At the northern foot of the snow-capped Qilian Mountains, a team of hundreds of camels is slowly marching westward in the snow, this team is the Tang Dynasty scouts, a total of 100 soldiers, guided by Cao Wannian's old servant Uncle Zhong, all of them riding on tall camels, and the other 200 camels carrying various supplies.

After they entered the secret road from Qilianshu to the south, they turned the road and walked west, under their feet was a plateau meadow, but it was covered by a two-foot thick snow, above which was a large alpine forest, and it was also a jade tree with Qiongzhi, hung with icicles and snow, and then up was the steep Qilian Mountain, the top of the mountain covered by ice and snow shimmered a pale pink in the sun, which was particularly mysterious and gorgeous.

The soldiers were all wrapped in thick fur coats, wore fluffy hats, showed only two eyes, and wore leather gloves on their hands, but each of them held a crossbow and looked vigilantly into the woods above, and Uncle Zhong told them that there were wolves in the woods, which Guo Zhijun had encountered when he returned from Anxi.

"That's a wolf!"

A soldier suddenly pointed to the woods and shouted, and the soldiers also saw it, and one by one skinny gray wolves appeared at the edge of the woods, staring at the Tang army team cruelly.

The camel team felt the fear and began to speed up and run, at this time, the wolf king let out a low roar, nearly a hundred gray wolves pounced on the last few camels of the team, and the Tang soldiers raised their crossbows and shot quickly, and more than 30 gray wolves were shot in an instant.

But the intense hunger still drove them to pounce on the camels, and one camel was bitten off by a wolf, and fell to the ground with a cry, and hundreds of gray wolves swarmed up and tore the camel to pieces.

More than a dozen Tang soldiers drew their knives to kill, and Zhang Yun shouted: "Hurry up!" ”

The crowd sped up and fled westward, when another camel was dragged down by the wolves and its throat was bitten off in an instant........

The Tang soldiers shot one after another, and more than 20 gray wolves who tried to chase were shot and killed, at this time, the wolf king on the edge of the forest raised his head and let out a long roar, and the wolves no longer pursued, and the two camels were divided into food, and the dried meat carried by the camels was also found and eaten by them.

For two days, the soldiers of the Tang Army were very vigilant, but they never found the wolves tailgating.

At night, the Tang army lit several blazing fires, soldiers roasted meat and made tea around the bonfire, hundreds of camels gathered not far away, and soldiers stood guard on the periphery.

Uncle Zhong took a sip of hot milk tea and said slowly: "These wolves have memories, last time they were killed by Guo Yuanjun and his subordinates very badly, more than half of the casualties, this time your shooting reminded the wolf king of the past, so it stopped the wolves who tried to chase after them." ”

"Uncle Zhong, didn't you say that the wolf is very vindictive? Very vindictive. A brigade commander asked.

Uncle Zhong smiled slightly, "Compared to revenge, they are more afraid of death, wolves have always been afraid of the strong, you are stronger than them, they are afraid, I see that the total number of them is much less than last time, it is estimated that they have not recovered, this time they were shot more than fifty, they are also afraid." ”

Having said that, the Tang army was still very vigilant, and they did not relax their vigilance against the wolves all the way west, and it was not until eight days later that the Tang army basically ruled out the threat of the wolves.

On the tenth day, this westward scout team entered the territory of Shazhou.

The team walked through a sand date forest, in front of which was a vast field, all covered with snow, but Uncle Zhong could recognize this sand date forest, he pointed to the distance and said: "There are actually two official roads below, covered by snow, from here to the northwest is Dunhuang County, to the north is the Mogao Grottoes, Dayun Temple is next to the Mogao Grottoes, about more than 40 miles." ”

"Uncle Zhong is going back to the county seat now?" Zhang Yun asked.

Uncle Zhong shook his head, "I'll send you to Dayun Temple, and then I'll go back to the county seat, and I have to tell the family master that you're here!" ”

After speaking, he waved his hand to everyone, "Go this way!" ”

Uncle Zhong led the people along the edge of the sand date forest to the north.

..........

The night covered the land, the sky was clear, a crescent moon hung in the dark sky, and the weather was exceptionally cold.

There was snow on the ground, which made the night not so dark, and the woods, villages, and cities could be seen in the distance.

Despite the cold night, the barracks were full of murderous spirits, with several armies of 500 men each fighting in place, they fought on several fronts, and although they used wooden swords, the intensity of the fight was no less than that of the real battlefield.

Both sides held wooden knives and shields, and shouted that according to the rules, those who fell to the ground were killed and exited, whether they were chopped down by the other party or fell to the ground from exhaustion.

The rumbling of war drums around them inspired the two armies to fight for two hours, and when the time expired, the one with the most people on the battlefield would win.

Guo Song stood in the stands and watched the night combat training of the two armies, which began in ten days, mainly imitating actual combat, and was a severe challenge to the soldiers' night combat adaptability and physical strength.

Many soldiers were not knocked down, but tired and paralyzed, especially the first battalion, an hour and a half later, seventy percent of the soldiers had collapsed to the ground from exhaustion, Guo Song stared at Liang Wu very dissatisfied, Liang Wu was full of shame, he usually trained, but he didn't expect that his physical strength was so poor, it seemed that the training intensity was not enough.

He immediately bowed down and said: "I promise to lead the army to train early tomorrow morning, go to Ganjun Mountain, come back on the same day, and continue to participate in night combat training in the evening." ”

Ganjun Mountain is located in the northeast direction of Zhangye, about 70 miles apart, soldiers should wear armor, carry weapons and dry food and water bottles to run with weight, a round trip on the same day, is the most effective way to break off physical strength.

Guo Song said coldly: "I don't need any guarantees, and it doesn't matter how you train, I just look at the results, this is the second time I have warned you, if your subordinates can't get into the top five in the night battle in a month, then you will be demoted to a general!" ”

Liang Wu was sweating profusely, bowed down and said, "Remember the humble duty!" ”

The competition ended, and Yao Jin's second battalion easily defeated Liang Wu's first battalion and won the championship with five wins in five battles.

Li Bing's third battalion won second, with four wins in five battles, while Liang Wu's first battalion ranked tenth with one win and four losses in five battles, and it was already three consecutive competitions ranked in the top eight.

At the time of the fourth watch, the lights in the tent were bright, all the Lang generals and Zhonglang generals gathered together, Guo Song said sharply to everyone: "There is still a month before the beginning of spring, after the beginning of spring, we have to start a war, from the current training situation, I am still not satisfied, morale is enough, but the combat effectiveness is still not strong enough, our enemy army will be the Tubo people or Shatuo people, the close combat of Tubo is very strong, especially they are full of physical strength, there is no problem in fighting for four or five hours in a row, and we can only hold on for four hours at most, Most of the soldiers fought for three hours before they came to an end.

The Shatuo people are the same, they are as brave and good at fighting as the Tubo people, and they will not admit defeat easily, which means that the war with them will be fought for a long time, and they can survive on the battlefield if they have enough physical strength, and they can only be killed by the other party if they lack physical strength, so starting tomorrow, all soldiers must be put into training, and they must come back at night within seventy miles, and then conduct night combat training, everyone hears it! ”

"Obey!" The crowd replied in unison.

Before dawn, the troops quickly assembled on the martial arts field, Liang Wutie blushed, straightened his neck in front of the soldiers of the first battalion and shouted: "It's a great shame, we are the first battalion of the Ganzhou Army, and the dignified gold-lettered signboard is going to be smashed on our hands, I can't tolerate it, can you tolerate it?" ”

"Can't!" Two thousand soldiers shouted in unison.

"We not only have to shout slogans, but also take action, add physical strength, and set off as the goal!"

Two thousand soldiers wore armor, carried long knives at their waists, spears on their shoulders, fifty arrows, dry food and water bottles, and a total weight of thirty catties.

Outside the barracks was a vast ice and snow world, the official road had been covered, and the snow was knee-deep, but the soldiers still jumped and ran forward, and after a while, their shoes and socks were soaked, but they were sweating profusely, Liang Wu led his men to shout while running towards the vast snowfield.

Immediately afterwards, the second army also rushed out of the main camp, and soon the third and fourth ........

A full 20,000 soldiers joined the march on the snowy field.