Han Zuo Gaomen

Chapter 1418 Xiangguo is in sight
In the wilderness, the sound of horseshoes is anxious and chaotic. In this freezing winter day with withered vegetation, even a faint breath of life can be heard over an extremely long distance.

The knights on the horse all had haggard faces and disheveled robes. In order to avoid the turbulent cold wind, they almost buried their heads in the flying mane. Worn felt cloth.

They did not know how long they had been fleeing in the wilderness. At the same time, they were also confused about the future, and they did not know where to flee.

This is a group of knights from the Jie Kingdom. Even more than ten days ago, their situation was not like this.They tend to avoid the main force of the Jin army in the southern country, haunt the various logistics lines of the Jin army, and constantly harass and plunder the Jin army's logistics and supply teams. All kinds of military activities of the military bring repression.

Although their overall strength is far inferior to that of the Jin army, they are not burdened by the city. They wander around along the situation where the Jin army spreads on the land of Hebei, and they can always gain something.Although the Jin army also has a strong ranger force to defend the logistics route, how can it be possible to cover everything in a huge network that is thousands of miles long and covers counties, counties and villages?

These Jie soldiers were broken up into pieces, often tens or hundreds of people formed a small team, and they did not provoke those big city nodes that were clearly guarded by heavy troops, but only focused on some small remote camps.

Especially in the countryside between Yangping and Weijun, since the Jin army has begun to organize people to return to farming, these livelihood strongholds often store a certain amount of grain and supplies, but there are not enough troops to defend them, so they It is the best target for them to strike, and they will flee away immediately after they succeed. Even if the rangers of the Jin army came after hearing the news, they would have already fled far away.

Of course, the small-scale battles in these areas have no evidence of military exploits at all, and the intention of these soldiers is not here. They just need to seize the supplies for their own survival.

Although activities in the occupied area of ​​​​the Jin army are inevitably dangerous, in the eyes of these Jie soldiers, life is much more willful than before.At the very least, all the gains in battle are accepted by oneself, and there is no commander to exploit the master.

As for the longer-term future, probably even the masters of Xindu don't know what the future holds. Why should these ordinary fools bother about it? It's already earned for them to be able to eat for a day.

But such days did not last long, and the Jin army suddenly stepped up the killing and purge of the wandering Jie soldiers in the territory.Naturally, these Jie soldiers did not know that the Shangbai Jie Army, which had attracted a considerable part of the Jin army's energy before, had been destroyed, but the number of Jin army patrolling in the countryside had increased several times, which made them feel deeply.

In the special realm, several large-scale rangers of the Jie army were mopped up and killed, and even their previous general Zhu Bao was tracked up by the cavalry of the Jin army a few days ago and killed, which made these Jie soldiers The Rangers were in constant panic.

Moreover, with the arrival of severe winter, the Jin army's material transportation has gradually decreased, and order in the countryside has gradually established, which further squeezed their room for survival.

There were originally hundreds of Jie soldiers fleeing the wilderness. They had not intercepted the supplies of the Jin army for many days. Even if they could still hunt and feed themselves, the horses could not be replenished in time, and their horsepower dropped severely.In such an environment surrounded by enemies, horsepower failure is tantamount to sitting and waiting to die.

Because even though they knew that the dangers in the countryside had increased several times, these people still had the courage to attack a remote village camp in order to survive.

But in the middle of their attack on the camp, the cavalry of the Jin army patrolling around had heard the news and started chasing them.The Jie soldiers were exhausted, and they did not dare to collide head-on with the cavalry of the Jin army. They fled all the way and were separated. I don't know how far they fled. Only these thirty or so people are left.

Suddenly, the sound of horseshoes came from far in front of the left, and these soldiers looked at each other, all of them looked very disheartened.Naturally, they didn't dare to hope that what was coming ahead was the friendly army of the Jie country, so they could only turn their horses around and continue fleeing in another direction.

However, not long after turning, there was another smoke and dust rising from the other direction.

"How many soldiers did these southern thieves send..."

The Jie soldiers wailed, and they didn't even have the strength to curse, so they could only gather up their strength and make another turn, this time they fled towards a hill in the distance. Although the countryside was empty, the Jin cavalry seemed to be everywhere, He could grit his teeth and persevere, but the state of the horse was already in a precarious condition. The horse's nose was emitting a large cloud of turbid air, and the horse's body was covered with hoarfrost from sweat condensation. It might die from exhaustion at any time.

Although I know that even if I flee into the mountains and hide temporarily, it will be the difference between early death and late death, but it is good to be able to steal a moment.

But even this poor wish turned out to be an extravagant wish. A war horse suddenly staggered during the run. After the knight felt it, his expression suddenly changed, and he lay on the horse's back and hugged the horse's neck tightly. Constantly rubbing the horse's belly, muttering words, as if cheering for the mount, and begging to the sky.

However, these were all in vain, the horse's legs had gradually stiffened, and it just rushed out more than ten feet according to inertia, and finally fell to the ground, twitching and shaking, gradually weakening, the knight rolled to the ground, struggling for a while It was difficult to get up, so I could only helplessly waved to my companions and shouted: "Help me, save..."

But at this moment, the people and horses were almost exhausted, so who would waste their horsepower to carry him on the road? Everyone just ignored the man's begging and continued to run forward.

The death of a war horse seemed to be a signal, and there was a sound of falling down one after another in the fleeing team. The soldiers who had not cared about the life and death of their comrades did not escape very far.

Soon, a team of Wang Shi wandered here and found the corpses of Jie soldiers and horses lined up in the field, and they couldn't help smiling, and the corpses were small.They galloped forward and looked at the tired soldiers who were paralyzed on the ground and unable to flee. If they found that the soldiers were not in good condition, they would cut off their heads with one knife, and if the soldiers were begging for mercy, they still had a little vitality. So he wrapped a drapey rope around his waist and neck, and dragged it in the wild to continue moving forward.

The whole process was smooth and smooth, and there was almost no resistance encountered.

Similar situations are not uncommon in the entire area occupied by Wang Shi, and they are frequently staged.Although the arrival of cold winter suppressed the military activities of Wang Shi to a certain extent, the suppression of these Jie soldiers was even greater, especially when the Shangbai Jie army was defeated in time, and enough cavalry was added to the middle battlefield, which made Wang Shi very difficult to recover. Territorial control was further strengthened.

It is Xie Yi who is responsible for clearing out the remnants of the Jie army in the wild. His cavalry has gradually increased to more than [-] in the past period of time. Starting from Ji County, relying on Wang Shi's logistics network to clear the territory, in a very short period of time Within a short period of time, they slaughtered and captured the Jie army and bandits in the territory, and resisted and ruled nearly ten thousand people armed with township tyrants.

Just at this time, the winter material reserves of the various troops on the front line of the Wang Division have also been initially completed, and there is a large surplus of troops used to maintain the logistics route.After initially completing the suppression work, Xie Yi led [-] main cavalry and arrived at Shahe, where the forward camp in the middle was located, as scheduled in early November.

The commander of Shahe was Xie Ai, the governor of Fangtou, and he was very happy with Xie Yi's arrival as scheduled. He personally left the Shahe camp to meet the reinforcements along the way, and led Xie Yi's troops into the camp that had been arranged.

"There is no need to be polite during the battle. Erlang is thirsty for battle. After a while, please ask the governor to arrange the battle immediately."

Although each of them has the position of governor, Xie Yi was mainly responsible for the safety of the logistics line before, and Xie Ai was the legitimate forward commander of the Eastern Route Army. All frontline troops, including the Fenwu Army, are under the control of Xie Ai alone.

The general's trust in Xie Ai is also enviable. In order to ensure that Xie Ai has enough authority to preside over the attack on Xiangguo, the schedule for inspecting the Shahe Camp was interrupted to prevent confusion among many people, and he took the initiative to avoid a seat. Withdraw three.

Of course, this is also because the rules and regulations of the three stations have been laid out, and Weizhou will be officially established this winter. A large number of administrative affairs, including personnel appointments, require the general to sit in person and communicate with Henan's Taiwan in a timely manner to ensure that Weizhou will be in Weizhou next spring. Military and civilian settlements were rolled out as scheduled.

Xie Ai held the military power on the front line alone, and he was even more grateful to the general in his heart, but he did not become arrogant because of this. After he introduced Xie Yi into the camp, he quickly described the current situation around Xiangguo.

Although Xiangguo was breached by the Fenwu Army last year and then abandoned by the Jie Lord, it does not mean that the old capital of Jie Country has become an undefended ruin, and the power it retains is still very strong.

First of all, Ma Qiu led the troops of Jie State in the old garrison of Ye. Ma Qiu still had a lot of military skills. Although he was forced to leave, he still brought back nearly 4 horses to Xiang State.

Among them, more than [-] elites were taken away by the Capricorn Lord Shihu to defend Xindu, but some of the original soldiers and civilians of Xiangguo were retained, and the total force remained at around [-].It can be seen that although Jiezhu moved his capital, he still did not completely abandon Xiangguo, and regarded it as a fortress to stop the progress of the Jin army's northern expedition.

"Ma Qiu lost his territory and was defeated. He has been stationed on the border for a long time. Because of his lack of prestige, he could not coordinate with the other armies. Like this, the Jie army who was entrenched in Shangbai before left from Xiangguo..."

The more critical the state is, the more intense the internal struggles will be. Just like China and North Korea, or like the Xiongnu and Han Kingdoms, the current Jie Kingdom is also unavoidable.Although Shi Hu ordered Ma Qiu to guard Xiangguo, he also arranged for the guard general Zhang Hedu to stay behind, dividing the military power of Xiangguo into two, and leaving his son Shi Kun to control the second army.

However, at this stage of the war, Master Shahe is mainly facing his old opponent Ma Qiu.

(End of this chapter)