On the road from Jiaohe City to Yanqi, in the biting cold wind of March, countless construction workers wearing thick cotton clothes lined up in a long queue, stretching for more than ten miles, and carrying out road construction in full swing. This is the scene of the Northwest Railway extending westward again after it has just been repaired to Jiaohe City. In addition to the grassland, there is also a desert in the hundreds of miles from Jiaohe City to Yanqi. Although the desert here is much smaller than that of later generations, and many of the great deserts of later generations are not continuous in the middle or fragmented by grasslands or oases, and are basically the Gobi kind, although it is much better than quicksand, but the construction of railways on the Gobi Desert has made the more than 30,000 railway workers who are responsible for building the roads have been renamed the Northwest Branch of the Railway Company very distressed. In particular, the Ministry of Railways' concern about the green belts along the railway line made them very nervous. Although the green belt can be planted behind this season, the sight of the stones and sand still makes these people smile bitterly. In particular, according to the exploration, the area of the desert in front of it is getting bigger and bigger, and a lot of it is quicksand, which makes everyone distressed.

"Wu Gong, what should we do if we don't have enough stones? The rear quarry will have to wait at least until the day after tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow is already March 25, and we should pave it to Yanqi before the end of the month according to the plan, and now if the stone can't keep up, it's too late. "The construction team doesn't think it's a big problem for the personnel to lay the progress, but if the stones used to lay the railway can't arrive in time, wouldn't it be difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice?

Wu Gong is an engineer assigned to the railway company after the separation of the construction company in recent years, but he can not do anything in the face of this situation, the quarry is too far away from the construction site, and the backbone of the railway company has gone to the railway company because of the transfer of most of the personnel to assist in the formation of the industrial zone in Suzhou, and the remaining part of the manpower to explore from Jiaohe City to Shicheng to prepare to expand the southern railway line, resulting in serious problems in the progress of railway laying.

Wu Gong sighed and waved his hand to signal his assistant to go busy with himself, he stayed alone and was stunned, and inadvertently kicked a stone away so that he suddenly found something, hurriedly squatted down and picked up a few stones on the Gobi Desert to check it carefully, and then shouted: "Xiao Liu, hurry up and find all the people in charge of the construction department for me, I have a way." ”

Wu Gong's roar almost startled everyone in his vicinity, and those who didn't know it thought that the young engineer was hysterical. But when several people in charge came over and listened carefully to what he said, they were all overjoyed, the Gobi Desert is full of gravel, but these stones are seriously weathered, so many times no one notices this, and when it comes to the desert, everyone thinks that it is the kind of desert full of quicksand, not the Gobi full of rubble in front of them.

"Well, this gravel can also be used to pave roads, but it takes a little bit of work." One of the people in charge nodded and said, "I'll immediately arrange for someone to take local materials, so that although the speed is a little slower, at least it won't delay time." ”

"Do it right away without further ado." After Wu Gong ordered to go down, the construction army of tens of thousands of people was immediately divided into more than 10,000 people and began to pick up stones all over the Gobi Desert, so that in just a few days, the Gobi Desert was almost swept away, and all kinds of broken stones on it, whether they were weathered and broken, or those that were not seriously weathered, were picked up. In their eyes, although these gravel stones are not as good as the stones specially transported from the rear, if they are mixed with the newly mined stones, then the quality of the railway will not be a problem. Later, when the director of the Department of Railways came to inspect, Wu Gong and the Northwest Branch praised them, saying that they could quickly complete the railway construction progress according to local conditions and local materials, but at the same time, the praise also brought severe criticism, Wu Gong and the Northwest Branch for new materials, especially weathered stone, can be used as building materials, at least after the experiment to obtain sufficient data before it can be used in practice. Later, this incident also made everyone in the Northwest Branch realize that under the condition that the safety of countless lives is at stake, all building materials must be obtained in advance before they can enter the construction process.

However, at this time, Wu Gong's practice made the construction of the Northwest Railway suddenly speed up, and after the 50,000 people were transferred from the rear in early April of the fifth year of the Apocalypse, the construction team of nearly 100,000 people completed the main construction of the railway that extended to Jiaohe City for nearly 600 miles in half a month. A large number of railroad tracks were transported directly to the construction site under the temporary locomotive and construction vehicles, although the double-track construction seemed a bit troublesome and wasteful in this era, but under the direct intervention of Li Xuanqing, all the railway construction in Datang now adopts the double-line, which is a one-time success. In fact, Li Xuanqing also thought about building a single line directly, which is not only low cost and fast speed, single line construction has also been verified in later generations, after the rapid opening of traffic, not only has income to alleviate the heavy financial pressure brought by railway construction, and the most important thing is that the train in this era because the locomotive power steam boiler horsepower is too small to drag more carriages, so in fact, the railway does not want to be like in later generations, but Li Xuanqing is unwilling to do it again in the later period, some things after learning about the process, everyone will directly choose the double line.

When this steel dragon meandered all the way from Jiaohe City to Yanqi in full view of everyone, the people of Yanqi City couldn't believe what kind of monster this was, and because the construction truck was constantly spewing black smoke, it was the first time to see this kind of steel monster that could still swallow clouds and mist. Although the cost of recruiting civilians is much greater than that of prisoners of war, the railway construction in this era originally required a large number of manpower, and recruiting ordinary people in the case of insufficient prisoners of war is actually also the best choice, not only to drive employment to generate income for the people, but more importantly, to stabilize the surrounding situation in winter, and to bring a good income channel for poor families.

After the railway passed through Yanqi, several major trading houses in Yanqi City also received a notice from the Assassin's Mansion that there were a batch of railroad tracks and other building materials that needed to be unloaded in Yanqi from the Railway Department and Yelujia, and then some of them would be put into the construction of Yanqi Railway Station as building materials, and the other part would be transported to the front line and docked with the railway company. This is the first time that the commercial houses in Yanqi City have come into contact with this kind of business from the mainland, and the novelty also makes everyone feel that this should be a good way to integrate into the Tang Dynasty, so this time Yanqi City, which has been silent for a winter, finally ushered in a lively scene at this time.

However, when the railway continued to march towards Shule after the railway passed Yanqi, the commissioner of the Railway Division returned to the sandbank from Jiaohe City, and the road southbound by Jiaohe City was vetoed by them, and the Railway Division picked up the road from the sandbank directly to Shicheng and then to Boxian Town, and finally arrived in Khotan. This is the southern route of the Silk Road and the main route into Khotan. It's just that in the previous planning of the Railway Division, entering Khotan should extend south from Shule. It's just that this not only does not take into account the area around Boxian Town, although this area has more deserts and is not as densely populated as the northern route, but theoretically this is the closest road into Khotan, and it is the fastest way to enter Khotan. Therefore, although the route planned by the Railway Department is to take Shule, the people of the Railway Division have not given up the backup plan of the Southern Silk Road, especially after Gao Si led the Southern Advance Corps into the Safar Dynasty, the construction of the Southern Railway is not only a civil need, but more importantly, this is a military need, the daily supply and logistics of the 100,000 army, and more importantly, this is the best way to communicate with the vast area south of Khotan and the Green Ridge. Although the people of the Railway Division did not know what Gao Siji was thinking about on the southern line at this time, how to restore the impression of the local people on Datang, and how to deal with the hostility of the vast majority of the people and all walks of life towards Datang. The best way to build a railway to connect Khotan and the south of the Green Mountains is to do so. In fact, shortly thereafter, when the Ministry of Communications reported to Cen Tianshi and Li Xuanqing, it directly attached the railway construction plan of the Southern Silk Road. Under the condition that the Suzhou Iron and Steel City has been put into operation, the railway track production and other material supplies in the northwest can basically be solved on the spot from Hexi Province, after Li Xuanqing decisively agreed with Wu Zuodong's opinion, and mobilized manpower to take over a group of prisoners from Gao Siji during the intense construction of the northern railway, and immediately began to start construction, and the Khotanese railway line was officially launched.

However, at this time, the weather in April has gradually warmed up, when the main force of the northern front of the Shule West Expeditionary Army was successively transferred by Wan Yi to the northern front to join the pro-guard battalion, the northwest side has actually entered the war period again, and Li Feixue, who was far away in Broken Leaf City, discovered the latest enemy situation in the north of Broken Leaf City, which also contributed to the glorious victory of the pro-guard battalion in the first battle in the northwest. However, Wan Yi actually did not receive a report from Li Feixue when he asked Liu Xuan to mobilize his troops to the north, but discussed the issue of the railway that had been repaired in Yanqi with Tuoba Siji, who had just rushed back. After Yanqi, in fact, there is basically no shortage of manpower in the railway company, at least more than 60,000 people who were transferred to Suzhou by Tuoba Si have returned, plus the original one has more than 100,000. However, the construction speed has slowed down, and the reason is that after Yanqi, the environment of Anxi has become more harsh, the area of the desert has begun to expand on a large scale, while the oases and grasslands are gradually decreasing, and even many parts are no longer pieces of desert but patches of desert, dotted with oases in the middle. In this way, when the nearby quarry is getting farther and farther away from the construction site, even if dozens of large transport trucks and more than 1,000 four-wheeled carriages are transported from the rear to rush to the construction site, it still cannot stop more than 100,000 people from working at the same time. Therefore, after Yang Yi arrived at the scene, he decided to divide some of the extra people and directly start to build the green belt on the roadside, because when there was a water pipeline established by the Tiance Army on the front line, it actually brought a stable water source to the establishment of the green belt, plus the wells and canals that the local tribes had already built, and Yang Yi brought a professional well drilling team of more than 1,000 people to dig wells in nearby conditional places, and a variety of methods were mixed to ensure that the millions of saplings transported from the rear could survive if they were planted. Because of the urgency of the situation, although the local governments responded to the call of the Ministry of Water Resources and Environmental Protection to plant trees and grass, Yanqi and other places alone did not receive as much response as Hexi and other places, but tens of thousands of people spent more than ten days planting 200,000 drought-tolerant sand dates and specially cultivated willow trees in Qiuci around Qiuci Square, so as to increase the green area of Qiuci City.

It can be said that after entering April, the Northwest Military Administrative Region led by Tuoba Si Zhi no longer has the kind of leisure in winter, and all kinds of measures and policies need to be assigned to various places little by little, and there are still countless government affairs that need to be conveyed, and even the National Guard has been ordered to assist the local assassin offices to complete the tasks and implementation of various policies assigned by their superiors, and those who dare to resist the orders of the military administrative region will be arrested for treason. Because it was a military administration, there was no trial at all, and they were directly taken away and thrown to construction sites in various places for labor reform. Under this high-pressure policy, although countless tribes in Anxi, large and small, did not understand the military areas of the newly arrived Tang Empire, and some even had hostility and hatred, but none of them dared to act rashly.

In the middle of April of the fifth year of the Apocalypse, after the headquarters of the Western Expeditionary Army moved north from Shule, the north and south lines after the division of troops almost simultaneously reported the enemy's situation, and the southern line Gao Siji was because of the great fanfare of the Anxi remnants of the year after arriving in Bohe Prefecture made the Safar Dynasty feel a chill, this kind of call for the local people's long-term memories of the Tang Dynasty is undoubtedly consolidating the influence of the Tang Dynasty in the local area and weakening the ruling foundation of the Safarid Dynasty. Therefore, the Caliphate, the ruler of the Saffarid Dynasty, ignored the fierce internal dispute over the arrival of the Tang Dynasty, directly assembled the western army and came to Bohe Prefecture, and even directly sent people to Baghdad and other places to ask for help, hoping to get the assistance of the Great Food Empire. At this time, the Great Food Empire had been divided into three, the Safarid Dynasty was still nominally a vassal state of Baghdad in black clothes, the Caliphate of Baghdad was still the supreme ruler of the entire Abbasid Dynasty, and the Safadid Caliph was not so much claiming to be a caliph to the outside world as a governor, a local ruler. However, Gao Siji obviously disdained this, after the 100,000 army rested for enough time, what was most needed at this time was a hearty battle to lift the hearts of those remnants and erect the invincible majesty and courage of the Tang army. So while reporting to the headquarters, Gao Siji took the initiative to lead the army to the south.

When Gao Siji took the initiative to attack on the southern front, in fact, the northern front had already rekindled the flames of war, and Li Feixue's personal guard battalion had already fought in Broken Leaf City at this time, but the opponent was not the Qarluqs, but the Samanids who had been beaten back by Hammud before.