Tongtian County, County Hall.

Chen Mu looked at the four prisoners of war kneeling below with interest.

The four men were three men and one woman, two middle-aged men, and a pair of young men and women. At this time, they were all tied tightly, and socks were also plugged in their mouths to prevent themselves from biting their tongues.

Their appearance is the same as that of the people of Great Xia, except that the costume is very peculiar, a kind of robes with a pullover, and there are no traces of needlework and thread.

Chen Mu watched for a while, motioned for the soldiers to take out the socks in their mouths, and then stood by and watched to prevent them from committing suicide.

"Becoming a family, huh?"

"Where are you from? How many more people? Where's the one that escaped? ”

The three men were silent, just glaring at Chen Mu viciously.

The woman shouted, "The head of the house will come to our rescue!" We Kunlun ......"

The older man quickly interrupted her, "Xiaoli! Don't tell him anything! ”

The woman closed her mouth and turned her head away from Chen Mu.

Chen Mu smiled, "Save you?" I'll catch them soon and reunite you. ”

"Hold on!"

The soldier shoved the socks into their mouths again, grabbed them by the arms and took them down.

Chen Mu: "They may flee to Xiqiang, or even farther away, we need to divide our troops." ”

Although the Cheng family didn't say it, Chen Mu could also speculate.

It is impossible for the three people who escaped to return to the seclusion of the snowy mountains, because if they had more helpers, they would have taken them with them when they came out.

And they had time to go back and ask for reinforcements before, but they didn't.

Therefore, Chen Mu deduced that there were only these people in the snowy mountains.

They can't produce weapons when they go back, so the best option is to control a country, Persia is too close to have time to control and produce, and Xiqiang is enough to choke.

But they have steam locomotives that can go farther.

There are three lands to the west, and due west are snow-capped mountains and deserts. To the south of the snow-capped mountains and deserts are Persia and Xiqiang, and to the north are the Xiongnu.

But what is on the west side of the snow-capped mountains and deserts, it is not yet known.

Therefore, Chen Mu decided to divide the soldiers into two ways. Let Li Feng take the cavalry to borrow the Xiongnu and copy it from the north. He led his infantry and entered Xiqiang through Persia, and then borrowed Xiqiang's cavalry to chase after him.

But after arriving in Xiqiang, Xiqiang said that there were no people in the west, only a desert area with no people.

Chen Mu asked them to go into the desert to search, but after walking hundreds of miles, they found nothing.

Chen Mu had no choice but to withdraw his troops first, and then let Xiqiang continue to search, and if there was news, he would return to Great Xia, and he would be rewarded.

After withdrawing to the capital, Chen Mu had a good life, and then received news from Li Feng's side.

The same is true on the Xiongnu side, to the west is an uninhabited desert, and the area is much larger. Li Feng brought enough grain and grass, and did not explore the edge of the desert, so he could only retreat to the Xiongnu first.

Since this is the case, Chen Mu asked Li Feng to withdraw his troops.

If you want to continue to hunt down and kill the Cheng family, you can only develop transportation capacity first, otherwise even if you cross the desert from Xiqiang, you will consume most of the grain and grass, causing an embarrassing situation of being alone.

Chen Mu sent people to the south to look for rubber forests, and at the same time did research experiments in the College of Engineering.

If you want to cross the desert quickly, you either need a car or a tank. It's easy to build a car, but what if you can't find a rubber plantation?

It is impossible to build a tank, and the current steam engine cannot be brought at all.

So Chen Mu came to a compromise plan, that is, a steam tracked vehicle.

The structure of the crawler is not complicated, Chen Mu took the people from the engineering college to study for a month, and then made a crawler.

Then the tracks and transmissions were made of metal, and the body was made of wood, and the first steam tracked car in Daxia was completed.

The cart was several times larger than a horse-drawn carriage, half of the space was used for coal and water, and the other half could be used for grain and grass. It only takes one day to cross the desert on the other side of Xiqiang.

Immediately after that, the Great Xia Military Factory was expanded, and vigorously produced steam tracked vehicles. A month later, Great Xia already had a thousand steam tracked vehicles.

Then Chen Mu took the invincible flying army and the Wudang flying army, a total of 10,000 people, and rushed to Tongtian County in a steam tracked car.

After some supplies, Chen Mu took 5,000 soldiers to transport grain, grass and artillery to the other side of the desert, and then began to build a fortress.

Another month has passed, and a camp has been established on this side of the desert, with a total of 10,000 elite soldiers from the Invincible Flying Army and the Wudang Flying Army.

Among them, the invincible flying army was divided into two parts, with an artillery team of 1,000 people, holding 50 heavy artillery pieces and 200 light artillery pieces. The musket corps consisted of 4,000 men, each armed with a rear-loading flintlock pistol, all equipped with bayonets.

The Wudang Flying Army is still the original equipment, which is used to deal with hand-to-hand combat.

This camp was named the halfway fortress by Chen Mu.

From here, Bactria will conquer this desert to the west until the sea.

After gaining a firm foothold, Chen Mu sent a steam locomotive to reconnoiter the West and look for possible enemies.

On this day, a scout brought back news.

"Fifteen degrees north-west of the west, the enemy was found three hundred miles away. It was a squad of twelve, riding strange horses and armed with muskets. After the exchange of fire, we captured one person, but the language barrier prevented the interrogation. ”

Chen Mu stood up, "Take me a look." ”

When he came to the cell, Chen Mu smiled. The strange horse that the scout calls is the camel. And the captive ran in a white robe, wearing a turban, and spoke in a babbling voice.

Isn't this the Is?

Now that there are Isis, this large desert should have been occupied by them, forming the Isis world.

According to the resources and terrain here, it is impossible for them to develop a musket on their own, it must be made by the Cheng family.

"Cheng family, I finally found you."

"Command the whole army and prepare to go on the march."

Chen Mu mobilized 3,000 musketeers, 100 artillery teams, and carried 25 light artillery pieces. In addition, there were seventy-five supply vehicles, for a total of 400 steam tracked vehicles. Towards the West.

When I came to the place where I had been fighting, I found no enemy troops, and after walking for more than a hundred miles, I finally found a city.

The city was built of sand and was just over a man tall. There were more than a dozen cannons on it, and there were also more than a hundred soldiers with muskets in their hands.

Chen Mu ordered the attack formation to be set up, twenty-five vehicles carrying light artillery were placed in the middle, musketeers were protected on both sides, and supply vehicles were parked one mile away from the rear.

The convoy then slowly moved forward, testing the range of enemy artillery.

Three miles, two miles, the enemy did not fire artillery for a long time.

When the advance was more than a mile, Chen Mu ordered to stop the advance, and the light artillery adjusted the angle and aimed at the head of the city to open fire.

Rumble! ——

After a loud bang, twenty-five shells flew towards the city.