Shangyuan Festival, Zhangjiachuan, Liangzhou.

Over the years, the Zhangjiachuan valley that was once a flat river has erected a solid cottage, the watchtower has everything, the horns of the two military forts are facing each other during the towering, and the forest path outside the valley has the hunter dressed as a man living in twos and threes. In addition to the large horse farms, there are also wooden houses and thick sheepskin tents in the valley.

This is Zhangjiachuan, which belongs to the Ma family in Liangzhou.

Ma Yu rode a brisk war horse with more than 100 horses and more than a dozen carts all the way to the mouth of the valley, waved to the watchtowers on both sides of the valley, and shouted: "The horse is back, open the door!" ”

After a while, the gate of the wooden village at the mouth of the valley opened, and the gate was closed again after the group entered the village.

The horse jumped off the horse's back, threw the reins to the reins behind him, rubbed his hands and blew on the side of his mouth, and a white mist rose up, which stood out in the white valley.

He was wearing a fur coat of armor, and every step in the snow made a squeaky sound, from Zhangjiachuan to Longguan, it can be regarded as a long journey, especially in the three or nine days of goose feather snow, it is not so easy to hurry.

Along the way, the horse played with a cold face and greeted the sturdy tribal men, today is the Shangyuan Festival, the men in the Qiang tribe are busy slaughtering sheep to prepare for the banquet at night, the children of the Han family are leading the pony and galloping around with a small scimitar, and the horse is a little sad. The children, who were supposed to be playing with lanterns in the tall and majestic city, were forced to take up their swords, all in vain for the coming war.

A **-year-old child fell into the snow, and the snow over his calf buried the child directly in it, and the child who poked out his head grinned and smirked, ignoring the face that had turned purple from the cold. Ma Yu took off his fur jacket and draped it on the child, and he shivered coldly under the biting wind, and did not talk to the child, but walked towards the big tent with the sound of gold and stone with one foot deep and one foot shallow, leaving two lines of footprints on the snow.

Children don't know what kind of times are waiting for them to grow up in the future, but how can they, the adults, be indifferent?

Lifting the thick fur curtain, Ma Yu leaned into the big tent, and the cold wind blew Cheng Yin, who was sitting not far away with a big beard, shrank his neck suddenly, pointed to the door and shouted: "Horse monkey come in, freeze me to death!" ”

Ma Yu dodged into the tent, felt the warmth in the tent, rubbed his face with stiff fingers, and sat by the fire and rubbed his body for a while before he eased up. Ma Teng walked over and patted him on the shoulder and asked, "How is it over there in Longguan?" ”

"It's not a good year, Ah Ruo's side is not as good as us. I'm afraid that the Han army won't last long, and the supplies of the imperial court can't keep up, so I pulled back more than a dozen truckloads of torn jackets from Longxian, and I could barely let our people survive the winter when I got to Wubao, but there was nothing to eat over there in Longguan. ”

Ma Play went to Longguan more than ten days ago, and they were not having a good time this year, there were too many people in Zhangjiachuan, and all the utensils could not keep up.

"There's nothing to eat, what about weapons and armor, are there?" Now the entire Zhangjiachuan affairs are relying on a few of them to make ideas, and Ma Teng and others are very busy. "Dozens of cattle and sheep froze to death in the Chenghuzi tribe this day, and it is the same in Chengyi, there are more and more people, what is the situation in Longxian?"

"Huh......" Ma Yu let out a long breath, shook his head and said: "No, the weapons of the Han army are not enough for themselves, and it took ten golden cakes to exchange for two carts of scrapped iron knives they used." ”

"Wasted? How wasted, can you cut it? Cheng Yi sat cross-legged on the ground and asked, "Just cut the rags and meat, don't be so sharp." ”

"No, it's all broken, or it's broken, and you're willing to sell it to me secretly." Ma Yu gestured and said: "I think we have melted a hundred and ten weapons, and made some molds by ourselves to make all the spearheads, which should be able to make three or four hundred spearheads, let's cut down trees and connect them, and we can tie them." ”

Ma Zong patted his thigh and said, "That's right! Monkey, you're right, go back and pick and choose to melt all our long knives and big swords, and replace them with spearheads, and the weapons are almost there! ”

Ma Teng patted Ma Zong next to him and scolded with a smile: "Don't, the spearhead we made ourselves is not strong, and the wooden pole is not durable, so we can't count on this." ”

"Really, Ghost Feng is too stingy, the monkey ran to Longguan and he sent away such a little bit of broken copper and iron, eh, monkey, you don't talk about him, didn't you two cut off your head and change your life when you were a child?"

The bald Li Chen was talking cool on the side, and Ma Yu squinted his eyes and glanced at him without speaking. Ma Teng waved his hand at Li Chen and said, "Don't blame Ghost Feng, these years have not been easy, and there must be their own difficulties." ”

Turning his head, Ma Teng said to Yang Qiu: "Brother, you go and let the brothers work harder, and follow the craftsmen to melt the weapons brought by the monkeys." When the time comes, we will divide our own weapons. ”

Li Chen stood up from the hoop when he heard this, and said as he walked towards Ma Teng: "Eh, I said Shoucheng, my thousand four hundred sons came over with money, but they made a big effort, and these broken spearheads will be distributed to me." ”

"That's not going to work!" Ma Zong hugged Li Chen aside as soon as he stopped him, they had a similar temperament, they were a little muddy, just some intimate actions, but when it came to the ownership of the spearhead, Ma Zong said: "My hundreds of brothers are empty-handed!" ”

Cheng Yi Cheng Yin is the same, he stood up and surrounded Ma Teng, hundreds of spearheads mean that they can arm some more brothers, they all moved to Zhangjiachuan with their own people to defend themselves, but no one has much armor on hand, these things are treasures in their hearts.

Ma Teng rubbed his forehead and pushed everyone away, and said, "Don't worry, when the time comes, it will be divided according to the manpower, don't worry!" ”

Today's Zhangjiachuan is chaotic, there are more than 700 soldiers with Ma Teng, and there are 1,600 people with Ma Wan, all of whom are soldiers of Hanyang County, with complete armor, stationed in Zhangjiachuan to undertake the military affairs of patrolling Hanyang County. The rest of the people are different, Ma Zong has five or six hundred ranger swordsmen under his hands, and they are all wild soldiers who are used to it. Cheng Yi and Cheng Yin each had a tribe and moved to Zhangjiachuan. Under Li Chen's hands was a group of bandits and robbers across the desert, Ma Teng, who came to defect with people and treasures at the beginning of the war, and there were more than 1,000 people.

The huge Zhangjiachuan, a horse and Pingchuan were squeezed by these people, and there were more than 10,000 people in the family tribe, but the sword and spear were only armed with a maximum of 3,000 people, and this was still a situation where each person only had one weapon.

They had herds of sheep and cattle and horses, and the sheep and cattle were about to give birth, and no one was willing to kill them, and there was still not enough food to eat. There are enough people but there are not enough weapons, and there is no place to buy winter clothes for the cold, they have too much money, but being rich is a bullshit, no one will be willing to sell weapons to them, these days, swords, swords, halberds, axes, hooks and forks are all life-saving things, not only do they want to buy, they all want to buy it!

This year's Shangyuan Festival, they didn't have a good time.

Before he had time to sigh at the disadvantage of the passing year, the candidate took a big step and opened the tent and said, "Brother, Han Sui is here!" ”