After Zhao Kuo gave guidance to the Dunhuang County Magistrate who seemed a little confused, he happily took his many troops and continued to return to the Central Plains on the second day.

Along the way, he passed by three cities, Wuwei, Jiuquan, and Zhangye.

Like Dunhuang, officials from the Han Dynasty from the Academy managed the place in an orderly manner, which made Zhao Kuo nodded secretly.

For the current Han Kingdom, it is not the traditional nobles who truly support the backbone of the ruling class of the Han Kingdom, but the poor officials who came from poor families who successfully graduated after training from various college students in the academy.

Compared with the nobles, these poor officials are more ambitious and want to change their situation by making achievements. Therefore, no matter what they do, they are very active and willing to do, and they will never say that they are just being deterred because they are safe.

During the period when an empire was just founded, it was definitely something that every emperor dreamed of having such a group of vibrant officials.

After leaving these four cities, Zhao Kuo entered Longxi County.

After entering Longxi County, Zhao Kuo found that the many generals and officials of the Han Kingdom around him were all relieved.

Longxi County was the westernmost territory controlled by Qin before. In other words, entering here means entering the core area controlled by the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period. No wonder these generals and officials of the Han Dynasty regarded him as going home.

Li Mu smiled and said to Zhao Kuo: "Your Majesty, this journey of the west has been thousands of miles long, and he has finally returned here successfully.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly, otherwise, those old men would be so annoyed when they returned to the earth's spirit."

Zhao Kuo couldn't help laughing when he heard this.

Zhao Kuo was actually able to understand where Li Mu's pressure lies. This pressure did not only come from the victory of the Western Expedition or the need to obtain sufficient benefits, but a large part of it actually came from Zhao Kuo himself.

Because this time Zhao Kuo was the emperor in charge of the imperial army. As the highest-level official of the Han Dynasty who accompanied Zhao Kuo, if something really happened to Zhao Kuo, then the first person to be held accountable would definitely be Li Mu.

But now, Zhao Kuo has returned to Longxi County without any damage and entered the territory of the Central Plains in a broad sense, so the next thing must be that Li Mu has no responsibility.

Not only that, Li Mu made great contributions this time during the Western Expedition. After returning, he naturally became very excited. It was a pleasant thing to think about it.

After returning to Longxi County, the next place is Guanzhong.

Zhao Kuo stayed in Guanzhong for a while and inspected the current situation in Guanzhong.

It has to be said that Guanzhong now seems to be no different from Guanzhong under the Qin Dynasty. The farmers live and work in peace, and the number of vendors in the city is gradually increasing, even more than during the Qin Dynasty's rule.

You should know that when Shang Yang's reforms, Qin State always followed the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, which led to the poorest commercial development of Qin State among the seven heroes of the Warring States Period.

But now, look at the merchants walking everywhere in Xianyang City and the hawking sounds that are rising and falling in the Xianyang City, and you can feel that the new Daqin capital of this city has now been rejuvenated.

Zhao Kuo was also quite satisfied with this and specifically warned the local officials: "You must remember that although this place has now become the land of our Great Han Kingdom, then the people here are the people of our Great Han Kingdom. You must treat them equally and must not use the previous Zhao and Qin Kingdom as the classification of races. Do you understand?"

Zhao Kuo was actually very clear that he had seized the power of Zhao State after all. In this case, if he only played the Zhao people, it would inevitably cause dissatisfaction among the original people of the other six countries, and the Zhao people might not have bought Zhao Kuo's account.

Therefore, Zhao Kuo simply treated the people of all seven countries equally as always. In this way, since everyone has already felt fairness, they will naturally love Zhao Kuo and the Han Kingdom. This is the best guarantee that can truly help the new Han Kingdom gain the hearts of the people.

Soon Zhao Kuo left Xianyang and continued to advance eastward. A few days later, he came to Luoyi, the capital that was originally the former capital of the Zhou emperor who moved eastward.

A very interesting cold knowledge is that the Zhou emperor actually existed. Whether in history or during this period, the Zhou Tianshi continued to be in a steady stream, and the last city continued until the last few years of the Warring States Period.

Back to this world line, the last little land of the Zhou emperor was divided up by Qin and South Korea a few years ago, and the last Zhou emperor had been secretly murdered.

Today, Luoyi has become a city in the Central Plains, a relatively lively but relatively unreliably top-notch city.

Someone once proposed that he hoped to relocate all the nine large tripods in this city to the new imperial capital, but after thinking about it, Zhao Kuo decided to reject this request.

Zhao Kuo said this at that time: "The Nine Cauldrons of the Zhou Emperor cannot really represent the luck of the world. Otherwise, the Zhou Emperor had always owned the Nine Cauldrons for so many years, so why was he still so weak?

Since the Nine Cauldrons have very special significance to the Zhou Dynasty, let the descendants of the Zhou emperor have it."

Zhao Kuo not only left the nine large tripods of the Zhou Dynasty in Luoyi, but also enthroned the palace of the Zhou emperor to descendants of the Zhou emperor, so that these descendants could worship the Zhou emperors from generation to generation, and prevent the incense of the Zhou Dynasty from being cut off.

This time, Zhao Kuo passed by Luoyi and specially entered the palace of the Zhou emperor and lit an incense stick of the emperors of the Zhou dynasties in all dynasties.

King Wen of Zhou, King Wu of Zhou, Ji Fa, King Wu of Zhou, Ji Song of Zhou Cheng... Looking at the names in front of him, Zhao Kuo's expression gradually became solemn.

As we all know, the civilization founded by the Han people is also called the Chinese civilization.

So the question is, where did the word Huaxia start?

Of course, the word "Huaxia" has been in ancient times, but the concept of true establishment began with the Zhou Dynasty.

When Zhou Gongdan established the rituals and laws of the Zhou Dynasty, he called the princes and nations who were willing to obey the rituals and laws of the Zhou Dynasty "Zhuxia", which was the predecessor of the word "Chinese".

After the establishment of the Zhou Dynasty, the Chinese civilization truly flourished on the Central Plains. With the past of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Qin State, a small nobleman who was enfeoffed by the Zhou emperor, unified the entire China, and completely integrated the Chinese people until modern times.

From this point of view, the Zhou Dynasty's contribution to Chinese civilization is unquestionable.

Zhao Kuo had a solemn expression and bowed to the tablets in front of him.

These Chinese ancestors once worked hard for China and created the true era of Chinese civilization.

In the future, I will take over your will and continue to let the Chinese civilization grow and grow in this world, becoming more civilized and powerful! After a while, Zhao Kuo walked out of the palace, and a young man had been waiting here for a long time, saluting respectfully to Zhao Kuo: "Ji Ling has seen Your Majesty."

Ji Ling is the current King of Zhou.

After Zhao Kuo unified the world, all the kings of the seven heroes of the Warring States Period were cancelled, from the original King of Qi, King Chu, to the Duke of Qi, King of Chu, with the exception of Zhou. Ji Ling is still the King of Zhou, and similar to the descendants of the Shang Dynasty, Ji Ling did not need to pay tribute to Zhao Kuo, but the title of "Son of Heaven" was cancelled from Ji Ling.

Considering that Zhao Kuo himself was an "emperor" and was higher in rank than the King of Zhou, this arrangement did not arouse any objection.

Zhao Kuo smiled and looked at Ji Ling, saying, "King of Zhou, let's have a walk with me."

Ji Ling was obviously a little frightened, and followed Zhao Kuo, deliberately lagging behind half a position and following him.

Zhao Kuo looked at the Zhou Palace in front of him and sighed: "I heard that the Zhou Palace has been disrepair for a long time, but I didn't expect it to be so old."

Ji Ling smiled helplessly and said, "Since King Ping, this place has been getting worse every year. Now it can be barely maintained, which is actually quite good."

Zhao Kuo said slowly: "After all, this is one of the origins of our Chinese civilization. Although I am the emperor, if I had not had the Zhou Dynasty, I would not have been able to have the same I am today.

After I go back, I will ask someone to arrange some repairs to the Zhou Palace."

In Zhao Kuo's view, buildings like the Zhou Palace that are full of historical heaviness must be carefully repaired, so that future generations can see how grand and majestic the ancient kings of China built a building that was so shocking that the style of Chinese architecture was so shocking.

Architecture is the history of living.

If all the buildings are destroyed, no matter how long the history is, when you can only see it in books, you will obviously still feel alienated.

This is what the saying goes, "A hundred hearings are better than seeing."

After hearing Zhao Kuo's words, Ji Ling suddenly showed a surprise expression on his face and said to Zhao Kuo: "Thank you Ji Ling, Your Majesty."

Zhao Kuo smiled and continued to walk forward.

After a while, the two of them came to a hall and walked into the courtyard of the hall. They could see nine bronze tripods that were tall and tall, with very complex bronze patterns on them.

Although it has been hundreds of years, these times have not made these nine cauldrons rotten and damaged, but have added a sense of historical weight to them.

Ji Ling introduced to Zhao Kuo: "Your Majesty, this is the Nine Tripods."

Zhao Kuo nodded and looked at the Jiuding in front of him, his thoughts were dissipated for a moment.

The Nine Tribes, for the entire China, are a symbol of culture and a symbol of supreme Central Plains.

When King Zhuang of Chu drank horses and the Yellow River, he came to the outskirts of Luoyi to compete for the throne, just to provoke and compete for the supreme of the Central Plains.

So much so that since then, "competing for the Central Plains" has become the highest ideal in the hearts of every ruler of the Chinese dynasty.

The Nine Cauldrons symbolize the nine states in the world, namely Jizhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, Liangzhou and Yongzhou.

These Jiuzhou were actually decided as early as the founding period of the Xia Dynasty. If you open the map of the Xia Dynasty, you will be surprised to find that Jiuzhou, which was still unattainable for the Xia Dynasty, has now been all included in the rule of the Han Dynasty.

In other words, when the Xia Dynasty set up Jiuzhou, it had a bit of the meaning of "opening borders through maps", but now Zhao Kuo has taken down all of these Jiuzhous steadily, which can be regarded as fulfilling the wishes of these ancestors.

Looking at the Nine Cauldrons in front of him, Zhao Kuo chuckled and said to Ji Ling: "Do you know why I didn't move these Nine Cauldrons to the Imperial Capital?"

Ji Ling shook his head: "Ji Ling doesn't know."

Zhao Kuo looked at the Jiuding in front of him and said leisurely: "I have always felt that destiny exists, but what is the factor that really determines destiny?

In fact, it is the heart of the people in the world.

When the hearts of the world are on me, my Han Dynasty does not need nine tripods or any jade seals. It can also firmly control the entire country and make China the Han Dynasty.

This is why I don’t need the Nine Tripods. I am the spreader and promoter of Chinese civilization. All members of Chinese civilization will be grateful and admire me. Their people’s hearts are the best support for me. They are the real Nine Tripods in my heart!”

Ji Ling's expression gradually became solemn when he listened to Zhao Kuo's words.

For this King of Zhou, he had never lived a day in his life even if he had real power and could rule a country. However, this did not prevent Ji Ling from exploring at some point what would happen if he could really become a veritable "Son of Heaven" in the future.

But no matter what kind of imagination, there is some taste of painting cakes to satisfy your hunger, and after all, there are no three flavors.

Until today, Ji Ling personally met Zhao Kuo and heard these deafening words from the emperor who conquered and unified China.

At this moment, Ji Ling suddenly understood why Zhao Kuo was able to go from a minister of Zhao to the present step by step, and become the true Supreme of Jiuwu step by step.

Ji Ling took a deep breath and said to Zhao Kuo with conscience: "Your Majesty's words really make Ji Ling admire him.

With an emperor like Your Majesty in the world, it is the welfare of all people and the honor of China!”

This sentence is not Ji Ling wants to flatter, but the true heartfelt words.

Zhao Kuo smiled and patted Ji Ling on the shoulder: "Take good care of this place. This place is not only your ancestors and glory, but also the common ancestors and glory of our Chinese people!"
Chapter completed!