After the reward is completed, it will naturally be a grand celebration dinner.

For Zhao Kuo, such celebrations have been accustomed to a long time ago, so he left after drinking a few casual drinks and let his ministers perform on their own.

Anyway, as long as these guys don't fight in public, other things don't matter.

After Zhao Kuo left, he did not return to the harem immediately, but instead made someone put hot water in a comfortable hot bath.

After the battle, it is undoubtedly the most pleasant way to wash away all the dust with a hot bath.

Suddenly, Zhao Kuo's ears moved slightly and he heard a familiar sound of footsteps.

The door opened and Queen Tian Wan walked in.

Zhao Kuo was surprised and smiled and said, "Queen, why are you here?"

Tian Wan walked to Zhao Kuo and said with a gentle smile: "Your Majesty has come back, of course I want to come to serve Your Majesty."

As he said that, Tian Wan also picked up the towel beside her and began to rub Zhao Kuo's back.

Zhao Kuo closed his eyes comfortably and enjoyed Tian Wan's service.

In the fog, the couple formed a very beautiful picture.

After a while, Zhao Kuo said, "Thank you for the time I am not here."

Tian Wan smiled and said, "Actually, there is no hard work. Qian'er has grown up. The two old prime ministers are also very mature and polite. The two sisters also helped me take good care of the harem. I just did some things I should do."

Zhao Kuo also smiled, "The Queen is afraid she doesn't know that many people in this world can't even do what they should do well.

With this alone, the queen has surpassed the vast majority of people in this world.”

Tian Wan also smiled gently when Zhao Kuo said: "Actually, Your Majesty doesn't know. For me, I just need to take good care of our small family."

Zhao Kuo was silent for a while and sighed: "Yes, the emperor's family affairs are the affairs of the world.

How could it be a simple thing to take care of this family matter?

But Queen, today is the day after all, I will return to victory, so let’s not say this and do something that everyone likes!”

As the mist lingered, accompanied by a soft cry, a body fell into the water and fell into Zhao Kuo's arms.

……………………… Zhao Kuo’s expedition to the Western Regions came to a perfect end.

During this war, Zhao Kuo conquered millions of square kilometers of land, adding about one million new population under the Han Dynasty. At the same time, it also added four counties, including Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Zhangye, Wuwei, and a Western Region Governor's District.

In addition, Zhao Kuo also obtained a huge amount of spoils, greatly enriching the treasury of the Han Kingdom, and also opening up the exchange channels between the Han Kingdom and Central Asia, making the Silk Road fully possible to officially operate.

This was undoubtedly a very outstanding success.

After taking a detailed look at the benefits brought by Zhao Kuo this Western Expedition, even Guo Zong couldn't help but sigh: "I have been dealing with money all my life, but I didn't expect that in terms of making money, Your Majesty is really better than me."

Although he knew that Guo Zong's words were suspected of being flattered, Zhao Kuo couldn't help laughing.

If it comes to the speed of money, who can get it faster than Ming?

Isn’t the spoils after the victory of the war all stolen?

However, this kind of thing is generally a one-time business, just like Zhao Kuo, who robbed all the wealth of the Western Regions that did not know dozens or hundreds of years at once. Next, this policy cannot be adopted for the Western Regions, but instead they must be included in the territory of the Han Dynasty and ruled normally.

Zhao Kuo said to many important officials in front of him: "Agriculture in the Western Regions is a great disadvantage, but this does not mean that the Western Regions' products are not abundant enough.

The rouge fuel from Qilian Mountain, the war horses from the Western Regions and various rare treasures. By the way, good things like cotton and future business channels are all factors that can develop and grow in the Western Regions.

What we need to do is to migrate a large number of people to the Western Regions and strive to control this place as soon as possible."

For Zhao Kuo, the Western Regions are actually higher in immigration priority than Lingnan.

Why is this?

The answer is also very simple, because there is competition in the Western Regions, but Lingnan does not.

In the current Western Regions, the Seleucids were already eyeing each other.

In history, the Han Dynasty once fought with the Xiongnu for the Western Regions, and the Tang Dynasty also fought with the Arab Empire for the Western Regions. In addition, there are almost every foreign kingdom that became powerful in Central Asia. The empire tried to control the Western Regions, which is a real place for military strategists.

The words of Lingnan are different. There is not even a political entity in Lingnan that can be called a country now. It is just a group of tribes collectively called "Baiyue". Moreover, further south of Lingnan is a large area of ​​tropical forests. It is impossible for such a place to have any decent civilization or regime to appear.

Simply put, whether in the Western Regions or Lingnan, they will definitely be included in the territory of the Han Dynasty in the future.

However, the priority of the two is different. The Western Regions are in front of you and must be controlled quickly, otherwise it will be a loss if it is taken away by others.

If you want to Lingnan, you can put it aside first and slowly draw it.

After hearing Zhao Kuo's words, several important officials nodded and said yes.

Guo Zong was a little curious and said to Zhao Kuo: "Your Majesty just said that he planned to engage in trade with the Seleucids.

But His Majesty had just defeated Seleucci's governor prince not long ago. What if the Seleucci were angry and embarrassed?”

When Zhao Kuo heard this, he immediately laughed: "I am so angry that I am embarrassed?

No, no, the Seleucids today should not have this intention.

Because they have a lot of trouble."

Why Zhao Kuo said this is not because Zhao Kuo is familiar with history. After all, history has been changed by Zhao Kuo, and the current history is not following the original trajectory.

Zhao Kuo's confidence mainly comes from the confessions of the Seleucid prisoners.

As a commander who attaches great importance to intelligence, Zhao Kuo did not execute any Seleucid prisoners, especially those Seleucid officers and generals, but locked them up and let the intelligence minister go out for interrogation one by one.

It goes without saying that Mao Sui's ability is. After a detailed interrogation, Zhao Kuo basically knew the current situation of the Seleucid Empire, which can be described in four words - internal and external troubles.

Needless to say, the Seleucid Empire originated from the Alexander Empire. It has always had a plan to "unify the old land of the Alexander Empire". It is a mortal enemy of the Ptolemaic dynasty that occupied Egypt, and the major kingdoms that occupied Greece and Macedonia, and have been conquering each other for decades.

As for external troubles, it is mainly the institutional problems existing in the Seleucid Empire.

Simply put, the power of the local governor is too great.

The governor of the Seleucid Empire was a bit similar to the governor of the Tang Dynasty. Of course, it was nothing when the emperor was strong, but once the emperor's strength became weaker, they immediately began to rebel.

In history, the eastern governor of the Seleucid Empire successfully rebelled and established a kingdom called Baktria.

Although the Baqutria Kingdom has not yet been independent, the crisis of the Seleucid Empire has already emerged.

At this time, as long as the Seleucids were not stupid, they would definitely accept peace talks and trade with the Han Dynasty.

Trading can collect commercial taxes. Adding silk and porcelain from the Han Dynasty, the Seleucids did not have them, so why are they afraid that they would not smile when they saw these things?

Therefore, as long as the current emperor Antioch II of Seleucid was not a fool, the peace talks and trade between the Han Dynasty and the Seleucid Empire should have been decided soon.

When Zhao Kuo said this, he couldn't help but smile: "Besides, even if they don't agree, will our Han Kingdom not go to the second expedition to the west?"

If you don't agree this time, then you will fight to Central Asia next time to see if Seleucus agrees.

I still don’t agree next time, so I’ll just fight to Xiya next time and destroy Seleucus directly?

For Zhao Kuo, many of the problems in this world are relatively simple.

Who made the army of the Han Kingdom the strongest army in the world in this era?

If you want to do anything, if you can't do it through diplomacy, we can just do it by force.

At this moment, Zhao Kuo suddenly felt the joy of the modern Mi Emperor in later generations.

After hearing Zhao Kuo's words, several important officials of Zhao State couldn't help but laugh.

All of these important officials of Zhao State were unified by Zhao Kuo. They were very familiar with the war and did not reject them at all.

Pang Xian couldn't help but smile and said, "If the Seleucid Empire really disagrees, then our great man will make a more profitable act when he goes on a Western Expedition again."

The laughter suddenly became louder and louder.

After a while, Zhao Kuo stopped laughing and said to Xu Li: "I heard that something was wrong with Nanzheng?"

As soon as Zhao Kuo mentioned this topic, the atmosphere began to change somewhat subtlely.

Xu Li nodded and said, "Your Majesty is such a majesty. Judging from General Sima Shang's report, the southern expedition was not actually smooth.

Or it wasn't that bad, but it didn't meet our previous expectations."

Sima Shang's southern expedition was somewhat of a big and small trouble.

You should know that at this time, most of the later Chinese territory south of the Yangtze River was not controlled by the Han Kingdom, so Sima Shang's southern expedition was actually to conquer the entire south of the Yangtze River for the Han Kingdom.

This task is of course relatively heavy.

As the Minister of the General Staff, Sima Shang is a person who likes to make plans very much, so after receiving Zhao Kuo's task, he quickly made plans, that is, "First Ou and then Fujian, and finally attack Yang."

Ouyue was mainly concentrated at the junction of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces in later generations, while Minyue was concentrated in the central and southern Fujian provinces, while Yangyue was concentrated in the southern part of Hunan provinces and Guangdong and Guangxi.

Therefore, Sima Shang's plan to march is very clear, that is, to conquer Zhejiang Province first, then Fujian Province, and finally Guangdong and Guangxi.

But the plan is planned, but when it is implemented, I find something wrong.

Something is wrong?

The climate is not right, or the soldiers' adaptability is not right.

At the beginning, Sima Shang led his troops from Kuaiji County to attack Ouyue directly, and the entire combat operation was relatively smooth.

Ouyue is close to Kuaiji County, so most of the Ouyue tribes are somewhat related to the Chinese civilization. Then Sima Shang can use both soft and hard skills, while the troops are invading the border, and the other hand sends envoys to demand the surrender of these Ouyue tribes.

In just over a month, Sima Shang's army headed south all the way and basically pacified the entire Ouyue territory.
To be continued...