"We have found Gaochangguo, and from there we have obtained the cotton that His Majesty wants."

"Cotton? What kind of flower is that? Why would His Majesty want this flower? ”

Cotton is a kind of plant like a thread ball, which is a special product of Gaochang Kingdom in the Western Regions, that is, the Gaochang people discovered a secret from cotton seeds, not that cotton fiber can be used as a material for making clothes, but that cotton seeds can be used to refine oil.

Gaochang people use cottonseed oil as an item to maintain the skin, as for the use of food, it does not exist, because Gaochang people have long found that cottonseed oil contains toxins, and they have no relevant means to refine cottonseed oil, so naturally there are toxins.

In fact, the cotton of Gaochang came from India, but the Gaochang people at least discovered the secret that cottonseed oil can be used as a skin care product, but the Indians did not know what cotton was used for.

Lu Zhe knew that Gaochang's possession of cotton benefited from a lot of time-traveling novels, and he once jokingly said that the empire's march into the Western Regions was a war to obtain good horses and cotton, and good horses and cotton were both necessities for the empire, and if you had to choose, the empire might need cotton even more.

The Liaodong region of the empire is a cold region, and it is the cold that makes Liaodong maintain the status quo of vast land and sparse population, because of Lu Zhe's interference in history, the kang used by the Northeast people in later generations has appeared, but it can't let people stay on the kang in the season when the ice and snow come, right? Then clothing that can help keep you warm becomes very important.

There is also a vast area north of Liaodong, except for Lu Zhe. No one knew it was a shocking treasure trove of nature.

Where is it north of Liaodong? Now it belongs to the territory of the Donghu tribal alliance, and in later generations there was a collective name called Guanwai, and people preferred the name of the three eastern provinces (i.e., Heilongjiang Province, Jilin Province, and Liaoning Province).

What's out there? It is more than 5 million acres of unimaginably fertile black land. It is the metal producing area with the three largest iron mines in Asia, and it is a ......, and if the resources are counted one by one, the number of words will be so many that readers will protest.

In addition to the three eastern provinces, what is there in the places that continue to the north? Extremely close to the Arctic Circle, in addition to the ice and snow of the year, there are unimaginably many resources buried deep underground. Think about the extremely poor economy of Russia~Romania~Si because of those lands, just selling natural resources to support a country's economy, you know how rich resources are.

It was not without attempts to expand north of Liaodong in the Chinese dynasties. But without exception, they are all blocked by the cold, but that cold land has bred a group of barbarians who have a fierce life that does not need to be explained, and they have repeatedly done things that hundreds of thousands can rule over tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people.

"Actually, I haven't thought about why His Majesty knows so many things that no one knows." Liu Bang looked salivating and asked, "Then we can also get cotton." And planting? ”

No one laughed at Liu Bang. The empire is not a country that prevents people from pursuing interests, as long as it does not violate the law, any pursuit of interests is legal, but whether there are some things that violate social morality and are despised or hated by the crowd, that is, it depends on how the person who does the work chooses.

"In fact...... We'll all give it a try. Meng Tian was talking about planting cotton, and he pondered: "In addition to obtaining seeds, we also need people with planting experience, but ......"

Go without saying. The Gaochang people have a very amazing economic benefit in the cotton business, and they can make the whole country rich just by selling rich people's skin care products. It may be easy for the empire to obtain cotton seeds from Gaochang, but those who have experience in planting are resisted by Gaochang.

Liu Bang understood in seconds, not only him, but anyone could hear Meng Tian's words.

"We can't get people who know how to grow cotton from normal means, and we can't use military means." Lu Chen sneered and added, "At least until we deal with those countries that are in the way, we have no way to take a big military action against Gaochang. ”

The topic returned to Wusun and Wanguo, Lu Chen, as the chief of the Western Expeditionary Corps, mentioned to the envoys what the Western Expeditionary Corps would do next.

For the Western Expeditionary Corps, the current situation made it impossible for them to conduct multi-front operations at the same time at the same time, and the first urgent need to solve was the increasingly frequent rebellion in Wusun.

"Then we ......" Chen Yu asked a little depressedly, "Aren't you going to stay in Wusun all the time?" ”

It is clear that Maudun has merged with Wan, Kangju and other countries in the western part of the Western Regions have received support from Parthia and Bactria, and they have begun to intervene in blocking the much-needed westward expansion of the Empire.

The legation was armed with nearly 50,000 men, but as long as they were clear-headed, they would not continue westward under hostility.

"Maudun is a big threat, and he will definitely pounce on it if he has the chance." Liu Bang also looked depressed, he looked at Meng Tian with an expression full of anticipation, and asked, "The Western Expeditionary Corps must be trying to find a way to completely annihilate the Maodun Division, right?" ”

Meng Tian's response was to smile and not say anything, and most of the other generals and colonels of the Western Expeditionary Corps looked at Liu Bang with strange eyes.

"Heh, hehe......" Liu Bang also knew that he had said things that were no different from idiots. He muttered: "If the threat of Maudun is not lifted, let alone the envoys along the way, let alone want to live in peace, I'm afraid it will be difficult to say whether they can succeed in the mission." ”

Many people heard Liu Bang's seemingly muttered words, but they still didn't respond.

For those who are not in the know, no one can guarantee which enemy army can be completely annihilated, and usually the total annihilation of an enemy army is based on the premise that it is strong enough and that the opponent is stupid enough. Mao Dun obviously did not look like a fool, as can be seen from the fact that Mao Dun immediately withdrew from the battle at the source of the Yellow River when he sensed danger. Later, Mao Dun only sensed the slightest risk of being trapped in the Beishan area and moved to a place, and when he moved, he was hugging Wanguo for warmth, and it could be seen that Mao Dun was not only not a stupid person, but an extremely smart person.

For those in the know, the success of the mission is not the key. Because at the beginning, the emperor sent Liu Bang to Central Asia and even further afield, because Liu Bang and Wei Bao were entangled, and the emperor was worried that Wei Fengguo's establishment in the South Asian subcontinent would be destroyed because of Liu Bang's existence. That's why there was such a team as the envoy corps.

How would Liu Bang influence Wei Fengguo? That is based on the premise of Liu Bang's attachment to Wei Fengguo's "blood-sucking". Wei Fengguo's overall strength seems to be a bit weak, and whether he can successfully gain a foothold in the South Asian subcontinent is a question, and if he is "sucked blood" by Liu Bang, the possibility of success will be even lowered.

The mission also served another purpose, to expand the Empire's trade routes to Central Asia, but this was not urgent for the time being.

At present, there are constant wars in Central Asia, and even the Western Regions are in chaos. Trade routes have always been built in a relatively stable environment. Who would dare to do business in a chaotic situation? In this way, even if the empire opens trade routes at this stage, it is estimated that there are not many people who dare to do business.

"How long are we going to stay here?" As soon as Liu Bang left, he lamented to Chen Yu: "Pondering. How can it not be less than three or five years, right? ”

Chen Yu didn't have any special ideas, he said: "More and more businessmen are breaking away from the envoys. ”

Liu Bang lamented when he knew about this phenomenon! He had sensed something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what was going on.

"Maybe it's not a bad thing." Chen Yu said to Liu Bang with a smile: "Your retainer, that strong man named Fan Xu. He didn't show up for a long time. ”

"It's not a big deal." Liu Bang said absentmindedly: "Go and do what most people will do." ”

Chen Yu immediately said: "Robbery!" ”

"Otherwise, you will still enter the treasure mountain?!" Liu Bang said very naturally: "I will nest in the Western Regions for a long time." You can't always be idle. Many people leave their hometowns in order to make a fortune, knowing that they can't do serious things in a short period of time, and it's nothing to fuss about doing some side hustles, right? ”

Chen Yu's head recognized, didn't his family's caravan also temporarily change its identity as a merchant and robber?

The so-called identity change of businessmen and robbers is to trade with people when it is impossible to rob, and to use murderous ~ weapons to complete violent plundering under the condition of robbery.

Plundering by violent means? Every Empire person who does that can rightly say that they are not the only ones who do that, and they won't be the first to do so. Before they came to the Western Regions. In fact, because there are too many and too many forces in the Western Regions, robberies and plundering occur all the time in the land of the Western Regions. In another sense, the people on the Empire side are just "following the customs".

"Hehe, the difference is that our local customs have broken the original fragile balance of the Western Regions." Putting aside some worries, thinking of the benefits he got made Liu Bang look a little obscene. He said: "Our team is involved, and the local aborigines, horse thieves, sand thieves, or whatever, are not at the same level as us. ”

Can it be a level? The land of the Western Regions is very magical, there is no shortage of savages still living in the Stone Age, and there are also countries that have entered the Iron Age, but the vast majority of them are still in the Bronze Age stage. The land where the empire was established had entered the Iron Age as early as tens of hundreds of years ago, but the popularity rate was not high, or there was a relationship between the immature smelting technology, but with the strengthening of the research and upgrading of smelting technology in recent years, bronze has been replaced by iron tools in weapon materials.

The Western Regions and the Empire are not only due to the difference in materials, but in fact, the same materials may not necessarily produce the same quality, especially when it comes to weapons. For example, the same knife, the knife on the land of China began to walk in a straight line (such as the first knife of the Han Dynasty), and it has always been necessary to have a curved route (such as a thick back knife) that only appeared in the Ming Dynasty, otherwise from the ancient pre-Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties, the knife has always been a straight form.

The current situation is that the imperial military equipment must definitely belong to the strongest ranking in the world, and the only thing that can compare with the imperial equipment may be the Roman Republic in the far west. Not to mention the standard equipment of the army, and the people are not restricted from owning armor, and the samurai who are hired when they go out, even if they are poor, they will at least have a decent leather armor. What about the Western Regions? It is impossible for everyone to have armor to defend themselves even in the state armed forces, let alone those who do not belong to the state armed forces.

If it is only the superiority in weapons and equipment that leads to the overall superiority of those who do bad things in the empire over the natives of the Western Regions, then it is definitely not a matter of will. The people of a strong country are more confident than the people of a weak country at all times, and this will cause them to react differently to the same thing.

As a weak person, they will always lack self-confidence, because they don't trust that they can do something, so many times they can do it, but because of the lack of confidence, they can only use less than seven points if they have ten points of strength, and the result is that they can't do it.

The strong are not, especially as a member of a strong country can always "play extraordinary", because of the empire's continuous external expansion, one after another alien race disappeared in the long river of history, no one can stop the empire's progress, because anyone who dares to hinder will be trampled under the boots. Once this kind of dominance becomes commonplace, even a not-so-strong Empire citizen will confidently show his murderous side when facing a strong, weak (or lesser) person, and be confident that he can defeat a strong opponent.

If history has not changed, the Han Empire has become the name of a nation because of its continuous military victories abroad, and because of the glorious victories in foreign conquests, the name of the Han Empire has become the name of a nation.

The truth of the five Hu in the Han Dynasty did not really disappear even because of the destruction of the five ~ Hu ~ chaos ~ Hua, so even in the Li and Tang dynasties, the Tang army still dared to charge the enemy of Shangwan, and also won the battle.

What makes the Han people less martial and brave? It is not shy to say that in the Song Dynasty, because there were too many tragedies caused by the military generals of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the literati began to overkill, emasculating the martial spirit of their own nation without restrictions, and then to the Ming Dynasty castrated again, which led to the fact that "I Daqing" with hundreds of thousands of people, plus about millions of clothed slaves, was able to rule hundreds of millions of Han people, and ruled relatively peacefully.

The brainwashing ~ god ~ gong of "I Daqing" is definitely the most powerful on the earth. How powerful is it? It is a lie that has been repeated 10,000 times to become the truth, such as what is invincible from a joke to a fact, and then what is the Siku Quanshu, and then carried forward on the basis of the eight strands of the Ming generation, and cultivated a large group of loyal ministers of the Qing Dynasty who bloodily suppressed themselves, and even reached the stage of having to lose the country, not only did the royal family enjoy the best "lost country treatment" in China for 5,000 years, but also a large group of minions tried to restore again and again.

Lu Zhe pondered a lot of times, if he could learn one-ten-thousandth of the power of "My Great Qing" Brainwashing ~ Brain ~ God ~ Gong, maybe the road to the expansion of the empire would be much easier? (To be continued.) )