A thousand-year-old family begins with one fighting against ten thousand.

Especially after Wei Qing's death, Emperor Wu of Han wanted to elevate Li Guangli to Wei Qing's position and promoted him at all costs.

Li Guangli was given many opportunities to make meritorious contributions, but he failed to seize them.

In the thirty-first year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign, the elderly Wei Fu "passed away," and Wei Zhong rushed back from the Western Regions to succeed him as Marquis of Yan and Grand Minister of Agriculture.

In the thirty-second year of Emperor Wu of Han, with Wei Zhong no longer suppressing the rebellion in the Western Regions, the various states began to harbor other ulterior motives.

After so many years of recuperation, Dayuan has gradually recovered its vitality.

After recovering its strength, Dayuan relied on the entire Western Regions to separate it from the Han Dynasty, with the Western Xiongnu also watching it covetously in the middle.

They also trained tens of thousands of elite cavalry, modeled after the Han army, greatly increasing their strength.

They even repelled several Xiongnu attacks.

I feel very good about myself.

They cut off the supply of fine horses to the Han Dynasty and demanded that the Han Dynasty exchange them for silk.

The Han Dynasty wouldn't tolerate him and was about to send troops to attack.

The generals in the court vied for the position, including members of the Wei family, but Emperor Wu of Han ultimately gave it to Li Guangli.

He sent Li Guangli with 2 elite cavalry to Dayuan, wanting Dayuan to know who his father was.

When the people of the Western Regions saw that the person who came was not a member of the Wei family, nor Wei Qing or Huo Qubing, but Li Guangli, whom they had never heard of before.

In addition, the Han army never attacked without a reason, so they all guarded their own homes and were unwilling to supply the Han army with food.

The Han army was short of supplies, so in order to obtain food, they had no choice but to launch a forced attack. However, Li Guangli had little experience in leading troops, and even when fighting these small countries, he suffered heavy losses.

They lost over 10,000 troops after only half of them had left.

With such great results from attacking these places, and only 1 soldiers lost, how could they possibly conquer Dayuan?

Li Guangli was having second thoughts, and the people around him didn't want to die like that, so they discussed returning with him.

Li Guangli then wrote to Emperor Wu of Han, saying, "Because of the long journey and lack of food, the soldiers often go hungry and are unable to conquer Dayuan. I hope to return to the Han Dynasty, bring more troops and provisions, and then go to the Western Regions to attack Dayuan."

When the news reached Chang'an, Emperor Wu of Han was furious.

Retreat without a fight!

We couldn't even get to the destination!

Is Li Guangli trash?!

That's a full 20,000 elite cavalry. If Wei Zhong had 2,000 elite cavalry, he could have conquered the entire Western Regions.

Emperor Wu of Han directly dispatched Wei Qi to Yumen Pass, forbidding any troops from entering the pass.

Wei Qi was the son of Wei Lu. He was skilled in military tactics and was a rising general in the army.

Li Guangli was very scared, so he stationed himself in Dunhuang.

After Lady Li learned of this, she did everything she could to please Emperor Wu of Han and whispered in his ear.

She understood Emperor Wu of Han better than Empress Wei Zifu, and knew how to speak in the most effective way.

They directly linked Li Guangli's achievements to Emperor Wu of Han's ability to recognize talent.

Emperor Wu of Han's pride surged up. He felt that Li Guangli was the one he had chosen. If Li Guangli couldn't even conquer a small place like Dayuan, wouldn't that mean he lacked the ability to judge people?

No, no, absolutely not.

Emperor Wu of Han increased Li Guangli's army by 100,000 and conscripted a large number of laborers to transport grain for the army.

He also issued an edict ordering the countries of the Western Regions to provide provisions.

The Western Regions, intimidated by Emperor Wu of Han's prestige and the Han Dynasty's military strength, readily contributed their provisions.

Among them, the states of Luntai and others were unwilling, and Li Guangli, harboring resentment, sent troops to conquer them, destroying their kingdoms and their states.

The kingdoms of the Western Regions all felt that Li Guangli was not very capable, but he was quite ruthless.

This expedition went smoothly, and they reached the Kingdom of Dayuan.

Dayuan learned from the experience of the Han Dynasty and built high city walls to deal with the Xiongnu. This time, they used the high city walls to resist the attack of the Han army.

Li Guangli lacked the ability to rally his troops and was unable to utilize their full strength, resulting in the Han army's prolonged siege without success.

Ultimately, the problem arose within Dayuan. Some feared that if Li Guangli suffered another defeat, Emperor Wu of Han would send Wei Zhong, so they killed the king and sued for peace with the Han Dynasty.

Li Guangli felt that he had achieved his strategic goal, and continuing the fight would only result in greater losses of troops and be even more disadvantageous to him.

So they took ninety percent of the finest horses from Dayuan and withdrew their troops back to the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han could never understand why Huo Qubing, whom he had both trained, was so brave and capable. At the age of 16, he ventured deep into the desert, fought against thousands of enemies, and was ennobled for his military achievements.

Li Guangli led tens of thousands of troops to attack the weak Dayuan in the Western Regions, suffering heavy losses.

That doesn't make sense.

He learned military strategy from the Wei family back then. The descendants of Marquis Wu'an of the Wei family were all extraordinary. When he came to teach them, he produced one good person and one useless one.

On what grounds? Why?

Emperor Wu of Han couldn't understand it no matter what.

Could it be that the Wei family is hiding something? That's possible.

Should we first attack the Xiongnu to develop our strength? Wei Qing and Huo Qubing both rose to power by attacking the Xiongnu.

Emperor Wu of Han, still somewhat doubtful, sent Li Guangli to attack the Western Xiongnu, leading 50,000 elite cavalry.

If it were Wei Qing, he could use these 5 elite cavalry to contain the entire Western Xiongnu.

If it were Huo Qubing, he could lead these 5 elite cavalry across the heart of the Western Xiongnu territory.

If it were Wei Zhong and Wei Qi, they could have decisively defeated the Western Xiongnu.

If it were Li Guangli, the losses would be devastating.

Fortunately, Wei Qi was at Yumen Pass. Seeing the situation was bad, he led the garrison at Yumen Pass to charge straight over and rescued Li Guangli's troops who were fleeing in disarray.

Afterwards, Wei Qi directly took command of the army and set up an ambush. Taking advantage of the Western Xiongnu's arrogance, he defeated them in one fell swoop. The Western Xiongnu left behind the corpses of 20,000 cavalrymen before they withdrew from the encirclement.

This battle truly demonstrated Li Guangli's abilities to Emperor Wu of Han.

It seems he can't turn something rotten into something magical; he still needs to find someone with good potential to train him.

This time, Li Guangli suffered heavy losses and disgraced the Han Dynasty. He should have been severely punished, but because Lady Li continued to whisper in his ear, he was only stripped of his military post in the end.

In the thirty-fifth year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign, Lady Li passed away.

Out of affection for Lady Li, Emperor Wu of Han appointed Li Guangli as a court attendant.

We're preparing to send him down the path of politics.

In the thirty-sixth year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign, Crown Prince Liu Ju came of age, and Emperor Wu realized that he was getting old.

The crown prince has come of age and is qualified to succeed to the throne.

Emperor Wu of Han felt his power was being challenged and began to implement measures to check and balance his power.

Under strong pressure from Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Bo, the emperor's youngest son, became a student of Wei Lu, the Marquis of Wu'an.

Later, Emperor Wu of Han arranged for his spies in the line of Marquis Wu'an to incite the subordinate forces of the Wei family to support Liu Bo.

With such a powerful force, it was difficult to control. The Wei family also wanted to see which fools would disobey them and participate in the struggle for the crown prince, thus tacitly approving of Emperor Wu of Han's actions.

Li Guangli and Li Yannian were thus given important positions, and Jiang Chong and others entered the central government.

Many court officials were forced to choose sides, either becoming members of the Crown Prince's faction or the Fifth Prince's faction.

The factional strife within the court became extremely intense, even affecting the delivery of government orders and the stability of the country.

According to the Wei family's investigation, many places in the countryside have been affected.

In order to expand their power, they installed their cronies in large numbers, leading to widespread exploitation of the people.

This is something the Wei family cannot allow. You can fight among yourselves, but you cannot affect the people of the world!