Huan Wen's news is indeed very well-informed, Zeng Hua set off to return to Chang'an as early as the spring of the fifth year of Taihe, and could have returned to Guanlong before the winter with light and fast riding, but after receiving the news like snowflakes in the summer, he stopped in Gaochang and stopped walking.

The news reported like snowflakes was jointly reported by Ye Lixun, the head of the march of North Shiozawa Province, and Lu Zhen, the deputy head of the army.

In the past, the news reported by Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen was just a westward march, and on the way they met several tribes (mainly Scythians) whose names could not be named, and the soldiers of the northern province of the western expedition adhered to the teachings of the general, rushed up to fight, killed these barbarians and then carried out morality.

In the previous years, Ye Lixun wanted to hunt down the former Rouran Khan Bati, who did not know where to flee, and often put Ma Jianshui (present-day Yenisesa) to the west, where the largest tribe was killed by his hands, and more than half of the 500,000 or 600,000 tribes were killed, and the rest were women and weak men, and finally dispersed into the two counties of Wuhe and Jinshan, and finally integrated into them. In the past few years, Ye Lixun continued to pursue Bati to the west, and pursued farther and farther, although he still did not know the trace of Bati, but along the way he made countless gains, the farthest had crossed the Yizhi River (now the Irtysh River), and he was familiar with the situation in the west. This expedition to the west was the main general, with the obedient Qigu and Scythians as guides, gathered 70,000 cavalry, 150,000 war horses, and more than 600,000 cattle and sheep, and the momentum was huge.

According to Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen's thoughts, they originally didn't want to bring so many people and horses, because in their opinion, the west was all uncivilized barbarians, and there was no other use except for sacrificing sabers. But Zeng Hua thought more, he remembered that when he was spitting in a forum in the "other world", he saw a post that seemed to say that it was the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China, and the Xiongnu who migrated west suddenly appeared on the steppes of Eastern Europe, killing all the tribes there, and then drove all the "barbarians" to the south for hundreds of years, and finally caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Zeng Hua still has a certain respect for the Xiongnu people who moved westward. Can people wander to Europe in a harsh environment, and still maintain strong combat effectiveness, and stir up the whole of Europe in the dark, can they do it without some strength? Zeng Hua was unwilling to make a defeat in this temptation of the Eastern European Plain because of underestimation, or a situation that was not embarrassing or embarrassing, otherwise it would be difficult to encourage Beifu to continue the northern route to the west in the future, and now the gang of people in the three provinces were trained by Zeng Hua very realistically. So Zeng Hua would rather make enough preparations. Let Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen bring the elite soldiers of the three counties of Wuhe, Heishui, and Bohai. According to Zeng Huadi's plan, he was ready to half-pull and half-fight the Xiongnu who moved westward, and he did not have enough strength, and the Huns who moved westward like wolves for hundreds of years would not be able to bird your land. Other than that. Zeng Hua also planned to let Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen give the tribes on the East European Plain a disadvantage, and it would be easier to fight in the future.

Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen went through a whole year of "rapid migration" in the second year of Yonghe, swept through like a storm along the way, and soon crossed the Yizhi River, where they temporarily settled on a plateau (the Turkige Plateau) when winter came. After surviving a winter, Yu Yonghe continued to move westward in the warm spring of the third year. In the summer time saw a large river (the Urals), after crossing this river. The Western Expeditionary Army finally caught the tail of the Hun tribes that moved westward.

Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen, who had rarely boasted about people, were full of praise for these westward migration Huns in their reports, and he described in detail in his letters the Huns he had met in the west.

According to Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen's descriptions, the ferocity and savagery of these westward migration Huns are unimaginable. They cut the cheeks of the young children so that they could not grow beards in the future. They have stout bodies and huge arms. The disproportionately large head creates a somewhat deformed appearance. It is more in line with the records in the history books of the former Han Dynasty.

In the eyes of the North Road West Expeditionary Army. These westward migrated Huns lived like wild beasts and ate raw food. Not seasoned, eat the roots and tender meat crushed under their saddle. As a result of their nomadic pastoralism, these westward migrating Huns were accustomed to enduring cold, hunger, and thirst from an early age. Their cattle and sheep herds migrated with them, some of which were used to pull caravans with their wives and children. The women spun threads and garments in chariots and had children until they were brought up. If you ask them where they come from and where they were born, they can only point to the East and babble to tell you if they don't understand the language. It may be that hundreds of migrations have caused a great change in their language from the original script, so that the Huns in Wuhe County who accompanied the army can only understand very few words.

The clothing of these Huns consisted of a linen undergarment sewn together and a ratskin coat, the underwear was dark and did not change after being put on until it was worn out on the body. Helmets or hats are worn on their heads with backwards, and their hairy legs are wrapped in sheepskin, which is their year-round clothing, which is very similar to the clothing of the Xiongnu ancestors in the legend of the Xiongnu remnants in Hezhou. The shoes of the Huns who migrated west, without shape or size, because they seldom walked on the ground, and rode on horses almost all the time, and they were almost like riveted on their ugly dwarf horses. And the horses of the Huns who migrated westward were tireless, and galloped as swift as lightning.

The Huns who migrated westward were able to spend their lives on horseback, sometimes straddle the horse, sometimes sit sideways like women. They held meetings, did business, ate and drank on horseback—and even slept on the horse's neck. At the beginning of contact, there were several small battles due to language barriers and unclear situations. During the battle, these westward Huns pounced on the Beifu army and let out a terrible cry. Once they are stopped by our rain of arrows, they will quickly disperse, disappear into the grasslands, and soon reappear in unexpected places in Beifu. What shocked Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen the most was that the archery skills of these westward Huns were so incomparable, they could shoot their arrows from an astonishing distance, and they shot so accurately, but their arrows were only loaded with bones as hard as iron that could kill people, and their bows and arrows were passed down from generation to generation, as precious as horses.

Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen "contacted" the Huns who migrated westward several times, and won the respect of these grassland warriors with their strength, and Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen also showed their identities in time. Through non-stop exchanges, these Xiongnu who migrated westward finally learned that the Beifu army came from the far east, from their homeland and ancestral land, and they were thrilled for a while.

After in-depth exchanges, these Xiongnu who migrated westward told the Beifu army about their hardships in moving westward for hundreds of years, talked about various legends about their homeland and grassland, and even sang the last songs of the ancient Xiongnu that had changed their pronunciation but the melody had not changed. The Hun cavalry of the Five Rivers in the Beifu Army burst into tears.

During the conversation, the Northern Route and Western Expeditionary Army finally learned that the Huns, who had now migrated westward, occupied the steppes (Caspian Sea and the Black Sea) north of the two seas, and occupied a vast area between the three rivers (the Don River, the Volga River, and the Ural River), with about 30 tribes and more than 600,000 troops, including the local tribes they conquered and integrated. The name of the prince of their land was Baramir, and he was not alone. It was not the king, but the chief of the tribal alliance elected by the tribes, who was leading more than 30,000 Huns who had migrated west across the Don River and launched an attack on the Alans on the banks of the Kuban and Terek rivers in the west. to get enough food and other loot.

After receiving the news, Baramiyan quickly rushed back to the steppe on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea at the end of the third year of Yonghe to meet with Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen. In their letters, the two described in detail the appearance of Baramiyan: short, no more than thirty years old, with a wide chest. Big head, small, deep eyes. Flat nose, dark skin, almost completely black, with a sparse beard. Speak like thunder.

Baramiyan held talks with Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen (of course, the exchange was difficult), and the two made their intentions clear to Baramiyan. One is to hunt down the hapless Bati. The second is to pursue the Huns who migrated westward, but there was no malice in the pursuit of the Huns who migrated westward. It's just because everyone has the same roots, so they want to find their lost children.

Balamiyan was shocked by the elite and well-equipped army of the North Road and West Expeditionary Army, and also knew the strength of this army, and I don't know if it was due to hundreds of years of oral legends, he and the Huns who moved west still had a little awe of the Central Dynasty in the East, after all, it was the powerful Han Dynasty that drove them thousands of miles away, and they did not even "let go" when they fled to the distant Kangju. The Huns, like other nomadic peoples, have a kind of attachment and respect for the strong, because in the bitter cold steppe, they can only survive by following the strong, which is the "law" that they have obeyed for generations. Baramiyan expressed enough respect in front of the "strong" Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen, and also expressed his willingness to discuss with the leaders of various tribes how to accept the northern route to the west

After a brief meeting between the tribal leaders, the Huns were willing to consider the northern and western expeditionary forces as allies. In order to show their strength, and to test the strength of the "Eastern European Plain" mentioned by Zeng Hua, Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen invited Baramiyan to attack the Alans together, and assisted a large number of steel knives, bows and arrows, and leather armor.

Overjoyed Balamiyan immediately gathered 30,000 Hun cavalry, and Ye Lixun led the 50,000 North Road West Expeditionary Army in the spring of the fourth year of Taihe crossed the Don River, launched a stormy attack on the Alans, in this unprecedented cavalry baptism, the North Road West Expeditionary Army admired the Western Huns' cavalry, the Western Huns admired the elite of the Beifu Army, the two armies started from the Don River, day and night, swept thousands of miles. The Western Huns, who had previously been unable to attack or capture a castle fortress or a camp with a trench around it, were now led by a well-trained Beifu army, which quickly shattered and overthrew everything they saw along the way. This powerful cavalry army even crossed the Dnieper and attacked the Ostrogoths west of the river, defeating the Ostrogoths' aging king Helmanach, forcing him to beg for peace with countless treasures and food.

After having captured dozens of Ostrogothic "scholars" and knowing enough information about the region, Yelixun returned with a satisfied Baramiyan and returned to the northern Caspian steppe in the autumn of the fourth year of Yonghe.

Lu Zhen, who remained in the steppes north of the Caspian Sea, led 20,000 troops from the north and 10,000 Huns to sweep the northern part of the Caucasus Mountains, defeating the Sarmats who had always been at odds with the Western Huns. Lu Zhen showed his means of powering Donghu, nearly 70,000 Sarmat men who were more than the height of the axle were beheaded, women and children were plundered, and finally turned it into a real pasture for the Western Huns.

The Western Huns were completely shocked by the Northern Route and Western Expeditionary Army, and they also understood that if they were not the Huns with "the same root and the same origin", this cavalry and archery army was no less than them, and the equipment, discipline, and tactics were far superior to theirs, and they could quickly make more than 600,000 Western Huns disappear into the vast steppe like the Sarmats north of the Caucasus Mountains.

After consultation between Baramiyan and the chiefs of the tribes, they were willing to offer their sincerity of submission to the king of the strong, the great general of the East, and sent a tribute group composed of Baramiyan and more than 60 tribal elders to march east day and night in the spring of the fifth year of Yonghe.

Zeng Hua, who was in Gaochang, only received the news that Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen were preparing to cooperate with the Western Huns and start preparing for a big operation in the autumn of the fifth year of Yonghe, which really made him happy. Zeng Hua couldn't imagine that Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen would find the Western Huns so quickly, and they didn't come out of vain this trip, as for the Bati who didn't know if it had rotted somewhere, Zeng Hua didn't take it to heart, his mind was full of Western Huns.

Zeng Hua once saw on the Internet the evaluation of the Western Huns on the Internet: "When they stand on the ground, they are indeed shorter than ordinary people, and when they step on horses, they are the greatest people in the world." "Such a good source of soldiers, such a good tribe, has now been confirmed by the North Road and West Expeditionary Army, how can Zeng Hua not be happy.

Zeng Hua secretly thought in his heart, how could he not let this clan escape from his palm. It can be seen from the letters of Ye Lixun and Lu Zhen that the current Western Xiongnu have long been scattered into dozens of tribes in the long process of westward migration, and there is no monarch in the real sense, this Baramiyan may just be a military chieftain, and he usually leads everyone to grab things together.

It's just that this journey is too far away, there are tens of thousands of miles, even if the fast horse runs to Xizhou and Shazhou, it will take several months, and then run to Chang'an for less than a year? Fortunately, I had the "foresight" to occupy the Transoxiana region and the Turan Plain east of the Caspian Sea, so that I could easily connect the Western and Shazhou regions with the Ural and Volga river basins. It seems that it is necessary to build roads and cities in these areas, and form a rapid transportation network, and these things will be done by the prisoners of war in Persia, Tianzhu, and Tochar, nearly 200,000 people, and they must find something to do, and they must not waste food in vain. There are also missionaries from seminaries, who should send a large number of elite groups to "fool", no, they should be missionaries. There are also merchant groups, which must open up the trade routes, send a dazzling array of goods from Beifu to the newly recruited "Western Hun compatriots", and then sit and collect the European booty they "grabbed".

Because Zeng Hua has been looking forward to the continuous reports and letters in the west, he has been delayed in Gaochang. When he was about to go back to Chang'an in the spring of the sixth year of Yonghe, he actually waited for Baramiyan and his party, who were rushing all the way, and couldn't help but be overjoyed, and hurriedly welcomed Baramiyan and others with grand etiquette, and rushed to Chang'an City together.