The Hu herdsmen's family knelt in a row on the grass. The grandfather in sheepskin coats was a little hunched over. The husband's wife, who covered her shoulders with anger and her round face, only hugged the child tightly. Behind his door was a felt tent that was lit and burned as a signal. A group of Xi'anyi, who led the way for the Han people, were chasing the lambs in the sheep pen.

Holding her mother in her arms, the three-year-old Hu Er tried hard to squeeze out her head and looked at the Han cavalry coming and going and the large group of people passing by. Her eyes were frightened and confused. Recently, she saw a Han general wearing dazzling armor pinning his horse and looked at him, scaring Hu Er so much that he retracted his mother's arms.

Ren Hong had no hesitation and compassion for the first time to join the army. He only made people treat these families as slaves and gave them to King Xi as a reward. He decided to camp on this rich pasture tonight.

The scout team sent far away to the front had already returned to report the news: "General, we have arrived at the curtain first, but we have not seen the Hun army."

"The sun rises, and Hu Wu is no one." Ren Hong smiled and said, "I think everyone ran to Mobei."

As Duan Huizong said in the investigation, the Han army went out to the frontier for a total of two thousand Han miles, but there was no larger tribe on the vast grassland. They only occasionally caught the Huns who lived in remote small tribes or fought alone in the forest, and did not move north with the large army.

Those who were unwilling to move north, as early as a few months before the two sides were preparing for the war, surrendered the Han Dynasty under the pressure of lobbyists and scouts, moved to the border vassal states, and also provided some guidance. Among them, the Xiyan tribe, which was the most active in the entire tribe, led the war between the Han and the Hungarians. The Xiyan King personally led the way for Ren Hong.

"It seems that the Shanyu is going to fight to the death. The Huns have been suffering and trouble in recent years. If this happens, the herdsmen who are already struggling on the brink of death may be more under pressure."

Although it is a nomadic economy, the Huns also have fixed pastures, with a larger range of activities than farmers, no more than hundreds of miles in winter and summer. Leaving the desert to the northern part of the desert will cause a huge blow to the herdsmen's families. Sometimes Ren Hong even thought that if such a move to the frontier would take several more times, the Huns' southern part of the desert would collapse during migration.

But the Han Dynasty also had pressure. If there were fewer troops to go out of the frontier, the Huns were not afraid and directly fought in the south of the desert with their superior forces. If there were too many, the people would run away. More than 100,000 Han troops gathered, which would have a great impact on the domestic economy and people's livelihood. Once it was vacant, the voice of the Lord's Reciprocity, which would have calmed down in the court, would be noisy again.

What's more, if you want to destroy the centripetal force of the Huns, plowing the courtyard and sweeping the caves is indispensable.

They marched north along a river called "Nuo Shui", also known as Nuo Zhenshui, which was enough to satisfy the drinking water of the army and livestock. It was the end of June, because the rainy rivers soared, flowing on the flat grasslands and pouring into Naur, and sometimes some grass-covered hills were undulating and staggering.

But the more you go north, rivers and lakes become rarer, and even the grass has changed from a knee-high rich grass to weeds dotted on the red Gobi.

At this time, a team of thousands of people appeared in front of him, carefully approaching the Han army, which made the lieutenant who did not know the truth very nervous.

After the scouts made several visits and found out the other party's identity, Ren Hong asked everyone not to worry about it: "It was the Captain of the Wuhuan who protected the Wuhuan people and came here as promised."

Considering that he had done the trick of letting the Xiu Tu tribe dress up as a deception attack by the Huns, Ren Hong was still very cautious and maintained a long distance between the two armies until several nobles in the opposite direction followed the Wuhuan Captain to ride a horse and worshipped Ren Hongma.

Radish, who was already in the midlife crisis, didn't like the strange smell of Wuhuan people. After a breath, Ren Hong rubbed his mane that was no longer as glorious as a child, making these slutty Wuhuan "adults" get up and talk.

The Wuhuan was originally a descendant of the Donghu - more than a hundred years ago, the old king of Donghu, who was killed by Maodun, ran eastward. The Donghu people fled to the northeast and changed their name to Xianbei Mountain, and the one who entered the Liaohe River Basin and the one who entered the Wuhuan Mountain in the southeast was Wuhuan.

The Wuhuan did not have a unified leader, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered together, taking "adults" as their leader, not hereditary system, but was elected by smaller units and small commanders in each town. Although the system was much behind the Huns, the economy was very similar: the common people were good at riding and shooting, hunting animals, and grazing with water and grass, living in an unpredictable place. They used the dome as house, and opened east to the sun, eating meat and drinking cheese, which was expensive but cheaper to the old.

For more than a hundred years, the Wuhuan has been a vassal state of the Huns, providing cattle, horse, and sheepskin to the Huns every year. If the Hun envoys asked for leather cloth taxes, the Huns cavalry would follow one after another, and they would collect the wives and daughters of the Wuhuan people until they paid the tax. Maybe they would also give a fat boy, fat grandson or something. The Wuhuan people would not dare to speak out.

Until the Han Dynasty, the Wuhuan embraced the thighs of the dark tide and migrated westward to the five counties where the Xiongnu retreated, Yuyang, Youbeiping, Liaoxi and Liaodong. As scouts, they reconnaissed the movements and situations of the Xiongnu for the Han Dynasty and set up Wuhuan's lieutenant to support the management of the festival. The Wuhuan people came to Chang'an to pay tribute once a year and began to attack the Xiongnu, and even dug up the tombs of the previous Shanyu in revenge.

But Wuhuan was an unfamiliar wolf after all, and he could not be a guardian in the end. Wuhuan gradually became arrogant, and Xiaoshuan secretly committed the robbery and ended. As a punishment, Fan Mingyou was ordered by Huo Guang to fight undeclaredly, killed 6,000 Wuhuan people, and returned with three adults. So Wuhuan rebelled against the Han Dynasty and rebelled against Youzhou, and the relationship between the two sides has only improved slightly in recent years.

After all, the Wuhuan and the Han and the Huns were both enemies, and it felt bad to be beaten on both sides at the same time. Especially after Fan Mingyou's death, both sides had a way out. A few months ago, Ren Hong asked Zhao Han'er and the Wuhuan people to discuss the matter of discussing the Huns together in the city.

Wuhuan proposed to send troops to help Han in the northern expedition, but was rejected by Ren Hong. The troops were not as strong as the most. The cooperation of Wusun and Xiaoyuezhi was still reliable many times. Wuhuan people and rat heads were dragged down on both ends, and the situation was unfavorable. It might be possible to stab you back with a knife.

Ren Hong looked at the back of the Wuhuan people's team, which were flocks of cattle, sheep and horses. He only asked the Wuhuan adults to do one thing: drive away the livestock to meet in the south of the desert and serve as a supporter for the Han army.

This can alleviate the supply pressure of the Han army. It is naturally not free for Wuhuan to do these things. Ren Hong drew a big cake for the Wuhuan people.

"To the east of the Tuidang City and south of the Great Gobi Desert, it is the Donghu area, and it will all return to Wuhuan in the future."

Hundreds of miles of grassland were cut to Wuhuan at once, and the adults showed joy. The Huns were too big, like a piece of beef that was too huge. The Han army's knife would divide it, which would damage the excess and make up for the shortcomings. Support Wuhuan, Xianbei, Dingling, Xiaoyuezhi and even Jiankun. Each of them bites a piece of meat, so that the Huns could retract back to the core area of ​​the Touman era, divide and control the grasslands.

Anyway, north of the 200mm precipitation line, unless the economic mode is completely changed, agriculture into herdsmen, or running and jumping into modern times, the Han people cannot occupy it. The grassland is too big, and nomads are like crazy grass growing, one after another after another after another. After all, Hu Wuren is just thinking about it, and no one can do it.

But we cannot use the reason that "it cannot be completely solved anyway" to let the unified Huns ignore it, otherwise the one who will die of illness will be the one who will die.

After the Wuhuan people handed over the cattle and sheep and retreated, Ren Hong led the army to continue to advance and arrived in the Erlianhot area of ​​Inner Mongolia in later generations. He could see that the grassland ahead had almost disappeared, leaving only the red and vast Gobi Desert.

The first difficulty on the Northern Expedition has arrived.

Opening the map made by the vassal state, the Huns were divided into northern deserts and southern deserts by a desert that lasted more than 3,000 Hanli from east to west and more than 1,000 miles, and north to south. This is the "Gobi Desert". If a curtain hanging in the northern country, it cannot be avoided at all. Later, Outer Mongolia had four provinces, namely the East Gobi, the West Gobi, the Gobi Altai, and the Middle Gobi. It can be seen that its range is so wide that it takes at least twenty days to cross.

During these twenty days, the Han army's logistics will face tremendous pressure, which is also the reason why Ren Hong and Zhao Chongguo must divide their troops. One hundred thousand people squeezed together to cross the desert, but before they could reach the place, they collapsed due to lack of water.

Fortunately, after more than ten years of development in the Western Regions, the Han generals had accumulated enough experience in the desert marching.

"Don't forget, my first nickname is 'Desert Fox'."

Ren Hong asked the three armies to camp, collect water from the river, slaughtered all the thousands of cattle and sheep sent by the Wuhuan people, and had a big meal. Only tens of thousands of camels, mules, horses, and donkeys that were slowly introduced from the Western Regions over the past year, relying on them for the next twenty days.

After arranging the two partial divisions and army routes of east and west, Ren Hongfu wrote a letter on a large stone. After entering the Great Gobi Desert, the communication with Chang'an would be completely cut off. This was probably the last letter to Liu Xun before victory.

He bit the pen holder and thought about the words, smiled, and wrote: "He inherited the power of the spirit and surrendered to the foreign countries, and walked through the quicksand and the four barbarians to the end. I will be a thousand miles away. I will drive the heroes on the frontier and go deep into the tide of the Shanyu!"

...

At the end of June of the second year of Jingning, when Ren Hong was about to lead a large army into the Great Gobi Desert, the emperor had just received the news of their outbound in Weiyang Palace in Chang'an City. From then on, the emperor was sure to win, and the confident emperor began to sleep. He was finally coaxed to sleep by Xu Pingjun, but he couldn't sleep well.

"The road is long...the road is long!"

Look, in the greenhouse hall, Xu Pingjun was woken up by Liu Xun's shout, and was amused and crying.

When Xu Pingjun heard that his husband called someone else's name in his dream, he was his uncle. It was a little strange in his heart. It was better than calling Huo Chengjun.

She only gently pushed Liu Xun to wake up: "His Majesty has you dreamed of the Marquis of Xi'an again?"

Liu Xun touched the sweat on his forehead, and indeed dreamed that he dreamed that the three armies were surrounded by the Huns and defeated one by one, and the Marquis of Xi'an also died heroically. The last scene was that Ren Hong looked at the south affectionately, bowed to him, and then he resolutely committed suicide with tears in his eyes...

Dreams are against, but they are against. Liu Xun could only comfort himself in this way, but he couldn't fall asleep tonight. He just stood up in his regular clothes and held a candle. Regardless of Xu Pingjun's dissuasion, he ran to the side hall to see the huge picture of the Han-Xiong War.

This war was different from usual. There was no barrier to the city as a screen, nor was it an encounter in Beiting, the Xiongnu's lair. Although it was full of passion when declaring war, for this war, not to mention Liu Xun, even Zhao Chongguo and Ren Hong did not have a 100% chance of winning.

In the expedition, the first Battle of Mobei was successful, with brilliant results, but no victory was achieved afterwards.

In the second year of Taichu (103 BC), General Junji Zhao Ponu was encircled by Zuo Xianwang 80,000 cavalry, and all 20,000 Han troops were destroyed.

In the second year of Tianhan, the fourth year of Tianhan, and the third year of Zhenghe, the Han army expeditioned three times, lost three times, lost Li Ling, and destroyed Ershi. More than 100,000 soldiers were buried in Mobei, but the Huns became stronger.

The fifth generals in the Yuanting year of the Yuan Ting expedition, if it weren't for Zhao Chongguo and Han Zeng's victory in two directions, if it weren't for Ren Hong's outstanding performance, it would be a joke: Qilian General Tian Guangming went out of the frontier for only 1,200 miles, beheaded only 18 levels, and Tiger Tooth General Tian Shun returned 800 miles, and he didn't even touch the curtain - they were also afraid that once they entered the Gobi Desert, they would be besieged by the Huns.

So Liu Xun replaced a group of generals who dared to fight and fight.

If the same mistake is repeated this time, Liu Xun may lose his beloved general, and the name of the Holy Emperor that he had finally established will also be greatly hit. The last wishes of Emperor Xiaowu and General Huo may be difficult to realize.

But at this point, I can only trust the soldiers on the front line, otherwise I could still command them to arrange troops across thousands of miles?

The candlelight in Liu Xun's hand shone little by little on the map, Gaoque, Jilusai, Tuodang City, Daguan, Longcheng, these names were already familiar with them, and he just wished he could not come in person. Suddenly, he thought, was Emperor Xiaowu so anxious when Wei Qing and Huo Qubing vowed to the Northern Expedition?

He sighed and looked outside. There was a silence and darkness in Weiyang Palace. The lights of the palace were turned off. When he asked, it was only three hours before the night was over. Liu Xun stopped outside the hall, as if he could hear the wind whistling on the Great Gobi Desert. His three generals were not safe.

Liu Xun made a decision to attract Zhan Shi and Wei Wei Han Gandang.

"Tomorrow we will move to Ganquan Palace!"

Ganquan Palace is two or three hundred miles north of Chang'an, but it only moved the post cavalry for a day, but for Liu Xun, it made him feel nervous and relieved.

"I want to know the good news from all the generals as soon as possible!"

...

ps: Chapter 2 is before 0 o'clock.
Chapter completed!