"Husband?" In the dead of night, although they are already old husbands and wives, the frequency of night activities is not as good as back then, but when they occasionally rise, the fighting is also dark, the physique of the two is different from ordinary people, even if they are nearly fifty years old, they do not lose their prime of life when they play occasionally, after the storm, it is an indescribable calm, lying in the arms of her husband, Lu Lingqi suddenly called softly.

"Huh?" Liu Yi put his hands behind his head and looked down at his wife, in the dark, he could vaguely see his wife's fair face, and even now, those bright eyes are still as bright as stars.

"The concubine suddenly thought, if our family can always settle in this Western Regions, how good would it be to not have to care about the disturbances of the Central Plains?" Lu Lingqi's smile, just like the first time she saw her, under Liu Yi's protection, she did not bear too much pressure, and therefore, her smile was still pure.

It's just that Liu Yi's protection is good, but after all, in this circle, Lu Lingqi doesn't understand anything, her husband is a Han minister, but he doesn't really sit back and relax, her daughter's words back then, Lu Lingqi still remembers, but later the father and daughter seem to have forgotten about this matter and didn't mention it again, and Lu Lingqi didn't ask again, but in her opinion, although the Central Plains is good, it is far from being at ease in the Western Regions.

"I still have to go back, but I have to stay here for a few more years, you have also seen the steam engine, there are already experimental products, but the water consumption is too large, it is not easy to use it in this Western Regions, and there are still many problems, many places can be improved." Liu Yi hugged his wife and smiled.

The steam engine is something that Liu Yi began to study in Yunnan, during which he did many tests, and now the steam engine can be put into use, but the consumption of water and coal exceeds Liu Yi's expectations, and the size is huge, and it is okay to use it in mining and machine tools, but sometimes the loss may be more than the harvest.

In fact, Liu Yi also has a more exquisite and practical design, but the accuracy of the material is very high, and the airtightness of the high-pressure boiler is insufficient, which is also the fundamental reason for the excessive loss.

In addition, in terms of accuracy, if you can go further, you can also reduce the loss, but after the first machine tool comes out, the accuracy can be gradually improved, this problem has now been solved, but the hermetic material Liu Yi can only try to replace it with some cork.

"The concubine doesn't understand these things, but if the husband's automatic equipment is put into production, is it really that powerful?" Lu Lingqi said curiously.

"If you use it to operate the rail car and replace the wooden rails with railroad tracks, you can reach Chang'an in less than two days from here to Chang'an, as long as the dye is enough, but this road is not as easy as the wooden rails." Liu Yi said with a wry smile that the railroad tracks must have sleepers, and it is necessary to establish a tunnel to prevent someone from stealing the rails, sentry posts along the way, etc., and even a special rail protection law must be established to strictly prohibit theft.

At present, the rail car is enough for the Han to run, and now limited to the problem of mining technology, the iron ore is not rich enough to let him lay the railway, so this is just a thought, if you want to put it into practice, I am afraid you have to wait until the world is unified, at the moment Liu Yi just wants to improve the steam engine, the current steam engine, the operating cost is too high, and some of the gains outweigh the losses.

"Less than two days?" Lu Lingqi looked at Liu Yi with some surprise.

In order to see Guan Yu and Zhang Fei for the last time, Liu Yi set off from Juyan and started the rail car day and night, and it took five days before and after, which was already extremely fast, from Yiwu to Chang'an, hundreds of miles longer than Juyan, and it only took two days to arrive, which made Lu Lingqi feel a little incredible.

Liu Yi didn't explain too much, two days is an estimate, without any problems and without pause in the middle, it can be done theoretically, but in fact, you have to replenish water on the way, and then you have to start again, if you really run, I'm afraid it will take three to four days, but for this era, it is already very fast.

"One day, I will resign from my official position and accompany my wife to see Dawan, Kangju and further rest, Daxia, you and I will travel the world together." Liu Yi said with a smile.

When the day comes, the industrial age is coming, there will be no one to organize, and when the time comes, Liu Yi also wants to take his wife to see how big the world is.

Lu Lingqi leaned on Liu Yi's arms with some longing, and murmured: "If that's the case, what if you and I don't come back?" ”

"Then find a place where others can't find it, green mountains and green waters, beautiful mountains and rivers, you and I will live in seclusion, raise a dog, raise some rare birds and beasts, and live the life of idle clouds and wild cranes." Liu Yi said with some yearning, he tried to survive at the beginning of his life, and then met Liu Bei, joined the battle of the world, and his pursuit began to change, from the beginning to end the troubled times as soon as possible, to later want to seal his wife and son, and now as his children grow up, Liu Yi has gradually looked down on power and wealth.

Some things, when there is no time, will do everything to pursue, but when you have it, you can look down on it, that is a kind of sublimation above the realm, now Liu Yi's biggest hope is to be able to leave something for the Han Dynasty and Huaxia, I hope that my nation can have less tribulations and catastrophes in the future, and I hope that Huaxia can really be like a dragon and stand on top of the world forever.

These things seem to be very empty to say, but life is like this, when you have had glory and wealth, and enjoyed power, if you can come out of it, the things you see and the things you think about will not move closer to these things, but pursue higher things, of course, it is also possible to go to the evil side.

If his ideal is achieved, then this kind of life is what Liu Yi yearns for the most.

"But we have to come back, our roots are here." Lu Lingqi leaned on Liu Yi's arms, thinking about the picture Liu Yi depicted, and smiled stupidly: "It will also take time for you and me to be gray-haired." ”

"Isn't that good? Holding the hand of the son and growing old with the son. In the dark, Liu Yi held Lu Lingqi's soft and smiled.

"Hmm."

……

After the New Year, it was the sixth year of Xingyuan, and Liu Ming and Liu Cheng had been accompanying Liu Yi and his wife in Yiwu City until the end of the first month.

After enjoying a month of family fun, Liu Yi returned to work.

After more than a month of economic blockade, the effect has come out, with the Han Dynasty and the Western Regions countries, Guo Jia, who maintained trade with the Han Dynasty, cut off trade with those small countries, the original wealth became worthless, the domestic aristocracy first began to be dissatisfied, and even in this month there was civil strife.

At the beginning of February, Yanqi declared himself a minister to the Han Dynasty and was willing to be attached, and the royal family was sent to Wuwei by Liu Yi, how to arrange for the court to be the master, now that it has begun, the treatment of King Juyan will not appear on the royal families of other small countries, unless there are big countries such as Wusun and Dawan, otherwise it is impossible to treat them as before.

At the same time, the second round of track laying also began with the positive response of various countries, and with the opening of the track, many glass products fired by the Tiangong Workshop began to be sold in large quantities to countries in the Western Regions, in order to plunder the wealth and resources of various countries.

However, a large amount of luxury goods eventually fell on the people of the countries, and the people, who could not bear the heavy taxes, began to flee one after another, to join the army or make a living in the cities controlled by the Han Dynasty.

Many countries began to be unable to support it, some began to work hard to refuse glass products, and some simply gave the country to the Han to govern, and let the Han fill these vacancies.

Most of the countries in the Western Regions are small countries with a population of 1,000 or 100 households, and the ability to resist risks is weak, and Liu Yi's speed of collecting the countries of the Western Regions has also begun to accelerate, and at the beginning of the seventh year of Xingyuan (235 AD), with the official entry into force of Khotan, the territory of the Han Dynasty has spread to the banks of the Khotan River, this year, Liu Yi has put in the number of new coins in the Western Regions has reached 3 billion, of which at most, only 500 million are invested by the imperial court, and the rest are minted by Liu Yi here.

At the same time, all kinds of resources from the Western Regions flowed into the Han Dynasty, enriching the heritage and population of the Han Dynasty, and in the new round of population census, the population of the Western Regions belonging to the Han Dynasty reached 200,000!

For more than a year, Liu Yi relied on the power of the Western Regions to lay three tracks along the Tianshan Mountains, connecting countries, and two tracks across Dunhuang to Khotan, and in the next two years, Liu Yi was ready to put more energy on laying tracks.

So far, Liu Yi has built eleven cities in the Western Regions.

In the ninth year of Xingyuan, the wooden tracks in the Western Regions have reached as many as 17, and the territory of the Han Dynasty has also extended from Khotan to Shule City.

In the same year, Dawan and Wusun Alliance launched an attack on Shule and Shicheng.

Dawan has a household registration of 80,000, a population of 300,000, and as many as 60,000 soldiers and horses, and Wusun also has a population of nearly 100,000, with enough 20,000 soldiers and horses.

An army of 80,000, even in the Central Plains, is a remarkable figure, and if it is placed in the Western Regions, it is not difficult for such an army to sweep through the Western Regions if conditions permit.

Dawan and Wusun obviously also saw the convenience of the track, and after Liu Yi completed the laying of the track in the Western Regions, they wanted to take the opportunity to seize it as a springboard for their own annexation of the Western Regions.

And the garrison of the Han in the Western Regions is only 50,000 in total, and it is impossible to stop the pace of the combined forces of the two countries by guarding all sides.

It's a pity that this battle did not go as smoothly as they imagined, and the Wusun army was blocked by Wei Chang with 6,000 soldiers and horses under the stone city, and failed to break the city after three days of siege, but suffered heavy losses.

In the month when Dawan sent troops, Liu Yi personally led Wei Rong and Huang Rong to lead 10,000 Han elite soldiers to meet Dawan's 60,000 army, and the 60,000 army was easily broken, Liu Yi took advantage of the situation to wave his troops westward, all the way to Guishan City, and completely included Dawan in the Han territory!