When the spring of another year arrived, Li Mu, the governor of the Western Regions of Zhao, finally returned to Handan.

Like every previous war, Li Mu brought back a lot of extremely exciting news.

After defeating the Huns, Li Mu did not chase the Huns, but continued to march westward and eventually joined Zhao Kuo.

This is also Zhao Dan's arrangement in advance, as long as the Western Regions are taken, then the Mobei Xiongnu is the target of Zhao State at any time, and because the Western Regions are occupied, the Huns don't even have a place to run, and it is impossible to run to the icy and snowy Siberia, right?

Therefore, there is really no need to rush the matter of attacking Mobei.

In fact, even Li Mu himself didn't know that the people who arrived in Handan with him before and after were the three Xiongnu Shan Yu's ministers.

After being defeated by Li Mu, the Xiongnu, who had been briefly united, fled back to Mobei, and then split again into many parts, among which the four more powerful Xiongnu nobles each set themselves up as Shan Yu, fighting each other for survival.

In such a situation, it is extremely important who can get the support of Zhao State, so these Shan Yu do not hesitate to submit to Zhao State, just to get the support of Zhao State and kill all the others.

Zhao Dan has already made a decision to let Li Mu lead his troops to attack Mobei at that time, and completely bring Mobei under the command of Zhao Guo.

Another aspect of Li Muxi's expedition, the Bactria region, is also worth mentioning.

In this western expedition, except for the southern mountainous areas where there are still some resistance forces, more than eighty percent of the other areas and all the population cities have been completely included under the jurisdiction of the Zhao Western Regions Protectorate, and are currently governed by a group of officials who set out with the Zhao army.

Of course, due to the vastness of the Western Regions and Bactria, Zhao would need to resettle and send officials to these regions in the future, while retaining enough strong military force to achieve Zhao's rule over these two regions.

Otherwise, Zhao's rule over the region would be as short-lived as the Tang Dynasty.

However, considering that Seleucid's scum combat effectiveness could not be compared with the powerful Arab Empire in the Tang Dynasty, and considering that Zhao had super-era weapons such as armored cavalry and earth-shattering thunder, no one in Zhao felt that Zhao would not be able to hold these two areas.

In addition, Li Mu also brought back a long list obtained through the auction of oases, slaves, horses, and various special products and materials in the Western Regions, and at the end of the list was the common seal of the heads of the top twenty largest chambers of commerce in the world, as well as a huge number that made Lu Buwei, the supreme head of the Ministry of Commerce of Zhao, dizzy when he looked at it.

Not only that, Li Mu also brought back tens of thousands of Hu slaves from the Western Regions, thousands of descendants of Macedonian craftsmen from the former Alexander Empire from the Batkeria region, and many books from the Batkeria region, including even messages from Greek sages such as Plato and Aristotle.

Regarding the Mauryan Dynasty in India, Li Mu also gained enough understanding in Bactria, which laid the foundation for the next conquest of India.

Although India is now the reign of Ashoka, the strongest king of the Mauryan Empire, with the combination of Li Mu + armored cavalry + earth-shaking thunder + the elite army of Zhao State that pacified the Six Kingdoms, Zhao Dan felt that Ashoka might not dominate India as he did in history, and was called the first emperor of India through the ages.

Of course, the rice should be eaten in one bite, and it is necessary to transfer to India, but that has to be after Zhao completely pacified the Western Regions and took Mobei.

The war in the Western Regions and India was mainly entrusted to Li Mu, assisted by Zhao Kuo. This is because the enemy in this area is the most tricky, and it also needs someone to be stationed for a long time, and the combination of Li Mu and Zhao Kuo is both young and good enough, and they are excellent candidates.

In addition, the Yue ethnic groups such as Dongyue and Minyue in the south, as well as Yelang and other countries in the southwest, are also objects that need to be further conquered. After all, these are the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Guangdong, and Guangxi in Chinese history, and they must be taken.

Moreover, after taking this place, Zhao was able to continue south to Vietnam and other places in the Indochina Peninsula, so as to obtain the best food crop that Zhao could obtain in this era, Champa rice.

And in the direction of going south, Zhao Dan decided to hand over the sword to Lian Po, who was still old.

After all, according to the history books, Lian Po died a few years before Qin Shi Huang destroyed Zhao in 222 BC.

With the old and strong Lian Po, supplemented by veterans such as Pang Xuan and Ju Xin, it is absolutely safe.

Taking a step back, even if these veterans have a short lifespan, then Lecheng, who is still in the Mesozoic Era, can also be responsible for this aspect, after all, the south is not like the Western Regions where there are powerful countries like Seleucus or the Mauryan Empire, mainly some ethnic minorities and small countries in the mountains.

This kind of enemy, a world-famous general of Lian Po Pangxuan's level is actually just to relax his muscles and bones, and Lecheng's ability is definitely easy to compete.

In addition to the things on land, the things on the sea are also advancing in an orderly manner.

After destroying Qi, Wei, Chu and other countries, Zhao obtained a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen, and now Zhao Dan concentrated these craftsmen in Langya City, Zhao State, ready for them to build a fleet that can go to sea, the head of the fleet is the deputy general of Li Mu in history, and now Sima Shang, the commander of the Zhao State Naval Division.

In the short term, Zhao Dan hopes that within ten years, Zhao's fleet will be able to land on the Riben Islands and control the mineral resources of Riben, especially copper and silver mines.

Within twenty years, Zhao Dan hoped that Zhao's fleet would be able to sail south to the Spice Islands, which would later be known as Indonesia.

Within thirty years, Zhao Dan hoped that Zhao's fleet would reach the Arabian Peninsula and the east coast of Africa.

Within fifty years, Zhao Dan hoped that Zhao's fleet would be able to bypass the Cape of Good Hope and reach the west coast of Africa in the Atlantic, and even reach the Liberian Peninsula in western Europe and enter the Mediterranean.

Within seventy to one hundred years, Zhao Dan hoped that Zhao's fleet would be able to land in the Americas.

Within one hundred and fifty years, Zhao Dan hoped that Zhao's fleet would be able to complete the circumnavigation of the world.

It sounds a little too far away, but given that it is still two hundred years BC, at least 1,600 years earlier than the Age of Discovery of Columbus Magellan and others, and the fact that there are few people in such a place due to thousands of years of war in the Central Plains today, Zhao Dan is not in a hurry at all.

When the population of Zhao exploded, it happened that Zhao's foreign navigation industry had reached a peak, and at that time, the surplus population in the Central Plains could be exported to the newly opened colonies around the world in the way of immigrants and conquerors.

In an ideal scenario, all of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas might even become complete colonies of Zhao, and the conquest of West Asia and Europe would be the goal of Zhao's future land military expansion.

Of course, it is fair to tell whether the continued conquest of foreign countries will lead to the fragmentation of Zhao into four khanates similar to those of the Mongols, or whether there will be such a thing as the independence of the United States from the British colonies......

By the time this issue needs to be considered, Zhao Dan has already been cold, how much does a dead person care? I can't manage it if I want to.

Besides, if the whole world is conquered by Huaxia, then in the case of "the whole world is Chinese, and the whole world is speaking Chinese", what does it matter whether the Zhao State is strong or even whether the Zhao royal family still exists?

Anyway, Zhao Dan is the one who laid the foundation of the great cause of China for thousands of years, and he is the one who is destined to go down in history and be sacrificed by the incense of the king!

Speaking of which, Zhao Dan plans to record all the memories of the future generations in his mind in the form of an "oracle", and let the future emperor of Zhao State pass it on from generation to generation.

With such an oracle book purportedly from heaven, coupled with many descriptions of the future that will definitely be realized in it, Zhao Dan feels that as long as his heirs are not kicked in the head, they should not do stupid things like the middle and late Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, such as the ban on the sea and the closure of the country, let alone stop the external expansion of Zhao State.

That's enough.

On the first day of June 248 B.C., Zhao Dan officially ascended Mount Tai and held a grand ceremony of sealing Zen under the witness of the ministers of Zhao State, the hundreds of princes, representatives of the people of Zhao State from all over the country, and even many small border countries and tribes.

That is, on the top of the Zen Ceremony, Zhao Dan announced that the name of the year would be changed to "unification", and ordered the Zhao State calendar to revise the calendar, and the new calendar named the Chinese calendar was promulgated to the world, and it has been implemented since then.

Since then, there is no longer any statement of 248 BC, nor of the sixteenth year of King Zhao, but only the first year of the Chinese calendar!

The Chinese calendar has also become the only calendar used on the earth in later generations.

The history of China has officially opened a new page!

In the third year of the Chinese calendar, the Seleucid king Antiochus II led a large army to attack and fought with Li Mu in the Broken Leaf County.

In this battle, Li Mu defeated the 200,000 army of Antiochus II with 50,000 Zhao troops and 80,000 troops of 30,000 servants.

After the death of Antiochus II, the Seleucid princes fought for the throne and fell into civil strife, and they were no longer able to move east to deal with Zhao.

Under such circumstances, six years later, that is, in the ninth year of the Chinese calendar, Li Mu, who was fully prepared, led 100,000 Zhao troops to cross the mountains of Central Asia and go south to India, breaking the 300,000 troops led by Ashoka of the Mauryan Dynasty on the banks of the Indus River, and began the conquest of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia.

At the same time, Lian Po, as the main general, also began to lead the Central Plains Zhao army south to conquer Zhuyue and Southwest Yi, although Pang Xuan and Ju Xin died of illness in the process, but Lecheng lived up to Zhao Dan's expectations and successfully succeeded as Lian Po's best assistant.

In the eleventh year of the Chinese calendar, Nanxi Yi and Baiyue were conquered by the combination of Lian Po and Le Cheng, and the territory of Zhao rule completely expanded to the edge of the South China Sea, touching the entrance to the Indochina Peninsula.

At this moment, the Zhao State, in addition to the historical Xizang, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, has completely possessed all the territory of the Huaxia Kingdom in later generations.

Moreover, considering the extra Korea, Mobei, the Western Regions, and Central Asia, as well as the overseas colonies that Sima Shang had just opened up for Zhao, in fact, the territory of Zhao at this moment has surpassed that of Huaxia in later generations, and with the continuous expansion of Zhao, Zhao's territory is still expanding.

At this moment, Zhao is already a well-deserved and indisputable number one power on earth!

At the same time, the internal handover of Zhao's political arena is also running in an orderly manner.

After establishing the Xiangbang term system, the first Yu Xin completed his five-year term and abdicated, and Lü Buwei became the second Zhao Xiangbang. At this time, Lü Buwei's term of office had also ended, and Li Si became the third prime minister. Another evergreen in the Zhao political arena, Li Bo and Han Fei, are regarded as the two strongest contenders for the fourth prime minister.

At least for now, this exchange transfusion mechanism is quite effective.

In the twenty-eighth year of the Chinese calendar, Zhao Dan, who had been the monarch of Zhao for 44 years, announced his abdication at his 60th birthday ceremony, and passed on to Zhao Heng, the crown prince of Zhao, and became the second "master father" of Zhao after his grandfather Zhao Wuling, that is, the emperor.

Since then, the system that the reign of the king of Zhao shall not exceed 60 years old has been fixed in the way of the ancestral system, and under the personal demonstration of Zhao Dan, the emperor must not interfere in the affairs of the new emperor, and it has become an unspoken rule that must be followed.

Since then, the 60-year-old retirement system has been completely established in Zhao State from top to bottom.

When Zhao Dan abdicated, Zhao's territory had expanded to the Arabian Peninsula and the Eastern European Plain, and most of India had been conquered, and all of the main archipelago, half of the Indochina Peninsula, and 30% of the Spice Islands had become Zhao's colonies.

This is an unprecedentedly powerful Zhao State in history, a powerful empire that has never appeared in Chinese history, and a Zhao State that is destined to fall into the history of China!

The glory of China continues, and the era of a great nation ruling the earth is slowly unveiling, and will become the main theme of the entire earth's history for a long, long time!

The end of the book.

—Ximeng's father, October 17, 2018, 3:21 a.m.