Yellow sand invasion of ancient road,

Beacon fire connects thousands of cities.

In the long smoke of a thousand mountains,

The Han family marched westward again.

Wang Ze stared at the Hexi Corridor, a transportation artery connecting the Eastern Empire and the Western Regions and even the Taixi countries for thousands of years, and was full of emotion in his heart.

Since the Xia State officially declared war on both the Persian Empire and Mureh Khan, Wang Ze suddenly decided to conquer the Persian Empire in person, and he wanted to see the destruction of these two regimes with his own eyes.

Even though almost all the ministers of the entire Xia Kingdom, and even the family members such as Zhu Qingqing and Cheng Xueyan opposed his personal conquest, he still insisted on this decision, and even Wang Yong and the Gongxi clan, who were already in their old age, did not make him change his mind.

For Wang Ze's stubbornness that seems to be on the tip of the horns, only Pei Xiu understands his thoughts, Wang Ze is already in his sixties, and he may still be young at this age in the later generations, but in ancient times, this was already the age when he could see Lord Yama at any time.

Especially Wang Ze fought everywhere when he was young, he was not very strong when he was young, and now with the increase of age, his body is far inferior to the past, this time he personally conquered on the one hand to avenge his younger brother Wang Hui, on the other hand, in order to satisfy his desire to conquer the major ancient civilizations.

After all, in order to avoid the occurrence of two younger brothers competing for power with him, he beat his two younger brothers who were only in their twenties out, and since then he has been separated from his family and parents for thousands of mountains and rivers, but now that he has encountered such a situation, how can he not avenge him as the eldest brother.

Due to Wang Ze's high prestige in the Xia Kingdom, even if there were so many people who opposed him, he was still able to lead the army in the end, but he was very old after all, so this time he did not ride a horse, but rode in a carriage specially built by the craftsmen of the Xia Kingdom.

The elastic axle made of mild steel, the sturdy body, solid rubber tires, and the cushioning brought by the thick cushioning inside the carriage all make this specially built carriage much more comfortable, and also make Wang Ze's aging bones much more comfortable.

"Your Majesty, there is Wuwei County City less than a hundred miles ahead, do you want to take a break in Wuwei County City for a while?"

Just as Wang Ze was looking at the scenery outside the carriage and pondering, Zhu Ming's voice suddenly came from outside the carriage, because everyone was not worried about Wang Ze's journey to the west, and finally after discussion, Zhu Ming and Cheng Biao would protect Wang Ze's expedition together, because they were worried about Wang Ze's body, they would suggest a rest every time they walked dozens of miles.

"Okay, when we get to Wuwei County, the army will rest for a day and then continue west!"

Wang Ze thought about it, after all, he has been marching for several days now, and it is also a good thing to walk in Wuwei County for a while.

As he was talking, he suddenly saw Cheng Biao hurriedly coming from a distance, jumped off the horse, panted and stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, General Li of Yanmen County sent two envoys who said that they were sent by the Tang Dynasty, and they wanted to see Your Majesty with a letter from the King of Tang!" ”

"Brother Cheng, you too, although Li Yuan has already been proclaimed emperor, he is just a separatist regime within the Sui Empire, can they see His Majesty if they want to?" Zhu Ming was very unhappy, since Li Yuan colluded with the Tubo people to create injustices in Guanzhong, he hated the Li Tang regime very much.

"No, I also inquired before conveying it!" Cheng Biao, as always, inherited his father's honesty, and he said to Wang Ze, "One of the two envoys sent by Li Tang is the second son of Li Yuan, the lord of Li Tang, and it seems that his name is Li Shimin!" ”

"Oh? If that's the case, let them come to me! After hearing this name, Wang Ze also had the intention of meeting Li Tang's envoy, he squinted his eyes and looked in the southeast direction, where hundreds of miles away was Jincheng County, which was also the westernmost border of Li Tang.

Not long after, Cheng Biao came over with an envoy, but it was not two people, but only a man dressed as a scribe, escorted and supervised by more than a dozen soldiers of the Central Guard Army, who walked into Wang Ze's sight.

Speaking of which, Li Shimin at this time was only sixteen or seventeen years old (in fact, Li Shimin was a few years younger at this time, but it was changed a little for the needs of the story, forgive me), so many years Wang Ze really wanted to meet this so-called ancient Ming Jun in later generations.

Gently flicked the dust that was not much on his body Li Shimin walked forward gently, Li Tang's two envoys were two in total, he and Liu Wenjing were originally sent by Li Yuan to meet the emperor of Xia together, but they didn't expect that this trip would be delayed for so long.

At the beginning, he and Liu Wenjing took more than 100 followers of Taiyuan County to the north to Yanmen County under the control of the Xia State, preparing to ask for Wang Ze through the Xia army here.

However, when his group hurried all the way from Chang'an to Yanmen County, they were surprised to learn that Wang Ze had led the Xia army to the west, and according to the itinerary, he was afraid that he had already passed Wuyuan County in Hetao.

In order to catch up with Wang Ze's footsteps, Li Shimin decided to follow Liu Wenjing with only a few followers, and then chased all the way under the escort of more than a dozen Xia soldiers, until he caught up with Wang Ze's army in Wuwei County.

Liu Wenjing is a scribe after all, and even the inner thigh of the saddle was ground into a bloody blur by the saddle all the way, and by this point, he was already mentally exhausted and unable to act, and finally had to let Li Shimin come to see Wang Ze alone.

Although Li Shimin is young, he is not stage frightened because he has seen many big scenes, because he is young and strong, he has seen many unknown situations in the Xia Kingdom along the way.

From the land of Hetao to Wuwei, along the way, it is only the territory occupied by the Xia State for a short time, and these lands were famous for being barren during the Great Sui Empire, but now in the hands of the Xia State, it has changed greatly in just ten years, and everywhere it shows the appearance of a rich land.

Not to mention anything else, just the dense farmland on the Hetao and the large plains under Helan Mountain, as well as the countless cattle, sheep and horses on the grasslands along the way, are enough to make Li Shimin envious, and the Xia Kingdom, which has mastered all the horse farms, can completely use cavalry to crush the entire Central Plains forces.

And Li Shimin and his entourage along the way to the wide gallop road actually from the Xia country all the way to Dunhuang County, it is said that this road and the origin of the river between the road only between Gaochang to Dunhuang between 800 miles has not been repaired.

If the road is connected, the road will be more than 20,000 miles long from east to west, which is already a very surprising project in itself.

In the past, the ministers within the Sui Empire often thought that the Xia Kingdom did not cultivate the royal road to enter the school, but established the world with miraculous skills, and now looking at the achievements of the Xia Kingdom, Li Shimin really wants to roar at those ministers who cling to the sage book, let us also hurry up and snatch these strange tricks back.

What he saw and heard along the way had already refreshed Li Shimin's eyes, and when he saw the army led by Wang Ze, his heart was full of surprise and envy.

Because of the needs of the Xia army's march, there were still 50,000 cavalry marching dozens of miles ahead, Li Shimin only saw thousands of cavalry following Wang Ze's army, and the other more than 100,000 people were infantry troops, but just the infantry army in front of him had already made him secretly wonder in his heart.

Xia Guobu soldiers are wearing rigid standard military uniforms, horizontal knives on their waists, and bows and crossbows on their backs are very common, but these cold weapons are already a minority in the Xia army, and the muskets on the shoulders of most Xia soldiers surprised him.

Because of the limitations of muskets against cavalry, it is impossible for the Xia army to change all of them into musketeers, and the current ratio of musketeers to cold-weapon soldiers in the Xia army is about two to one.

On average, every 50 soldiers were equipped with a cart pulled by four horses, and the cart was loaded with the armor, weapons, food and other baggage of the Xia soldiers.

On the side of the road a hundred zhang away from Li Shimin, hundreds of heavy artillery pieces pulled by heavy horses could be seen, and Li Shimin wanted to take a closer look at this weapon that played a decisive role in defeating the Sui army in the Liaodong battlefield, but it was a pity that the Xia soldiers who led the way quickly avoided these weapons.

Although he did not see the god of war in the distance, the baggage of the Xia army was clearly seen by Li Shimin, the car was full, and each cart was full of food for about fifteen days in addition to weapons and soldiers, so that the Xia army only needed to set up a material reserve center every hundreds of miles along the way.

What surprised Li Shimin the most was that while the soldiers of the Li Tang regime, the most powerful in the Central Plains, were still struggling to eat their stomachs, the soldiers of the Xia army were actually tired of canned meat in the supply, and they began to pursue fresher beef and mutton.

Thinking of these in his heart, Li Shimin's mood became heavier and heavier, but when he was only a hundred and ten steps away from Wang Ze, he still tried to dispel these thoughts, after all, he was about to face the emperor of the most powerful empire in the world, and he still had to ensure his respectful attitude.

"Withdraw your weapons!"

Wang Ze smiled and waved his hand at Cheng Biao, asking them to quickly put away the second-chief horse slashing giant sword in their hands.

Li Shimin in front of him was still only a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy, although he tried his best to make a serious and mature appearance, but in Wang Ze's opinion, he was still immature, especially when he saw the more than 100 nearly two-meter-tall Su Guard soldiers behind Wang Ze who were all in iron armor and holding a giant sword that cut off horses.

Thinking about the threat to me when I first crossed over, I was still very worried about the threat of the child in front of me, but now I think about it, I feel a little funny, even in front of the great figures in the history books, I am also a member of them who must be treated respectfully.

"I've seen Your Majesty, although Erlang has been in the Central Plains for a long time, he has admired His Majesty's prestige for a long time!" Although Li Shimin was shocked, he quickly calmed down and saluted respectfully, fully showing the quality and cultivation that a child of a family should have.

"Sit down!" After Li Shimin bowed and saluted, Wang Ze, who was sitting on a maza, patted another maza next to him and smiled at Li Shimin, "Don't be nervous in front of me, in fact, my old man likes to deal with young people very much!" ”

Without waiting for Li Shimin to reply, Wang Ze continued: "Actually, I don't need to say your intentions, do you have the patience to listen to my ramblings?" ”