In November of the first year of Yong'an, a blizzard stormed Hexi. The blizzard fell for nearly half a month. The wind and snow ravaged and destroyed everything on the ground. By the time the wind and snow stopped, the land of Hexi was already a world of white snow. The thick snow was several feet long, and the thickest part was ten feet deep. The herdsmen's tents were crushed one after another, and their survival was threatened. Many herdsmen drove cattle and sheep to take refuge from nearby cities in all directions.

Zhangye City is like other cities on the Hexi Corridor. In the past few days, more than 100,000 people have flocked to the small city, and there are also a large number of cattle, sheep and horses. The crowd is full and the smell is steep. Zhangye Governor Meng Jiao has worked tirelessly to resettle the victims and solve the problem. He has not closed his eyes for three days and three nights.

That afternoon, he had just settled a group of Qiang people and was dragging his tired bodies back to the state yamen. At this time, a yamen runner came to report, "Encourt, the governor is back, I just sent someone to report the news, and he has arrived thirty miles away."

Meng Jiao was shocked, his whole body was wiped out with fatigue. He jumped up and shouted, "Go and tell Sima Yan quickly and let him clean up his residence."

Meng Jiao didn't have time to go to the yamen, so he took a dozen servants and left the city gate in a panic to greet Zhang Huan.

After more than twenty days of difficult journey, Zhang Huan led an army of 30,000 to Zhangye. He was unable to continue traveling eastward because he had a heavy snowfall in Hexi, so he decided to temporarily stay in Zhangye.

Zhang Huan stopped the war horse and looked into the distance with his hands curtain. Under the dark clouds, there was an endless snow field in the distance, which was faintly visible to Zhangye City.

"Governor, it seems that this blizzard will continue for a while." Ya urged Li Dingfang to step forward and smiled.

Zhang Huan looked up at the sky, then looked back at the thousand Arab stallions in the team, and said to Li Dingfang: "All the way, the brothers are all very tired. We will take a break in Zhangye for a few days to see the weather before leaving."

At this moment, dozens of small black dots appeared faintly in the distance, and Zhang Huan pointed at the horse whip and said with a smile: "Our Royal Horse Supervisor Meng is here."

The black dots ran closer, and it was Meng Jiao and his dozen of his subordinates. He ran to Zhang Huan, turned over and dismounted, and went forward to give a deep bow: "Sir, please see the governor!"

Zhang Huan also got off the horse and looked up and down at his ex-school. Seeing that although he was much darker than before, his eyes revealed a kind of joy from the bottom of his heart. He couldn't help but laugh: "It seems that you are doing it very comfortably!"

Meng Jiao smiled embarrassedly and said, "Although it is very tiring and things are very trivial, I feel a sense of accomplishment as the people live and work in peace and the number of horses they raise increases day by day!"

Zhang Huan smiled and nodded, "You are right. Although people are a little tired when they are busy, they will feel very comfortable."

He then said to Meng Jiao again: "Come on! Take a look at the big-food horse I brought."

Due to the particularity of Longyou area, the Xiliang Army has always attached great importance to the cavalry. After taking over Hehuang, the Xiliang Army used Hehuang as a horse breeding base. However, the Hehuang area is relatively high at an altitude and is not suitable for large-scale breeding of military horses. Therefore, the Xiliang Army officially used the vast grasslands in Hexi as a breeding base for war horses after recapturing Hexi.

Hexi has always been a horse-raising base in the Tang Dynasty. At its peak, it once lived 700,000 horses, but the problem of low horse quality has always troubled the Tang Dynasty. The horse breeds in Hexi are mainly Hequ horses. It has a thick body and a straight torso. It has an absolute advantage in using horses. It is consigned to three or four hundred kilograms and can travel a hundred miles a day. Therefore, it is widely used as a carriage and agricultural horse in the Tang Dynasty. Currently, Hequ horses are mainly raised in the Hehuang area.

The Hexi region is mainly used to breed war horses. For a long time, the cavalry war horses of the Tang Dynasty mainly came from the Uighurs, that is, the Mongolian horses in later generations. This horse is not big in size, has short legs, joints, and tendons, is arduous and not afraid of cold, and has strong vitality. It can travel 120 miles a day. The tamed Turkic horses are not frightened or deceitful on the battlefield and are extremely brave. However, the weakness of this horse is also obvious. It is small in size and does not run fast, and is easily at a disadvantage in the battle between the cavalry of the Western Regions.

Zhang Huan was also very clear about this, so at the beginning of the capture of Hehuang, he sent Qiang people to find ways to get a lot of Yanqi stallions from Anxi and stock them in Hehuang to improve Turkic horses, and eventually raised nearly 40,000 war horses.

During the Battle of Shule, the Tang army seized nearly 100,000 high-quality Western Region horses, including 20,000 Arab war horses, and found nearly a thousand unscathed Arab stallions from them, which made Zhang Huan feel like he was a treasure and brought them to Hexi.

Zhang Huan is also a very horse lover. Although the treasure from Agush's horse was given to Wang Siyu, he himself also selected eighteen horses from the various war horses he seized and belonged to him.

Zhang Huan ordered people to pull over a war horse of his own. This was an extremely majestic white war horse and smiled at Meng Jiao, "How is this kind of horse that can catch your eyes?"

Although Meng Jiao was a literati, he was born in poverty, could endure hardships and was very down-to-earth in his work. During the years he worked as a clerk for Zhang Huan, he didn't talk much and was not good at socializing. However, he was diligent and never made any mistakes. Zhang Huan valued this pragmatic point, so he asked him to come to Zhangye to be the governor and the Hexi pastoral supervisor. Zhangye did not have much government affairs, but more importantly, the latter was the main source of the war horses of the Xiliang army.

During his nearly one year of serving as the Hexi Muguan, Meng Jiao worked tirelessly around. Not only did he become familiar with every grass and tree in Hexi, he established a complete war horse management system, but he himself accumulated a lot of experience in raising horses.

When he came to see Zhang Huan just now, he found that the war horses of Zhang Huan and other soldiers were a little different, and even better than the Yanqi horses with the best quality in Hexi. They just wanted to greet the governor, so they didn't have time to take a closer look.

Meng Jiao looked at the majestic war horse and looked at the thousands of Arab horses. His eyes were filled with strange charms and surprises. He had never seen such a elegant war horse. They were tall and tall, with long and even limbs, lustrous and not messy fur, and their long tails were flying in the wind. Meng Jiao stood for a long time and could not say a word.

Seeing that he was extremely obsessed, Li Dingfang smiled and introduced: "This kind of big-eating horse has great endurance, and the horse is extremely fast. When running, it seems to be suspended in the air. It can run for a long distance without eating or drinking. The wound will heal quickly when injured. When it is excited and muster up the courage, it naturally shows extremely elegant qualities."

Meng Jiao finally couldn't help but step forward and touch these war horses one by one, just like a father who had been away from home for many years returned to his hometown to touch his sons one by one. In the end, his eyes were a little wet. He turned his head and said to Zhang Huan: "Governor, please give me all these horses. I will raise hundreds of thousands of war horses as majestic as them."

Zhang Huan nodded gently, he turned over the horse, and pointed with a whip with a vigorous urgency: "Let's go! Let them go and see their new home."

However, neither Zhang Huan nor these horses knew that their new home was not very good now.

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The army did not enter the city and was stationed directly on a clearing field outside Zhangye City. Meng Jiao was busy with official duties and wanted to place these horses from afar. Therefore, Zhang Huan did not bother him, so he sent him back to the city. At night, a blizzard hit again. The strong north wind wrapped with snowflakes and rolled, whistling towards the earth. The fences around the Tang army camp were blown swaying squeakingly. A sentry tower was overturned, hurting several sentries. In this dark night where there was no fingers and the sky was filled with wind and snow, several travelers were struggling to walk on the official road several miles away from the Tang army camp.

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Zhang Huan's big tent was particularly strong, with two tents of all sizes. Although the blizzard outside was whistling sharply, the tent seemed very quiet, with soft lights. Dried cow dung in a brazier was burning vigorously. Occasionally, a few fine snowflakes floated into the gaps in the curtains, and Zhang Huan leaned half on the small table and read the book intently.

"Report to the governor, a messenger from Chang'an came." The personal soldiers' report rang at the door.

"Chang'an Messenger?" Zhang Huan was a little surprised. There was a Chang'an Messenger on this bad snowy day. What happened to Chang'an? He put down the book and immediately ordered: "Take him in!"

Soon the personal soldiers brought two messengers in. The two were Li Fanyun's subordinates and rushed to Longyou with emergency information. However, the matter was of great importance. Hu Yong, He Lou Wuji and others from Longyou did not dare to make decisions, and told them that the governor was on his way back, so they decided to go to the Western Regions to report the news. Unexpectedly, they encountered a blizzard on the way and were lucky. They encountered the governor's army in Zhangye.

The two went forward and half knelt down to salute, reporting that "Yang Luo and Li Xiaoren are both subordinates of the Internal Affairs Department, and meet with the governor."

Zhang Huan waved his hand and said, "You have worked hard all the way, stand up and talk!"

"Thank you Governor!"

The two stood up, and one of them took out a thick letter and handed it to Zhang Huan and said, "This is Li Sizheng's urgent matter, and my subordinates dare not delay it."

A personal soldier took the letter and handed it to Zhang Huan. He shook the letter open and read it quickly. The letter was written by Li Fanyun, mainly talking about three things. One is that the Zongzheng Temple Minister Li Qi built a side palace of Prince Yu in the ancestral temple despite Cui Xiaofu's opposition, which aroused great response in Chang'an. The other is that Wei Deqing of Chenliu snatched Cui Qinggong's concubine, which once again triggered a conflict between the two, and the war was about to begin; and the third thing is that the Uighur Zhongzhen Khan successfully restored the throne, killed the Great Khan established by Tuoba Qianli, and defeated Tuoba Qianli. Tuoba Qianli led the remaining troops to flee east. Zhongzhen Khan sent an envoy to thank the Tang court, and officially recognized Anxi and Beiting to the Tang Dynasty as his letter, and at the same time asked to marry the Princess of the Tang Dynasty.

Although it was just a urgent matter, Li Fanyun still wrote all the details she knew very clearly, and wrote six or seven pages. Zhang Huan slowly put down the letter and asked them again: "Ha Yong and He Lou Wuji have read this letter?"

"Reporting to the governor, his subordinates gave the letter to his wife. The wife immediately summoned the two of them to discuss countermeasures. They both said that the matter was of great importance and they had to wait for the governor to come back to decide, so his subordinates decided to come west to report to the governor."

Zhang Huan nodded, then ordered his personal soldiers to say, "Take two of them down and have a good rest!"

The personal soldiers took the two messengers down, and Zhang Huan picked up the letter and read it carefully. He couldn't help but fall into deep thought. Three things were established, and he had already known about the Prince of Yu in advance from Pei Mingyuan, and he was not surprised. The Uighur Incident was just his own operation, and he even sent a 500-man special service camp to help the loyal Khan seize the throne. This was also expected by him, but he was very interested in the battle between Cui and Wei.

Li Fanyun said clearly in the letter that Wei Deqing and the soldiers shared the joys and sorrows, eating coarse grains and sleeping on straw mats, never approaching women. Cui Qinggong's concubine was a famous prostitute from Chang'an. She went south to Xingyang and did not reach Wei Deqing's territory. However, Wei Deqing specially sent someone to Xingyang to rob her and publicly announced that she had it for herself. This was obviously intended to anger Cui Qinggong, and he wanted Cui Qinggong to provoke the battle first.

Zhang Huan walked slowly in the room with his hands behind his back. Wei Deqing's political methods were obviously better than Cui Qinggong. He asked Cui Qinggong to provoke a battle and thus bear the reputation of civil strife. However, Zhang Huan thought that things might not be that simple. He won one after another in Anxi, and his strength and fame reached a new level. But at this time, Li Qi created the ancestral temple incident again. How could Cui Xiaofu not be sensitive? As the weakest party, if he wants to compete with him, he can only establish strong strength as soon as possible.

So in the incident where Wei Deqing robbed Cui Qinggong's woman, if Cui Xiaofu was not mentioned, it would be absolutely impossible without the decision of the Wei family.

Poor Cui Qinggong, the idiot, wants to become a victim of Cui Xiaofu and Wei Yan joining forces to deal with him. Thinking of this, Zhang Huan immediately wrote two orders and ordered his personal soldiers to say, "Let Li Dingfang come to see me."

After a moment, Li Dingfang strode into the tent, bent his body and half-kneeled, "See the Governor!"

"I have a few things that you need to send someone to do!"

Zhang Huan handed him the first order: "I ordered Tan Mingqiu from Shu to send 50,000 troops to go south along the Yangtze River to support Xiangyang. At the same time, I ordered Li Panyu in Xiangyang to not act rashly without my order."

"Abide by the order!"

Zhang Huan handed him a second order: "I ordered Changsha Lin Jiuhan to lead his headquarters to Guangling quickly to assist Chu Xingshui in defending Huainan."

Li Dingfang took two orders and was about to leave when Zhang Huan suddenly called him again, "Wait a minute."

At this time, Zhang Huan suddenly remembered something, and he took out Li Fanyun's letter and looked for the sentence he had just seen. He found it, with only a dozen words: "Tuoba Qianli led his troops to escape east."

Tuoba Qianli has always been a poisonous arrow behind him. Since he escaped from his hands, whether he assisted Li Zhengyi in rebellion or attempted to seize the power of the Uighurs, his ultimate goal was to drink horses and go south, take the heads on his neck, and seize the beautiful country of the Tang Dynasty. Now he fled eastward. With his nature of not daring to be lonely, what kind of storm will he cause? Will he invade Shuofang again?

"There is another thing that is a bit difficult." Zhang Huan pondered for a moment and said, "You send a team of scouts who understand Turkic language to Mobei to find Tuoba Qianli's whereabouts, and monitor his whereabouts. After the matter is completed, I will have a great reward!"

"I obey the order!" Li Dingfang went down to make arrangements.

Zhang Huan's mood was slightly ups and downs. He came to the tent with his hands behind his back and stared at the wind and snow outside through the gap. The journey of Anxi for more than half a year has ended and he is about to return to the Tang Dynasty. So, where should he start his chess game?

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Three days later, the blizzard stopped again, and the sky began to reveal a long-lost blue color. The Hexi Corridor had completely become a world of ice and snow. The branches of jade trees were covered with snow and snow. Although the road was blocked with heavy snow and the road was difficult, Zhang Huan decided to continue to march eastward.

Half a month later, Zhang Huan's Western Expedition Army finally returned to his long-distance nest - Jincheng County, Longyou.

"The master is back! The master is back!" The butler rushed into the mansion. His voice became sharp with excitement. Zhang Huan's mansion was boiling. Pei Ying was surprised and ordered her family to set up a decorative light. She even took her children with her, Cui Ning, and Zhang Huan's mother. Nearly a hundred people from the family rushed to the street to greet her.

Not only Zhang Huan's family, but the entire Jincheng County was in full bloom. Tens of thousands of people rushed to the streets to welcome their soldiers to return. The entire Wuquan Street was in full bloom and the crowds were surging. At noon, 30,000 Western Army troops entered the city. The people's excitement reached the peak. Countless ribbons were thrown towards the heroes of the Western Expedition. Zhang Huan rode on his horse. More than a month ago, he was still in the war in Shule, but now he has returned to his hometown thousands of miles away. Everything has become unreal, as if he is dreaming.
To be continued...