The Three Kingdoms is indeed a fascinating era. Among them, the magnificent wars were the civil wars of the Central Plains. However, the monarchs of the Three Kingdoms had launched foreign wars against foreign races, such as Cao Cao defeated Wuwan, killed Dun, Wuqiu Jian attacked Goguryeo, Zhuge Liang of Shu pacified the Southern Barbarians, and Sun Quan of Wu sent the Weiwen fleet to take Taiwan under the rule of China for the first time. Even in the war, China was still tenaciously spreading outward, unlike later Song and Ming dynasties who hid in the Central Plains as otakus.

Compared to the Han people themselves, Wang Hou was obviously more interested in external expansion. After finally finishing the battle in Hanzhong and leading a large army out of Yumen Pass, he was in a particularly comfortable mood.

However, compared with his happy mood of the shit cooker after the tomb of the Western Army, the situation in the Western Regions was actually not optimistic at this time. After decades when the Eastern Han Dynasty stopped the Western Regions Protectorate, the influence of the Han Dynasty in the Western Regions had dropped sharply. At this time, the Northern Huns had fled to somewhere, and the Southern Huns lived in Jiuyuan and survived. The oasis power built on the Western Regions oasis began to dominate and become stronger.

Later, the Chief of the Western Regions had only two strongholds, Luntai and Yumen Pass. In fact, they had already ordered these countries that did not move the race. In the past two years, Wang Hou opened the Silk Road to make money and sent a large number of caravans to the Anxi Empire. The rich profits seduced the countries in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains and the north and south foothills, which formed the source of war for various countries to fight against Han.

However! Anyway, the Han Dynasty ruled the Western Regions by not reasoning. The majesty of the Tianhan did not start with the countless delicious Bowang Marquis Zhang Qian, but was driven by Li Guangli, the first idiot general of the Han Dynasty!

After Zhang Qian opened up the Western Regions that year, he reported to Emperor Wu of Han that Dayuan had a heavenly horse, and his sweat was as blood as he could run thousands of miles. He really formed a cavalry and fought against the Huns to the death. Emperor Wu of Han was immediately aroused his endless possessiveness and sent envoys to cast a golden horse with gold to buy a sweat-blooded BMW in Dayuan.

Then the sweaty horse is also a national first-class protected animal in Dayuan. People don’t want to sell it, and the messenger sent was also a young man. He immediately scolded the king and smashed the golden horse with one hammer. He turned around and left with the mission.

Unfortunately, the messenger had the temper of a post-90s generation, but he did not have the background of a post-90s generation. He offended the king with a large amount of money and property. The King of Dayuan ordered his subordinates to cut down the entire Han division and seize all the wealth brought by Chang'an into his own treasury.

Just like the later generations of Hualazimo who cut down Genghis Khan's merchant group, it caused a genius Emperor Wu of Han to be furious. He happened to support his favorite concubine, Lady Li, and he promoted Li Guangli to General Ershi and sent troops to attack Dayuan.

The war was particularly unsuccessful. Nearly 80,000 Han troops went out twice. There were only more than 10,000 people who passed Yumen Pass alive and returned to the Han Dynasty. More than 70,000 Han soldiers exposed their bones in the wilderness, which was particularly tragic.

It is precisely because of this tragic sacrifice that the Han Dynasty was able to achieve the power of the Han Dynasty! Even the powerful Dayuan Kingdom, a Western Region, thousands of miles away, could the Han Dynasty break it, and this was the root cause of the great Han Dynasty's command of the Western Regions with just a few thousand people.

Now more than two hundred years have passed. With the alternation of the Han Dynasty and the recent civil strife in the Han Empire, this deterrent power has been significantly weakened to the extreme. As time goes by, Tiewei's shelf life is approaching.

Therefore, this time Wang Hou went out of the border, on the one hand, helped Cao Zhang rebuild the Great Protectorate of the Western Regions, fulfilled General Cao's political requirements, and helped the third son of the Cao family to gain military merits and establish a team. On the other hand, he also wanted to reawaken these small Western Region countries that were dominated by the Tianhan in the evening!

But like the difficulties encountered by Li Guangli two hundred years ago, this country is not free shipping, and it is really difficult to march. When leaving Yumen Pass to Loulan, the first stop of the Dahan outpost, there was no river that could be used as a river transport. There was only a vast Gobi Desert. In September, under the scorching sun of the tiger, thousands of iron-armored cavalry were drying the armor like steamers. The team was used to the infantry of the Black Mountain League in Liaodong. When they arrived here, they were hot. Many infantry holding spears unbuttoned their armor and kept slapped them.

It is estimated that Cao Zhang is regretting it now, and it is not good to make excuses in front of Mr. Cao, so he had to find the excuses of the Western Regions Protectorate. After walking for a long time, the water in his kettle was completely gone.

However, this kid also has the potential to be a successful person, that is, he must be face-saving and can stand it for the sake of face. Although he was so angry that his head was so hot, he still carried the banner of the Western Regions Protector Cao and personally marched into the queue of recruiting Knights in Guanxi, leading the cavalry to rush forward in the wind and sand.

Moreover, this guy is as good at fooling around as Mr. Cao. Didn’t Cao Cao look at plums to quench his thirst? After walking, when he saw his morale was low, he suddenly shouted excitedly.

"By the way! I remembered it! There is a big melon in Loulan, with yellow and soft flesh. The melon meat is sweeter than sugar. Put it in water to calm it down. Take it out and cut it open on hot days. Eat it in one breath. It is cool and refreshing! It makes you feel so cool!"

"Brothers, work harder! Now is the time when the melon is ripe. Cook down the Loulan and eat the melons as you want. I approved it!"

His voice immediately evoked the army's memory of the melons. Many landlords and cavalry thought of the juice of the yellow-fleshed big Hami melon, and their mouths began to sip. The army's original marching slogan also changed from the Wuwei of the Great Wei Dynasty to the Great Melon, and the morale of the entire army became much higher.

Unfortunately, the army had no idea that the Loulan they were going to have no melon at all. Melons are Hami specialties, which are now a small country-like territory in the Western Regions, just like the plums that Cao Cao promised back then, and it was not possible at all.

But with this kind of morale encouragement, it took five days to brave the scorching sun and the scorching heat, and the front army of the Protectorate still rushed straight into Loulan City with special tenacity.

The Loulan City in later generations had long turned into a sea of ​​sand, and it was even an unmanned land. Starting from Dunhuang, you had to go around Hami first and then head south to the Loulan ruins tourist area, and there was no direct road left.

However, nowadays, Loulan City is still in its last period of vitality. There is a saltwater lake, Lop Nur East Lake, and the Peacock River for irrigation to maintain the beautiful scenery of this desert oasis.

This was originally the capital of the Loulan Kingdom, but during the tug-of-war between the Han and the West Regions, the capital was moved by the Han Dynasty to the Jani City on the southern side of the Peacock River. The country was changed to Shanshan, and the transformation of the city was transformed into the Han army. It was the outpost for the Central Plains to communicate with the Western Regions. It was not until last year that the Shanshan Kingdom sent troops to retake it into its own hands.

However, it was really because of this relationship that Cao Zhang didn't even spend any blood and sweat to recover Loulan City. He arranged the iron cavalry in the south of the city. Before Zhang Yun could command the infantry under his command to form a siege formation, Loulan City had already opened the city and surrendered.

The first battle to reopen the Western Regions Protectorate was so easy to accomplish! However, looking at Loulan City, Cao Zhang felt that he couldn't be happy...
Chapter completed!