Inside the city of Nishapur.

"Your Majesty, the Wei army has stopped attacking!"

The vizier Anushilwang hurried in and said hello to Shapur II, who was giving orders to the generals to guard them.

"Oh? Seriously? ”

"I saw it with my own eyes!"

Hearing this, Shapur II pondered for a long time, and then said: "It seems that the Wei army wants to trap us in Nishapur City!" ”

"Your Majesty, isn't that just right? Before the war broke out, you had stockpiled a large amount of food in Nishapur, enough to feed your army for three months. In a war of attrition, our army is fighting on the ground, which is obviously far better than the Wei army of the labor expedition! ”

"Not necessarily." Shapur II shook his head and said, "The Wei army can still levy grain from the Western Regions Protectorate, Kushan Province and other places. We are trapped in the city of Nishapur, and now the Wei army is besieging us but not attacking, once the Wei army has enough food and grass, I don't know when this battle will be fought, whether we can hold on or not! ”

"Your Majesty, if there is a tug-of-war, the Wei army will definitely not be able to hold on."

"Oh? How so? ”

"The provinces of Kushan, Vagatha, and Xisatrap have just been incorporated into the rule of the Wei Empire, and the people are not attached to it, and if the Wei army forcibly requisitions grain, the alien races who have long been dissatisfied with the Wei people will probably rebel. When the time comes, Wei Jun won't be able to retreat if he doesn't want to! ”

"Not bad. At this time, we must send people out to contact anti-Wei people in various places, so that they can raid the back road of the Wei army. When the rear catches fire, I don't believe that Ran Min will not withdraw his troops! Hmph, with his retreat, the defeat of the Wei army is already decided! ”

Hearing this, Anusherwan said again: "Your Majesty, I think it's not enough to just contact anti-Wei people everywhere and let them make trouble behind the back of the Wei army. Because the Wei Empire stationed heavy troops in the three major provinces of Kushan, Vajia Tuojia, and Western Satrap, the monarchs of the countries under them were all puppets of the Wei people, and if they only rebelled, they might not be able to endanger the war on the front line of the Wei Empire. ”

"Huh? Anushrwan, what are your good ideas? ”

Anusherwang smiled and said, "Your Majesty, we need reinforcements at this time. ”

"Reinforcements?"

"Yes. Your Majesty should know about the Huns, right? ”

"Of course I do. It is said that the Huns came from the Far East, had been adjacent to the Wei people, and fought for generations, until the first century AD, the Huns were divided into two parts, one went south, one moved west, and the Huns who went south were basically extinct, or fled, and now the Huns are king and hegemonic in the Syr Darya River area. ”

For the Huns, Shapur II was thunderous. Not for anything else, because he worships the strong, and the former Xiongnu Shan Maudun is one of his idols.

As far as Shapur II knows, the heyday of the Xiongnu was from 209 BC to 128 BC, that is, the period of Maodun, Laoshang, and Junchen Sandanyu, which is equivalent to the first year of China from the first year of Qin II to the first year of Yuanshuo of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. During the period of Yizhi Xiandanyu, the national strength was attacked by the Han army and turned from prosperity to decline.

The leader of the Huns, Tou Man Shan Yu, doted on his wife Yan and gave birth to a younger son, Tou Man wanted to set up his youngest son as the next Shan Yu, so he tried to kill the eldest son Mao Dun.

He sent Mao Dun to Yue's as a proton, and then sent troops to attack Yue's, wanting to kill Mao Dun by Yue's hand, Mao Dun was very courageous, robbed Yue's war horse, and fled back alone, Tou Man did not kill Mao Dun with a mouth, so he had to give up, and after Mao Dun knew the truth, he had revenge on his father and stepmother.

He first trained an army and demanded that when he fired his arrows, they would shoot them. He successively targeted his concubine and his father's horse and put to death those who did not shoot arrows.

Later, when the time was ripe, he fired an arrow at Tou Man Dan Yu, causing his troops to shoot Tou Man Shan Yu, Mao Dun and staged a coup d'état, killing his stepmother and the generals and ministers who disobeyed him, and seizing Shan Yu's position.

After Maudun succeeded to the throne, he began to expand externally.

After the defeat of the king of Donghu, he immediately annexed Lou Fu and Baiyang Henan King (the other part of the Xiongnu, south of the Hetao), and recovered the Xiongnu land seized by Meng Tian and the counties of Han Chaona and Fushi. and plundered Han Zhiyan, Dai and other places.

Attacking the Yue clan to the west, Lao Shangdan Yu succeeded to the throne, defeated and killed the king of the Yue clan, forcing the Yue clan to move to the Western Regions. The tribes of Ding Ling, Hun Yu, Qu Chu, Qi Kun, and Xin Li in the north and northwest successively submitted to the Xiongnu.

As early as 201 BC, Han Wangxin was forced to surrender to the Xiongnu. In the following year, Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, led an army of 320,000 to conquer, and was besieged by more than 400,000 cavalry of the Xiongnu Mao Dunshan in Baideng for seven days and nights. After escaping, the Han Dynasty adopted Liu Jing's suggestion and implemented a "peace policy" against the Xiongnu, marrying the daughter of the Han clan to Shan Yu, and giving a certain amount of property and opening the customs market to allow the people of both sides to trade.

These are all the legends of Maudun Shan Yu, the legends of the Huns, and Shapur II has always longed for them.

"Your Majesty can send someone to contact the Huns."

"This ......"

Shapur II hesitated: "Can the Huns fight with the Wei army?" I heard that the Xiongnu didn't even have a decent country, it was only a tribal system, and it wasn't even a tribal alliance, and there was no strong monarch to unify the Xiongnu tribes, so I was afraid that it wouldn't have a great impact on the Wei army! ”

"It's better than nothing. Your Majesty, in addition to the Huns, we can also contact the Xianbei Empire further west! ”

"Xianbei Empire?"

"Yes. Your Majesty should know that the Xianbei Empire was a powerful empire that stretched from the Aral Sea in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west; It runs from the Danube River in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. In this vast area, the vassal states had their own kings and tribal chieftains, who paid tribute to the Xianbei people on weekdays and sent troops to participate in wars during wartime. ”

Anusherwang sighed and said, "I heard that these Xianbei people are also from the east, and they are still defeated generals of the Wei army, and they were driven to the west by the Wei Empire. Since the Xianbei people came to Europe, the entire European continent has been completely chaotic, no year without war, but the Xianbei people are more and more courageous, the more people are in the war, the larger the territory, our Sassanid Dynasty has suffered several losses under the hands of the Xianbei people, and even the Roman Empire has been suppressed by the Xianbei people, the Xianbei people can be imagined! ”

"This ...... But will the Xianbei people join forces with us? Shapur II hesitated.

Anusherwang immediately said: "Your Majesty, the Xianbei people and the Wei people have a deep blood feud. Now that the Xianbei people are strong, and the Wei army has come all the way to the west, our Sassanid Dynasty is gone, and the next target of the Wei Empire will be the Xianbei people! So Murong Ke must have known this. ”

"Good!"

Shapur II decided to take Anushirwang's suggestion and send troops to fight his way out of the siege, and then successively went to the Wei Empire's Kushan Province, Vagatuga Province and Western Satrap Province to contact the local anti-Wei people, and at the same time sent envoys to contact the Xiongnu powerhouses, and went all the way to the west, trying to persuade the Xianbei people to deal with the powerful and invincible Wei army.

Ran Min had already guessed the intentions of the Persians, so he ordered the governors of the three major provinces to take strict precautions and suppress the rebellion as soon as it found any signs of rebellion.

Just as Ran Min speculated, after he issued the "Grain Requisition Order" to the three provinces, under the instigation of well-intentioned people, the people everywhere complained and armed one after another, and rebellions broke out one after another.

However, the rebels came to a miserable end and were brutally suppressed by the Wei army.

One after another, the main culprits were beheaded in the street, or Ling Chi, or cooked, and all nine of their clans were killed, and as for those rebels who attached themselves, whether they were innocent or not, they were all executed and killed one by one.

The various measures of the Wei army frightened the foreign people everywhere, so that they did not dare to act rashly.

Grain was continuously transported to the city of Nishapur, but neither the Wei nor the Persian army were fighting, and they were waiting for the other side to fall.

A month later, Ran Min received news that the Northern Xiongnu tribes were moving south to attack the Khorezm and Huhu people who were attached to the Wei Empire.