After Guo Si was awarded the title of the head, Ma Chao stayed in Xihai County for another half a month to search for deserters and rectify the local people and appease the people in the local situation.

After all, on the day of the decisive battle, there were too many scattered soldiers in Guo Si's army, and these people were all dead soldiers. If Ma Chao's army retreated to Jiuquan or even Wuwei, the deserters would flee from the desert to the beach of Juyan, killing people and robbing goods to harm the place, Ma Chao would be out of his way to deal with it.

So the best way is not to rush to leave. Every day, cavalry teams are assigned to patrol and search around Juyanhai for more than ten days. Make sure that the fierce deserters have eaten up all the food and drink the fresh water they carry with them. They have to go back to the lake to replenish supplies, otherwise they will die of thirst in the Gobi desert.

This move worked. Later, two or three thousand fleeing elite cavalry were captured one after another, and all of them were imprisoned as prisoners of war.

In addition, after the final battle, Ma Chao asked Wang Ping to clean the battlefield, carefully count the corpses, count all the heads and pile them into Jingguan, and cover the soil outside.

The corpse was originally wanted to burn, but the vegetation on the beach in Juyan is very scarce in winter. The dry grass and branches are used as fuel for heating during the winter. There are not so many grasses and trees in the desert for you to waste. You can only spend more manpower. After digging holes in the frozen soil for several days, I just treat it as fertilizer for the forage grass next year.

Finally, the number of prisoners of war captured alive is similar to the deserters captured by patrols, plus the number of merit-calculating heads, which is similar to the elite cavalry on Guo Si's books. The difference in the missing error is less than 1,000 people, so Ma Chao felt that he could almost withdraw his troops.

At the same time, after he defeated, he sent an envoy back to Jiuquan County to report the news of victory to Li Su, and also sent Guo Si's head to the ground.

Li Jue received news around late September that in early October, he sent some grassroots officials selected from Jiuquan to take office in Haixi County to coordinate the affairs of these indigenous tribes on Juyan Beach, which was a re-establishment of loose government rule.

On the sixth day of the October 10th, as the climate continues to cool down, the snow has stopped falling long ago - there is not so much water in the northwest, otherwise it will not have desertified. The surrounding area of ​​Juyanhai only falls at the first wave of cold waves every year, and then stops, and does not melt throughout the winter.

Ma Chao did not want the troops to lose too much in the increasingly cold environment and to lose non-combat troops. So he took his cavalry unit to escort all the prisoners of Xiliang, seized war horses, and returned south along the frozen water. He walked lightly all the way for five or six days, and returned to Jiuquan on October 12th.

Even Ma Chao did not bring back most of the caravans, because two-thirds of the caravans were used up, and it took too much animal power to drive the empty car back in winter and it was too slow to delay time. Ma Chao only brought a full car with grain and grass, so that the horses could have more than a dozen horses to pull a car, and could also take turns to rest and transfer.

In addition, in order to prevent the prisoners from escaping, Ma Chao was huddled to transport the prisoners in chariots. The prisoners were not allowed to ride alone, and there were no weapons in the prisoners' chariots. The Han cavalry all distributed weapons at any time. When they saw someone jumping off the chariot and trying to escape, they would stab him to death. In fact, they would not run far without killing them, because there was only one road on both sides of the Ruoshui River. After escaping east and west for dozens of miles, they were completely in a desert, and they were all dead.

Fortunately, the remaining caravans remain in Xihai County and are guarded by local new officials, so there will be no losses. After the spring next year, the weak water flow is enough to restore navigation. It is okay to bring some goods back to Jiuquan. In the future, it can also be used as the infrastructure for trade exchanges between Jiuquan and Zhangye in the Xihai County area.

...

Ma Chao, who returned to Jiuquan, was of course warmly welcomed by Li Su. Li Su was not in a hurry to send a memorial to Chang'an and Luoyang for fame and merit. He just wanted to wait for Ma Chao to come back and ask for it clearly, allocate all the credits and submit it again.

Li Su personally took Dian Wei and the guards to the city gate to place thousands of jars of wine to celebrate the wine:

"Thank you for your hard work, and you have been chasing Guo Si by Juyan Beach for thousands of miles. There is already a trend of famous generals from ancient times. Come on, the generals first drink three bowls of wine. Although this wine is a bitter and cold place, food and grass are scarce, and strong wine is even hard to find.

However, for today's victory, I sent people to Zhangye before receiving the news. Dunhuang will collect wine at high prices and transport it back in a caravan. In this western part of Liangzhou, the winter brews in the Central Plains are more expensive than those in the Western Regions. Let's follow the customs and drink wines."

Ma Chao, Wang Ping, Pang De and others were all flattered and dismounted and connected to the wine. Ma Chao took the wine from Li Su's hand, while Wang Ping and Pang De could only take it from Xu Shu, after all, their level was lower.

While drinking, Ma Chao also sighed: "Although I don't read much, I have lived in Xiliang for a long time and have a good understanding of the epics passed down by local old people. The name of Jiuquan County is like Juyanhai, and the first arrival of General Huo Qubing, the cavalry general.

Huo Biqi was in Yanzhe Queen. When celebrating the merits, it was already very difficult to replenish military supplies. The fine wine he brought when he sent troops from Chang'an was left with only a few jars of fine wine, which was not enough to celebrate the merits of the soldiers. Here, the snow seeped springs from the Qilian Mountains in the south, and finally flowed into weak water.

Huo Piqi poured the remaining wine into the springs of the melting snow in the Qilian Mountains, and the soldiers drank water and drank it, which was considered a celebration of the achievements, and the wine spring was named after it. Today, we killed Guo Si, and each of us could drink three bowls of grape wine, which was much better than Huo Piqi.

The right general is good at governing the army and rectifying the logistics and military needs. The famous generals of ancient times cannot compare with it. This time I thought about it. In the end, killing the enemy is just a handful of things. The key is to manage military needs, which made Guo Si not expect that our army can attack such a surprise, and can use so many troops thousands of miles away, otherwise where would there be an opportunity."

Li Su: "Hey, you don't have to be polite, the court has its own opinions. This time, I am going to ask the king to represent you as General Anxi. After all, you are still young, and Your Majesty also needs to weigh the princes of all sides. Yide is just a general of Siping, and Zilong is also a general of Si'an. You can catch up with Zilong."

Killing a Guo Si is indeed not a super credit, because Pingliang did not settle by killing a Guo Si. Last year, Zhang Fei was promoted to General Pingxi and also relied on carrying out the siege of Chang'an City, killing Li Jue in Weiyang Palace. Ma Chao's credit was at least one level lower than Zhang Fei.

Even compared with Zhao Yun, Ma Chao's qualifications and actual positions are much smaller. He can only take the rank of general and carry out combat missions under the direct jurisdiction of others, and cannot directly grant the defensive envoy of a state like Zhao Yun. This is also the possibility of separatist from the root. After all, Ma Chao's loyalty test is still too low.

Liu Bei's camp made many contributions to pacifying the four barbarians. At that time, Zhang Ju and Zhang Chun were the emperor and generals. He pacified Liaodong and destroyed the rebellious Wuhuan Xianbei. It was also a great contribution to expanding the border. At that time, the generals did not rise much.

This is also related to Liu Bei's ruling style. When Li Jue and Guo Si held the emperor hostage, they all frantically awarded officials to those who joined forces with them, resulting in a huge devaluation of their official positions. Ma Teng was awarded the General of the Western Expedition at that time, which was two levels higher than his son's current title.

He shamelessly used Wang Wei's goods directly, and it was very appropriate. Compared with the battle today, Dou Xian and Ban Gu's "Feng Yanran Mountain Inscription" a hundred years ago.

During the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Dou Xian made a northern expedition, but after arriving at the Juyan Sea, he continued to chase two thousand miles northwest and crossed the desert. It was equivalent to chasing from the border between Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia (Juyan Sea) in later generations to the border between Outer Mongolia and Russia, which was more than Li Su and Ma Chao's expedition today.

The generals didn't know how to cheer, but they just slapped their thighs and screamed. However, Xu Shu, who was joining the army, had a little bit of culture, and Cai Yan, who was wearing a hat and curtain to attend the banquet, was suddenly filled with a heroic spirit.

Xu Shu couldn't help but boast: "The right general is so generous and too arrogant than the patriarch, and the Grand Historian. This Yuefu is grand and has a long recollection. I just heard the general's answer and casually sing the words "the general is not a marquis' after a hundred battles." I thought it was a masterpiece, but I didn't expect it to be strange."

Li Su was indeed a little drunk, and didn't care about showing off his feet. Yi Xing turned his enclave to the enclave: "What's this? Come again! The glass of grape wine, the luminous pipa, and the urpa is urging immediately. Don't laugh at me when you are drunk on the battlefield. How many people have returned from wars in ancient times?”

As he sang, he also took a handful of pipa placed next to him, which was also delivered by the wine-selling Hu merchants in Shanshan, and he tinkered with him for a few tricks.

He originally wanted to play some guitar show-off clips of "California Hotel" that he learned in college in his previous life (in fact, he only knew a few paragraphs in his previous life. He was not a music lover, but only learned to deceive girls). Unfortunately, the guitar and pipa were very different from that. He was not a master who adapted to the changes, so he was completely out of tune and could only hum the tune in his mouth, almost making a fool of himself.

Fortunately, he had drunk too much, so he immediately said that he was "unable to drink and trembled his hands" and pretended to be asleep and was evasive.

It was the maid who helped him down, and Cai Yan was thinking about something beside him, recalling the tone of the words his husband had just hummed casually, and felt that it was indeed very refreshing and open-minded, so he listened to the sound and distinguished the score and directly reversed the technique of how to play.

While Li Su was pretending to be dizzy, she heard someone playing the pipa with a specious tone of "California Hotel", and she was shocked and almost woke up from the wine.

"Forget it, no matter how arrogant you are in this life, you can only make a guest appearance as a copywriter when the situation is right. As for copying songs, you must not be proud of yourself and think that you are doing it again. Having such a wife around you is too easy to get out of it. Listening to an inaccurate version, you can pop it up yourself. What a pervert."

Fortunately, the singing part of "California Hotel" is actually very simple, with a few 234 sounds loops, and the real show of skills is the prelude and the ending.

At the last moment before Li Su was carried away, he heard a strange scene: Cai Yan was trying to use those simple songs that repeated repetitions to sing "Grape wine luminous cup...Don't laugh if you lie drunk on the battlefield..."
Chapter completed!