"The commander of Qiyu, the great victory of Luntai, the Shule coalition army was broken by Hamd and General Tuoba in one fell swoop, killing more than 50,000 people, including Barsi Khan, and taking countless prisoners." On the morning of the first day of the sixth month of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Wan Yi arrived at the camp under Yanqi City with the index personnel of the headquarters, and received the latest battle report from the Luntai Grassland almost at the same time. Hamd and Tuoba Siji teamed up to defeat the allied forces of the northwestern tribes from Shule, and successfully won the most difficult battle of the Yanqi Campaign.

"Summons the two generals, pack everything up, and immediately return to the army in Qicheng. The chief of staff informed the deputy marshal and asked him not to wait and return to the army, Shule was afraid that he would not have the courage to continue fighting for the time being. A smile appeared on Wan Yi's face, and he nodded and asked Liu Xuan to quickly summon all the troops to return to Yanqicheng. Although the Yanqi campaign did not receive full success in the end, allowing himself to defeat all the living forces of the Anxi Uighurs in one battle, in fact, keeping the Anxi Uighurs still with an elite army was able to deter the two nomadic regimes in the west in a short period of time and buy time for themselves.

"Marshal Qiqi, General Shi Jian has returned to the army camp after the battle, captured more than 7,000 people, and killed more than 40,000." Liu Xuan had just walked to the door of the big tent, and the guards outside came with the latest news again. With the personal support of Chai Jia of the 11th Corps, the Modao Battalion successfully eliminated most of the Yanqi tribes who were bewitched by the Uighurs, and in order to establish their authority and take over smoothly after the war, Shi Jian's troops killed heavily in this battle, almost sweeping away the armed forces of the large and small tribes participating in the war, and believed that the Yanqi side would be quickly pacified after losing its main combat strength.

"Dashuai will look at this wave in the city now, if Yan Chixia is fast, we will be able to go to the city to see it this afternoon at the latest." Liu Xuan explained that the guards quickly took their warrants to summon the various ministries, and then walked back and said with a smile.

"You take the time to see if there are any relics left by Anxi near Yanqi City." Wan Yi took the detailed information of the battle handed over by the staff officers around him and prepared to write a battle report, and instructed Liu Xuan: "Let's recover Anxi, I'm afraid that the emperor will come over at that time, find some relics, maybe we can erect a monument or something here in Yanqi, just like the Lingzhou side." ”

Liu Xuan nodded and turned to leave, and Wan Yi himself began to report to the General Staff on the battle situation of Yanqi, the significance of Yanqi's victory in the northwest war was very far-reaching, almost not inferior to the battle of Jiaohe City, after this battle, the Uighur forces of Anxi's great enemy were bound to be extremely weak, and with the pace of their own march approaching Shule City step by step, the Uighurs' withdrawal from the historical stage of the northwest was a foregone conclusion. However, after the Uighurs were taken by themselves, Anxi was afraid that he might not be able to turn into stability from now on, and the ethnic groups in the northwest were extremely fierce, whether it was the war that had been waged in Khotan in the south at this time, or the Qarluq who betrayed the Tang Dynasty in the Anxi army era would be his future enemy. The way of the handsome stomach, those who do not seek the overall situation, are not enough to seek a domain. At this time, Wan Yi was not so much reporting on Yanqi's results as he was reporting to the General Staff and Li Xuanqing on the situation that the northwest needed to face after the end of the strategic mission of the Western Expeditionary Army, and attached his understanding and deployment for breaking the situation. And this is the advantage of Wan Yi as a military commander that distinguishes him from other generals, and he can always think about the overall strategic situation from the height of the empire, which is also the reason why he was chosen as the commander of one side when he knew that the relationship between the various ethnic groups in the northwest was complicated and the famous generals of the Tiance Army themselves were not poor.

However, what Wan Yi didn't know was that at the same time when he was writing the Yanqi war report, Li Xuanqing, who was far away in Chang'an, was also thinking about the overall situation in the northwest at this time in front of the map. And this kind of change is only because of the long-term garrison in the northwest that they need to face after recovering Anxi, or the war in the northwest will continue to increase with their own stationing.

Originally, the strategic task of the Western Expeditionary Army to Wan Yi was to recover Anxi until Shule was taken. As for the farther Talas and Broken Leaves, they will wait until the original four towns of Anxi are stabilized before sending troops, or they will wait until the Northwest Railway Line is extended and the Northwest can be quickly supported from the interior of the Central Plains. But the current situation is that the war in the northwest may have been integrated, making his plan more and more difficult, which is the reason why Li Xuanqing really has a headache at the moment. The construction of the Northwest Railway is more difficult than that of the mainland, the distance from Ganzhou to Suzhou is only a few hundred miles, but with the support of tens of thousands of prisoners of war, the average time and cost of building a mile is several times more than that of the mainland, and the need to plant windbreaks near the railway line or build the latest windbreak and sand fixation measures developed by the Ministry of Water Resources and Environmental Protection have seriously dragged down their five-year plan. If it weren't for the fact that Gaochang won the Uighurs' savings for a hundred years in the First World War, I am afraid that it will be really difficult to sustain financially, let alone really enter the Gobi region of the northwest desert after raising the sandbar, it will be more difficult to build a railway, the expedition of the army will take a long time, and the logistics supply will only make the empire really carry a heavy burden. This is also the reason why the Tang Dynasty stood at the peak of the world during the Xuanzong period, but it could only maintain tens of thousands of elites in the northwest. And now that the times have changed, if you learn from Anxi back then and retain the basic elite, then you can only sit and deter the surrounding tribes, but you can't implement the national policy of the Tang Dynasty in the northwest, so you can't really incorporate the northwest into the territory of the empire.

"Your Majesty, the latest battle report from Sanhan." Li Xuanqing sat in the Changqing Hall and pondered the strategic plan in the northwest, but outside the hall, Xu Tianxiang walked in briskly and said with a smile: "Chen Fan has successfully set off from Andong and Pyongyang, crossed the Yalu River along the way and entered the territory of Goryeo, fought a battle with the Goryeo army on the south bank of the Yalu River, and after annihilating more than 10,000 people, the troops were divided into two routes, all the way along the western coastline of the peninsula to assist the navy to choose the opportunity to capture Changkou, preparing to open up a sea landing line, and the main force marched along the old road in the northern mountain section, preparing to march into Lelang County after sweeping the northern mountainous area, After taking the Andong Protectorate, he divided his forces to attack other places. Xu Tianxiang said this, with a smile on his face, and said: "On the Pyongyang side, Chen Fan has caught a lot of Goryeo nobles, and these people have a lot of money in their hands, and now I am afraid that the person in charge of the money bank on the Fengtian side has rushed over." ”

There was no shortage of gold and silver in the Samhan region, in fact, the gold and silver mines in Samhan and Japan were much better than those in the Central Plains, and their geographical scope was small and their population was only a fraction of that of the Central Plains, and they had extensive connections with the Central Plains, so there were more copper coins in the Central Plains than these gold and silver coins in their internal circulation. Regarding the money Xu Tianxiang said, Li Xuanqing nodded, picked up the map of the Sanhan region, looked at Chen Fan's deployment, and said a little helplessly: "This Chen Fan still can't change his nature, just like this palm-sized place, he still wants to sweep the rear first and then march." It's good that it's June, and if winter lets him march, I'm afraid he'll have to spend the winter in the mountains. "The topography of the Samhan Peninsula is basically a mountainous area in the north, a few plains in the south, and in the north, Maoshan almost occupies the entire peninsula, and the northwest area is connected with the Changbai Mountain and other mountains in the northeast today, only the coastal area is a little gentle, so there is no opinion on Chen Fan's preparation to open up a naval landing ground in Changkou, but he waved his army to sweep the mountainous area, which is a typical first defeat and then victory, but Chen Fan's advantage over other generals is also here, as long as he dares to fight, then there is almost no risk of failure. Obviously, Chen Fan has studied the experience of the emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties in attacking the Three Hans, and intends to press step by step and completely take the peninsula region into his pocket. The Samhan Peninsula is too close to the Central Plains, and now it can be regarded as the most powerful period of the Central Plains Dynasty in Chinese history, it is nothing to recover Samhan and then incorporate it into its own territory, and Li Xuanqing, the largest iron ore mine in Asia, in the north, does not want to leave it to others.

"You go back and inform the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and ask them to send people to Maoshan with the Logistics Department to see if there should be an iron ore over there, and after exploring, see if they can build a railway to connect to the territory of Fengtian." Li Xuanqing's words made Xu Tianxiang slightly stunned, because there are many iron mines directly under the logistics department, so he knows part of the current data of domestic iron ore mining, it can be said that after the railway is connected to Dalian, the iron ore mines in the northeast are discovered one after another and then mined.

Li Xuanqing did not explain Xu Tianxiang's question, domestic iron ore is rarely a rich mine according to the standards of later generations, and this Maoshan iron ore is an open-pit mine, and the iron content of the ore is very high, plus the reserves are rich, all this is worth building a road to. And as the industrialization level of the empire is getting higher and higher, Li Xuanqing does not want to exploit the local mineral resources on a large scale, but wants to use the mineral resources abroad to develop his own industry.

However, Chen Fan's move is similar to Wan Yi's thoughts, after sweeping the north, it is actually equivalent to giving the Goryeo people a time to react, when Chen Fan raises troops to attack the old land of Andong Protectorate, the other party will inevitably concentrate the main force to come, and then a big battle will destroy most of the living forces of the other party, and then he will be able to quickly pacify Goryeo, destroy Goryeo in the north of the three Koreas, and free up his hands to deal with Baekje He

"Your Majesty, what are you looking at? Is there anything wrong with the northwest side? Xu Tianxiang couldn't help but ask when he saw Li Xuanqing constantly staring at the map of the northwest.

"Didn't you find out what was going on in the northwest?" Li Xuanqing shook his head and said, "Senior brother, the Western Expeditionary Army is only afraid that the final strategic goal will be revised. Li Xuanqing's brainless words made Xu Tianxiang understand, so after walking over, he nodded and said, "Is the emperor thinking about the long-term garrison of our army in the northwest?" Do you still think that after taking Shule, do you need to take Saman and Qarlu in one go? Xu Tianxiang, as the chief of the general staff, naturally understood in an instant after Li Xuanqing pointed out the problem, after the northwest side recovered Shule and swept away the Anxi Uighurs, it may not be the same as he thought, and it will gradually stabilize with the temporary stay of the footsteps of the Western Expeditionary Army, thinking that after the Tang Dynasty landed in the northwest strongly, the ethnic groups in the northwest will definitely feel a fear from the soul of this behemoth, if someone is connected in series, then the continuous war in the northwest is probably inevitable. But the problem is that Li Xuanqing has encountered the biggest problem in the northwest for thousands of years, the problem of road transportation. The cost of traveling from the interior of the Central Plains to the northwest alone is astronomical, especially if the army needs to maintain a sufficient offensive today, the number of the western expeditionary army cannot be reduced, and no dynasty can afford to maintain a 200,000-strong army for a long time. So Xu Tianxiang also knew the problem after understanding what Li Xuanqing was thinking.

"Have you asked the logistics department to calculate, if you don't count the grain, how much can our current logistics capacity be reduced just by transporting weapons and ammunition?" Li Xuanqing asked after being silent for a long time. If grain is not counted, then it is necessary for the Tang regime in various places along the way to gain a firm foothold, and to bring all the new farming methods and high-yield crops currently practiced in the Central Plains to the northwest, vigorously develop state-run farms in various farming areas in the northwest, make use of the advantages of large-scale state-run agricultural industrialization to produce as much grain as possible, and rely on the land produced in the northwest region to feed the Western Expeditionary Army. This will free up enough capacity to support other battlefields. Especially at present, the Tibetan area has begun to start, and the Third Corps has now penetrated deep into the territory of Longyou and Tibet, and after Hezhou, I am afraid that there will be a big war immediately, so we must consider this issue well.

"The emperor is only afraid that it will be difficult to feed our 200,000 troops if we rely on local output alone." Xu Tianxiang shook his head and said with a wry smile: "At present, fifty percent of the food needed by the front line of the Western Expeditionary Army needs to be transported from the Central Plains, and the amount of food we transported from the Central Plains is actually more than twice that of the army. ”

"If that's the case, then there's only one way to do it." Li Xuanqing sighed and smiled bitterly, he knew the reason why the army of the Han people in the northwest in history could only be maintained in a very small number. This is still a situation where he has won countless battles and captured, and if he maintains the garrison for a long time without battlefield capture, he is afraid that he will need more. It seems that it is necessary to build the railway all the way to Anxi, relying on the huge transportation volume of railway transportation to make up for the loss in the northwest.

"Your Majesty, this is the distribution map of the agricultural and animal husbandry industry in the northwest formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture." Li Xuanqing and Xu Tianxiang looked at the map of the northwest and wondered if it was time to inform Wan Yi to take measures in advance, Cen Tianshi walked in from outside the hall, and after saying a word just now, he suddenly wondered: "Your Majesty, your map is a bit similar to the one in my hand, does the emperor plan to study the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the northwest?" ”

"Has the cabinet done a good job in the development plan of agriculture and animal husbandry in the northwest? What is a good way for Wang Jingyu over there? Li Xuanqing's heart moved and he suddenly asked, and a smile appeared on his face.