Back to the Warring States Period as Zhao Kuo

So the current situation is that if there are no Chinese ships, then Li Mu can only occupy the entire Asia Minor peninsula, and can only watch the Greek mainland which is close at hand, but there is no way to continue to attack.

After thinking for a while, Li Mu shook his head and sighed.

"Forget it, anyway, at the beginning, the goal His Majesty gave me was only to occupy the entire Asia Minor peninsula."

After saying these words, Li Mu suddenly came back to his senses and realized why Zhao Kuo had set such a goal in the first place.

The reason is actually very simple, that is, Zhao Kuo knew from the beginning that it would be very difficult to cross the Bosphorus.

Of course, this matter is not unsolvable, because as long as a few years later, the craftsmen of the Great Han Kingdom have built a batch of new ships, they can cross the sea to fight the war.

This time, the Antigonian Empire may still be able to survive, but this time of survival will definitely not last for too long.

Thinking of this, Li Mu's mood suddenly became better, he got up, smiled and said: "Okay, let's not continue to entangle here, let's pass on the order to let all the troops move forward, and strive to use the shortest time. The entire Asia Minor peninsula has been occupied within a short period of time!"

When he said this, the smile on Li Mu's face was very relaxed. After all, the main force of Antigonus had already fled. Although most of the Asia Minor peninsula was still the territory of the Antigonian Empire in name, in fact But the words are already the meat on Li Mu's chopping board.

Chapter 1243 It's time for the class teacher to return to court

Just as Li Mu was actively fighting and preparing to advance further, the battle report from Zhao Kuo also came.

After learning the specific battle report of Zhao Kuo's demise of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, the cloud on Li Mu's face did not ease, but shook his head helplessly.

It was because Li Mu heard one of the key points, that is, all the navy of the Ptolemaic Dynasty was not controlled by Zhao Kuo, but all retreated to join the Antigonian Empire.

So this time, the Han Kingdom has no way to get naval support from the Ptolemaic Dynasty. If this is the case, then conquering the Bosporus Strait and attacking towards Greece has become a temporarily unsolvable matter. up.

Therefore, Li Mu's next task has become completely simpler. He only needs to follow the signs on the map and sweep all the cities in the entire Asia Minor peninsula step by step, and it is enough to bring these cities into the Han Kingdom. up.

It took Li Mu two full months to complete this task. This is not to say that there are any cities on this peninsula that caused Li Mu trouble, but because the 6 troops led by Li Mu really needed two It takes only one month to complete the entire Asia Minor Peninsula.

After doing all this, Li Mu received an order from Zhao Kuo.

"Send out the most elite troops to suppress all signs of rebellion, and then wait for new troops to come and change defense with you."

As I said before, in order to stabilize the situation, Zhao Kuo just transferred another 10 soldiers and horses from the hinterland of the Central Plains of the Han Kingdom this year.

These 10 soldiers and horses are specially used to station in the land newly developed by the Han Kingdom among the three major empires of the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemaic Dynasty and the Antico Empire, to prevent any rebellion in these lands.

After the arrival of the 10 soldiers, the 20 soldiers led by Zhao Kuo and Li Mu had already set off last year, and the soldiers who had been fighting in this strange land for two years can return to the dynasty.

So after hearing the news, Li Mu was also overjoyed, and immediately called Sima Shang and other generals of the Great Han Kingdom to tell them the news.

Just as Li Mu had expected, Sima Shang and the other generals of the Han Dynasty were also overjoyed.

After all, it has been more than a year or two since it came out. The wives, children and old people at home don’t know what kind of situation it is. Thousands of miles away, the timeliness of this book is also very poor.

So now after hearing the news of being able to go home, everyone is very happy.

Li Mu smiled and said to the generals in front of him: "I know that all of you want to go home very much, in fact, I also really want to go home. But, after all, we are His Majesty's subjects and we want to serve His Majesty. Yes, so before we go home, we should complete our tasks completely, so that we can be a qualified orange.

Now you follow His Majesty's order, send out all your most elite troops, and wipe out all the guys who dare to oppose us on the Asia Minor peninsula within a month, and kill them all, understand what I mean Yet? "

Li Mu's method is very simple, as long as these Western barbarians refuse to accept, he will kill them, until these Western barbarians are convinced.

In many cases, the way of killing is simple and rude, but it is quite easy to use.

Of course, such things as being easy to use are for generals like Li Mu. As for what the follow-up Han officials will look like after they come here, that is beyond the scope of the general Li Mu's responsibility.

I have to say that Li Mu's mentality is quite good, as the so-called seeking his own government in his position is probably the reason.

With the addition of the motivation to go home, it can be said that the morale of all the generals of the Han Dynasty has been mobilized. Of course, it is not just the arrival. In fact, the soldiers at the bottom are more eager to go home.

So in the next month, the soldiers of the Great Han Kingdom turned into a group of hungry wolves. They were in the mountains, on the plateau, on the beach, and in all kinds of strange places. In the corner, arrest all those who dared to resist the Great Han Kingdom, and then execute them mercilessly.

For a while, the population on the Asia Minor peninsula dropped sharply, which also made Zhao Kuo a little bit dumbfounded, so he couldn't help but wrote a letter to Li Mu.

"Can't you guys let these captured prisoners work as coolies? Killing them all is really a waste of labor."

Facing Zhao Kuo's accusation, Li Mu wrote a memorial directly in response.

"Your Majesty, this is wrong. It was Your Majesty who asked me to use the fastest means to calm the situation immediately. You didn't say you couldn't kill people."

After Zhao Kuo saw this memorial, he couldn't help but laugh, but Zhao Kuo didn't take this matter seriously, and let him go easily.

For Zhao Kuo, if the lives of hundreds or thousands of aliens were compared to Li Mu's, it must be more important to Li Mu.

After clearing the Asia Minor peninsula, a large number of officials from the Han Dynasty and newly sent reinforcements have arrived.

So Li Mu led the soldiers under his command, Xizhizhi's and the new reinforcements to switch defenses, and then began to return to Antioch City.

Why is Li Mu so anxious?This is because it is already summer, which means there are less than 5 months to return before winter.

For 5 months, if it was in the interior of China before, then you can really go anywhere, but now considering the distance between Antioch City and Imperial Capital City, there is a full distance of 5 miles. It's really not safe.

There is no way, who made the current territory of the Great Han Kingdom really too big.

When Li Mu returned to Antioch, Zhao Kuo had just returned with his army.

In the past few months, Zhao Kuo has also not been idle. He also conquered all the lands in the upper reaches of the Nile River in Egypt. As for the desert, Zhao Kuo didn't bother to bother.

Because no one can survive in the desert, even if some small tribes can survive the small pineapples with hundreds or thousands of people, it is impossible to cause any major danger.

Of course, Zhao Kuo is also very clear in his heart that as long as he goes upstream along the Nile River, he will pass through the modern Sultanate, and then enter the East African plateau where Ethiopia is located, where a large number of tribes will live together .

It's just that for Zhao Kuo, the conquest of sub-Saharan Africa is a matter of very, very low importance.

This is because from the perspective of human civilization, Europe and Asia are the places where the intersection of civilizations is the most intense, and it is also the place where human civilization can create the most glorious moments.

So what Zhao Kuo from East Asia has to do is to conquer Europe and Asia first, and then slowly consider conquering other continents.

At this stage, the desert is used as a buffer between the two sides, but I don't think this is a very bad thing. After all, after Zhao Kuo led the main force to leave, there are only 10 soldiers left to guard more than 200 million square meters Kilometers of land, in terms of military strength, it is still somewhat stretched.

After realizing this, Zhao Kuo also immediately wrote a decree to the Imperial Capital City. He hoped to send at least 10 soldiers and horses here, so that he could be completely foolproof.

At this time, Antioch City had completely restored order after a year of Han Dynasty rule.

Now it has once again become a commercial center on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Merchants from various countries stop here and sell the goods here.

Among them, silk cloth from the Han Dynasty, as well as various porcelains, are undoubtedly the most popular goods.

Moreover, through these trades, the merchants of the Han Kingdom successfully arrived in places such as Carthage and the Roman Republic, and had a preliminary understanding of these places.

It only takes a few more years for this situation to happen, and the ubiquitous merchants of Han Kingdom can continue to infiltrate these two powerful countries located in the central Mediterranean, and completely control the intelligence of these countries.

All in all, looking at it now, everything is developing step by step and moving in a very good direction. Zhao Kuo feels that there is really nothing to be picky about.

So after staying in Antioch City for a period of time, Zhao Kuo led the remaining more than 10 soldiers and horses, and set off in a mighty way.

During this expedition that lasted for two years, the 20 troops of the Great Han Kingdom were certainly not unscathed.

The Great Han Kingdom with more than 2 people will leave this world forever either because of death in battle, acclimatization, or disease.

But overall, during the entire two-year war, the number of soldiers killed did not exceed 5000. This is definitely a miracle in military history.

You must know that in this expedition, the expeditionary army led by Zhao Kuo wiped out more than 40 enemy troops, but he himself only paid more than 2 casualties. Definitely an excellent record.

Due to the long distance, it is naturally impossible for these soldiers to be carried back in coffins, otherwise they would have rotted away, so Zhao Kuo also decided to cremate these soldiers and bring their ashes back.

"Since they came to this place with me, they should also leave with me now."

After hearing Zhao Kuo's words and seeing these behaviors of Zhao Kuo, all the soldiers of the Great Han Kingdom became more loyal to Zhao Kuo and the Great Han Kingdom.

Because these soldiers knew that even if they went to farther places in the future, the army of the Han Kingdom would definitely take them back to their hometown and bury them in their homeland.

Falling leaves return to their roots, this is a kind of emotion of Chinese people, an indescribable feeling.

Although more than 10 soldiers were all riding horses this time, since they also brought a huge amount of prisoners and spoils of war, the speed of advancement was not considered fast.

It took them more than two months to return to Yili City from Antioch City.

Li Mu was also taken aback when he saw Yili City.

"Has this Ili city become so huge now? I can't believe it."

Li Mu witnessed the construction of Yili City with his own eyes back then, so he is still very familiar with Yili City, and not long ago, Li Mu followed Zhao Kuo inhaled and passed through Yili City when the Seleucid Empire was destroyed.

He also didn't expect that in less than a year, this Yili city has developed into such a huge city.

The current Yili City is full of people coming and going, and all the houses in the city are full of styles of the Western Regions and China. Mixing them together, there is a different kind of beauty.

Not only that, but the market in Yili City is full of vendors traveling from south to north. This is a transit point for communication between China, Central Asia and even the South Asian subcontinent, and it is also the most prosperous place in Central Asia.

All in all, if it wasn't for the fact that the voices of the people here were obviously different from those in the Central Plains, Li Mu would have thought that he had come to the Central Plains, a big city like Handan or Luoyang.

Zhao Kuo looked at Li Mu beside him and said with a smile, "Do you know why Yili City has developed so rapidly in just a few years?"

Li Mu shook his head.

Zhao Kuo continued with a smile and said: "Actually, the reason behind this is very simple. It is because the commercial transfer station in a large area of ​​Yili City, as long as the business develops, then the merchants will come, and all kinds of labor will also come. Here we go.

Having a businessman means being rich, and having a labor force means having a place where there are people and money. How could he not develop? "

After hearing Zhao Kuo's words, Li Mu was also thoughtful and fell into thinking.

Obviously, this aspect is also a completely new and untouched field of thought for Li Mu.

Zhao Kuo looked at Li Mu who was thinking seriously, and the smile on his face became more intense.

For Zhao Kuo, Li Mu is now the right prime minister of the Han Dynasty, and he will also be qualified and hopeful to become the right prime minister in the future.

Since this is the case, then Li Mu absolutely cannot be ignorant of the economy, because it is absolutely impossible for a person who knows nothing about the economy to govern the country well.

This is just the beginning. In the coming time, Li Mu will be exposed to more things related to the economy and governing the country.

Such a result is what Zhao Kuo hopes to see most.

After all, both Xu Li and Pang Nuan are very old now.After another year or two, it's time to retire.

For Zhao Kuo, training the successors of these old guys is an imminent matter.

Zhao Kuo didn't stay in Yili for too long, and continued eastward after only two days of rest.

After another month of trekking, Zhao Kuo finally returned to Xianyang City, then left Xianyang, left Hangu Pass, and came to Luoyi.

Arriving here means one thing, that is, Zhao Kuo has finally returned to the core area ruled by the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains.

Chapter 1244 The Train Driver in Luoyi

Luoyi is a large city in the western part of the Central Plains of the Han Dynasty.

This city used to be the capital of Emperor Zhou, but now with the establishment of the Han Dynasty, except for the palace that originally belonged to Emperor Zhou, other places have been completely owned by the Han Dynasty, and it has become a relatively ordinary city. And normal city too.

That's not a bad thing for the city.

You must know that in the past, because this city had the attribute of being the capital of Zhou Tianzi, it caused a lot of problems for the development of this city.

Many princes want to occupy this place, and everyone in the world knows this well, so everyone dare not come here to do business, and even more afraid to live here.

But now that the Han Kingdom has officially unified the world, the situation is naturally completely different.

The reason why Zhou Gongdan chose to build a city here to guard the Central Plains was, of course, because the city had its own geographical advantage.

This place is located in the Luoyang Basin where Hangu Pass moved. It is very rare in the Central Plains, and it is considered a place with some dangerous terrain.

If you go further east, places like Xinzheng or Daliang City are completely located on the plains and there is no danger to defend.

But Luoyi is different. Because it is located in the basin, Luoyi is surrounded by mountains on three sides. Although these mountains are not high, they can still be guarded. This day is very important for an ancient city.

In addition, because the most popular business route in the Han Dynasty is to go to the west before going to the Seleucid Empire, that is, the place that was just conquered by Zhao Kuo to do business, and Luoyi happened to start from the imperial capital. The only way to go west.

Luoyi on the commercial road makes full use of this point. Merchants who go from south to north to east to west will often make the last wave of big purchases here, and then continue to go west, so a few years As time went by, Luoyi also became more and more prosperous with the development of this business activity, and it is no exaggeration to say that it surpassed any previous era.

Not only that, today's Luoyi is too crowded due to the influx of a large number of people due to its development, so the sheriff on Luoyi's side also made a bold decision, that is, just like when Zhao Kuo built the imperial capital city, the city wall All were dismantled.

This made Luoyi the second open city in the Han Kingdom.

Open cities are very normal in the modern society of later generations. It can be said that almost all cities are open and there are no walls to speak of.

But in this era, if you are an open city, you actually have to bear a lot of psychological pressure.

For people in this ancient time, things like city walls can actually give them enough sense of security.

Therefore, Zhao Kuo, after hearing that Luoyi had taken the initiative to demolish the city wall, was also a little surprised, and his rating for the sheriff stationed in Luoyi was unknowingly higher.

In fact, Luoyi now has another new good thing that can make it develop, and that is the railway.

To get rich, first build roads, this famous saying from Zhao Kuo has already spread throughout the political arena of the Han Dynasty.

The road mentioned here is of course the railway in particular.

After all, in this era, it is impossible to have that level of technology to build roads for future generations, and there is no need for that, because cars have not yet been manufactured.

When Zhao Kuo left the imperial capital to fight against the Seleucid Empire, he had already made an arrangement that the railway would be fully expanded in the Central Plains within 5 years.