To the west of Dunhuang, in the former place of Yangguan, Zhang Chen, a veteran general of the Ming Empire, looked at the ruins of Chengguan and showed worries.

He didn't know why the Han emperor chose to set up Chengguan here, but he knew that the wisest choice for the Ming Dynasty was to station a large army in Jiayuguan.

According to the ancient saying of Emperor Taizu: If you come, you should control it, and if you leave, you should not chase it. This is the best strategy. If you specialize in the army, I will not take what I want.

There is water here, but there are pitifully few oasis along the way. Jiayuguan is already the westernmost end of the entire Hexi Corridor. If there is water or no grain, it means that this is not a grain-producing area, not a grain-producing area, and grain and grass must be transported from the rear.

The closest grain production area here is Guazhou, with 600 conscripts and transporting back and forth. The annual grain production is enough for Yangguan to station 200 troops.

However, this location is excellent, guarding the water source and the only green space, and the terrain is extremely high and the vision is wide. Although there is no danger to guard, guarding the water source is the biggest danger.

No army can guarantee supplies in the desert west of this place. To be honest, Zhang Chen believes that even the rich Central Plains dynasty cannot.

In his understanding, the maximum distance that the army can march from the country is 1,500 miles. Once it exceeds 1,500 miles, the road will be consumed and all the food will be consumed.

And here, the biggest problem is that it is difficult to obtain forage on the west road of Guazhou, and livestock has greatly reduced the transportation capacity.

Zhang Chen sent a letter to Jiayuguan. Xing Jie, a civil servant who was transferred from the Central Plains, sent someone to reply to repair the city gate and set up the acropolis. The wood, stone and other objects needed to set up the acropolis were already on the road. The telegram route was started at the same time. The veteran general asked to explore the terrain and choose the acropolis site, and at the same time, it was convenient for the soldiers to check the terrain along the way for the Northern Sergeants who were checking the terrain along the way.

The civilian officials in Jiayuguan and the military officers of the garrison have not been easier than going to the military for this period.

Wanli's command was a high-level person. He wanted to use his empire as an arm, and he assigned tasks to all six ministries and local governments, and many missions must be completed together.

Needless to say, the baggage required for war was needed, he also had to build railways in the local area. There was not much corvee along the way, and the main reason was that the guards, who were half peasant soldiers, had to transport grain to the west with one order, and each guard had to send other people to build a channel for burying a telegram line along the road.

At the same time, twelve small green dragon heads were just pulled to the Wei River by boat by the trainer, and hung horses to gallop along the desolate ancient road in Gansu.

Xing Jie was about to die of nervousness. He had participated in the construction of railways in Northern Zhili and supervised the laying of telegrams in Shandong. However, a huge project like this would have a whole system in operation. He was just one of the insignificant screws.

Now that the emperor has high hopes, it is not easy to ask him to build a railway from Wuwei to Jiayuguan and even extend at least 800 miles outside the mouth at this time.

Fortunately, Xing Jie still has something fortunate, that is, the difficulty of building railways in the northeast and southeast is the road, while the difficulty on his side is the iron.

It is difficult to build a railway, but simple to say it is simple to say it is - as long as you don't look for it, for example, the winding road is 200 miles, and the straight line is only 50 miles, but there is a small river in front of you, so you have to build a bridge with steel and cement. In Xing Jie's opinion, this is called difficulty.

Sometimes there is no way to build a railway in the Central Plains to find difficulties. For example, the road is uneven and it takes 150 miles more to go around. Waste is a small matter, mainly inconvenient, and once it is inconvenient, the matter will be big.

The railways in the Central Plains are not only military, but also have to assume part of the canal function in the court agenda to promote prosperity, but they are different in the northwest.

Basically, the cities of the people of the Ming Dynasty had big roads, all along the ancient roads thousands of years ago, and the roads were flat. Moreover, in Xing Jie's opinion, this road was mainly used for military purposes. Otherwise, what would the emperor build this road?

So for sure, can we concentrate our efforts to make Sichuan build roads well?

Why did you ask Sichuan to transport asphalt and other things out of the mountain with great effort and let Shaanxi transport the rail and wooden tracks to Gansu?

What's more, the road they built is still halfway. From Wuwei to Jiayuguan, all the difficult places have been avoided. They can't get up or down, so what can he do when he builds this road?

Xing Jie didn't know that at most it was just a transport of troops. The farthest to the flag army of Liangzhou Guards, a small Qinglong sent two hundred households to the front line in two days, and the twelve columns transported three thousand troops to Jiayuguan in two days. He thought that the emperor must have calculated this in his book, and he was undoubtedly very happy when he issued the edict.

Think about it, the Oirat tribes in the west gathered thousands of nomadic cavalry and came across the desert to raise troops. He walked on the northern line, and Hami received a telegram to shoot him; he walked on the southern line, and a telegram to send him to Yumen Pass in Yangguan.

The guards and supplies from each county gathered along the railway. Four days later, the Ola army was still plundering under the city of Hami. The soldiers who reported the news from Hami had just arrived in Guazhou. The three thousand mobile troops from Jiayuguan had already left the gate and set up an ambush in the Guazhou area.

So he was very honest. Since the emperor said he wanted to practice and asked him to practice, and what the emperor said was right, he would practice.

The Ministry of Revenue allocates 1.2 million taels of roads to buy grain and build roads... It is only right to spend the money earned by coastal merchants to the northwest to promote the economy.

However, as the twelve little green dragons of road construction entered Gansu, he knew what the emperor was doing to build roads here.

Zhang Chen, who was staying near Xiningwei, learned from Beiyang, and found a snout pond there. He asked Xing Jie to ask for someone from Xuanfu from Gansu Town to collect snout to build a factory. One was to produce snout and snout.

Immediately afterwards, many places in Xining were also discovered by Beiyang research, and according to their speculation, there should be more outside the pass.

Not long after, this speculation became true.

Not to mention how much change the military can be brought to, just a telescope can determine the outcome of a war.

The merchants who investigated Hami's military situation rushed back to Tubo without stopping. On the way, the Tubo Ma Heima, who received the news, was undoubtedly convinced of this information and immediately decided to lead his army to advance to Hami City at full speed.

At the same time, he also ordered Hu Chier, who was guarding Tubo, to assemble strong men and lead troops to support Hami in the next two months.

It is necessary to perform a good show of snatching food from the tiger's mouth in front of the Ming army, grab this pearl-like city in the Western Regions, and remotely control the most precious 100-mile green space in the Western Regions.

They rushed all the way, and the two and three horses advanced quickly and rushed out in three days for 400 miles. The eight hundred cavalry and servants only rested at a place called Qijiaojing on the night of the third day, waiting for the fallen cavalry.

If you walk eastward, you can't be anxious for the four hundred miles. You have to be careful and destroy the Ming army outside Hami City with the power of thunder.

However, Tubo Ma Heima did not expect that in Qijiaojing, he would encounter a great moment of shame in his life.

Usually, in battles, regardless of day or night battles, it is difficult for people to know clearly the number of enemies. Only this time, the Tubo horses and black mahjong were calculated clearly because there were too few enemies.
Chapter completed!