Although Zhao Yun didn't know where Khotan and Shache had the courage to confront the Han Empire, Zhao Yun knew that they did not have the strength to confront the Han Empire.

The king of Khotan dispatched 20,000 troops, which was about the same number as the army led by Zhao Yun, but under the First World War, the Khotanese army could not resist the advance of the Han army at all.

Although Zhao Yun was still young, after being in a high position, he rarely charged in person, and he ordered his subordinate Yun General Tian to lead three thousand iron cavalry to charge.

These 3,000 iron cavalry cut through the military formation of Khotan like an iron pestle, and Zhao Yun commanded the joint assembly of Shanshan and Hu Mi to press and win the final victory in one fell swoop.

Khotanese king Wei Chi Sha was defeated because of his arrogance and rudeness, and after the battle, he fell from his horse and died in a panic, and Zhao Yun led his troops to march forward and conquered the king city of Khotan five days later.

According to the Han Empire's regulations for the destruction of the country, Zhao Yun will be wiped out by the ruling group of Khotan, killing one head, and then announcing the fall of Khotan.

The Khotanese state, with a population of 80,000, was thus wiped out by the Han army.

After the Khotanese State was wiped out, Zhao Yun did not let go of the Shache State who instigated this matter behind his back.

Although the Shache Kingdom was shocked after learning the news of the fall of the Khotanese State and sent an envoy to the Han army to ask for submission, Zhao Yun expelled the envoy and told the Shache king not to think about surrendering, but to wash his neck and prepare to die.

King Yache had no choice but to lead 10,000 troops to meet the battle, making a dying struggle, but naturally he was annihilated by Zhao Yun, and he had no strength to fight back, so he could only retreat to the royal city.

He tried to hold on to deplete Zhao Yun's grain and straw, strive for a glimmer of life, and then ask for help from Dawanguo, who knew that Zhao Yun brought a fierce fire oil can, and made a simple version of the "flying car" on the spot to throw the fierce fire oil canister, so the sky rained fire and burned the city.

Three days later, the city of King Yache was breached by the Han army, and Zhao Yun killed King Shache to destroy the ruling group of Shache Kingdom, took all his people out of the city and beheaded them, and declared the end of Shache Kingdom.

After Khotan and Shache were destroyed by Zhao Yun one after another, the surrounding small states were frightened and did not dare to resist, so they all submitted their credentials to Zhao Yun, requesting to return to the Han Empire and pay tribute to the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.

For example, small countries such as the West Night Kingdom, the Zihe Kingdom, the Puli Kingdom, the Wulei Kingdom, and the Wuzhen Kingdom all took the initiative to send letters of state to the Han army, asking for submission and submission, so as to prevent the red-eyed Han army from taking them away as merit.

They don't want to fall to that point, that's too wrong.

But in any case, after Zhao Yun successively defeated the Khotanese and Shache states, there was no longer any existence in the Southern Western Regions that could affect the authority of the Han Empire, and as in the case of the Northern Western Regions, the obstacles that might appear on the two routes had been swept away by the Han army.

This original trip to the Western Regions inexplicably turned into a war to open up the Silk Road, and it was fought very smoothly, and what Liu Bei originally planned to complete in three or five years was completed in about a year, which caught Liu Bei off guard.

But in any case, in March of the fourth year of Zhenguan, the two Han armies had already arrived in the border area of Dawan and subdued other surrounding countries, and the logistics route had been quite consolidated.

Therefore, the two Han armies entered the territory of Dawan separately in April of the fourth year of Zhenguan.

The army is in hand, and there is nothing to say, so I asked King Dawan directly if I wanted to be the dog of the Han, and if I did, then hello, I am hello, everyone, and assist the Han to garrison the army here, don't say anything else.

Don't do it......

Then wait for the dog to be volunteered to be a big man.

After all, being a big dog is the happiest thing.

Zhang Fei, who was full of murderous anger, didn't even bother to let Dong Zhuo and Wang Chong go to fight with King Dawan as envoys, and directly sent his men in the army to give an ultimatum, there was no room for negotiation, which made King Dawan angry and frightened.

In fact, at this moment, there is a Kangju army in Dawan.

Previously, Dawan was included in the sphere of influence by Kangjuguo, and has been helping Kangjuguo face the northward threat of the Kushan Empire, with some military strength, a large population, and a lot of cities, barely a small power.

But who would have thought that the momentum of the Han Empire's strategy of returning to the Western Regions would be so fierce and fierce, and it would penetrate the Western Regions and come to Dawan Kingdom in three strokes and five divisions.

If that's all there is, Dawan still has a bit of the idea of resisting the Han army, after all, there is Kangju's father behind it, but the key problem is......

Before, Kangju's father was also beaten by the Han army, not to mention the annihilation of the whole army, it is said that he was beaten to the border by the Han army, and he withdrew after showing off his might, and the Kangju army had no way at all.

In this way, whether Kangju's father can help Dawan resist the invasion of the Han army and whether he can continue to maintain his father's identity is worth talking about.

There are still some grievances and hatreds between the Dawan Kingdom and the Han Empire, and these grievances and hatreds can also involve the Kangju Kingdom.

As early as the Western Han Dynasty, when the Han Empire first launched a war against Dawan under the pretext of sweat and blood, Kang Juguo, as an ally with considerable ties with Dawan in terms of economy and culture, entered the vision of the Han Empire and was familiar to the strategists of Chang'an.

And at that time, Kangju was judged to be a first-class power with more than 120,000 troops, while at the same time, Dawan was a second-rate power with a population of 300,000 and 60,000 troops.

The two countries were fully mobilized, and they could raise 180,000 troops to fight with military force, which was not the best choice for the Han Empire.

In the face of such a strong strength, when the Han army retreated and the Dawan people killed the temporary monarch who was too weak and compromised by the Han Empire, the Han Empire did not intervene a second time.

However, according to the Kangju state, it is not a centralized palace state, but an alliance state, although there is a king in the country, but it does not have the appeal to command everything, and the existence of many nobles and chieftains within the country divides this part of the power, so that the strategy of the Kangju alliance state often cannot be agreed internally.

This point is related to the fundamental attribute of Kangju originating from the steppe nomads, and it is also the biggest reason why the window period between the collapse of the Western Han Empire and the revival of the Eastern Han Empire was not used by them.

If Kangju was a powerful centralized state, then long before the Kushan Empire reached out to the Western Regions, Kangju would definitely reach out to the Western Regions, and even extend its power to the Yumen Pass area while the Han Empire was in chaos.

This was not a blessing for the Han Empire.

But this was for external expansion, and if the fundamental interests of the Kangju nobles and chieftains were touched, they were still able to unite and cobble together a large army and launch a fierce attack on the enemy.

Zhang Fei, Dong Zhuo and others learned about this through Wusun, and they made it very clear.

Zhang Fei knew that whether it was Kangju or Dawan, they were both relatively powerful opponents, with a large population and strong war potential.

At the same time, the terrain of the Great Wan Kingdom is very superior, if the Great Wan Kingdom is controlled, it will basically be able to control the fastest route for the Kangju Kingdom and the Kushan Empire to enter the Western Regions with fewer troops, and it will have an advantage in terms of geographical advantages.

When the time comes, to attack Central Asia is to be condescending, like a tiger descending from a mountain.

If the Han Empire wanted to intervene in the struggle for hegemony in Central Asia in the future, then it was inevitable to control the Dawan Kingdom.

Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, together with the staff team sent by the Privy Council, made some discussions, believing that it was necessary to control the Dawan Kingdom, and if you want to fully control the Dawan Kingdom, it is not enough to rely on the current army.

Therefore, after the army met, Zhang Fei sent Zhao Yun back, and asked Zhao Yun to go back and send three armies to the front line of Dawan State, and then recruited the armies of Shanshan State, Cheshi State, Qiuzi State, Wusun State and other large countries and a number of small countries along the way, so that some of them went to the front line of Dawan to support the Han army, and part of them began to transport grain to the front line as logistics troops.

In this way, the Han army of 40,000, combined with at least 40,000 of the coalition forces of the Western Regions, made up 80,000 troops, and launched a strategic decisive battle with the Dawan and Kangju coalition forces on the front line of Dawan to drive the forces of Kangju out of Dawan.

At the same time, Zhang Fei also went to Luoyang, telling Luoyang the news that he was preparing to start a war in Dawan, and asked Luoyang to make some preparations, provide some necessary help, and so on.

This right to act cheaply allowed Zhang Fei to completely grasp it.

From the time when Zhang Fei issued an ultimatum to Dawanguo, until the time when preparations for war were almost over, more than four months passed.

The Han army and the countries of the Western Regions completed the projection of military forces and resources from Dunhuang County to the front line of the Dawan Kingdom at a relatively fast speed, in which the strong transfer strength of the Han Empire itself played a great role.

After Liu Bei, who was in Luoyang, learned of this, he decided to support Zhang Fei's operational decision and not interfere, believing that he in the rear would not understand the local military situation better than the military generals on the front line, so he should not interfere more.

He even sent the privy envoy Xun You to Liangzhou, and asked him to take the most effective privy council team to do the logistics transfer scheduling work for Zhang Fei, and at the same time, he was also responsible for coordinating the countries of the Western Regions on the logistics route with the people of the Western Regions Military Region.

After that, he also ordered that all the three-year grain stored in the warehouses of Liangzhou and Yongzhou be taken out for war purposes, and was allowed to be transferred to the troops fighting on the front line in Dawan, and requisitioned 100,000 people, 200,000 official slaves, 100,000 livestock of all kinds, and 150,000 vehicles in Liangzhou and Yongzhou to provide grain and straw for the frontline army.

The strong national strength accumulated by the Han Empire under the governance of Liu Bei for many years began to burst out in an all-round way, and the accumulation of three years in Yongliang and Liangzhou alone was enough to support the expedition of 40,000 Han troops to Dawan to carry out this very important battle, from the beginning of the preparation to the full implementation of the actual less than four months, and a little more than three months.

The extremely capable Xun You and the skilled Privy Council team supported Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun on the front line.

They opened up all the joints of the logistics route in the rear, directly connected with every country in the Western Regions on the logistics route, and not only managed to transfer their own grain, but also transferred grain from the local area as much as possible to save costs.

After three months of painstaking work, Zhang Fei and the 40,000 Han troops and more than 60,000 Western Regions allied troops on the front line were ready to launch a full-scale operation against the Great Wan Kingdom.

On the other hand, in this battle, Dawan and Kangju are in a sense local battles, and it is easier to fight, and it is more convenient to transfer materials or something, so it stands to reason that their preparations should be faster.

But in fact, this is not the case.

Zhang Fei was ready to launch an attack, and just waited for Zhao Yun to return to his position from the rear, so that he could march in two ways and launch a full-scale battle against Dawan.

And at this juncture, Dawan and Kangju are still not ready for a full-scale war.

First, there is some controversy within Dawan about whether to fight this war.

Although Kangjuguo made it clear that he wanted to fight with the Han army and get back the lost face, specifically, the Dawan people also knew what was going on inside Kangjuguo, and the aristocratic chieftains in the eastern part of the country who were close to Dawan attached more importance to Dawan, while the aristocratic chieftains on the western grasslands were not interested in it.

The reason for this is that the interests of the two sides are different.

The nobles in the east are more concerned about the business and trade with the Dawan Kingdom, and care about the economic interests of the country, and the loss of the Dawan Kingdom is unacceptable to them, but the nobles in the west lack business contacts with the Dawan Kingdom, and they heard that the army in Wusun and Kangju was completely wiped out by the Han army, and they felt that they could not get benefits, so they were unwilling to cooperate with the eastern nobles to fight.

Kangjuwang can call them on some less sensitive issues, but on issues involving core interests, Kangjuwang can't be too big, and can only continue to mediate and negotiate, but mediation comes and goes, and it is impossible to reach a consensus on the issue of joint resistance between the east and the west.

Just when the Han army mobilized soldiers, horses, grain and grass, and the entire Kansai region began to mobilize to support the war, the Kangju people continued to pull and mediate.

The eastern nobles must fight, and the western nobles are not interested, and they don't want to pay any price for things that don't involve their interests, so they are unwilling to send troops.

However, after the eastern nobles saw the strong combat effectiveness of the Han army, they felt that if they faced the Han army alone, they would not be able to win the battle if they suffered heavy losses, then they would not only lose all their lives in Dawan, but even the interests of Kangju might be annexed, so they were also worried and could not make up their minds to give themselves a general mobilization.

King Kangju was able to consider this matter from the perspective of overall interests, and wanted to promote everyone to cooperate with each other and fight against the Han army, but he obviously could not force the western nobles to join the war.

Dawan was affected by the internal contradictions and disputes of Kangju State, and was very hesitant to start a war, and internal disputes continued.

On the Han army's side, Dong Zhuo and Wang Chong, in order to buy time for the Han army, constantly sent people and even personally went to Dawan to talk to the king, pretending to persuade the king to fully surrender to the Han Empire and abandon Kangju, so as to give the king of Dawan and the domestic lord peace faction a great confusion.

As a result, under the influence of the forces of the main peace factions on both sides, the war preparations of the main battle faction were relatively stretched, and in four months, the army was mobilized a little more than half, and the grain transportation reserves were less than two months.

There are only more than 10,000 people in the Kangju army to assist in the defense of the front line of the Dawan Kingdom, and they originally claimed to support their 100,000 troops, but now there are still 90,000 people missing, and the Dawan State has mobilized more than 20,000 people to defend on the front line, but if the rest of the people have to be mobilized, it will be more difficult.

General mobilization cannot be achieved without a little determination and without thoroughly placing the state of the country in a state of war.

As a result, by the end of July of the fourth year of Zhenguan, the balance of strength between the multinational coalition led by the Han army and the Dawan Kangju coalition army was completely unbalanced, and the fighting will and combat readiness of the two sides were also unbalanced.

(End of chapter)