When Xin Er arrived at Zebian, it had not yet dawned, and only the morning light was faintly unfolding in the east.

In the dim light of the sky, the waves of the water gently lapped against the shore, the trees stood silently, the leaves had fallen, but they did not look bleak, and the branches of the thin ridges were full of spirit.

He left his attendant knights, led his horse to an old poplar tree surrounded by several men, and looked up at its towering canopy. When there were no Chiloudan and other departments here, this tree may have already existed. After watching for a long time, the sunlight entered his eyes.

The sun is out. The four fields are bright, the light jumps among the trees, spreads all over the lake, and the floating light shines gold, like a thousand snakes dancing.

With the arrival of early morning, the subordinates of the superintendent came one after another.

This is the meeting point that Xin Er made with them last night.

Bald Lian Fan is the first, he is the second, Lan Baozhang is the fourth, and the last two small rates do not arrive until the third pole of the day.

The Hu Mu they brought with them was more than Xin Er estimated, about seven or eight hundred horsemen, nearly half of their respective troops were able to be strong. It can also be seen that they are very confident in Xin Er's robbery plan.

Xin Er summoned the leaders to come forward and said, "I have set up an early morning gathering with you, and it is now nearly hour. The two of you are late, tired of waiting for a long time, you should be punished, but you are going to send troops, if you two are punished, it will delay everyone's trip, and spare it first. ”

Lan Baozhang didn't come early, nor too late, he was already impatient and waited for those two little rates, and complained: "Don't be too late next time!" Let the big guy wait for you two, what's it called! ”

The two small rates aroused public resentment, and they didn't dare to distinguish them, and said, "Yes, yes." ”

Xin Er turned over his horse, looked around at them, and asked, "The two military orders last night will be counted from now on, if there is a violator, what should I do?" ”

Everyone said in unison: "Kill it!" ”

"Good!"

Xin Er had already told Linghu Feng last night that he was plundering today, and there was no need to report it, the people and horses were all together, and he whipped the horse at the moment, and galloped first, and five Tang people and eight Hu people followed from the horses.

The small leaders each beckoned to the herdsmen of their headquarters, and they all boarded the stirrups and shouted and rode closely behind.

Everyone has a side horse, and more than a thousand war horses gallop like clouds, entering the meadow from the edge of the river, the dry and empty grass is covered with snow, and the horses' hooves splash the snow dust, stepping on the hard ground, and stepping on the sound of hurrying. The herdsmen of Hube did not know what they were doing today, and were disturbed by the thunderous sound of horses' hooves, and many people rushed to look, but only saw their distant backs.

Out of the oasis, under the leadership of Xin Er, more than 1,000 Hu Mu along the branch of the valley to the west, all the way non-stop, food and drink are solved in the march, only every seventy or eighty miles, when the mount is tired, only to take a short rest, change horses, and then continue to move forward.

Although they could not be compared with the elite troops of the Hu people with three or four horses, these Hu Mu had also shown the agility and swiftness of the Hu people's march to the fullest. marched into the night, camped and rested; Early the next morning, continue to gallop. After marching like this for three days, they had reached their destination.

When it was past noon, Xin Er summoned all the small leaders and asked them to order their subordinates to dismount and trim, lead them to a high place, and look ahead.

The snow had stopped the day before yesterday, and a murky river flowed north in the endless yellow desert, an oasis miles away.

Xin Er raised his whip and pointed at it and said, "That's the place where I have chosen to borrow grain for you. He looked at the sky and said, "Let's do it quickly." Wait until near dusk to send Nei Ying in, and I'll do it tonight. "Do you have any opinions?" ”

There was no objection.

Xin Er assigned tasks to the small rate, ordered Ballian Fan and another Chi Lou Dan to lead the troops to the south of the oasis, ordered the two small leaders of the He cadres to lead the troops to the north of the oasis, and ordered Qi Dali and Lan Baozhang to follow him, lead the troops to the east of the oasis, and wait until the fire in the continent at night to kill together.

All of you promised.

Although the snow had not stopped for long, the desert was still dry, and after several days of marching, Xin Er's lips were chapped, he poured a large mouthful of water, and finally said: "Let the people hurry up and rest." When night falls, you will lead your men and horses to lie in ambush, and wait for the fire to attack! ”

After going down the high ground, Xin Er told the selected internal candidates to get ready. A total of seven people were elected, five men and two women.

Hu Mu is still a citizen in essence, and this kind of thing is not always done by using knives and guns, except for the last time Chiloudan and He Gan's firefight, the large-scale battle was the robbery of the Tang people in the spring three years ago, and that time because it was a robbery and left, and did not fight with the Tang people's troops. Now that the war is about to start, not to mention the herdsmen, even Bald Lian Fan and other small rates are also nervous and excited.

After the herdsmen repaired on the spot, a few small groups gathered together to talk about the last time they plundered the Tang people; Some tuned the bow and tried the strings.

After Lan Bao finished feeding the war horse, he took off the sharpening stone from the belt hook on the side of the saddle, and sharpened the knife with all his strength. The beggar first sucked his stomach and put on the leather armor he had just obtained from Xin'er, so that the people of the call to tie the openings of the two ribs tightly, and then added a sturdy leather jacket to the armor, pressed it, held the dagger upside down, and stabbed it a few times, and after making sure that it could not pierce the double defense of the jacket and the armor, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Xin Er inspected the herdsmen.

The reaction of the herdsmen and the small rate was similar, some of them gathered together to chat, and some of them sorted out their weapons and mounts. Seeing Xin Er passing by, they all saluted respectfully. Through these various measures, Xin Er has gained some of their closeness and support.

Eight riders have put on armor and pulled bows, packed up and stopped. Their armor and bows were given by Xin'er. After a long period of cultivation, they learned some combat skills from the Tang warriors, and they were all eager to try, eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the night, eager to be praised by Xin Er for their heroic battles, and by the way, to fight back against those who said they were useless.

In order to lighten the weight of the horses, on the way to the march, the five armored horsemen were not armored, and the mounts were not uniformed, and they were all taking care of the horses, and when they were about to attack, they would give themselves and the horses armor.

After the inspection, Xin Er said in his heart: "The morale of the army is neat, and the morale is usable." ”

In his previous life, when he read the history books, he sometimes saw words such as military spirit and morale, which were obtained on paper, and he could only figure it out. Whether it is the morale of the army or the morale, in fact, it is the attitude and spirit of the soldiers towards the commander, the attitude of respect, and the spirit of the high-spirited, which is the military spirit can be used.

Carefully planned in advance, set the military order to advance and retreat, the morale was available, and the intention to attack unprepared, the next battle was extremely smooth.

In the evening, the seven should enter the continent to seek accommodation. At the beginning of night, the three soldiers and horses sneaked to the ambush. Before and after the second watch, the fire broke out in the continent, first a little flame, and then very quickly, with the help of the wind, the fire spread, alarming the noisy panic of the people of the continent, and the sheep and horses ran and shouted. Xin Er ordered to ride the drums from the horse, and in the sound of the drums, the soldiers and horses of the three roads rose together, and hundreds of horses shouted and killed into the continent. The quiet night was cut.

Hu Bu in the continent didn't take any precautions, and was stunned.

As beggar thought hard, the tribesmen had no chance to organize defense, and under the siege of three directions, in less than half an hour, the entire tribal camp fell.

Xin Er was the first to attack the camp along the way.

The fire spread between the tents, and from time to time the tents were burned out, and the tents crashed to the ground, bursting with flying fire chips.

Without a quick turn, the mount took the initiative to bypass the fire. Five fully clothed armored horsemen fanned out in front of him, and eight mounted horsemen guarded his flanks and behind. Under the reliable protection of the Thirteen Horsemen, Xin Er calmly galloped and shot.

Begging vigorously on the left side of Xin'er, urging the people to storm violently; Lan Baozhang led the troops on the right, different from begging for strength, but he took the lead bravely, and did not use bows and arrows, and danced knives to slash, and his subordinates Hu Mu rushed forward. Many of the two Hu Mu made a charge, while pressing their tongues with their fingers, blowing a loud and sharp sound. This is called lip blowing, and it is often used by the Hu people in battle to strengthen their voice.

The night, the firelight, the ferocious invaders, mixed with the piercing sound of the lips, although the warriors of the continent launched a three-two resistance, were finally drowned in ten times or a hundred times their incoming enemies, and the dead and wounded, the rest of the Hu tribe were all driven into the river.

Xin Er, Bal Lianfan and other three-way soldiers and horses converged by the river.

The small herdsmen sent out a few tribesmen to gather the frightened scattered livestock, while the other herdsmen galloped up and down the riverbank, whipping them or shooting arrows into the river to prevent the losers who could not stand the cold from crawling back from the river.

"My lord! That's it! ”

Bal Lianfan, Qi Dali, Lan Baozhang and others arranged their subordinates and rushed to see Xin Er.

Xin Er jumped off his horse, spread his arms, and the two riders dragged him the arrow stuck in the crack in the armor. Xin Er was clad in iron armor, his defense was excellent, and the enemy did not make any decent resistance, so although he fought on the front line from beginning to end, he was unscathed.

He took the thick scarf, wiped off the sweat, and asked the beggar, "How many casualties have the tribesmen?" ”

"It's not much."

Xin Er frowned and said, "Why shouldn't there be too much material?" Haven't you counted yet? He was about to tell the riders to count the wounded, but after thinking about it, he changed his mind and said, "Instead of riding away, why should I go in person?" I can learn from Wu Qi, who sucks sores for soldiers. ”

As soon as he thought of it, he went down to the people, dressed the wounded with his own hands, gave condolences to them, wrote down the names of the dead, and promised the herdsmen: "I will take out 100 sheep and horses from the seizures distributed to me and give them to their families." ”

The herders are grateful. From the deployment to the end of the battle, the small leaders obeyed his orders very much, so that he did not have the opportunity to use the established military law, but could use this to win the hearts of the army.

The herders' casualties were modest, only a few dozen in total, most of them were only lightly wounded, and less than 10 people died.

"My lord, can you call those in the river to come up? Don't freeze to death too much. As soon as the battle was over, the beggar took off the two layers of protection that had strangled him, and said with a little anxiety.

Xin Er knew that he was worried that if he froze to death too much, then he would be able to get fewer prisoners, so he agreed to his request, and ordered: "When they come up from the river, they will gather in heaps according to men and women, and when the day comes, everyone will divide it equally." Looking at the fire in the camp, he said, "Some people went to put out the fire, and all the things that could be used in the tent were taken out and placed in separate piles, and they were distributed together until dawn." ”

The spoils of war, except for those that were grabbed in advance by individuals in battle, were evenly distributed after the war, which was the practice of the Hu people.

When the day dawned, the livestock, the captives, and all kinds of things were fairly divided into seven parts, one for himself, and six for the small rate, and then the small rate was divided among their subordinates. Although Xin Er doesn't care about things outside his body, he needs these things when he can use people and collect hearts, such as raising those eight servants, such as the pension he said in public just now to the dead, so he won't pretend to be generous.

With very few casualties, thousands of sheep, horses, camels, and cattle, two or three hundred prisoners of prime age, forty or fifty carts full of weapons and goods, and a huge harvest made everyone smile.

After abandoning the wounded, old and weak captives, and resting for half a day, they set out on the journey back to the camp.