In the end, he relied on the golden cicada to get out of the shell of the golden cicada made by Sote, and replaced the king of Botuo with a stand-in, and under the cover of the desperate battle of the loyal royal guards to protect the stand-in, Sote protected Botuo and fought his way out of the encirclement.

However, although Sot and Bo Tiao escaped, the encircled Kushan army was devastated, and the Kushan army that finally fled back to Kushan was less than 60,000 people.

In the two battles combined, the Han army wiped out 200,000 Kushan troops, of which about 80,000 were captured, including many of the main Kushan legions such as the Peshawar Legion, the Gandhara Legion, and the Royal Guard.

When Bo and Sot fled back to Maracanda, they received news that Ma Chao's army had withdrawn to Khorasan after a failed surprise attack on Peshawar, but it still destroyed many Kushan towns along the way, burning a large amount of grain, grass and supplies.

The vanguard corps of Osidmos only came into contact with Ma Chao's army in a few skirmishes and did not have a major battle, and they found that many of Ma Chao's cavalry were not Han Chinese and were not equipped with firearms.

Sauter fully understood the Chinese art of war, and the Han army used various means to mobilize and deceive the Guishan army, disperse its own strength, and finally surrounded the Guishan army with the main force led by Sima Yi.

After Lü Bu and Sima Yi joined forces, they did not rest, and continued to move south, approaching the city of Marakanda.

Bo Tiao looked at the tens of thousands of demoralized Kushan troops in the city of Maracanda and where they dared to stay here, and he asked Sot to protect himself and continued to flee back, heading straight for Peshawar.

As a result, he encountered Ma Chao's cavalry army in Kunduz, but fortunately, Osidemos arrived in time to force back the cavalry of the Han army and relieve the siege of Botuo.

Lu Bu made up his mind this time to defeat Guishan, so he did not stop after the big victory, and pointed his troops directly at Marakanda City.

The city of Marakanda contained only 30,000 legions from Sogdian province and more than 20,000 remnants of the army that had retreated from the front.

Although the city was relatively strong and had a long history, the morale of the defenders was not high.

Lü Bu bombarded the city with artillery for several hours, and then sent infantry to attack the city, and the officers and men of the Sogdian army held out for a day before surrendering the city.

Lü Bu did not loot and massacre the city on a large scale, but on the contrary, he immediately posted a notice to reassure the people, and strictly restrained military discipline and prohibited disturbing the people.

Because Lü Bu wanted to occupy the Sogdian region for a long time, rather than leave after the battle, military discipline was very important, so that he could get to know each other and deepen his understanding with the local people.

The Han army continued to advance southward, capturing the provinces of Herat, Kunduz, and Bamiyan of the Kushan Empire, and capturing the Salang Pass in the Hindu Kush.

The army could attack the relatively low-lying Kabul at any time, which was the last barrier west of Peshawar, the capital of the Kushan Empire.

This time the king was really nervous, and he mustered all the troops he could muster at all costs.

All the soldiers in the township were also re-drafted and re-armed.

If there are not enough muskets, they will issue big knives and spears, but this time there is really a sense of crisis.

Since the Kushan Empire became strong, it has not been beaten into such a deep hinterland for a hundred years.

Sot and Osidmos led a relatively complete army of their own, stationed in Kabul to defend the imperial capital.

The scouts sent by Sote reported that several mountain passes in the Hindu Kush Mountains were occupied by the Han army, which means that the Han army could choose any mountain pass at any time and attack down the mountain.

Sauter is also very anxious, the imperial army, now I am afraid that only his own army has the strength to fight, and His Majesty the King really has no troops to adjust.

It would be good if the Scythians in the Western Governorate didn't take advantage of the fire to loot, where would they be willing to send troops out?

Now that the imperial capital has gathered, it is the last strength of the Kushan clan, and many soldiers in the township have been re-conscripted and re-armed.

The workers of the military workshop worked around the clock, with both the stimulation of huge rewards and the monitoring of the army, and the production efficiency was unprecedentedly high.

The raw materials were insufficient, so many bronze statues, surplus farm tools, and even many things in the palace were donated and recast.

The gates of Kabul have been blocked except for the gate facing Peshawar.

The walls were constantly being thickened and thickened, and sandbags were piled up on the walls to form bunkers to prevent shelling.

Now, the Kushan army is very familiar with the Han army's siege methods and processes, and has also come up with many countermeasures.

In fact, the king of Bo Tiao had already sent a secret envoy to negotiate peace with Lu Bu, and was even willing to pay a certain price.

However, the conditions given by Lu Bu were too harsh, and in the eyes of King Botuo and many of the ministers of Guishan, it was simply a loss of power and humiliation of the country, a great shame, and they could not agree.

In fact, Sot didn't think so, and Lü Bu asked the king of Botiao to cede a large area of land north and west of the Hindu Kush Mountains to the Han as compensation for the war launched by the Kushan Empire, and the two sides were bounded by the Hindu Kush Mountains.

Its realization was also under the control of the Han army in the entire north of the Hindu Kush Mountains, and the Kushan Empire could not take it back at all.

Besides, the lands north and west of the Hindu Kush Mountains were also conquered by the ancestors of the Kushan people, and the provinces of Herat and Sogdia were not inhabited by the Kushan people, so they really did not reach the point of breaking their bones and bones.

The problem now is that the butcher's knife of the Han army has been put on the neck, and it can't be beaten, so the only way to do this is to exchange space for time and find ways to survive this crisis first.

Just put all your energy on the country, especially those unruly local forces in the south, and beat them well, the royal army still has a great advantage, after all, all firearms workshops are controlled by the royal family.

Therefore, Sauter's advice to King Botuo is to first compromise and seek perfection, endure humiliation and steal life, pretend to be a grandson, pretend to be a grandson, end the war first, and then go all out to deal with these local forces in the country.

If you lose one more battle, the army loyal to the royal family will really be lost, and what will you use to deter various local forces at that time? This is not alarmist.

King Bo had actually accepted and understood Sauter's suggestion, and very much agreed with him.

However, the nobles of Kushan, especially the high-ranking members of the royal family, refused to accept these humiliating conditions, and still insisted on defending the imperial capital and maintaining the dignity of the royal family.

In the end, Bo Tiao secretly met with Sote, and the two talked secretly for a long time, after which the Kushan military made major adjustments.

The uncle of the King of Bo, Prince Mags, replaced the general Sauter as the supreme governor of Kabul, and the 3rd Standing Army of the Kushan Empire, led by Prince Mags, replaced the defense of the Sote Legion.

The Sot Corps withdrew to Peshawar to recuperate, and the Kushan 3rd Corps took over the defense of Kabul.