The north wind swept the white grass and folded, and in the cold winter, the Kunqi River has frozen, as if a jade belt fell between the mountains.

Wang Rong stood by the Kunqi River, looking out at the surrounding mountains. People often say that the mountains here are high and the roads are far away, which is compared with the plains of the Central Plains. In Wang Rong's opinion, compared to the Shudao mountains he had visited, they were not so sinister.

The mountain of the road into Shu is high and steep, and some roads must be built to pass through the plank road. This side of the Western Regions is not so exaggerated, the mountain is very large, but the slope of the mountain is relatively gentle compared to Shudi, it is not difficult for people and horses to pass, and there are places where there are villages and people along the road, and you can also see that there are terraces on the hillside.

It's just that the ravines are vertical and horizontal, the mountains are continuous, and the line of sight is extremely not open, and when you look at all sides on the road, you are blocked by the mountains. This kind of terrain can easily hide people and horses and cannot be detected in time. Fortunately, it is still in the territory of Tang Kingdom, and there is no risk of wife.

In winter, the earth is withered and barren, full of loess, and the air is very dry and cold. However, the weather is better today, the sky is blue, and you can see the sun when you look up, adding a vibrant color to the scene.

There was a faint sentence in the barracks: "Come to a song of Qin Feng."

As soon as the words fell, the horn sounded first, like an overture, and then the military musician found the entry point, and the horizontal blowing and drums also sounded one after another, and the rhythm of the song was slow, thick and powerful, and the vigorous and powerful music immediately made the atmosphere different.

The musicians sang first, and then the onlookers sang along: "How can you say that you have no clothes? with the Son. Wang Yuxingshi, repair my spear. and the Son ...... enmity."

The soldiers who dug ditches, cut wood, and set up tents in all directions turned their ears to the camp where the propaganda sounded.

After hearing this, Wang Rong was inadvertently moved. The barren and backward land in front of him made him seem to see that in ancient times, the army of the Yellow Emperor Yan Emperor held a simple stick and stone axe, cutting thorns and thorns in the wilderness, opening up the territory, and the blood of the ancestors flowed all over Kyushu, so that there was this vast land.

And now, with well-crafted armor, well-forged weapons, and even meticulously crafted firearms, there is no reason to retreat!

Wang Rong listened to it for a while, and the musician changed the tune of Yuefu again, and he returned to the tent of the Chinese army.

The tent is still repairing the kang to prepare for keeping warm at night. It's okay during the day, but at night, if you sleep in the open, you can really freeze to death. Fan Jun's logistics were done well, he ordered the officials of the three northwestern counties of Liangzhou early on, prepared fuel, and recruited people to send them to the army for the needs of the army, mainly charcoal, but also charcoal.

The soldiers were setting up a stove in the tent, and they were working very hard in front of the emperor, and a soldier was "tinkling" a stone with a chisel, which seemed to be uneven enough.

All the soldiers were dressed differently from when they were in Chang'an City, mainly because they had a lot of burlap bags and sundries hanging on their bodies. Ordinary soldiers will have flints, knives, food bags and other things on their bodies, and soldiers also have a lot of weapon-related things, such as small bamboo tubes hanging on belts to order gunpowder and iron molds for clamping lead pellets.

Each team also carried various tools such as knives and hammers on donkey carts and mules. On the march and in battle, there is very little time on the battlefield, and most of the time it is a journey life of eating and sleeping in the open air.

The big tent of the Chinese army has not yet been packed, and the civil and military officials accompanying the army have not come, and they are deploying and inspecting the affairs of the various battalions stationed. In the messy tent, Wang Rong asked someone to take out the pen and paper and write a letter in his free time.

The letters to Zhang Pu lasted for many days and were written intermittently. Now I can finally write a personal letter to Zhang Pu as a matter of course.

In the noisy tent, Wang Rong first described what he had seen and felt along the way, the place was relatively desolate, and there was a section of the road that was not crowded all day. But Wang found that when many people walked this path together, people were not worried, and they would be more dependent on each other. During the emperor's personal journey, he spent time with the soldiers day and night, which could build greater trust.

He told Zhang Pu not to worry too much, because when the army marched to the border area of the Kunqi River into the Puchang Sea, he would build a fortress there, and the fortress could be used as a barrier.

Wang Rong wrote again: "I miss ...... very much." You didn't write the word, he pondered that it was too explicit, so he wrote the days when Zhang Pu took care of it in Chang'an City.

At this time, the generals and civil officials entered the big tent one after another, and Wang Rong put down the brush and told them to find a place to sit. And they gathered around

Sit down on a stone-built stove.

The soldiers put an iron pot on the stove, took off the grain bag and poured corn into it, and took out cheese, small salted dried fish, and pickled vegetables and put them in one go, so that they didn't even need condiments, so they cooked a pot of porridge, and the wheat cakes were placed by the stove to bake hot.

Even Wang Rong eats this thing, and there is no difference between eating from top to bottom. The Tang State Forbidden Army continued the previous military law, prohibiting drinking alcohol without reason during the march, and the generals of the forbidden army generally did not drink alcohol.

There is no extravagance and magnificence in the palace hall, and there is no extravagant honor guard and pomp. The most powerful ministers of the Tang State sat around such an earthen stove, surrounding the emperor of the Tang State. But at this time, the monarch and the ministers seemed to be much closer.

Wang Rong was holding a map, ignoring the meaning of the crowd, and the generals and civil officials talked casually. The fire boiling the soup warmed up in the tent.

The map was added to the scale by Wang Rong, but it is still very rudimentary. He can roughly understand the directions of various places, relative to modern geographical knowledge. For example, Guanzhong, Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Zhangye, and Juyan in the east, these place names are all reference objects.

The Kunqi River flows east-west in the eastern part of the Western Regions, and it is this road that Wang Rong and others are taking now.

Their early destination was the confluence of the Kunqi River and the Liusha River, and they were almost there. This place now belongs to the territory of the Tang Kingdom, there is no city, there is no place name, it is the legendary place of three things, the east is Dunhuang County, the southeast is the Weizang region. The lower reaches of the Kunqi River that flows into the Puchang Sea already belong to the Pusha country. The upper reaches of the Kunqi River flow in a north-south direction, the downstream flows in an east-west direction, and the downstream section is on the west side of the Puchang Sea.

Along the Kunqi River, you will soon reach Yuli, which is an important town in the eastern border of Pusha Kingdom. Yuli was at the confluence of the Dali River and the Kunqi River, and Wang Rong found that both Chinese and foreign cities liked to build at the confluence of such rivers.

Tracing the Kunqi River continues upstream, another river meets the city: Yuanqu.

The location of the Yuanqu roughly belongs to the northern region of the Western Regions, which the ministers proclaimed. Wang Rong had never heard of the Western Regions before and was divided into north and south, and when he was in Chang'an City, he learned many times that the Western Regions were divided into two parts, north and south, and the northern part of the Western Regions was sandwiched between the Jinshan and Tianshan Mountains, the grasslands were abundant, suitable for cultivation and farming, and the southern desert of the Western Regions was vast, except for the oasis to survive, there was no other place.

The Puchanghai region is the only remaining major agricultural and animal husbandry area in the southern part of the Western Regions, and after the Pusha Kingdom acquires this place, it has the strength to develop eastward.

From the Yuanqu to the north, it roughly entered the Pusha Basin. Further north is the center of the Pusha Kingdom: the city of Jushi. This was once a castle built by the Cheshi Kingdom. It is an olive-shaped mountain basin in the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains, surrounded by mountains.

The Pusha Basin starts from the Ela Pass in the west to the west mouth of the Qimu Gorge in the east, and is 500 miles long from east to west; the northern part is the eastern foothills of Tianshan; It reaches the dry mountains in the south, and is about 150 miles wide from north to south. According to Wang Rong's memory, the north side of the Tianshan Mountains should be the city of Mi.

At this moment, Fan Jun came, and his voice interrupted Wang Rong's thoughts, only to hear him say, "The minister recommends a person for the saint, please show the saint."

Wang Rong heard that it was Fan Jun's recommendation, so he didn't ask, so he said directly, "Call him in."

After a while, a big man with black and yellow skin and a burly body bent in, knelt on the ground, and said respectfully, "The last general will expand and knock to see the saint, and my emperor will live forever!"

Wang Rong raised his hand and said, "Get up and speak."

Wang Rong had already seen that the person who came in was not from the Central Plains, and he turned his head to look at Fan Jun, with doubts in his eyes.

Fan Jun bowed and said: "Kuo Kuo is a native of the Cheshi country, but he was a slave of the Meng family in Dunhuang County very early, and often accompanied the head of the Meng family in Dunhuang County, Meng Dun, to go on expeditions, and fought bravely, so he became a captain and allowed him to return to his original name. He was sent by Meng Ao, and now he is no different from the people of the Central Plains."

He said: "Meng Gong treats the last general like a nephew, as it is often said that when the Yellow Emperor Yan, there is no difference between the people of the Western Regions and the people of the Central Plains, and now the end will enter the Central Plains, and he will be a child."

Wang Rong said: "If you enter China, you will be Chinese, and if you enter China, you will be destroyed. The heart of the Duke is also the heart of the court and me."

Expanding his head, he said, "The last general grew up in Tianshan when he was young, and he knew the customs and people of Pusha country. The holy edict is cool

Dunhuang County, the prefecture, ordered the border army to guard and defend, and Meng Gong sent the last general to join the Holy Lord's command, hoping to serve the Holy Lord's conquest of the Western Regions."

Wang Rong said in his heart that he didn't know what it was like to lead another *** team to fight his own people, but there were also a lot of leading parties on Tang Jun's side, which was not enough to blame. After all, the expansion has been on the side of the Tang State for too long, and the assimilation still has an effect, and if there is no independent regime of the Pusha State, it is estimated that the effect will be better. He nodded quietly and said, "Menggong is commendable for his loyalty."

"As far as the last general knows, the people of the Pusha Kingdom of the Tianshan Mountains are more populous than the Qarlu (pastoral area north of the Tianshan Mountains), rich in iron tools and grain, and the people are brave, and they are also the main source of soldiers of the Pusha Kingdom.

Fan Jun continued: "During the Yongguo period, the imperial court noticed that the Pusha Kingdom was becoming more and more powerful, and once sent a large army to fight against it. During the siege of Jushi City, the surrounding area was harassed by more than 40,000 cavalry of Pusha State, and the road and food were in a dilemma, and at that time, the Central Plains was chaotic, and the Yongguo court was unable to hold it, so it had to find many excuses to withdraw and give up.

The minister estimated that to this day, the Pusha Kingdom is extremely large, and with the reinforcements of the Pusha Army of the Tianshan Mountains and the Western Regions, the maximum number of troops that can be gathered may reach 300,000!"

Wang Rong muttered, "Of course, the Pusha Kingdom will use all its strength in this battle. However, the strength of the army cannot only look at the number of people, I have seven states under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, and I still feel that the treasury is tight when I raise hundreds of thousands of forbidden troops and guards.

The territory and population of Pusha Country are only so large, even if it can mobilize 300,000 horses, the equipment and training must be very crude, and it should be made up of some strong men who are ordinary farmers and herdsmen.

The elite of the forbidden army of our Tang State is well-trained, brave and good at fighting, and the equipment and grain are the best in the world. Don't be afraid!"

The people prayed, "Holy Wise."