After hesitating in the command center for nearly two hours, Zhuang Fudi finally made up his mind. Then he returned to his seat and flattened the paper in front of him, pressed it on the paperweight, and then picked up the pen and recorded the details of the Wuwei defense battle on the paper. The losses caused by the battle were then compiled, and the two items were encapsulated together in brown paper, and their own fire paint was pressed on the seals. Then he called the night owls who had been unknown in the command post and asked them to deliver the package to Li Wenyuan's hands as soon as possible.

However, Li Wenyuan did not know that the battle of Wuwei on the Eastern Front had been divided at this time, but out of his trust in Zhuang Fudi and Li Wen, he did not pay too much attention to the war on the Eastern Front at this time. In his opinion, the Eastern Front battlefield is just a small fireworks show before the war on the Western Front, and the number of participants is only a few tens of thousands; The place of contention is only a county of Wuwei County. In comparison, at this time, the battlefield on the Western Front gathered more than 300,000 troops from both sides, and at present, the territory captured by the Western Regions Army is completely capable of plugging the next eight counties of the Western Regions.

In fact, what attracted Li Wenyuan the most was not the size of the territory, but the tens of thousands of nomadic herders who were willing to join him with the territory, as well as the Han scholars and martial artists who had been scattered in the Western Turks because of the persecution of the Central Plains over the years, and the most important thing was the rich minerals buried under this land.

In the northwest of China, minerals are relatively top-heavy. Most of the mineral deposits were under the control of the Western Turks at this time, so there are also some mines in the Hexi Corridor where the eight counties of the Western Regions are located. However, the cost of collecting these mines is still relatively high compared to the veins in the areas controlled by the Turks. Therefore, if Li Wenyuan wants to supply a large number of riot soldiers, especially the big storm musketeers and Mo Dao soldiers, then he must need a stable and cheap source of minerals to supply the equipment of the entire army and the possible wear and tear in training. Driven by these needs, Li Wenyuan decisively launched this war against the Western Turks.

Now the Western Turks have been beaten and have no power to fight back. At this time, if it were not for the relatively backward transportation restrictions, which led to difficulties in supply and supply, it is estimated that the Western Regions Army would have advanced to the edge of the Aral Sea by now. But in fact, to be honest, Li Wenyuan is already very satisfied with the current results. Because some of the mineral production points that he remembered in his mind were already under the control of the Western Regions Army at this time. Even if the ability of mineral gathering and smelting at this time could not reach the exaggerated horror of later generations, but now the combat power that these minerals can bring to the Western Regions Army is also very considerable, so Li Wenyuan already has the idea of a truce in his heart.

However, the tree wanted to be quiet and the wind did not stop, and I did not know what kind of means and the temptation of benefits the Western Turks used, so they persuaded the Sassanid Dynasty to send troops to aid him. Li Wenyuan is still a little afraid of this huge empire located at the junction of Europe, Asia and Africa. In fact, even if you don't know, as long as you see that this Sassanid Empire can now survive under the strength of the Western Turks of the Byzantine Empire for so long, and there is a history of outward expansion, you should know that the combat effectiveness of the Sassanid army should be very strong. Therefore, when facing the Sassanid army, Li Wenyuan was still in a cautious attitude.

Wanting to regain some ground in Talas, the Khan suppressed his army's desire to immediately unite with Sassanid reinforcements to attack the Western Regions. On the contrary, he has been constantly pumping out his elites scattered in various parts of the Western Turks to go to Talas, wanting to use all the elites in his hands to fight a victory against the Western Regions Army. In order to alleviate the prestige loss caused by the recent successive defeats, not to mention that after a victory, even a miserable victory can allow him to lose less land in negotiations with the Han Chinese. The Khan had actually accepted this defeat in his heart, but if he didn't lose so much land, he could still explain that he was attacked by the Han people, and he didn't react for a while, so he was defeated. But if you lose too much land, then it's useless to say anything yourself. At that time, I am afraid that the name of the most wasteful khan since the founding of the Western Turks will really be attributed to his head.

The Khan wanted to solve the crisis he was currently facing in one fell swoop, and Li Wenyuan also came with this idea. Although the Western Regions Army has now lost many common bad habits in the current army under Li Wenyuan's tutelage, in the course of this Western Expedition, even if it is in a foreign country, it is still able to maintain strict military discipline and do nothing wrong with the people in the occupied areas. But after all, people's hearts are flesh and blood, and after fighting outside for a long time, soldiers will inevitably have some homesickness in their hearts. For this kind of emotion, even if Li Wenyuan was equipped with a group of psychological counselors who he personally taught early in the army to relieve the negative emotions in the hearts of the soldiers, it would not have played a role in this kind of homesickness at this time. Therefore, Li Wenyuan's eagerness to end this western expedition was no less than that of the Khan.

However, Li Wenyuan also knew that the defeat of a battle could infinitely delay the date of the end of the war, so Li Wenyuan did not force the front-line army to solve the enemy in front of him quickly. On the contrary, he is also actively cooperating with Zhang Juntai to continuously increase troops to the front line, constantly replacing the elite troops stationed on the current defense line with the additional reserve soldiers, and gradually transferring these elite troops to the direction of Talas, and the weapons and materials from the reinforcements have also begun to slowly tilt towards the Talas front.

The armies and national forces of both sides are slowly concentrated on the single point of Talas, and both have the idea of deciding the outcome of the battle in the Battle of Talas. Therefore, no one took the lead in attacking, but the hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides gathered at one point at this time, and if they wanted to confront each other quietly, it would naturally be impossible. After all, soldiers also need a process to enter a state of war, throughout history, except for those famous raids, all the remaining confrontation phases are like this: each side sends small units of elite troops, constantly infiltrating the enemy's camp, probing for intelligence and even assassinating the enemy's important personnel, to constantly increase the weight of victory for their side.

(End of chapter)