After Zhu Youxiao sent Zhu Youzhen away, he no longer considered Zhu Youzhen's affairs, no one could worry about him for a lifetime, and there was still a big mess of things in the Ming Dynasty that needed to be sorted out, and he wanted to reorganize the Ming Dynasty and strive for the Chinese civilization to always stand at the top of the world civilization.

Things in the west must not be relaxed, anything can happen, it is good that he has crossed over, but he must not underestimate those cattle people in the current society, in order to completely interrupt the process of eastward expansion of Westerners, Zhu Youxiao still needs to do a lot of things.

Even Zhu Youxiao himself does not know much about the current political, economic, military, scientific and technological development in Europe, let alone other people. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao issued a call to go out again, and talented people in the political, economic, military, and scientific and technological fields can go around the world, so that they can learn from each other's strong points and make breakthroughs in development.

Li Hongji, who was far away in the Western Regions, was an idle man, although he was only twenty-four years old now, he was a high-ranking official and became the military commander of one side, but when the war here was over, he felt extremely lonely. Fortunately, the local chief official here is Hong Chengchou, this person can be said to be both civil and military, and seeing that Li Hongji was appreciated by Zhu Youxiao although he was young, he helped Li Hongji, hoping to get benefits in the future.

In fact, Hong Chengchou is not very old now, only in his thirties, basically belongs to a generation with Li Hongji, but his background is different, because he was born as a Jinshi, which had a very high status when he used literature to control martial arts during the Wanli period, but after Zhu Youxiao became the emperor, the generals began to gradually show their strength. However, Hong Chengchou is also very outstanding in military affairs, so he also admires Li Hongji very much, especially his iron-blooded methods, which makes Li Hongji's blood boil, and the two have started a good personal relationship.

In a short period of one or two years, under the guidance of Hong Chengchou, Li Hongji's cultural level has been greatly improved, and Li Hongji has undergone earth-shaking changes compared with Li Hongji in the original history, whether it is military quality or judgment of the current situation. Even Hong Chengchou thinks that Li Hongji is too smart, and if he can study when he is a child, he will definitely be able to rely on the imperial examination.

When Zhu Youxiao's call to go out and open his eyes came here, Li Hongji couldn't bear the loneliness anymore, and he proposed to Hong Chengchou that he wanted to go out and go around, Hong Chengchou of course understood what he meant, and quickly agreed to his suggestion.

Li Hongji is not alone, Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu are Li Zicheng's hardcore partners, as for Yuan Chongdi, Li Guo, Liu Fangliang and others, they are not here, otherwise these guys will go out to play together. Now that Li Hongji is going out for a walk, these two people will naturally go on a rampage with him, and this Wen Yiwu is not bad.

Since Li Hongji is going out to explore, Hong Chengchou naturally has to arrange it properly, if something happens, Zhu Youxiao will definitely be angry. Li Hongji himself knows this problem, but his curiosity is too strong, and he is so annoyed that he can't bear it at all when he stays at home all day to deal with official documents.

There were more than 60 people who followed Li Hongji out, including Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu, of whom 32 were guard soldiers, and the rest were ordinary soldiers, whose task was to protect vehicles and materials.

Li Hongji, Liu Zongmin, Tian Jianxiu and the soldiers were almost the same, they were all one war horse, two *, ten * hidden in their waists, crossbows on their arms, two daggers hidden in their legs, and a knife hanging on their waists, which was the unique equipment of the Ming army guard soldiers. Li Hongji and Tian Jianxiu were wearing swords, and Liu Zongmin was carrying a ghost head knife on his back, which was his special weapon and life-saving home.

At the current level of equipment, the weapons of these more than 30 people can be said to be very powerful, coupled with their superb martial arts, even if it is a team of two or three hundred soldiers, it is a piece of cake in front of them, even if they encounter a team of thousands of people, as long as they want to escape, they can leave without damage, because their war horses are the best sweat and blood horses.

Li Hongji and they naturally can't explore in the mode of the army, their current identity is a caravan, Li Hongji is the owner of the caramut, and Liu Zongmin is a bodyguard, because no matter how Liu Zongmin dresses up, he can't hide the murderous aura on his body, so only the identity of the bodyguard is the most suitable for him. Tian Jianxiu is indeed another decoration, he was originally born in Xiucai, so his current identity is Mr. Accounts, which looks very decent.

March is the best time for the steppe scenery, and in the vast steppe north of the Black Sea, a caravan is leisurely marching westward, this caravan of more than sixty people, more than twenty wagons, they are unhurriedly chatting and chatting on the somewhat desolate steppe paths. There were a few hares around them that were frightened away, and occasionally a few steppe wolves followed behind, but these people didn't care at all, didn't care about their safety at all, and just walked on in a casual and seemingly aimless way.

This caravan that is not too large is Li Hongji and his party, in these twenty or so carriages, ten of which are their weapons, including two hand-cranked machine guns, a hundred rifles, ten small mortars, and a large number of bullets, with these sophisticated weapons, they can already run rampant on this grassland, not afraid of fierce steppe wolves and impermanence steppe horse bandits at all.

For almost a month, they crossed the border of the Lesser Yuz and the Khiva Khanate and entered this vast Eastern European steppe. During these days, they encountered several horse bandits who tried to attack their convoy, and the results were all tragic, and they were finally killed, the only dangerous ones were the large herds of steppe wolves, but under the accurate fire of modern rifles, more than 300 steppe wolves were crushed by them in half an hour.

They also met a dozen indigenous tribes, large and small, and made some simple transactions with them, nothing more than some lighters, or precious furs, in exchange for some unwanted food, and for those tribes with bad intentions, they showed their fangs, so that they did not dare to act rashly, lest they bring shame on themselves.

Li Hongji's expedition actually has no goal, and Zhu Youxiao's hope for exchange and learning has nothing to do with it, he just can't bear the loneliness, he wants to see what kind of environment is further west, who lives there, the only idea is to see if the people in these places will be dangerous to the Ming Dynasty, which is also the most basic requirement of a soldier.

He didn't encounter too much trouble along the way, Li Hongji felt a little lonely in his heart, and he didn't meet a strong opponent, which is a sadness for people who want to take risks, but it is even more sad when he encounters a strong opponent. In this way, Li Hongji led the team aimlessly, hoping to meet more interesting people or things on the way.

There was a thick wolf smoke in the distant sky, and there was a faint sound of fighting, there seemed to be a war there, and judging from the scope of the smoke, this battle was not small, about dozens of square miles, which made Li Hongji start to get excited, and ordered the convoy to move quickly there to see what was going on there.

No one in a normal caravan does this, and when there is a battle in front of them, they will definitely stay away, and Li Hongji's behavior is obviously not what a normal caravan does. Of course, this is not a caravan in itself, they are an expedition, and if there is danger ahead, they have to be explored.

Seeing the wolf smoke on the grassland, the distance is really far away, but fortunately, the generals of the Ming army are now equipped with high-magnification telescopes. Li Hongji and the others rushed there for an hour before they saw the situation there with the help of a telescope.

Under normal circumstances, the fighting of the army is the most tragic, and after a battle, there are ruins everywhere, soldiers with missing arms and legs, lamenting wounded, and the unbridled cheers of the victors. But this time Li Hongji saw a heinous massacre, a team of soldiers who seemed to belong to the Ottoman Empire were slaughtering a group of old and young, these old and young were defenseless, they had no ability to resist at all, they didn't even have the ability to run around, they could only watch their companions being killed, and in the end they didn't even have the courage to escape.