After the two-day pursuit ended, the war that suddenly broke out and soon ended reached the final stage of counting the results.

After statistics, except for the more than 20,000 cavalry of the Kushan tribe who surrendered in the last battle, more than 80,000 of the remaining 130,000 Yuezhi soldiers were either captured or beheaded, and the remaining 50,000 people fled from the battlefield and disappeared.

Zhao Kuo also gave corresponding instructions on this.

"Don't worry about them, as long as they don't continue to hinder my expedition.

But remember to issue a notice of persuading surrender on the grassland. As long as they are willing to surrender, I can do nothing."

In Zhao Kuo's opinion, these Yuezhi people must have been beaten by themselves and they should not dare to continue to do the right thing with the soldiers of the Han Dynasty.

So under such circumstances, Zhao Kuo felt that there was no need to continue to spend a lot of effort to chase and kill these Yuezhi's remnants and defeated generals, but instead focused more importantly on continuing the Western Expedition.

No matter what, this time the defeat of Yuezhi was definitely a good start, and it fully proved that the power of the musketeers was indeed.

But Li Mu also put forward one point, that is, the shortcomings of musketeers.

"To be honest, I think this musketman is easy to use, but the bullet consumes too quickly. It would be great if there were enough bullets."

The consumption of bullets is a very huge problem that musketeers have to face. After all, everyone knows that if there are no bullets, this so-called musket is actually just a fire stick.

Now when Zhao Kuo set off, he brought 10 million bullets. These 10 million bullets sounded quite a lot, but if calculated based on 10,000 musketeers, each musketeer could only obtain 1,000 bullets.

In the past war with the Yuezhi people alone, the musketeers of the Han Dynasty had consumed nearly 1 million rounds of bullets. This was because Zhao Kuo foreseeed in advance that the order given to Li Mu must save ammunition, otherwise the consumption would be higher.

After hearing Li Mu's complaint, Zhao Kuo couldn't help laughing and said to Li Mu: "What do you mean by this problem? There is no good way to solve it.

But as long as we continue to expand our territory in the future, we can fight around our territory, so that our supply route will not be too big a problem."

Take this war in the Han Kingdom as an example. The war goal of the Han Kingdom this time is to conquer the Western Regions just by simply wanting to conquer the Western Regions.

Under such a premise, these 10 million bullets are definitely enough.

After conquering the Western Regions, the Han Kingdom continued to use the Western Regions as a starting base and headed towards Central Asia.

Just conquering the past step by step, expanding the territory step by step, and obtaining more logistics bases step by step. The final result is that the Han Dynasty can avoid the disadvantage of the difficulty of supplying musketeers to the greatest extent.

In fact, in essence, the supply difficulties of musketeers are almost the same as those of infantry, because infantry wars outside, they also require food and grass supply, so the food and grass supply can be transported with ammunition.

So the issue of supply actually only needs to be viewed from the perspective of the infantry before.

Listening to this, Li Mu couldn't help scratching his head and said helplessly: "We are obviously 150,000 cavalry in the Han Dynasty, but we didn't expect that we needed to use infantry thinking to solve this supply problem."

After hearing Li Mu's words, Zhao Kuo couldn't help laughing and said, "Why are you a narrow-minded guy?

Even without musketeers, can't we win this war?

We only have a total of 150,000 cavalry and a lot of explosives.”

For the current Han Dynasty, musketeers are indeed an extremely rare and rare elite force. However, even without musketeers, the Han Dynasty can still easily win the victory of this Western Expedition, but it may only cost more casualties.

While Zhao Kuo and Li Mu were chatting, the cavalry of the Han Dynasty also rolled forward all the way.

After the victory of this war, the most powerful Yuezhi Kingdom in the entire Hexi Corridor was basically declared destroyed, and Zhao Kuo established four counties here, which were distributed from the southeast to the northwest.

Zhao Kuo had already thought of the names of these four counties, namely Dunhuang, Wuwei, Zhangye and Jiuquan.

It is said to be four counties, but in fact it is just a small earthen city at present, but some of the troops were left to guard here to protect the safety of various trade personnel passing by along the way.

For the time being, the trade between the Central Plains and the Western Regions has not been fully opened, so at present, it is still a zone rarely involved by merchants in the Central Plains.

But Zhao Kuo, as a time traveler, knew very well that in a few years, this place would definitely become very lively and a major artery for caravans to travel.

Although the Hexi Corridor seems to be just a small part of the map, in fact, 10 days have passed unknowingly when Zhao Kuo finished this journey.

The former Kushan Xihou and the current general of the Han Dynasty, Guilu, respectfully said to Zhao Kuo: "Thank you, after leaving this Dunhuang City, it is divided into two roads, north and south. The south road is mainly a vast desert and the countries in the Western Regions. The north road also has some oasis, but overall it is still mainly desert."

Of course, Zhao Kuo knew what Guilu meant. In fact, this is just the difference between southern and northern Xinjiang.

Zhao Kuo thought for a while, smiled at Li Mu beside him and said, "Do you want to go to the south or to the north?"

Since the northern and southern borders were blocked by the Tianshan Mountains, Zhao Kuo had already decided on a strategy before, that is, to divide the troops into two groups to capture the southern and northern borders respectively.

Li Mu quickly smiled and said, "Your Majesty, of course I want to go to the southern Xinjiang. After all, the southern Xinjiang is much larger than the northern Xinjiang in terms of territory."

In fact, Li Mu had another sentence hidden in his heart and didn't say it, that is, from the map, the climate and geographical conditions in southern Xinjiang are obviously much worse than those in northern Xinjiang. Li Mu did not want Zhao Kuo to enter southern Xinjiang, because this may indicate greater risks.

Zhao Kuo laughed and said, "Then let's decide. I will give you 60,000 troops, and you will just sweep across the Western Regions countries along the way.

But remember not to kill too many people, just kill some of them. We have to leave some people for later officials to rule. Do you understand?"

After hearing that Zhao Kuo agreed to his opinion, Li Mu felt relieved and said to Zhao Kuo with a smile: "Please don't worry, Your Majesty, at most I will kill him 30% of the population. After all, more than half of the people will be left there to obey His Majesty's future rule."

Since everyone has already agreed, it will be from here that they will officially divide the troops.

Li Mu led 60,000 troops to the southern border, while Zhao Kuo led the remaining 80,000 troops to the northern border. As for the musketeers, one of the two sides brought 5,000 musketeers with him.

Before leaving, Zhao Kuo took out the map and clicked in a river valley.

"The end of my expedition to the Western Regions this time is here. I will set up a city here, its name is Yili.

This will also be the central point of our Han Dynasty's rule over the Western Regions in the future, and it will also be the end of our meeting this time. Do you understand?"

Li Mu nodded to show that he understood completely.

The two sides officially divided their troops, Zhao Kuo headed northwest, while Li Mu headed straight west.

It is actually not easy for you to cross this Gobi Desert.

Fortunately, Zhao Kuo had a large number of Yuezhi people surrendered, and Captain Wen was the leader, so he passed through the Gobi very smoothly after a few days.

After crossing the Gobi Desert, a new road appears.

There are oasis everywhere in the desert. Although these small oasis are not enough to rest all the 80,000 troops, it can at least help the army replenish some of the food and crucial drinking water.

When marching in the desert, drinking water is actually the biggest problem.

Along the way, they were basically the places that Yuezhi had just conquered, and these places naturally fell into the hands of Zhao Kuo and became the new territory of the Han Dynasty.

However, Zhao Kuo does not have the time and manpower to rule here now, so basically, he leaves a garrison in each stronghold, and then the army continues to advance.

Fortunately, there are not many oasis in the desert, so Zhao Kuo doesn’t have to worry about the excessive number of troops garrisons affecting combat effectiveness.

A few days later, Zhao Kuo led his army to a large oasis with a very desert style.

As the guide, Guilu respectfully said to Zhao Kuo: "Your Majesty, this is the stronghold of the Wusun Kingdom south of the mountain range. As long as you conquer this city and continue to cross this mountain range, you can reach the territory of the Wusun Kingdom."

Wusun was actually a nomadic tribe in the western part of the Hexi Corridor. Later, they often broke out wars with the Yuezhi people due to pastures, and the two sides formed hatred.

Among the two tribes, the Yuezhi is undoubtedly the stronger side, and Wusun can only struggle to support it under the suppression of the Yuezhi.

Originally, Wusun had an ally, the Xiongnu, the mortal enemy of the Yuezhi. Both sides attacked the Yuezhi together, so that a relative balance could be maintained.

But what the Wusun people never expected was that the Huns were destroyed by Zhao Kuo and Zhao's army in the past few years. As a result, the Wusun people lost their only allies and were no longer able to resist the Yuezhi attack, so they had to withdraw from the Hexi Corridor and move westward.

Yuezhi would not miss this opportunity to beat the dogs in the water. They pursued them relentlessly, not only beating Wusun, but also conquered the countries in the Western Regions.

Normally, if this situation lasts for a few more years, all parts of the Western Regions will likely be conquered by the Yuezhi people. Unfortunately, before the Yuezhi people can complete this great cause, Zhao Kuo had already led the troops of the Han Kingdom to start the Western Expedition in a mighty manner.

Now all these former Yuezhi territory have been occupied by Zhao Kuo. What Zhao Kuo has to face next is the Wusun people who fled north of the Tianshan Mountains under the pursuit of Yuezhi and had just established a new country.

Looking at the very simple city in front of him, Zhao Kuo searched on the map again and finally confirmed the place.

"From now on, this place will be called Turpan."

Zhao Kuo issued such an order quite calmly.

There were obviously many Wusun soldiers gathered above the city walls of Turpan. They were very vigilantly watching Zhao Kuo's army, but no one knew whether they were panicked or not.

Zhao Kuo didn't say anything nonsense, so he asked someone to write a book of persuasion and shot it into the city with a bow and arrow.

The Wusun people also have their own writings. Their writings are similar to oracle bone inscriptions. They twist and twist, and Zhao Kuo can't understand them at all, but that doesn't matter. After all, as long as someone else can understand and write them out.

An hour later, the Wusun people responded, and they shot an arrow directly at Zhao Kuo's Emperor Dragon Banner.

Looking at the arrow that was far away from Zhao Kuo's dragon flag, Zhao Kuo shook his head and said calmly: "Since these Wusun people are so ignorant, then start siege."

After hearing Zhao Kuo's order, the soldiers of the Han Dynasty, who had been unable to hold back, burst into cheers and immediately rushed up on horseback.

The city walls in Turpan are not like those in the Central Plains. After all, this place does not actually have the architectural conditions of the Central Plains, nor does it have the architectural level of the Central Plains. Its city walls are quite low and can be broken without even needing explosives.

After about an hour of battle, the cavalry of the Han Kingdom successfully made a gap in a corner of the city wall amid cheers, and then rushed into the city.

After seeing this scene, Zhao Kuo's heart was completely unstable, and he even yawned.

This is something that Zhao Kuo has long been commonplace.

Mao Sui, who was beside Zhao Kuo, also smiled and said, "I didn't expect that this Western Expedition would be so smooth. It seems that Your Majesty will be able to return to the court soon."

Zhao Kuo laughed and said, "Actually, to be honest, these small countries in the Western Regions really didn't take them seriously at all. However, whether this Western Expedition was going smoothly or not is still impossible to make a decision at present."

Zhao Kuo said this because he knew that in the Western Regions, which people often call Central Asia, was once the farthest place that a conqueroer from the West, named Alexander the Great, had ever reached, and the easternmost end of the glorious glory of Greek and Macedonian civilizations.

Zhao Kuo really wanted to know what level of his heirs who remained in Central Asia were decades after the death of Alexander the Great?
Chapter completed!