Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 604 598. Expansion
"Oh? General Wei requested to march south to attack Baiyue and... the Kushan Empire?"

Liu Chan was choked by the name of the Kushan Empire, because he seemed to be really unclear about the origins of the Kushan Empire.

Fortunately, there were many knowledgeable people in the court, so after a brief explanation, Liu Chan knew the situation of the Kushan Empire.

"If what you say is true, the Kushan Empire was no less powerful than the Han Dynasty during its peak period. With the strength of the three states of Jingzhou, Jiaozhou, and Yangzhou, I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to gain an advantage..."

Liu Chan was not afraid. He had been the emperor ruling the world for several years now. He was no longer the prince who trembled in fear when he heard about Huang Yuan's rebellion. He was just worried that Feng Xi would end up in a thankless position if he faced an empire in this way.

"Your Majesty, don't worry. General Wei said in his memorial that according to news from the south, the Kushan Empire's Vasudeva I has passed away. He was a man of great talent and strategy, but his successor, Kanishka II, was only mediocre. The Kushan Empire is now plagued by internal troubles, and all regions are refusing to obey the central government's orders. There are signs of division, so General Wei dared to have this idea.

In addition, according to General Wei, the Kushan people are naturally bullying the weak and fearing the strong, and they believe in the afterlife, so they are excellent slaves. The Kushan land is extremely fertile, and can achieve three or even four crops a year. Such fertile land should be taken by our Han people for their own use as food and fodder. "

Zhuge Liang was not too interested at first, but the idea of ​​four harvests a year was too tempting. According to Feng Xi, if the Kushan land was developed properly, it would be possible to support not only the more than 30 million people of the Han Dynasty, but even 300 million people.

It just so happens that the Han army is now at its peak, so it is not impossible to let Feng Xi go and give it a try. Jingzhou was Feng Xi's initial base camp, and it would be no problem for them to send more than 300,000 troops in conjunction with Jiaozhou and Yangzhou. Moreover, with Jiaozhou, there would be no need to worry about food and grass.

"In that case, I will approve General Wei's request and let the three southern states prepare. This war will be fully under the charge of General Wei. I will appoint General Wei Feng Xi as the Grand Commander of the Southern Expedition and command the troops and officers of Jing, Yang, and Jiao states. He can make his own decisions on any war matters without asking Luoyang for permission."

The court officials all showed an expression of "as expected". The title of Grand Commander that was taken away a few years ago was given to Feng Xi in a different way. It seems that the limelight has passed.

However, Liu Xie's death did not cause much of a stir. After the Han army took over the Central Plains, the Han Daily directly pushed all the blame onto the Sima family. Combined with the Sima family's scandals during the Cao Wei period, the Sima family's reputation was already bad, and the multiple charges of murdering the previous emperor did not seem to be too many.

When the news reached Jingzhou, Feng Xi immediately mobilized soldiers and generals and prepared to choose a day to go to war.

In the summer of the seventh year of Zhongxing, the Han Dynasty, with the army of Jingzhou as the main force and the army of Yangzhou and Jiaozhou as the auxiliary force, mobilized a total of 230,000 troops, claiming to have 500,000 troops, and divided the troops into three routes to attack Baiyue, Siam, and Chan. With the Nanzhong people as guides, rattan armor, straw sandals, bamboo hats, anthelmintics and other supplies, the three countries had no ability to resist and were attacked by the Han army into their capitals, and all the royal families died in the battle.

Later, under the arrangement of Feng Xi, the Han army collected all the books and history of the locals and burned them all. At the same time, they vigorously supported the local mixed-race people or people who were loyal to the Han Dynasty who mainly spoke Chinese. They brought in all the texts that had been prepared in Jingzhou, which proved that these countries were the tribes that separated from the former Yan and Huang emperors, as well as the Chinese language teaching and history, and directly replaced the local people's history with a covert substitution.

After the Central and Southern countries were pacified, in the autumn of the ninth year of Zhongxing, nearly 300,000 Han troops directly invaded the Kushan Empire from the Chan Kingdom, which was later known as Myanmar.

At this time, the Kushan Empire was already extremely weak due to the recent death of Vasudeva I, the unstable domestic political situation, and the numerous factions in various places. How could it be a match for the united Han army?

The Han army marched straight into Magadha, which had been pretending to be friendly with the Kushan Empire, and took less than three months to capture Pataliputra, slaughtering all the nobles and most of the upper castes in the city. Some sensible Brahmins chose to cooperate with the Han army. In order to save their lives, they called the Han army "God's messengers". Even ordinary Han soldiers were of the Kshatriya level, so the low-caste civilians had no other ideas and obeyed faster than before the capture of Luoyang.

After a short rest, the Han army marched westwards, up the Ganges River, won battle after battle along the way, and were about to invade Punjab.

During this period, any warlords and forces in various parts of the Kushan Empire who attempted to resist the Han army were cleanly and efficiently killed by the Han army, and their entire families were wiped out.

According to Ma Su's statistics, since Feng Xi started his southern expedition, he has killed at least 500,000 foreigners.

In the spring of the tenth year of Zhongxing, the capital of the Kushan Empire, Fulusha, was conquered by the Han army after less than a month. In this battle, nearly 200,000 Kushan soldiers were killed. Of course, this was also due to the Han army's policy of taking almost no prisoners.

All the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Kushan Empire, from King Kanishka II down, were killed by the Han army. Under the coercion and inducement of the Han army, many religious leaders and Brahmins had to declare that the Han army was "angels and heavenly soldiers." Relying on the caste system, the Han army did not encounter much resistance in the Kushan Empire.

At this point, the Kushan Empire was officially annihilated by the Han army. Feng Xi left behind nearly 50,000 Han troops and some generals to consolidate the harvest, while the other more than 200,000 troops returned to the capital.

This southern expedition lasted for three years, and the Han Dynasty actually controlled almost the entire Indochina Peninsula and the vast fertile plains south of the Himalayas. At Feng Xi's suggestion, the Han Dynasty divided the local area into counties and established four states: Yuezhou, Bangzhou, Taizhou, and Wozhou, and the central government allocated officials to govern the four states.

Looking at the Han Dynasty, the imperial examination system that Feng Xi had used before also provided a steady supply of talents to the court. The imperial examination questions were naturally divided into civil and military examinations, and statecraft, arithmetic, literature, military tactics, martial arts, and horsemanship were all included in the examinations.

After Feng Xi returned to the court, he was granted the title of Marquis of Nanjun for his contribution to expanding the territory. The power and status of a marquis were already considerable in the Han Dynasty. Even Zhuge Liang was only an ordinary county marquis.

In the eleventh year of the Restoration period, inspired by Feng Xi's victory in foreign wars two years ago, under the order of Liu Chan, General Ma Chao, at the age of sixty, personally took command of a force of more than one hundred thousand men and set out from Wuwei County to attack the countries in the Western Regions.

The Western Regions were terrified by the aggressive advance of the Han army and had to unite to resist it. The Han army was on the verge of conquering the Western Regions, but Ma Chao, the governor of Liang Province and the general of the cavalry, died of illness in the army due to his old age.

When the Han army was in great chaos, General Deng Ai, who came from Jingzhou, with the help of Ma Chao's cousin, General Ma Dai, who was in charge of pacifying the north, calmed the army's morale, regrouped and annihilated the coalition forces of the Western Regions who intended to take the opportunity to defeat the Han army, thus ending the war in the Western Regions completely.

In this battle, eight out of ten of the thirty-six countries in the Western Regions were destroyed, which made the people in the Western Regions terrified.

(End of this chapter)