Wei Qingyi frowned.

400,000, if you add other small countries, the total strength is 800,000, Wei Qing is now on an expedition with 200,000 people, if you calculate it this way, Wei Qing's troops are still in a weak position.

However, fortunately, the other side is not monolithic, nominally the opponent of the Han army has 800,000, but in fact, if there are a few more countries like this that take the initiative to unite the Han army, the strength of the Han army will be greatly enhanced, and the strength of Wusun will be greatly weakened.

"There are rivers in the Western Regions!" Liu Qi asked, he was more concerned about this, after all, the yellow sand in the Western Regions was thousands of miles, and the heat was abnormal, if there was no river, the Han army would be killed by thirst if it was not killed by the enemy.

"Yes!" Wei Qi'a replied: "Actually, there are many rivers in the Western Regions, but most of them flow and disappear!" ”

"How could it have disappeared!" Wei Qing asked strangely.

"Because the ground is full of sand!" Wei Qi'a replied: "The river becomes less and less flowing, and at last it flows into the sand!" ”

Wei Qing was secretly shocked in his heart, this matter had to be understood, the lack of water in the army was a fatal thing, and he glanced at Liu Qi.

Liu Qi got up and took a huge map, and handed a brush to Wei Qi'a: "General Wei, can you please draw the main river!" ”

Wei Qi'a hesitated for a moment, and then replied: "Yes, it's just that my drawing is not very accurate!" ”

"Better than nothing!" Wei Qing interjected.

Wei Qi'a nodded, slowly drew on the paper, and explained while drawing: "There are many rivers in the Western Regions, according to legend, there are more than 570 rivers, and the larger ones have more than 20 such as the Tarim River, the Ili River, the Irtysh River, the Manas River, the Ulungu River, and the Kaidu River, but only the Ili River and the Irtysh River can merge into large rivers, and most of the rest are small and medium-sized rivers.

Tarim River, in the Western Regions language means "horseless horse", according to the legend of the old man, this river is more than 4,000 miles long, is the largest river in the Western Regions, the reason why this river is called "horseless horse", is because the river is often diverted, no one knows where its river course is, in the middle reaches of the Tahe River is the best place, the poplar forest is thick and cloudy, fertile for thousands of miles, known as "the land of fish and rice outside the plug"; The Ili River is wide and rapid, nourishing both banks, so the Ili River valley is green mountains and green waters, connected by strange and strange places, and orchards are everywhere, known as "Saiwai Jiangnan"; The Irtysh River flows from southeast to northwest, in the opposite direction to other rivers; The Irtysh River has a wide valley and a mighty water, only slightly inferior to the Ili River! Wei Qi'a said in his mouth, drawing in his hand, and after a while, he had already drawn a few rivers.

The brows of several generals were furrowed: "In this way, if we go on an expedition to the Western Regions, we will not be short of water!" Wei Qing said.

Wei Qi'a immediately shook his head: "How come, the Western Regions have always been short of water. Although the rivers I am talking about are not small, but the land of the Western Regions is vast, and between the rivers is a long desert, if you are not prepared, one is not careful, how many people will die of thirst in the desert, not to mention that the rivers in the Western Regions are very unique, there are many rivers that are not on the ground, but underground, the ground looks dry sand, but the underground is a river! ”

"That's weird!" Chen Qingzhi couldn't help but interject on the side: "If the ground is full of sand and the ground is full of water, but you don't know how to dig a well, it is difficult that no one in the Western Regions will eat well water!" ”

Wei Qi'a laughed, he pulled the paper and drew it with a pen: "We have a unique thing in the Western Regions, called Karez, this thing is only afraid that the people of the Central Plains have never heard of it, and it has never seen it!" ”

"Look, look at what well!" Chen Qingyi didn't understand at the moment.

"Qanats!" Wei Qi'a repeated, he had finished drawing on the paper, pointed to the paper and explained: "The structure of the qanats is ingenious and abnormal, it is composed of four parts: shafts, culverts, open channels and waterlogged dams, roughly speaking, it is like this: in the undercurrent of the high mountain snow water, find its water source, drill a shaft of different depths at a certain interval, and then build a culvert at the bottom of the well according to the terrain, communicate the wells, divert water downstream, and connect the water outlet of the underground channel with the surface channel, and lead the groundwater to the surface to irrigate the mulberry field!" ”

"It's hard to understand!" Chen Qingzhi frowned.

Liu Qi's eyebrows fluttered while watching: "This well is just a passage, but the wells are connected, isn't it!" ”

Wei Qi'a nodded: "General Liu understands, that's right, this well is a shaft, the shaft is a channel for transporting underground sediment or silt when digging or cleaning the qanats culvert, and it is also an air vent, the depth of the well is deep and shallow due to the different terrain and groundwater level, generally the closer to the source the shaft is deeper, the deepest shaft can reach more than 30 zhang, the distance between the shaft and the shaft, with the length of the qanats is different, generally every twenty zhang there is a shaft, a qana, the shaft is less than ten, more than hundredThe wellhead is generally rectangular or circular, three feet long, two feet wide, if you are close to Turpan, on the Gobi Desert on the periphery of the lush oasis, you can see a pile of round soil bags down the high slope, located in an orderly manner stretching out to the oasis, these, is the shaft mouth of the qanat! ”

Several generals were a little uninterested, but Liu Qi was very interested, he dealt with Pang Tong's suicide note all day long, and unconsciously fascinated by these engineering craftsmen, he looked at the graphics drawn by Wei Qi'a, and asked: "How to dig the secret passage, you must know that it is dug up like this, it is difficult to ensure that the secret passage is straight, and in the end, the secret passage on both sides may not be connected, and the result is a waste of effort!" ”

Wei Qi'a slapped his thigh: "General Liu is really a master, in a word, this culvert is the main body of the qanaq, the role of the culvert is to gather the water in the underground aquifer to its body, generally according to a certain slope from low to high digging, so that the water can automatically flow out of the surface, these culverts are generally seven feet high, four feet wide, short thirty or fifty zhang, the longest is as long as fifty miles, the culverts are all excavated underground, so the salvage project is very arduous! ”

"Then how do you guarantee that you are not crooked!" Liu Qi asked.

Wei Qi'a's face showed a proud expression: "This is not a sentence that can be explained, our craftsmen have thought of many methods, such as the wooden stick orientation method, that is, in the middle of the two adjacent shafts, above the wellhead, each hang a well rope, the well rope is tied to a sharpened horizontal wooden stick, the direction of the two stick tips pointing to each other, is the shortest straight line between the two shafts, and then according to the same method under the shaft with a wooden stick orientation, the underground people can dig in the direction pointed by the wooden stick."

When digging the culvert, the craftsmen also invented the oil lamp orientation method, with two oil lamps with a mouth next to determine the direction of the culvert excavation, and can ensure that the top of the culvert is parallel to the bottom, however, the oil lamp positioning can only be used on the same operation point, when digging the culvert at different operation points, hang an oil lamp on the center line of the shaft, and the digger has his back to the oil lamp, always digging his own shadow, you can not deviate from the direction! ”

Liu Qi wanted to ask again, but Wei Qing had already taken over: "This karez is so digged, I'm afraid it's very difficult!" ”

"It's natural!" Wei Qi'a sighed: "The deeper the culvert, the narrower the space, only allow one person to bend down and dig forward, the underground soil is hard and sticky, and the working surface is very narrow, therefore, to dig out a fifty-mile-long culvert, I don't know what kind of hardship to pay, it is said that the snow melt in the Tianshan Mountains is cold and biting, and the craftsman digging the culvert must kneel in the ice water to dig the soil, so the workers who have been engaged in the culvert digging for a long time generally do not exceed 30 years old!" ”

"If it's so hard, why do you have to dig it!" Ma Chao asked.

"Because of the high temperature and dryness of Turpan, the water is very easy to disappear, and it is not easy to disperse when the water is introduced into the culvert!" Wei Qia replied.

"The Western Regions are so hot, how can there be snow-capped mountains!" Shi Qian asked suddenly.

Several of the generals laughed.

Although Wei Qi'a also wanted to laugh, he surrendered after all, and he didn't dare to provoke the generals of the Han army casually, so he couldn't help but laugh and explained to Shi Qian seriously: "This snow-capped mountain is caused by the height of the mountain, no matter how hot the ground is, as long as the mountain is high enough, there will be snow-capped mountains!" ”

Shi Qian's face was red, and he knew that he had made a big fool, so he hurriedly changed the topic: "I heard that there is a Yao Pond of the Queen Mother of the West on the Tianshan Mountain, I don't know if it's true or not!" ”

Wei Qi'a was stunned this time: "Queen Mother of the West, who is that, Yaochi is there, but what does it have to do with the Queen Mother of the West!" ”

Shi Qian was stunned, he didn't know who the Queen Mother of the West was: "That's it, it's the wife of the Jade Emperor!" Shi Qian replied.

"Who is the Jade Emperor?" The more Wei Qi'a listened, the more confused he became.

Wei Qing couldn't help laughing: "General Shi, he is from the Western Regions, this legend of the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West is a legend of my Central Plains, how could he know!" ”

Shi Qian's face turned red again, and the more he covered it, the uglier he became.

Wei Qing didn't want Shi Qian to be ugly, he said to Wei Qi'a: "General Wei, this Jade Emperor is the highest god in the legend of my Central Plains, and the Queen Mother of the West is his wife, and the Queen Mother of the West often stays in the Yao Pond of the Tianshan Mountains!" ”

"It's the first time I've heard of it!" Wei Qi'a became interested: "Please ask General Wei to tell me how it is!" ”

Wei Qing was a little embarrassed, he was not the material for telling stories, but since people opened their mouths, I have been talking about you for so long to listen to the Western Regions, and you still don't say anything about the Tianshan Mountains if I ask about it, so no matter how difficult it is, you can only say it.

Wei Qing naturally will not ask the story to be more vivid, he can only endorse it as it is: "Legend has it that during the Zhou Dynasty, King Mu had taken the 'Eight Horse Carriage' to the west of the Tianshan Mountains, the Queen Mother of the West met him in Tianchi, King Mu presented a large number of brocade silk and other Central Plains specialties, and the Queen Mother of the West gave back the treasures of the Tianshan Mountains, and invited King Mu to visit the famous places of the Tianshan Mountains, King Mu wrote the book of the Queen Mother of the West, left as a memorial, when parting, the Queen Mother of the West advised to drink again and again, and sang on the spot: 'I wish you a long life, may you come again,'"

Wei Qi'a said with a smile: "There is really no handwriting on the Tianshan Mountain of the 'Mountain of the Queen Mother of the West', if there is, I am afraid that no one has seen it!" ”

Remember to read it: convenient for next time, or.