Xiyaoguan, a place where chickens crow and smell the Three Kingdoms.

The Three Realms of the Eastern Liang Kingdom and the Three Kingdoms of Baisha and Huangshui intersect here.

At the easternmost end of Xiyao Pass, there are garrisons at the border pass of the Dongliang Kingdom, an army of 3,000 men and horses.

"General Chen, are you looking for me?" At the beginning of twilight, an old man with a vegetable face walked into the big tent with heavy steps.

The tent has been lit with lights, under the oil lamp, a slightly fat, armor-clad man stood in front of the topographic map of the Three Realms and hesitated, hearing this, he immediately turned around, "Liu Daniu, I've been hungry for two days and two nights, do you have anything to eat, you can get some food, I really don't have the strength to stand, the brothers are so hungry that they can't hold the knife, tonight the enemy army is going to attack again, how can we do it? Do you want to hide the surplus grain and store it in the coffin?"

The older man named Liu Da Niu showed a painful look in his eyes, and smiled bitterly: "General Chen, I know that you are hungry, and my brothers are hungry, but I really have no food in stock, and every grain is gone—even in the rat hole, we have dug and cleaned, and the batter soup the morning before was burned with that bit of grain—although there are wild vegetables in the nearby mountains that can be dug to satisfy hunger, but the enemy army is tightly guarded, and the passage is controlled, and we can't get out——"

The muscles on General Chen's face twitched, and he looked at his battalion commander with pitiful eyes, "Please, you can't think of a way anymore? Tonight may be another fierce battle, we can't let the soldiers eat a full meal before they die, and if they die, they will starve to death-"

Liu Daniu looked at the general in front of him, the highest general in the army, and he suddenly made up his mind, "General Chen, I know that since the confrontation with Huangshui and Baisha these days, we have worked hard and never retreated, and I also know that if we take a step back, what we will lose is not the border in the northwest of Dongliang Kingdom, but may be the fall of a large area of land, the life and death of hundreds of people, so we can't retreat! You can rest assured, I will go back and find a way———— that is, I will cook my Liu Daniu in an oil pot for the brothers to eat, and I will never complain!" After speaking, he no longer hesitated, and walked out of the tent with heavy steps and left.

"It's difficult—" General Chen turned around, and the light of the oil lamp reflected on his face, showing that his face was full of sorrow, and even a pair of eyes that were deeply sunken in the sockets of the eyes were full of torment and sorrow. "Brother, I know it's hard for you! It's hard for a good woman to cook five meters, seeing that the whole army is in this situation of running out of ammunition and food, even if your old brother can live a careful life on weekdays, he can't conjure up grain and grass out of thin air——"

But hunger was so great that it spread like a plague among the armies, and every barracks was dead, and the brethren lay on the ground breathing hard, and in order to ward off hunger they had to drink a lot of water, but their bellies were so swollen that they could hear the sound of gurgling water throughout the barracks, and it was their hungry bellies.

Liu Daniu walked back to the room with difficulty.

A young man came over and said, "Master, what are you going to do?"

"Kill the horse—boil the horse broth—" Liu Daniu said, rolling up his sleeves.

The young man was surprised: "All the horses in our army have been killed and eaten up—now only General Chen's horse is left, it is the horse that saved General Chen's life before the army, and besides, it is already skinny, do you really want to kill it?"

"What the hell! Go, quietly bring the horse over, don't let anyone know, and if anyone asks, say I'm going to give the horse water." ”

The young man went slowly.

Liu Daniu began to sharpen his knife.

The broadsword rattled on the stone.

A horse soon arrived. The horse is thin and long, and it is so thin that it walks and sways three times.

"Go ahead—the soup will be served in an hour—remember, the first bowl is served to the general—and the army behind it will be divided and drunk, and everyone will take a big sip, and I will boil bone broth in these cauldrons, and you must make sure that everyone has a share. ”

The young man was so hungry that he had no strength to continue watching him kill the horse, and he couldn't bear to watch the old horse die, so he really went back to rest.

Time flows in the dark.

The young man also forgot how long he had been unconscious, and when a night wind blew, he awoke, and a spirit rose up, and seemed to smell the fragrance between his noses.

He staggered to the room.

When I lit the torches, I saw that on the row of earthen stoves in front of me, several large cauldrons were full of soup, and the firewood in the stove was still the last of the fire, and the fragrance was all over the house.

Master really killed the horse and burned so much soup!

"Soup—" he scooped out a bowl and headed it to the tent.

General Chen took the soup and drank it, but after only half a sip, he suddenly stopped, "Have you drunk it? Where did you get the soup?

The young man hesitated, "I didn't see him—he said he killed horses and boiled soup, and told me not to participate, so I rested for a while—"

"The soup made by the skinny horse? No, why don't I feel like horse meat?" General Chen frowned and said slowly, sniffing the empty bowl in front of his nose, and suddenly his hand was weak and he threw the bowl, and rushed out of the door: "It's not good—"'

The young man stumbled and ran after General Chen.

When I entered the room, I saw more than a dozen large cauldrons full of soup, steaming hot.

General Chen scooped up a large wooden spoon and fished it out of the pot, the first pot scooped up a horse bone, and the second pot was half a horse's head...... In the fourth pot, the spoon brought up a strand of gray hair, and the hair dragged out, and below it was a human head.

Even if the fire was boiling and the human head had been deformed, the young man could see at a glance that it was his chef Liu Daniu.

"He has boiled himself into soup!" exclaimed the young man, and at the same time his body slipped limply, and he collapsed on the ground, and muttered, "No wonder he insisted that I leave—and said that he would serve everyone in an hour—that he was too thin, so he boiled himself into broth, to save the lives of his brothers—" He began to weep mournfully like a woman.

What a tragic scene for a big living man to boil himself and a horse's flesh and bones into soup!

General Chen was petrified in an instant.

He stupidly looked at every pot, these iron pots that accompanied the soldiers on the border, boiled food day by day, fed the appetite of the army, and provided them with physical strength to resist the enemy's attack.

Since the enemy besieged and the defenders ran out of food, the soldiers of Xiyaoguan have not eaten for two nights and two days, and these pots have been empty for two days and two nights, and then they are full again, churning with fragrant broth, but this broth is boiled by the flesh and blood of the old man!

"He never knew how to take an extra bite, even if he was cooking at the mouth of the pot every day, he didn't want to take advantage of an extra bite - when he took out that bit of food from the rat hole to boil the batter, we each ate a bowl of soup, but he didn't eat it, he saved it for me to drink, saying that I was growing and couldn't lose my bones, but he kept drinking cold water secretly behind our backs......" The young man cried and recounted.

"Get up—" General Chen suddenly spoke, his voice was as cold as iron, and the young man who was crying like a woman was suddenly frightened, slowly stood up, and looked at General Chen in surprise.

"Tell the whole army, start the meal-" With a hoarse command, General Chen scooped up the spoon and personally scooped it from the pot.

The young man was stunned for a moment, but then he understood, and while wiping away a lot of tears, he ran out to give orders.

The signal for the meal quickly spread throughout the army.

The three thousand hungry soldiers suddenly boiled, got up one by one and ran to the camp.

No matter where the food comes from, as long as there is something to eat, as long as it can save lives!

General Chen took the spoon in his own hand, scooped up the fragrant soup with a large spoon, and poured it into a large bowl one by one.

"Wow, broth, it's so delicious!"

"It's been a long time since I've seen oil and water, and I'm going to open a lot of meat today!"

……

With the exclamation, the sound of sucking and drinking soup rang out.

Although it's just a very clear bowl of clear soup, there are oil flowers floating in it, which is already a big surprise-

Only the young man couldn't drink a sip, and tears fell like droplets. How did he know that although General Chen was expressionless and took the spoon with his own hands to divide the soup, in fact, when he lowered his head to scoop the soup, the tears also fell into the soup pot.

In the middle of the night, the strong wind was shining, and there was a faint horse's hoof outside the camp tent.

After an instant, the positions of the two sides were lit up, and the combined forces of Huangshui and Xisha attacked the defenders of Dongliang State at night again.

"It's evil-" General Chen, who didn't take off his armor at night, drove out of the gate with a long knife in his hand, "Is this barren water west sand thief crazy, these days I sleep a lot during the day, and I come to harass me every night, so that Lao Tzu can't sleep! Brothers, line up to fight——"

After drinking a bowl of broth, the soldiers of the Dongliang Kingdom, who had barely accumulated a little strength, gathered together.

"Brothers—" General Chen stood under the night lamp hanging high, his face as solemn as iron, "the time has come for life and death, everyone knows, we have long been starved for two days and two nights, you are hungry and struggling to support, in order not to let you go into battle hungry again, Liu Da Niu of our camp, he boiled himself and a horse into soup, and now his flesh and bones have been packed into everyone's stomachs, we have his blood, his flesh, his spirit, all his hopes- Therefore, this night, we only have to fight to the death to find a way out, if each of us can't kill three or five enemy soldiers in vain, it will be too cowardly, I am too sorry for Liu Daniu!"

There was a dead silence.

Someone tried to vomit, but the broth had already slipped into the hungry intestines, and where could it be vomited.

Someone sobbed loudly.

"I also found out afterwards, Liu Daniu, this ordinary soldier of Dongliang Kingdom, an ordinary veteran who can only burn fire and cook all day long, in order to protect his family and defend the country and protect the territory of Dongliang Kingdom, he gave up his net worth and life like this, brothers, what else can we not get out of? Tonight, no matter what, it is a death, we might as well fight vigorously, even if we stand and shed the last drop of blood, we can't be the knife of the barren water and the white sand thieves,!"

"Stand and die, don't fall, don't yield, don't run, don't run—" With a shout, Qi Shu's Dongliang battle knife was raised, flashing a cold light under the night sky.

A life-and-death battle is staged again.