The heavens start from saving Daming

In the spring of the 13th year of Zhenguan, the railway from Chang'an City to Gaochang was officially opened to traffic.

As the strategic role of the railway becomes more and more prominent, more and more people realize its importance.

The popular rhetoric now is that wherever the railway is built, the rule of the Tang Dynasty will be extended.

The railway has gradually become a symbol of Datang. After all, where there is a railway, there is a Datang Iron Cavalry (road guard team), and where there is a Datang Iron Cavalry, Datang belongs naturally.

After several years of accumulating strength, Li Er, who couldn't wait, sent a large army to restore the old land of the Han and Tang Dynasties on the second day after the railway was opened to traffic.

At the beginning, Li Er planned to dispatch Wang Zha Li Jing.

But Li Jing himself voluntarily refused, saying that he was old and frail and only wanted to write military books in the mansion.

He has chosen to retreat bravely, and naturally he will not come out of the mountain again.

Then Li Er wanted Li Ji to come out again.

But at this time Li Ji was busy with the preliminary preparations for the expedition to Goguryeo, and had no way of getting out.

Other famous generals were either too old to fight long distances, or remained neutral during the Xuanwumen Incident like Li Xiaogong and were not trusted.

Like Cheng Yaojin, Li Er is not very relieved.

Zhang Shigui and Chang He wanted to protect the imperial city.

Hou Junji, who was originally from the Mesozoic Era, is very suitable, but unfortunately he has been kicked to the Japanese country at this time, and has gone to stand up for Li Chengqian.

Looking around, I couldn't find a suitable general to command the army.

Fortunately, at this time Li Jing took the initiative to recommend a general to Li Er.

This person's name is Su Dingfang, and he followed Li Jing to defeat the Eastern Turks in the early years. During the Battle of Yinshan, he personally climbed and broke the golden tent of Jieli Khan, and made the first achievement.

Li Er recruited Su Dingfang to enter the palace, and tested his skills on the sand table and map in the side hall.

Naturally, Su Dingfang would not miss the opportunity, and offered Li Er his strategy to pacify the Western Regions.

To be honest, there is nothing amazing about the strategy, it is to rely on the powerful national power of the Tang Dynasty to directly crush it.

But Li Er was very satisfied with this. As the saying goes, a good fighter has no great achievements, and tricks are usually used when the weaker side fights a strong opponent, and the success rate is very low.

Compared with the strength of the small countries in the Western Regions and the Western Turks behind the small countries, the strength of the Tang Dynasty is essentially crushing the game.

At this time, it is far more important to play steadily than to use ingenuity.

As long as you don't make mistakes and don't make big mistakes, there is basically no problem.

After the assessment, Li Er made an exception and promoted Su Dingfang as the chief general to pacify the Western Regions, and took Li Yunze as the logistics commander to command 15 Tang troops to pacify the Western Regions.

The news came out that Cheng Yaojin, who had been preparing for this for a long time, was said to have smashed several beloved vases at home.

All the trains from Chang'an City to the Western Regions were requisitioned and turned into military use, and a large number of people and materials were loaded onto wagons and sent to Gaochang Kingdom thousands of miles away.

The ability to deliver materials and personnel beyond the times is undoubtedly demonstrated at this moment.

A train passing by can send thousands of people, or millions of catties of supplies, at least.

As for Chang'an City, at least dozens of trips can be made a day.

Compatible with the delivery capability is Datang's material production capability that is the best in this era.

No matter in any aspect of food, clothing, housing and transportation, Datang has terrifying productivity that is unimaginable for people of this era.

Just to give an example, when the herdsmen of the Western Turks were still wearing leather armor, the generals of the Tang army had already increased the armor wearing rate of the iron armor to more than [-]%.

Those that remained wore leather armor out of sheer convenience rather than affordability.

With the hydraulic stamping machine obtained by Li Yunze, Datang was able to provide lighter and stronger plate armor on a large scale.

The bows, arrows, knives and guns in the hands of Western Turkic herdsmen have almost no possibility of breaking through these plate armors.

Tang Jun will distribute an iron pot with everything, and if it is damaged or lost, you can get a new one.

But here in Western Turks, the iron pot is a treasure that can be exchanged for cattle, sheep and horses.

When the Tang army went out to fight, they could eat meat almost every meal, and there was ample supply of oil, salt, sugar and spices, let alone staple food.

On the western Turkic side, the herdsmen's food was not even as good as Tang Jun's horses.

Even the tents here in the Tang army were gradually replaced by iron houses. When setting up camp, the logistics auxiliary soldiers and civilians would soon be able to build a large number of movable board houses. You can sleep well when it's cold.

As for the western Turkic herdsmen, when it is cold, they can only hug lambs to keep warm.

With such an abundant material supply guarantee, as long as the Tang army does not rot out of the skyline, it is almost impossible to fail.

The Tang army is precisely the most powerful army in this era.

Because the sergeants can rely on their military exploits on the battlefield to obtain a promotion in status, and they will not be robbed of their credit by the generals.

At the same time, their families are well-off, and they don't need to worry about fighting outside, while their family members are starved to death at home.

That's right, it's about the Forbidden Army of the Song Dynasty and the Military Households of the Ming Dynasty.

In the Song and Ming Dynasties, the military people were suppressed by the civil official group to the point that they couldn't even do it, but it didn't exist in the Han and Tang Dynasties.

Which civil official in the Tang Dynasty dared to say that he used literature to control martial arts and let the sergeants eat grass to fight. If he won the battle, the civil servants would be credited, and if he lost, the sergeants would be blamed. Then he would be severely beaten by the noble group in the court.

Here in Datang, even Shixiu's descendant, the family who can be called the ancestor of Han X, would not dare to say such a thing.

15 Tang troops were fighting on the front line, and there were even more auxiliary soldiers and civilians who provided logistical support for them.

In order to feed these people, let them eat well and live well, it takes a lot of energy.

Li Yunze has no difficulty in doing these things at all.

In addition to ability and experience, as well as the help of professionals trained in technical schools over the years, Li Yunze also owns a supercomputer tablet as an auxiliary tool.

If you want to know something, just check the stored data directly.

The Western Region has a vast area, and it is nothing to scatter 15 Tang troops.

As they kept moving forward, the logistical supply line was naturally lengthened gradually.

Gaochang is no longer called Gaochang, and Li Er renamed it Yizhou.

At this time, this important place on the Silk Road has become a large material storage center.

The train transported countless supplies, fully demonstrating Datang's terrifying production and delivery capabilities.

But if you leave Illinois and then send it forward, it will immediately drop from the era of primary industry to the level of the Middle Ages, relying entirely on horse-drawn carriages for transportation.

There is no shortage of carriages and horses, but the route is too long, and every time the transport team departs, there is a mighty queue.

This day was the day when the transport team set off again. Three thousand Tang soldiers escorted the huge convoy transported by more than ten thousand auxiliary soldiers to Tingzhou hundreds of miles away.

Tingzhou is also a very famous place. It was originally called Luntai Kingdom, but it was destroyed by General Li Guangli in Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up a military station here, that is, the Luntai garrison, and since then it has become the place where the Western Regions Protectorate is located.

When the huge queue set off, Li Yunze signaled the military band beside the road to start playing.

There is no doubt that this must be the pure music created by Li Yunze himself, and he named it "Long Journey".

Whether it is artistic conception or timbre, it is very in line with the mood of the soldiers on the expedition.

Every time soldiers and horses depart from Yizhou, Li Yunze will let the military band play this song to see the soldiers off.

The Western Regions are far away, and the soldiers came here far away from their hometowns, in order to use iron and blood to restore the land of the Han Dynasty for Middle-earth.

The majestic music shook the soul, and the soldiers rode their horses slowly with solemn expressions.

The captives on the construction site outside the city also silently watched Tang Jun's expedition and listened to the soul-stirring music. They only felt envy in their hearts.

Compared with his own hard life, Tang Ren is simply living a fairy-like life.

Su Dingfang marched very fast, and the striker had already hit Suiye, and was fighting fiercely with the Western Turks.

Along the way, he destroyed countless countries, attacked the Western Turks and many Zahu tribes, and captured a large number of prisoners.

Most of the captives were sent back to Datang to fill the gaps in various mines and plantations.

The other part was kept by Li Yunze to work overtime to build railways and roads.

Li Yunze reckoned that by the end of the year, the railway would be repaired to Luntai and Cheshi Kingdom, which meant extending the logistics supply line to the front line for more than a thousand miles.

As for Cheshi State, it is now under the jurisdiction of Luntai, and the name of this place will be Urumqi in the future.

It is also the traffic artery of the northern line of the Silk Road.

Li Yunze, who sent off the transport team and returned to the city, received an urgent telegram from Su Dingfang.

Su Ding reported to Li Yunze that Yipidulu Khan of the Western Turks had sent an elite army to raid Yizhou.

There is no doubt that Yipidulu Khan also knows the art of war.

First attract Su Dingfang's main army to the distant four towns of Anxi, and then let the elite sneak from Jinshan cross the desert and directly attack Yizhou, the most important logistics town of the Tang army.

As long as Yizhou can be captured, not only can a large amount of various materials be seized, but also the logistics supplies of the main Tang army on the front line can be cut off.

Yipidulu Khan calculated clearly that Su Dingfang's main force was far away in the four towns of Anxi.

Thousands of miles away, it was at least a month later when I got the news, and Illinois had already been captured by then.

Obviously, Yipidulu Khan didn't know that Tang Jun had a telegram that could transmit information in an instant, nor did he know that Tang Jun had strong intelligence capabilities, so he learned the news early.

It's just that even if he got the news, even if Su Dingfang desperately returned to the teacher for rescue, he would not be able to come back from such a long distance in less than a month.

At this time, there were only 5000 Tang troops stationed in Yizhou, and there were tens of thousands of auxiliary soldiers and civilian husbands, but their combat effectiveness was worrying.

Many people urgently suggested to Li Yunze that he quickly call back the transport team he sent out earlier, so as to increase the regular army by at least 3000 people.

But Li Yunze flatly refused.

The reason for his refusal was very strange in the eyes of everyone, "What if the Turkic people are scared away when they are called back?"

The reason for this kind of rhetoric is not because Li Yunze is full of self-confidence, thinking that he can sweep away thousands of troops with a stick.

Rather, he concluded that the Turks were unaware of the terrible transport capabilities of the railways.

"It's too late for Su Dingfang's troops to come back, but there are many Tang troops behind!"