In May of the fourth year of Yuanfeng, Cao Cao, who was reclaiming wasteland in the Sistan Basin, received a formal invitation from the Yuan family. It was different from the perfunctory treatment of the Cui Yang family, and the casual treatment of the Han, Bai, and Chen families. When facing Cao Cao , Yuan Tan gave a very formal greeting.
However, it was not a greeting from one force visiting another force, but a greeting in the form of a descendant visiting relatives and friends of the fathers. Yuan Cao did not fall out of favor in this life. From the beginning to the end, even after Yuan Shao's death, Cao Cao also He didn't do anything outrageous.
Although it may be that there was not enough time and Cao Cao had no chance to do anything to offend others, Yuan Shao often messed with Cao Cao when he was young. In addition, Yuan Tan was the eldest son and knew about the relationship between his father and Cao Cao, so he went south. Coming here, the most formal thing is actually visiting Cao Cao, and the other things are considered joint at most.
Cao Cao captured Herat at the beginning of the year and crossed the watershed of the Hindu Kush Mountains as soon as possible, and then entered the middle of the Hindu Kush Mountains, Sahad Plateau, Baloch Plateau, and Giltar Mountains. In the basin between them, further south is the Lezistan Desert, which covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.
Originally this place was a dead place, but after Cao Cao captured it, Zao Zhi conducted on-site exploration and finally discovered that this place is actually completely incapable of development by the Kushan people. Apart from anything else, the Sistan Basin can be farmed. Although it is very desolate now, In Zao Zhi's research, it is possible to rely on the Helmand River to be transformed and turned into a good irrigation canal.
Cao Cao's understanding of this point is that since Zao Zhi said so, just do it, do it and see the results before confirming. No one can be sure of what he said. As for failure, the big deal is that they will continue to get out. Farming in Sestan region.
If farming can be done in the Sistan Basin, for Cao Cao, the logistical distance will be shortened a lot, because the desolate basin of Sistan is actually almost across the desert from Kandahar. Therefore, if farming can be done in this area, it will be a great advantage for Cao Cao. This is a good thing for Cao Cao.
After Zaozhi got the authorization, he started working, and the results were beyond expectations. By April, he had successfully planted a large area of food in the wasteland. Although most of it was beans, being able to grow soybeans meant that Wheat, millet, rice, etc. can all be put on the agenda.
Cao Cao was deeply satisfied with this. As long as the food problem was solved, he would slowly consume and farm a little bit, and he could push Beigui to death.
In fact, Cao Cao didn't know what a strange place the Sistan Basin was. For most ethnic groups in the world, this place was a non-development area, and in the hands of the Han Dynasty, it could basically reach the level of a grain-producing area.
Although this place was desolate at this time, after the fifth century, a certain god from Sasanian Persia developed this place based on the Helmand River, successfully making the Sistan Basin a famous irrigation area in world history. , when this grand situation lasted only a thousand years.
About a thousand years later, this place died due to war, and the irrigation area built that year was also destroyed. After that, no powerful force developed it, so that this place remained abandoned until later generations.
Cao Cao didn't know this, but he picked up a forward base for nothing. Of course, Cao Cao was in a good mood. Originally, he had made plans to farm in Sistan and then transfer it. Now, there is no need for it. If Sistan can farm, , the logistical distance to Kandahar was shortened to about two hundred miles. Even if there was a desert in the middle, Cao Cao could accept it.
Therefore, Cao Cao has been in a good mood recently and has even begun to send people to the desert to harass Bei Gui. Kapil, Balak and others on Bei Gui's side also sent troops to confront Cao Cao, not to be outdone. The two sides fought fiercely in the desert. Very happy.
The two sides' camel riding was even more indistinguishable. The Kushan camel riding team had relatively good experience, but Zhu's camel riding team was the elites carefully selected by the Han Dynasty, so it was difficult to tell who was who when fighting in the desert. Dominate.
However, regardless of the outcome, it is completely good news for the Han Dynasty, but it is very uncomfortable news for generals like Zasali who rely on camel riding for their livelihood.
Coupled with the fact that Cao Cao's large-scale regular troops in armor entered the desert to harass, Beigui finally felt what it meant to be wealthy.
Compared with Beigui who relied on surprise production to provide weapons and ordinary leather armor to the soldiers who were incorporated into the regular army, the Han Dynasty had all armor, and the survivability and combat effectiveness of both sides were greatly reduced in a head-on encounter. showed a huge difference.
The combat effectiveness of using ordinary spears and leather armor may not be as good as using armor, swords and shields, but that refers to when the quality, will and experience of the two sides are very different.
Is there a big gap between the quality, willpower, and experience of the Han Dynasty's officers and those of Beigui? Are you kidding? Maybe ordinary pawns will have some advantages in these three aspects.
As a result, the soldiers of the Beigui were quite embarrassed when they encountered the regular army of the Han Dynasty. They had no choice but to worry about not knowing the goods, but the fear of comparing goods. Wearing only the upper body of the leather armor and holding a spear, the soldiers of the Beigui were in a state of embarrassment when they encountered the strong soldiers. It is hard to say what the mood of the Han army, who were strong, wearing armor, holding swords, shields, and carrying short spears, was nothing more than a short crossbow.
Again, the gap in weapons and equipment between empires and top legions can be regarded as non-existent, because as long as the empire is not completely corrupted, the best weapons and equipment will be provided to the most elite soldiers.
These people fight the toughest enemies, participate in the most brutal wars, get the best weapons, and get the highest salaries, but only these top legions can enjoy this kind of treatment.
Most of the conventional arms are the difference between the empire and the empire. Just like now, the regular army is also talented. The regular army under Cao Cao relies on that armor. Even if they are not used to it because they just came to the desert, they can still do it. To one against three.
However, the shield guard's talent is called adaptive. It won't take long to adapt to this environment. Not to mention Cheng Yu's spiritual talent and legion talent. I always feel that Kushan is going to be finished!
This is the meaning of equipment. The existence of Chen Xi has truly popularized armor to the extent that every person can wear one. To say it too much, as for the soldiers in Beigui, most of them are ordinary soldiers who cannot penetrate the Han army with one shot in the desert. of armor.
The power of a spear that pierces directly is often unable to reach its maximum due to the desert, and it cannot directly pierce armor. As a result, the Han Dynasty actually has a certain advantage in the originally difficult desert war, even though many times It is not easy to march in the desert wearing armor, but as long as there is no quicksand, wearing armor is far better than wearing no armor at all.
This terrifying armor wearing rate made Kapil's scalp numb. The entire Kushans had never thought that the Han Dynasty was not only the top army's armor. Before, they were accustomed to thinking that the Han Dynasty was the same as their Kushans. , but now I find that your dad is still your dad.
However, the war had already started, so we had no choice but to continue. First, we sent a message to Peshawar to request for armor support. How many were there and how many came. It was best to replace them all with iron armor. But after this request was sent out, Kapil became heartbroken.
It is simply unrealistic. Their Kushan is not a Han Dynasty and has a huge armor reserve. To be precise, Guishan has hundreds of thousands of top-level armed elite armors. They have been accumulated bit by bit over the past 100 years. Now, If you want to equip millions of armies with armor, just go to sleep. You have everything in your dreams, but reality is so cruel.
In fact, the Han Dynasty does not have any top-level elite armors. In fact, they are all standard equipment. At most, they are painted with different paints, and different legions have different levels of maintenance. If you really want to say that, they are all It is made from one version.
Compared to random production, Chen Xi prefers batching, large-scale, and assembly line engineering. This requires efficiency and scale. As long as the steel plant continues to produce output, he will have countless armors available. .
Therefore, in the Han Dynasty, from the Xiliang Iron Cavalry to the new recruits, in terms of armor, they are all the same. The materials and shapes are basically the same. The boss helped them maintain a high level of temperature and gave them a layer of paint.
There is basically no difference in anything else. The materials for plate armor are all produced in batches. They don't have any special requirements like weapons. They all just have a defensive power. They are easy to produce, especially now. Richter built a stamping machine, bang, bang, bang, and the front of a piece of plate armor came out. The efficiency was not very high.
In this case, what kind of father's care does Kuishang really feel? Do you think that only the Han Dynasty is like you, and only the top legions have such good armor? Sorry, I was joking with you before. We were ordinary soldiers who couldn't get through before, so we looked like you were the same.
In fact, not only do all our elites wear armor, but all our regular troops wear armor, and all of them have the same armor as your top-level army!
When Cao Cao was cared for by Chen Xi in this way at home, he hated this kind of behavior of using weapons and equipment to crush him. However, after going abroad, when he started to use weapons and equipment to crush his enemies, Cao Cao felt like eating ice cream in the dog days of summer. Watermelon, so refreshing.
Originally thought that fighting in the desert would be very difficult, and originally thought that many elite desert battlefields would need to be filled in, the Han Dynasty did not fall into the slightest disadvantage. If it were not for the fact that he was not used to it for the first time, Cao Cao thought about fighting in such an open desert. He can chop Kushan to death!
Therefore, when he received the news that Yuan Tan came to visit with his wife and concubines, Cao Cao was in a very good mood. The recent winning streak made Cao Cao very inflated.
