After Fuqiang County, it entered the no-man's land of nearly three hundred miles, all the way to Xiangwu County of Weizhou, all the way were barren and populated, it was originally a rich agricultural land, there was an endless farmland as far as the eye could see, but the Anshi Rebellion, Tubo and Tuyuhun successively invaded Longyou on a large scale, this area was seriously damaged, the county seat was abandoned, the village was barren, and a large area of farmland became a grassland.

In the past two years, horse bandits have been rampant, which has become the last straw that breaks the camel's back, and the remaining dozen or so villages have also been plundered by horse bandits, and the villagers have died and escaped, and now all of them are in ruins.

The terrain here is undulating, mainly hills and mountains, in addition to the weeds in the plain area, there are large alpine grasslands and large forests, the climate of Longyou in the Tang Dynasty was warm and humid, and the desert and the Gobi desert were basically not visible.

Zhang Yun led his men to lurk for three hundred miles without a belt for three hundred miles, and never found any trace of the horse bandits, Zhang Yun has always believed that the horse bandits must be here to ambush the Tang army's transport baggage team, but nothing in the past three days has made the soldiers suspicious of Zhang Yun, and even Zhang Yun himself is a little shaken.

In a pine forest in a hilly area, Zhang Yun sat under a big tree, leaning back against the trunk, chewing grass roots, while pondering what the problem was.

More than 1,000 horse bandits, as long as they are active in this area, they will always leave all kinds of traces, at least the horseshoe prints should be visible, so why did they find nothing after three days of searching? Could it be that the horse bandits were afraid of the Tang cavalry and gave up the sneak attack, or they changed the place of the sneak attack to the north.

It is unlikely that a sneak attack will be carried out in a different place, and for more than a year, the horse bandits have been operating in this area, and they will never put it in an unfamiliar place for such a major operation as a sneak attack on the Tang army.

Unless the horse bandits did not dare to provoke the Tang Army and left far away, or Zhu Jun did not want to make a big deal and did not allow the horse bandits to attack the baggage team of the Ganzhou Army.

At this moment, a squirrel jumped above their heads, and one of the soldiers laughed: "It's strange, how can there be only one squirrel in such a large pine forest?" ”

Another soldier laughed and said, "This is a squirrel scout, a large number of squirrels are afraid of being discovered by us, so they are hiding on the periphery?" ”

The conversation between the two soldiers was like a bolt of lightning that crossed Zhang Yun's brain, and he suddenly realized why a thousand horse bandits appeared here, they could completely hide in the periphery and send a few spies to spy on the movements of the Ganzhou baggage team, which explained why there was no trace of a large number of horse bandits, because only a few horse bandit spies were hiding near the official road.

"I see!"

Zhang Yun stood up and summoned more than a dozen of his subordinates, and he smiled and said to everyone: "I just figured out what the problem is now?" If I were the commander of the horse bandits, would I send more than a thousand horse bandits to and fro near the official road? Obviously impossible, so how can we find their traces? ”

"What does the captain mean that they are not hiding near the official road?" A soldier asked.

"It's definitely like this, we might as well do a drill!"

Zhang Yun drew two lines on the ground, one thick and one thin, and said to everyone: "The thick one is Weishui, and the thin one is the official road." ”

He picked up another handful of pine cones and put them in the distance, "This is the horse bandits, there are more than 1,000 people in total, at least dozens of miles away from the official road, and Weishui in the south, so they must be hiding in the north." ”

He picked up another pine cone and put it on the official road, "This is us, we have been looking near the official road for three days, but we didn't expect the horse bandits to be dozens of miles away from us. ”

He picked up another piece of dead tree branch and put it on the official road, and put a small pine cone on the north side, and said to everyone: "This dead branch is our main baggage team, and that small pine cone is the spies of the horse bandits, they have been following the baggage team, once the team reaches a suitable place for ambush, the horse bandit scouts will notify the main force, and a thousand horse bandits will attack at night, so our three-day search is meaningless." ”

Everyone understood, and one of the soldiers said, "Now our priority is to find this bandit in the north, right?" ”

Zhang Yun nodded, "We can't determine where they will attack, so finding this horse bandit is the key to understanding their movements!" ”

...........

After passing the Great Earthquake Pass, Guo Song adjusted the team, turning the baggage team into two parallel columns, and the family team was the same, so that the team of more than ten miles long was shortened by half and became eight miles long.

The cavalry was also redeployed, from a long straight line guard to a cluster guard, 8,000 cavalry divided into three clusters, Guo Song personally led 3,000 cavalry to walk in the middle, guarding the family, the front and rear two cavalry each 2,500 people, led by Zhonglang generals Yao Jin and Luo Daxiao.

The march was more cautious, leaving every morning and camping in the afternoon, while sending a thousand cavalry to guard at night.

However, the arrival of Mengzi made Guo Song's heart more stable, during the day, Mengzi can hover high in the sky, and it can basically find out the enemy situation within twenty miles around, it was named a scout general by the soldiers of Fengzhou Army, it is not unreasonable, it seems that it is ready to continue to defend its glory in Ganzhou.

However, Xue Tao has always been angry about its irresponsible behavior of abandoning his wife and children, and he has not paid attention to it until now.

"Why did the envoy always think that the horse bandits would attack us at the junction of Qinzhou and Weizhou?" Zhang Qianyi asked puzzled.

Guo Song smiled slightly: "That's because you haven't understood the information revealed in the scout intelligence, they have attacked the caravan a total of sixteen times, fourteen of which occurred between Qinzhou and Weizhou, the biggest advantage of this is that the two state governments can pass the buck to each other, this is actually the consistent practice of the party people, and the party people also have a characteristic that once they find that the situation is not right, they will immediately be a turtle with a shrunken head, which shows that they are still more cautious, and they will definitely look for opportunities in their familiar places, Take advantage of familiarity with the terrain to attack us and retreat. ”

Zhang Qianyi asked again: "Do you think that the party members will definitely attack us?" ”

Guo Song nodded, "They will!" ”

"How so?"

"Because the 20,000 sets of armor we transported and a large number of crossbows, shields and other military supplies are what they desire the most, but it is difficult for them to have a chance, although we know that the party members may have colluded with Zhu Zhu, but Zhu Zhu does not dare to risk the world's disapproval and send the armor to the party people, but Zhu Zhu will definitely tell the party people the information about our transportation of the armor, and the party people will face this rare opportunity, I believe they will definitely take risks."

"But the party members ruined the Longyou business road, isn't Zhu Zhu doing it himself?"

"Zhu Zhu was frozen in the capital, and he will soon be transferred out of Longyou, and the envoy of Longyou will be succeeded by Ma Lin, it is said that the relationship between Zhu Zhu and Ma Lin is very bad, and it cannot be ruled out that Zhu Zhu is giving Ma Lin eye medicine."

Zhang Qianyi nodded slightly, he obviously agreed with Guo Song's analysis, but he still had some questions, he pondered for a while and asked, "How do you think the party cavalry will appear in Longyou Road?" ”

Guo Song said lightly: "Before yesterday, I always thought that the party people wanted to move the trade road north, but many years ago, the party people also ruined the trade road in the north, which is a bit contradictory, but today I thought of another possibility, whether the party people will collude with the Tubo people, the Tubo people want to open up the northbound passage, the party people lost the support of Xue Yantuo, and their eyes turned to Tubo again." ”

"Quite possibly!"

Zhang Qianyi immediately reacted, "Tubo and Tuyuhun people turned their faces, without Tuyuhun people in Longyou to make waves for it, then it is reasonable for Tubo to turn to support the party members, the party people destroy the business and farming of Longyou, which has a great impact on the Longyou army, and in the long run, it will weaken the combat effectiveness of the Longyou army, which is exactly what the Tubo people are looking forward to, but unfortunately Zhu Zhu is still too stupid to see through this." ”

Guo Song knew that Zhu Jun was not stupid, but too ambitious, so why wasn't he also using the party?

..........

Two days later, the baggage team walked out of the Longgu Valley Road and into the vast no-man's land of the Longxi hills, where they would walk for six days to Xiangwu County in Weizhou, where they would join the baggage team on the shore of the Wei River and go to Lanzhou together.

As soon as the baggage brigade walked out of the Longgu Valley Road, it was immediately discovered by the spies sent by the horse bandits, and they informed the main team hidden in the north of the news.

This horse bandit is indeed a party member pretend, a total of 1,200 people, led by a thousand commanders, just as Guo Song's judgment, the party people did collude with the Tubo people, but the two sides have mutual concerns, Tubo only verbally supported the party people to build a country in Lingzhou, but they could not take out real money to support, the party people were not willing to really work for Tubo, sent an army to attack Longyou, pretending to be horse bandits to rob Longyou became a plan acceptable to both sides.

Dangxiang people have robbed Longyou for more than a year, robbed a lot of property and women, they even have their own foundation in Longyou, there is a Qingniu Mountain on the border of Qinzhou and Weizhou, also called Xiaokongtong Mountain, where the mountains are high and dense, the terrain is complex, the Dangxiang people built a camp on the mountainside, used to put the looted property, and the robbed women have also become their tools to vent their animal desires.

In the morning, Tuoba Tong, the leader of the party members, received a message from the spies.