, we have no choice."

Hearing the words of his subordinates, the shopkeeper could only shake his head helplessly, what was the problem, why was it so busy all of a sudden, everything was normal two days ago, they had just received the good news that the servant system had returned to the capital unharmed, and all the people were cheering at that time, which made the atmosphere that had been tense suddenly relaxed.

"Keep going, Lao Tzu won't believe it, can they still sleep?"