After returning from Huashan, the expeditionary force threw itself into an intense and arduous training life, and in the blink of an eye, in the middle of December, the camp of the Shence Army was covered with heavy snow, and the first heavy snow fell in November, and then several heavy snowfalls, and the entire Guanzhong Plain became a snow-capped world.

Li Ji led the horse and looked up at the fierce son in the sky, he circled over the big camp, constantly making a crisp chirp.

He waited outside the camp gate for a while, and Liang Wu greeted him with a smile, "I thought the captain wouldn't come, but I didn't expect it to come." ”

Li Ji said lightly: "Guo Changshi looks up to me, the first thing is to come to me, how can I disappoint him?" ”

"Let's go inside!"

Liang Wu took the horses and parcels and welcomed Li Ji into the camp.

Li Ji glanced at the eagle in the sky and asked, "Mengzi has been following Guo Changshi?" ”

"Of course, it can make the brothers miserable, go out to practice and run, it stares like an overseer, and from time to time it runs back to complain, hey! It's hard to put into words. ”

"It seems that the fierce son is becoming more and more human."

Liang Wu asked again: "The third brother went to the Western Regions this time, and the sister-in-law and the two children have been arranged!" ”

Li Ji nodded, "It's all arranged, even if I unfortunately die in Anxi, my wife can raise a pair of children to adulthood." ”

"The third brother is unlucky!"

Li Ji smiled, "Go to Anxi to die for the rest of your life, if you don't even have this awareness, then don't go." ”

"Everyone understands that they just try to think on the bright side, and no one wants to die."

Li Ji didn't mention it, and said with a smile after a while: "Shi Tong was going to come with me, and he said it was all right, but the night before he left, his arm was broken by his mother's stick, and he could only lie at home to recuperate." ”

"What about Lintai?"

Liang Wu asked again, "Does he want to come with Du Wei?" ”

Li Ji shook his head, "He never said anything!" ”

"This coward!" Liang Wu said hatefully.

Li Ji patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Everyone has their own ambitions, this kind of thing must not be forced, but your little sister really wanted to follow, but she was beaten by her father and grounded for three months." ”

The two talked and laughed, and then entered the independent small military camp, and as soon as they entered the barracks, there was a steaming feeling, which was in stark contrast to the desertion of the large camp outside.

I saw hundreds of soldiers fighting in the snow bare-chested, and they fought fiercely with unedged knives.

Li Ji stopped and watched with great interest as the soldiers practiced their swords, and after watching for a moment, he couldn't help but exclaim: "The sword technique is very powerful!" It's completely possible to participate in the Lingzhou Martial Arts Meeting. ”

Liang Wu smiled and introduced: "This is still Guo Changshi's credit, he sorted out nine extremely concise and practical knife techniques from his martial arts, and each soldier got up and meditated on the fifth watch, breathing with a special method, Guo Changshi said that it was the breathing method of the Taoist priest of Kongtong Mountain, everyone practiced for two months, and they all felt that their physical strength was greatly increased, and they had to squat for an hour at night, and after squatting for two months, the next plate was much more stable." ”

"You'll have to teach me how to breathe!"

Li Ji is extremely experienced, and he knows that physical strength on the battlefield is the most important thing.

"No problem, I'll teach you today."

Li Ji followed Liang Wu into a big tent, this is Liang Wu's big tent, in the middle of the big tent is a fire pond, there is a hanging pot for cooking milk tea.

Liang Wu boiled a pot of milk tea for Li Ji, threw a piece of dried meat and dry cakes into it, and said with a smile: "Our current conditions are very difficult, it is completely the life of herdsmen, herdsmen can still eat barbecue, we can only eat dry cakes and dried meat, and we can also drink some mare's milk wine, do you see that I have become very rough?" ”

Li Ji smiled and nodded, "It's really dark and thin, completely changed, I almost didn't recognize you just now, it seems that you can't suffer a lot?" ”

"A lot of suffering?"

Liang Wu snorted, "The most poor donkey is not as hard as us, today is because Lao Guo went to Beijing, I only stole half a day of leisure, if he is here, tell you, we have to strip naked and jump the glacier." ”

"So harsh?" Li Ji smiled dumbly.

Liang Wu pouted, "You know what everyone calls him behind their backs, Guo Butcher, this nickname is still Guo Chongqing, last month Guo Chongqing was a step late, and was punished for soaking in the ice river for a whole hour, everyone was frozen, and finally was rescued by soldiers who smashed through the river ice, and almost froze to death." ”

"Looks like I'm going to have to take off my clothes and jump into the glacier."

"Definitely, I guess we will have to jump early tomorrow morning, and the experience we have summed up is to drink a few sips of mare's milk wine before jumping, and try to swim around in the river, don't stop, as soon as you stop, you will freeze."

At this time, someone outside suddenly shouted: "Changshi is back!" ”

Li Ji hurriedly got up and walked out of the big tent, only to see Guo Song galloping in on horseback, the military camp is not allowed to ride a horse, but it is not allowed to run around on horseback, as long as you take the horse path, you can still ride a horse in the barracks.

Guo Song turned over and dismounted, saw Li Ji at a glance, and was immediately overjoyed, "Captain Li is here, great!" ”

Li Ji hurriedly stepped forward and knelt down on one knee to salute, "Shuofang Army Scout Guoyi Commander Li Ji see the long history!" ”

Li Ji's loose official is a guerrilla general from the bottom of the fifth rank, two levels lower than Guo Songdi, and Guo Song is a civilian, which shows that he is the commander of this 300-man army, and Li Ji must of course perform a formal military salute.

Guo Song smiled and said, "General Li, please get up!" ”

Guo Song said to Guo Chongqing again: "Inform all the generals of the team to gather in the big tent of the Chinese army, I have something important to announce!" ”

"Obey!"

Guo Chongqing ran to inform him, and Guo Song smiled at Li Ji again: "Let's come to the big tent together!" Let's get to know each other first. ”

After a while, the three brigade commanders and six team members rushed to the big tent, and Guo Song said to everyone: "There are two things for you, first of all, let's talk about the first thing, meet my deputy general Li Ji, who has just been transferred from the Shuofang army. ”

Li Ji hugged his fists and saluted everyone, and everyone reluctantly returned the salute, except for Liang Wu and Guo Chongqing, everyone didn't know who this Li Ji was?

Guo Song continued to introduce to everyone, "Li Ji is the scout of the Shuofang Army, Guo Yi Du Lieutenant, born in poverty, he was promoted from a small soldier step by step to Guo Yi Du Lieutenant, participated in dozens of battles, there were no less than 100 scars on his body, and he crawled out of the pile of dead people three times, our biggest problem is the lack of actual combat experience, and the arrival of General Li will be of great benefit to our actual combat experience." ”

The soldiers all respect the strong, and Guo Song's introduction made the generals respect Li Ji.

Guo Song waved his hand, "Let me say another important thing, our departure time will be a month in advance, originally set off in late January, and now it will be changed to ten days later, the reason is that there is little snow in the Hexi Corridor today, and the heavy snow has not closed the road, so we have to set off in advance." ”

........

The next ten days of training were even harder, and many of the subjects that were originally trained in January were carried out in advance, one was climbing, mainly climbing walls and mountains, and the other was night fighting, most of their actions were carried out at night, so night battles were especially important for the soldiers.

On the one hand, he was conducting devilish training for soldiers, and on the other hand, Guo Song also began to actively prepare.

This trip to Anxi Guizi will take at least two months, and most of the journey will be in enemy territory, so provisions, equipment, and medicine are very important.

Although the conditions for Guo Song's training of soldiers were difficult, the important equipment was not ambiguous at all, such as the soldiers' weapons were almost all made of iron, strong and sharp, and each soldier had a pair of tough and light inner armor.

The soldiers were equipped with two horses, each carrying two sheepskins, which had to be ten years old to withstand the cold of the Western Regions, and a lot of gold and silver to buy supplies from the herdsmen along the way.

That night, Guo Ziyi, accompanied by Guo Song, came to inspect the training of the soldiers, who were training outside during the day and only returned to the camp at night.

As soon as they entered the independent camp, they saw three armies fighting in the dark, shouting and killing loudly, they were wearing the same armor, but with strips of cloth of different colors tied around their left arms, and the other army had no strips of cloth.

Guo Ziyi had heard Guo Chongqing talk about their brutal training, but it was the first time he had seen them in the dark.

Guo Song introduced to him: "We have been training in the night combat capability for nearly a month, and there is basically no problem in individual combat, but there is still a weak coordination operation, and it seems that they are fighting in a melee, but in fact, they are fighting with ten people as a fire, and they are fighting under the leadership of the fire commander, and we have been training this kind of night cooperation for ten days." ”

"I can see the effect of the training, although it is in the melee, it is not chaotic at all, it is very orderly, and the most elite Tang Army is nothing more than that!"

"Thank you for the compliment!"

Guo Song took out the horn and blew it in a low voice, this was the order to assemble, and in an instant, a group of soldiers rushed in line, and in a very short time, they were lined up neatly.

Li Ji stepped forward and knelt down on one knee and saluted, "Enlighten the long history, the whole army has been assembled!" ”

Guo Ziyi nodded secretly, compared with when this army was first established, it has been reborn, it has only been trained for two months, just like three years of hard training, and there are really few armies in Datang that can compare with them.

At this time, Guo Song smiled at Guo Ziyi and said, "Dashuai, say a few words!" ”

Guo Ziyi nodded, stepped forward and said slowly to the three hundred soldiers: "Tomorrow night you will leave Chang'an for Anxi, your official name is the Eagle Strike Army, this is the name given to you by the Son of Heaven, I hope you can Eagle strike the sky, win thousands of miles, I won't say much about the words of encouragement, I only have one hope, I hope to see each of you can return to Chang'an alive." ”

On a moonlit night, 300 expeditionary Tang troops, led by Guo Song, the special envoy of the Tang Emperor, silently left Bashang and walked westward on the vast snowfield, ten days before the New Year of the ninth year of the Great Calendar.

This is destined to be a low-key operation, except for a very small number of high-level officials in the Tang Dynasty, the rest of the ordinary people and ordinary officials do not know anything, there are no flowers and applause, they are only greeted by danger and hardship, but this expeditionary force still has no hesitation to go to the Western Regions thousands of miles away.