"Lord Guogong, this person said that he is the senator of Fenzhou......" An officer and soldier walked in front of Li Mao with a yellow-faced official.

Li Mao asked, "But Lord Liu Peng?" ”

The man nodded feebly. "It's Xia Guan. I'm ashamed that the subordinate is too weak to salute the adults. ”

Li Mao was worried that he had nowhere to find someone to understand the situation, and when he saw that the right senator was still alive, he finally saved someone, and he felt so comforted. It's just that when he thinks that there are people outside surrounding the racecourse, the little comfort that just came to his heart is gone.

This horse farm is so easy to attack and difficult to defend, who chose the location back then!

"Why are you so weak? They tortured you? Li Mao saw that Liu Peng couldn't even stand, so he hurriedly asked him to sit down on the spot with him left and right.

"No, no one tortured me. It's just that there is not enough food and grass in the horse farm, so they haven't fed me for a few days. Seeing Li Mao's surprise, Liu Peng smiled bitterly and said: "My lord, look, there are so many horses and so many people here, how can it be enough to rely on the supply of the imperial court every six months?" War horses don't just eat grass! So someone must have come to deliver supplies and feed so many people......"

"Outside, Wang County's order has been around for so many days, and someone from above has come to report that there will be an imperial envoy to inspect, and these people don't dare to act rashly, so they have to endure it. As soon as the past ten or twenty days have passed, so many mouths have to eat, they originally came to deliver them once a month, but now they have reached the limit, I eat steamed buns here first, then rice, and then gruel, and now there is no porridge anymore......"

"With such a large ranch, doesn't it actually hoard grain and grass?"

Li Mao couldn't understand that if he wanted to rebel, he couldn't just have horses, how could he do it without soldiers and food? With so many horses, bean feed alone is a terrifying number, and they actually rely on outsiders to provide food and grass like this, and they are not afraid that they will not be able to connect once they can't ......

Yes, the person who delivered the grain and grass just wanted them to not be able to take it. Once you control the food and grass of so many people, you are equivalent to controlling so many people.

Therefore, the army outside is worried that these horses will starve to death because of the predicament of the Dao Horse Farm, so they want to control the horse farm and transfer the war horses?

If this is the case, then why did Mu Cheng poison the horse? Obviously, if they hold on a little longer, these people will be able to save them. When the time comes, he will be unable to fly even if he has wings.

Outside the racecourse, the sound of hitting the wooden fence became louder and louder, but fortunately, these people were all cavalry, and they were reluctant to hit the door with their horses, and they didn't bring the crashing wood. But that's it, the sound of the door bar being hit is like knocking on Li Mao's heart, popping.

Li Mao personally climbed the tower in the middle of the pasture to look out, and saw that all around him were cavalry.

Fortunately, the wooden fence of the horse farm was strong, and they used a lot of huge logs to resist the back of the door, and these cavalry could not rush in for a while.

Li Maogang breathed a sigh of relief, but found that someone had begun to tie a long rope to the horse, and then tied the other end to the two-person high wooden fence outside the racecourse, shouted "not good", and hurriedly ran out of the watchout tower.

These people want to use horses to pull the wooden fence next to the main entrance!

"Master Li, only a small number of horses have been poisoned, and many horses have not been poisoned, I am afraid that the traitors did not have time to poison all of them and put the poison in the water. The manger was empty, there was no fodder, many of the horses did not drink, and the water was later taken to fight the fire, and now eighty percent of the horses are still alive. ”

The subordinate officer in charge of counting the number of war horse losses hurriedly came to report, and the loss of these horses was not as big as he imagined, which finally made him breathe a sigh of relief. It's just that Li Mao's face was like ashes, and he didn't show joy when he heard that the war horse was not killed or injured.

"My lord, why don't you seem to be upset......

"The horse is alive, we're going to die." Li Rui listened to the movement outside, "If it doesn't work, before they rush in, we will burn this horse farm with a fire, and we can't leave the horses for them to rebel." ”

The subordinate officer was so frightened that he sat on the ground.

"What are you talking about, my lord, what are you going to die, what are you going to kill a horse? There are tens of thousands of horses here!

If a fire burns down, won't there be even no men and horses! If they have to burn down in the end, why do they have to work so hard to put out the fire!

On the other end, Liu Peng casually found something to eat, drank some water, and finally regained some strength. He personally interrogated those surrendered Ma Cao, and finally learned some clues.

It turned out that the herdsmen in this ranch sent people out to provide food and grass to those who provided them with food and grass several times, urging them to come to their aid, but they did not get a response. More than half a month has passed, and this Mu Cheng thought that the person behind the curtain had given up on this horse farm, so he was discouraged and couldn't fight at all.

Privately possessing war horses, and providing many war horses to the outside world over the years, they originally committed a capital crime. Now that the food is almost gone, they want to kill the horses for food, but the soldiers sent by the people behind the scenes forbade them to use them.

They were just horse breeders, not opponents of these elite soldiers, and seeing that they were going to starve to death sooner or later, they had a resentment towards these people and a hatred.

Later, Li Mao brought the officers and soldiers to the horse farm, they still did not wait for someone to come to the rescue, this Mu Cheng was angry and hateful, thinking that they were all scapegoats who were used as black pots to push out of the slur, so he simply did not do two things, and ordered all Ma Cao to poison the horses first, and then burn the horse farm in retaliation, and Mu Cheng also took many Ma Cao to poison himself and committed suicide.

Some Ma Cao were timid after all, and they didn't want to die with them, and when they saw that the soldiers in the racecourse even killed their own people, they were really scared, so they surrendered to Li Mao and his party.

It's just that Mu Cheng did a lot of calculations, but he didn't expect Li Mao to rush in so quickly, and the fire that was supposed to burn only burned in the back, and many of those horses didn't drink water.

How much poison would it take to poison tens of thousands of horses? Naturally, this shepherd did not have so much, so he could only melt into the water and poison it, but as a result, the vast majority of the horses survived.

Who is behind the scenes, and where the horse farm has always been connected, these horses have no idea. They only know how to raise horses, and every time there is an extra horse in the horse farm, they will get more money, and the more horses in the horse farm, the more and more money they have.

There are also those who are afraid and want to go out to report the news, and they are all killed by those soldiers. It is difficult for them to even get out of the country on weekdays, let alone resist.

Liu Peng was interrogating Ma Cao inside, and the cavalry outside was tying the other end of the rope to the wood.

Li Mao racked his brains and thought about how to let everyone escape their lives under these cavalrymen.

He wondered if he might just open the gate and drive all the horses out.

Didn't the Karma people say that? In order to seize the pasture, the people in the pasture often let their horses run, trample on the herdsmen's tents, and trample on the dead. There are at least 10,000 horses here, and if they want to rush to the camp, they will gallop out with these horses, and they may be able to escape.

These cavalrymen came from afar, and they were too sleepy to outrun them.

It's just that if these horses run outside, it will be difficult to drive them all back. And these cavalrymen are not stupid, it is impossible to watch them run like this. If they had been caught up in the horse again, or had been caught up in the middle of the road, it would have become a joke for him to come in such a hurry to deal with the affairs of the horse farm.

In the end, how to weigh it, whether to fight it or burn down the horse farm and end up together, Li Mao was also hesitant in his heart.

Perhaps the heavens were really sheltering him, and just as he was about to give the order to take out all the war horses and rush out of the city, a soldier in the watchtower suddenly shouted below:

"Lord Guogong, an army has come from the direction of Lingyuan County, about a thousand people, waving the banner of the Chinese army!"

Chinese army? Someone from the capital?

It's coming so fast! It's actually one step ahead of the soldiers from Liangzhou!

Are these people flying?

Li Mao was overjoyed, and went upstairs to look into the distance. The purple dragon flag of Da Chu really fluttered in front of that team, and there was a big "Zhong" character written in the middle of the dragon flag, which was hunting and flying in the wind.

It is indeed the Chinese army!

"Count all the officers and soldiers! Someone is here to help! Get ready to rush out of the gang to answer! "There are ready-made war horses here, and it is not difficult to rush out of the city on horseback. Even if you can't kill the enemy, it's better to be able to run a few times than to wait here for death!

The Chinese army from the direction of Lingyuan County was the team brought by Zhou Qing in the imperial history. They marched in a hurry for several days, and finally arrived in Lingyuan County, but when they came, Li Mao had already taken people to the racecourse first, this week Qing took the lead in bringing people into the city to understand the situation, Wang Zhiming explained all the current situation to the imperial envoy of this week, and begged Zhou Yushi to go to Fenzhou Racecourse to save people.

Zhou Yushi was afraid that Li Mao would make a mistake, so he didn't let the Chinese army enter the city, and together with the Lang General of the Chinese army, he commanded the soldiers and horses to turn around and march directly to the Fenzhou Horse Farm, so he arrived before these cavalry destroyed the wooden fence.

The cavalry team outside the horse farm also rushed in, and the cavalry generally had three rides per person, constantly changing horses in order to maintain speed. They set out in a hurry from the northern hideaways, each with only two horses, and now one pulled the bar, and the other was riding, and now it was too late to untie the ropes, so they had to abandon the horses, and they got on their horses and prepared for battle.

Although this Chinese army was also tired, it carried sufficient equipment, bows and arrows. They are different from the "Xiao Cavalry Battalion" led by Li Mao who is good at horse warfare, although everyone in this team can ride horses, but they are not cavalry fighting on horses, horses are only used to hurry, most of them are still infantry, but everyone can use bows and arrows and crossbow machines.

Half of the Chinese army fired at the opposing cavalry with bows and arrows, and half of them quickly assembled the crossbows they carried with them, preparing to use the crossbows of their pedals to suppress them.

This rebel army is from the Chu army, and the Chinese army is the elite of the elite of the Great Chu soldiers and horses, and they have begun to worry when they see the banner of the Chinese army, and then look at this Chinese army with a strong crossbow, and there are about a thousand officers and soldiers in the horse farm behind them, and they are not advantaged by attacking on both sides.

The leader had received an order to kill the officers and soldiers outside the racecourse, relieve the siege of the racecourse, and leave with the horses of the racecourse.

Who would have thought that when he arrived here, the horse farm had been occupied by officers and soldiers, the four doors of the horse farm were closed, and there was no internal response inside, and now the Chinese army was coming, where did he dare to trap his precious men and horses here.

The leader of this rebel army immediately closed his troops and gave the order to retreat. The cavalrymen did not even want their horses tied to the wooden fences, and immediately turned around and retreated in the direction in which they had come. The direction of Lingyuan County is to the west of the carriage, but the grassland is in the north, these cavalry galloped wildly, the Chinese army could not catch up for a while, the range of the crossbow was relatively short, hundreds of Chinese soldiers struggled to catch up, leaving only a few dozen horses.

Zhou Qing and the Chinese army's Lang General came with the Chinese army to meet Li Mao, and at this time, the siege of the racecourse had been lifted, so naturally they would not chase this unknown army, but just took the Chinese army to the racecourse.

Li Mao had just finished assembling his men at this time, and when he saw that the Chinese army had arrived outside the gate of the racecourse, he sent someone to shout outside the door and ask for the identity of the person who came.

Zhou Qing and Li Mao were ministers in the same hall, and they were familiar with each other's voices, and when Li Mao heard that it was Zhou Qing in the imperial history, he went to Tongzhou for disaster relief before him, and immediately knew why this Chinese army came so quickly.

The heavens really blessed him!

Li Mao hurriedly asked someone to open the gate and welcome the Chinese army into the horse farm.

"I was relieved to see that Master Li was safe."

Zhou Qing was relieved to see that only Li Mao had gauze wrapped around his head, and it looked like he was only slightly injured. He rushed to Fenzhou with so many people, if Li Mao still had an accident, it should be his "poor rescue".

"I would like to thank Lord Zhou for saving his life. It's just that this is not a place to stay for a long time, and I don't know how many people there are in this rebel army, and when they will come again, and I have to work hard for the Chinese army to guard the horse farm here for a few days, and I want to take people back to Lingyuan County to send these soldiers and evidence of rebellion in the horse farm back to Lingyuan. I already have some clue about the identity of this rebel army, and I'm afraid it will fall on the Dingbei army......"

"The Northern Army?" Zhou Qing was shocked.

"It's the Northern Army. We are on the edge of this steppe, and we may be attacked by troops from the north at any time. I still don't know how many people in the Northern Army of Lu Daoding are involved in the rebellion, and I must return as soon as possible and ask the imperial court to quickly take over the weeping horses in this horse farm. These tens of thousands of horses have now become hot potatoes, it is not the season for grazing, and we don't have enough supplies, not to mention how many people will raise these horses, even forage is a problem. ”

"Can't these horses be transferred?"

"Does Lord Zhou want to transfer these 10,000 war horses with our people? Lingyuan County is only a small county, and it can't fit so many horses. ”

Zhou Qing has only been here for a short time, and the situation in this place is naturally not clear to Li Mao, so he doesn't say much at the moment, and obeys Li Mao's orders.

Li Mao first asked the Qiang people and the Ma Cao, who had surrendered, to divide the war horses according to the herd of horses, and the horses that had been poisoned were removed from the stable, leaving only the sturdy war horses in the stable. They didn't know how to raise horses, and at this time, these surrendered horses were still useful, so they were not escorted back to Lingyuan County, but stayed in the horse farm, and the Chinese soldiers and horses watched and took care of the horses, so as to make meritorious contributions.

The cavalry went in a hurry, and left behind a lot of horses, which they pulled back, but gave the horse farm another advantage.

Liu Peng and the officers and soldiers escorted the arrested soldiers of the racecourse, and brought all the things with words that were found, these are all the witnesses and physical evidence of the Fenzhou racecourse participating in the rebellion, and he almost died here in order to track down these evidence.

These people had escaped death before, but now they were worried that they would change later, so they naturally moved very quickly. It was only in the afternoon that they had already begun to set off and return to Lingyuan.

It's just that they don't know what to do, and greater danger awaits them in the Spirit Plain.

The 3,000 cavalry that attacked the Fenzhou Horse Farm included the four divisions of wind, rain, thunder and lightning who trained in the Fenzhou grassland on weekdays, and the cavalry who received orders from the stronghold and rushed south to support. Their leader was also a resourceful man, and he was extremely bold and almost insane.

Seeing that Li Mao was not killed on this trip, and he did not save the racecourse, and he also lost a lot of horses that were transferred, he gritted his teeth, and simply did not stop, and decided to simply take Lingyuan County, and wait in Lingyuan County first, waiting for those people to come to the door.

As soon as Lingyuan County succeeds and destroys Li Mao's men and horses, they will immediately go to seize the horses in the Fenzhou Horse Farm, drive the war horses through the grassland, and bring them back to the north. If you can't bring it back, you will burn the horse farm, or kill the horses in the horse farm, and you can't leave it to the court.

The 3,000 cavalry went straight through the Fenzhou horse farm, and rushed to the north gate of Lingyuan County from the other side.

They had previously obtained Li Mao's imperial envoy honor guard in Luliang, this army of men and horses from the military clothes to the war horses are the equipment of the regular army of Dachu, and there is no need to do more, this leader beat Li Mao's imperial envoy honor guard, pretending to be the Chinese army who came back from the racecourse to report the news, and directly took people to control the north gate.

Lingyuan County was originally a small county, and it never closed the city gate during the day on weekdays, and these rebels were their own people, so they didn't take precautions. All the soldiers in Lingyuan County were taken away by Li Mao and his party, so this team of only 3,000 people easily captured Lingyuan County.

They rushed all the way into the yamen of Lingyuan County, killed Wang Zhiming in the name of the imperial order, and took the big seal of the county government, and posted announcements everywhere, saying that Wang Zhiming, the county commander of Lingyuan County, rebelled with the rebels in the Fenzhou racecourse, and was found out by the imperial envoy.

These people are fierce, and the common people are too frightened to go out, and the doors and windows are closed.

If you are involved in rebellion, you will be punished by the clan!

Although these people did not believe that their Wang County Order was a person who would do such a thing, but in the morning there was indeed an imperial envoy who came with the army, and this honor guard and the army were indeed the infallibility of Dachu, and these people did not dare to fight with the army, so they had to avoid it.

Poor Wang Zhiming thought that it was absolutely safe to stay in Lingyuan County, and before he even figured out what was going on, he was killed by the people of this army who rushed into the yamen

These people took control of the north gate, and waited for Li Mao and his party to return from the Fenzhou Horse Farm outside the city, and they fought to kill everyone, but also to leave Li Mao and the Chinese army.

As long as these people are dead and take the horses in the horse farm and return, even if the court sends a large army over, there is no way to deal with them. The most common people know about Lu Dao is that there is an army that has taken over Lingyuan County, and they will not know who they are.

All of this was originally perfect, but they didn't expect that one person would sneak out of Lingyuan County before they rushed into the county government office, and even escaped from Lingyuan County before they could control the four gates.

Li Mao, with the officers and soldiers, the Qian, and the rebels who had been escorted back, rushed to the territory of Lingyuan County in the evening.

The group of them had gone through all kinds of dangers today, and they really rushed all the way to Lingyuan before the city gate was closed at night.

Lu Mo and the others finally intercepted Li Mao and the others halfway through the Fenzhou Racecourse to Lingyuan County.

After he told Li Mao about the situation, and then talked about the appearance of the "imperial envoy", Li Mao knew that it was the group of cavalry who tried to attack the horse farm in the morning.

Lingyuan County had been captured, and they naturally couldn't go any further, so Li Mao immediately decided to return to Fenzhou Racecourse.

The roads in Lingyuan County were blocked, and they could not return to Fenzhou. However, the Fenzhou Horse Farm is west of Lingyuan, and if they stay at the Fenzhou Horse Farm, the Western Army will definitely meet them when they arrive.

With the Western Army, and then their 1,000 Chinese troops and hundreds of government soldiers, as long as they can find a way to make the people in the city respond, they can take Lingyuan County and exterminate this group of rebels.

It's just that although they thought well, until the afternoon of the next day, the army from Liangzhou did not arrive. Lingyuan County still doesn't know what the situation is, if these rebels are impatient and really turmoil, it will become a big disaster!

Li Mao was impatient, the supply of this Fenzhou horse farm was insufficient, and now they could still use the grain and grass brought by the Chinese army, but if it continued like this, I was afraid that it would not take a few days.

He calculated the time when he sent the messenger, and the Western Army should be coming at this time, but there was no news yet, he was worried about whether there was a problem with the messenger, and he was worried about the people in Lingyuan County, and he was anxious.

Fortunately, in the evening of the next day, the Western Army finally arrived, and the Chinese Army sent a sentry to take the Western Army to Fenzhou Racecourse to rendezvous.

Zhou Qing and Li Mao heard that the Western Army had finally arrived, and hurriedly led people to the gate of the racecourse to greet them.

When the Lang General of the Western Army took a young man to the horse farm and dismounted, and when he walked into the horse farm, Li Mao's originally smiling face suddenly changed, and he pointed at the young man and said in surprise:

"Li Rui, you don't stay at home, why did you come to Fenzhou!"

The author has something to say: Little Theater:

Everything is beautiful in imagination, but the three thousand rebel troops in Lingyuan County did not wait for Li Mao and his party.

First night.

Chief: Well, maybe they're going to clean up the horse farm and come tomorrow.

The next morning.

Chief: They don't set out until they've had breakfast.

The next night.

Chieftain:...... Why the hell hasn't come yet!