Grassland.

This is a vast grassland located in the west of Helan Mountain and north of the east of Qilian Mountain.

Looking overhead, the blue sky is cloudless, and the spring sun shines down from the sky, which is both hot and warm.

But in the midst of this green prairie, something that looked a little abrupt began to appear.

Strictly speaking, this shouldn't be a thing, because it's a city.

The walls of the city were so low that any adult warrior could grab the upper edge of the wall and climb up the wall with a few steps and a strong jump.

The area of the city is not large, and the circumference of the four walls combined is only seven miles.

Not only that, but there are not many houses in the city, except for a two-story building in the middle of the city, which seems to be barely deliberate.

On top of that, the whole city was littered with tents, coming and going, working under the whips of the overseers.

In this city, there are more than civilians, but cavalry of all kinds.

If you are related by blood, these cavalrymen are actually from different parts, some are Lin Hu, some are Lou Fu, some are Yiqu, and some are Donghu.

But here, they all have a unified name, and that is Zhao Guo.

Three thousand Zhao cavalry plus more than five thousand coolies, that's all the population of this city.

Needless to say, the person who led these people to build this city was naturally Li Mu, the envoy of the northern economy of Zhao State.

After negotiating cooperation with Yiqu Sheng not long ago, Li Mu led 3,000 Zhao cavalry and Yiqu 8,000 cavalry led by Yiqu Sheng to cross the Yellow River and build a city in such a place west of Helan Mountain and east of Qilian Mountain.

In Li Mu's vision, in the future, this city would become a bridgehead for the cavalry of Zhao to march westward.

And there is not only one such city, it will continue to extend to the west with the footsteps of the Zhao cavalry, and finally let the entire Hexi Corridor be covered with large and small military cities.

After almost two months of construction, when summer was approaching, the city began to look a little bit, at least the walls were temporarily completed.

Due to the lack of necessary stone in the steppe, it is not practical to build a very tall city.

If it is built at the foot of Helan Mountain, then it may be able to mine enough fodder, but this is too conservative for Li Mu.

In Li Mu's view, the construction of these military cities is not for defense but for offense, so it is not too much of a problem to have poor defensive capabilities.

In Li Mu's view, the most important thing in fighting a war is people, not cities.

This can be seen from the fact that Zhao Kuo and Li Si were able to defend Dingxi City, which is also not high, under the siege of 100,000 Xiongnu troops, with only a few thousand soldiers and horses.

In fact, although he was the builder of this city, Li Mu was not in the city at this moment.

As early as half a month ago, Li Mu had already led the main force to leave here and go deep into the grasslands further west.

In the middle of the day, a cloud of smoke and dust suddenly rose on the horizon to the west of the city, and it was clear that a very large cavalry force was slowly approaching.

Strangely enough, with such a large force approaching, the slaves who were working in the city did not seem to be at all moved, still busy with their work.

After another moment, the army gradually approached.

A flag loomed in the smoke and dust, and it was a huge "Zhao" character.

Under the banner of Zhao Guo here, Li Mu and Yiqu Sheng walked side by side surrounded by many personal guards, and both of them had very obvious smiles on their faces.

Behind the two, in addition to the tens of thousands of allied troops composed of Zhao and Yiqu cavalry, there were thousands of Xiongnu prisoners, as well as tens of thousands of cattle and sheep.

As early as when he began to build the city, Li Mu's actions had already attracted the attention of the Xiongnu and Wusun people, but what made Li Mu strange was that after almost half a month, there were still no large numbers of enemies near his city.

This made Li Mu and Yiqusheng a little puzzled, could it be that the Huns and Wusun people were really indifferent to this?

Fortunately, when the city was first built, Li Mu had already sent a large number of sentries and spies to the grassland to reconnoiter the whereabouts of the Huns and Wusun.

Because Li Mu had a large number of Hu people from Lin Hu Lou Fu under his command, this brought great convenience to Li Mu's intelligence reconnaissance work.

A Zhao person who appears on the grassland will be hunted down and killed by the Huns, but if it is Lin Hulou or Yiqu, these people may not be necessarily.

It was also with the help of these Hu spies that Li Mu spent twenty days and finally understood the situation on the grassland today.

Since the death of the Yue Clan King, the entire Yue Clan Kingdom has basically been destroyed.

The vast majority of the Yueshi became prisoners, and only a small group of remnants of the Yueshi people were defeated with a few old and weak people, and they escaped from the continuous pursuit of the Wusun and Xiongnu and fled to the west.

This grassland, which originally belonged to the Yueshi people, has completely become the territory of the Xiongnu and Wusun people.

Originally, according to the agreed distribution rules, the Xiongnu occupied more territory, while the Wusun occupied less territory.

However, after learning that the Huns had just suffered a great defeat, the Wusun people repented very decisively, and forcibly occupied many rich pastures, and only handed over a small part of the poor pastures to the Huns.

In this way, there will inevitably be some scorn between the Xiongnu and the Wusun people.

Although it is said that the Huns entrenched here are not all the elite forces of the entire Huns, if the Huns and Wusun join forces, only with the 10,000 cavalry in Li Mu's hands, the odds of victory are not very great.

After all, this time Li Mu's cavalry was not 100% of the cavalry of the Zhao State, and most of the cavalry under Li Mu were from the Yiqu cavalry under the command of Yiqu Sheng.

In such a situation, Li Mu did not have a strong opponent, but chose to outwit.

He was very clever in grasping the contradiction between the Wusun and the Huns, first asked Yiqusheng to send an envoy to persuade the Wusun people, obtained information about the Huns from the Wusun people, and then personally led a large army to raid the Huns' court tent.

Under this kind of quiet arrangement, Li Mu really won a big victory.

The Lutuwang tribe that the Huns were responsible for stationed here was determined by Li Mu in a battle, and the high-ranking members of the Lutuwang tribe were almost wiped out by Li Mu, and the rest of the people were all taken prisoner by Li Mu, and all the livestock, cattle and sheep also became Li Mu's trophies.

With such a big victory, it is no wonder that Li Mu and Yi Qusheng are both smiling.

At this moment, the two chiefs were discussing the issue of dividing the spoils.

Yiqu Sheng smiled at Li Mu and said, "Li Mu, according to the previous rules, how about you half and half me?" ”

Li Mu seemed to be a little distracted, nodded when he heard this, and said, "That's how it should be." ”

Yi Qusheng rolled his eyes, and said again: "This time, I also caught a lot of women, and these women are all mine." ”

Li Mu glanced at Yi Qusheng with a strange face: "Don't you already have several mothers-in-law, what do you need so many women for?" And if I'm not mistaken, there are at least two or three thousand women this time, don't you want to be a stallion? ”

Yiqu Sheng laughed and said, "Then you are mistaken, although it is true that I like women very much, but you don't want to think about how those ordinary herdsmen can get into my eyes, I am ...... No, this king is the king of Yiqu Sheng. ”

Li Mu nodded slightly, and then spoke: "You want to reward those women to your subordinates and let them give birth to your subordinates, right?" ”

Yi Qusheng nodded and said with a smile: "That's nature, where does the population come from without women?" You probably wouldn't object to it. ”

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "Naturally not." ”

For the steppe, which believes in the principle of the jungle, everything from any loser belongs to the winner, and women are certainly no exception.

And the women on the grassland have long been ready to realize, as long as they fall into the hands of the victors, these women usually will not resist.

In fact, it is not only now, thousands of years later, the wife of Temujin, the pioneer of the world-famous Mongol enemy, was also robbed by his sworn enemy for a while, and then when Temujin snatched his wife back, his wife was already pregnant and gave birth to Temujin's eldest son, Jochi.

If it was in the Central Plains, the woman and the child might not have survived, but Temujin chose to raise Jochi and gave Jochi a piece of land.

This is the difference between the grassland and the Central Plains.

After getting Li Mu's consent, Yiqu Sheng was even happier, and said to Li Mu again: "This big battle is really exciting, tell me, when will we have such a big war again?" As...... Just next month, right? ”

For Yi Qusheng, he can now be regarded as a marrow eater.

A victory in a big war can obtain such a rich spoils equivalent to the output of Yiqu State in peacetime for at least two or three years, how can it not be that Yiqu Sheng, who is nominally the monarch, but is actually so poor that he almost can't even feed the mouths of the soldiers under his command, has red eyes with excitement.

However, what Yiqusheng didn't expect was that Li Mu chose to refuse this question.

"Nope."

Yiqu Sheng was full of surprise, and even his tone when he spoke couldn't help but raise several degrees: "Why not?" ”

Li Mu said in a deep voice: "My king has just sent an order, and the Zhao State is about to start a war with the Qin State. As the envoy of the northern part of the Zhao State, I should return to Shuofang County as soon as possible to prepare for war with the Qin people. ”

After Yiqu Sheng heard Li Mu's words, he couldn't help but shake his head in disappointment and sighed: "It's really not a good thing." Tell me, why did your king choose this time to start a war? ”

Li Mu shrugged his shoulders and said to Yi Qusheng, "This is not something I can decide. However, according to the prior agreement, once I leave, then the safety of this place will depend on you to maintain it. ”

Yiqu Sheng patted his chest heroically, and smiled at Li Mu: "You still don't worry about my work?" Just leave, I'll stay on this prairie a little longer, and maybe by the time you come back, I'll already have won several great battles!" Just wait for your eyes to be greedy! By the way, while you're away, all the loot will be mine! ”

The corners of Li Mu's mouth twitched slightly, and said, "If that's really the case...... Then I hope you can be a victorious general here. ”