The fact that the head can be registered as a military merit also gave a great shock to these surrenders in Tongguan. To be honest, for these people, being a soldier is just a matter of making a living, but they never thought that being a soldier could also make a fortune and change their lives!

What people fear most is that they don't know where they want to go in the future, or even where they should go next......

Therefore, when these soldiers in Tongguan, with great enthusiasm and motivation, strongly expressed their willingness to fight for the great cause of the general Zhengxi for life, Li Xian had to smile bitterly, worried, and several middle and high-level non-commissioned officers were under house arrest in a small black room, and they couldn't live in fear.

The house is not big, with one door and one window, and nothing else. Well, if I had to say anything, the mats and thin kudzu bedding on the floor, and the smelly toilet in the corner, were the only furniture in the room......

Because the ventilation in the house is not very good, and the toilet is only cleaned once a day, the four big men, including Li Xian, are now either standing in front of the window or sitting in front of the door.

As for sleeping at night, there is no way, and you can only rely on a word of proverbs to block out the smell.

Endure.

"Damn, we're going to cut down two armor soldiers! Tsk...... "A military marquis stood in front of the window, talking about what he had heard," ...... Only the head of one armor soldier can be turned into a pre-pawn, and the heads of two armor soldiers can be regarded as a pawn......"

"And when we fight, we are easy to follow...... Isn't it just 'easy to follow', you still need to stand in front of the formation, only the blade, not the armor......" The other Qu Chang also whispered.

In the past few days, the soldiers of General Zhengxi, who were stationed outside, couldn't stop shouting with the surrendered troops, and then some people knew that it was not too difficult to know these news.

Another military marquis, who was sitting at the door like Li Xian, said lukewarmly: "What's the matter? Still disgusted? Do you know how many people are willing to be this 'easy soldier' in the past two days? It's already halfway there! I estimate that in two days, the remaining half will be about the same......"

"What's the solution?" The military marquis standing in front of the window said, "This is a clear thing...... Our soldiers have also been recruited, and now we have a better place to go and a better future......"

There is also money Cheng.

Military merits can be exchanged for land, money, cattle and horses, and even official positions, and some of these recruited soldiers are tenant farmers under the right of the original sergeant clan in Hongnong County, and the vast majority of them are people who can no longer live in the local area, so they can only come to join the army, mix food and clothing, compared with the two, these most basic soldiers originally had little loyalty to the Hongnong Yang family, and they were soon replaced by fresh and more promising roads.

Li Xian was silent for a while, and then said slowly: "This is the old method of the pre-Qin Dynasty, and we also used it before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty...... I didn't expect it to be taken out by Zhengxi and used ...... now"

While he was talking, suddenly the light in the corridor outside the house dimmed, and several armor soldiers came over, one of whom was wearing leather armor and stood in front of the door of Li Xian and the others......

After Xu Shu burned Yang Jun's soldiers and horses with fire oil once, Yang Jun also knew that it was not easy to attack, on the one hand, there were no siege equipment, and on the other hand, he had to wait for Yang Biao to make a corresponding decision to reply, so he camped on the road in the Hangu Mountain Road for the past two days, and blocked the intersection tightly, and Xu Shu was far away, and did not launch an offensive, but just sent people to the rear to cut down trees and make some preparations.

Tongguan is still some distance from Luoyang, even if it is sent by fast horse, three hundred miles in a hurry, it takes four or five days to go back and forth. Hongnong's post station system has been basically abolished under Dong Zhuo's destruction, so even if you want to use six hundred miles of urgent delivery, it's not that people can't do it, but there is no such condition.

Along the way, there are not many post stations that have been put back into use, and most of them are fast horses without spare parts, so the 600-mile express delivery has become a luxury......

In addition, Yang Biao also needs to measure and consider something, and then Yang Jun here, even if he comes to attack again, it must be three days later, so in the past two days, Xu Shu has another very important thing in addition to deploying resources so that Ma Yan can better repair and defend the Tongguan city wall......

"How are you thinking about it?"

Xu Shu didn't talk nonsense, but stood in front of the house and asked directly.

For a while, all three people in the room looked at Li Xian.

As an ordinary soldier, there is naturally no problem, anyway, he is a soldier everywhere, not to mention that the treatment here in Zhengxi is better and more promising.

But for a middle-level general like Li Xian, there is a dilemma. Because normally, it is impossible for most of them to be arranged according to their original positions, and naturally it is impossible to give their original soldiers to command, at least they will be deployed, or even demoted.

And Xu Shu gave another choice, which can be the option of not downgrading.

After Yang Tong's death, Li Xian's position was the highest, so the only two remaining princes and Qu Chang respected Li Xian, hoping that Li Xian could continue to take them with him.

But to achieve this, of course, there is a price.

And this price may be paid by yourself, or you may let others pay it......

Li Xian was silent for a long time, and finally sighed, bowed to the ground and said, "So-and-so...... May it be driven ......"

………………………………

In Suyi County, Zhao Wen has been somewhat restless in the past two days.

None of the scouts or messengers sent out could obtain the information that Zhao Wen needed, whether it was Chang'an or Hongnong, they all knew nothing.

Except for such a Suyi city in front of him, Zhao Wen couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything on this battlefield, although the surrounding area was also sunrise and sunset, but in fact, for Zhao Wen, it was dark. Such unknown fear is encroaching on Zhao Wen's heart all the time, making him, who was still very confident, now suffer from gains and losses.

Chong Shao, this old guy, is he dead now?

Have you captured Lingyi?

Although it is said that Xia Mu has betrayed Chong Shao once, and his own people are watching from the side, what if Xia Mu rebels again, and what if his own people are negligent?

There has been no news from Tongguan for a long time, has there been any change?

What if Yang Gong was busy with Kwantung affairs and didn't have time to send troops over?

There are all kinds of questions, and they are churning in Zhao Wen's mind.

There are cavalry in the city, but the number is not much, that is, about 1,000, which is only slightly more than the front soldiers and horses of the general Zhengxi, that is to say, unless he sends out all of them and opens up the road of communication, otherwise in the current situation, he does not want to know the information of Chang'an and Tongguan at all......

But a thousand cavalry can only fight at most, and if they want to defeat and defeat, they have to pay a high price, and Zhao Wen is a little reluctant to pay this price.

After all, all these cavalry are at hand......

Therefore, with one thousand against eight hundred, not to seek victory, but to ensure the smooth communication road, and then pull and contain the opponent's cavalry, if the cavalry of the general of Zhengxi dares to come forward to attack, it will be better, go back and cooperate with the foot soldiers, and he will have the opportunity to wipe out these disturbing Zhengxi cavalry that are circling around Suyi.

However, such a situation is unlikely to occur, it is more of a stalemate, and then the other side retreats.

Now is the time to make a decision, otherwise as soon as the troops of General Zhengxi's follow-up cavalry arrive, even if he wants to do so, he may not be able to carry out such a strategy due to the strength of the troops.

However, it is still a question whether I will go east or west in the future, and focus on that direction.

The result of the division of troops is very likely to be nothing gained, and it will be lost in vain, after all, the combat power of the cavalry of the previous general Zhengxi was completely displayed in front of Zhao Wen, and it should not be underestimated.

General Zhengxi's purpose of disrupting the surroundings and cutting off communications now, Zhao Wen can guess a little, it is nothing more than involving himself, worrying that he will send soldiers to attack the part of Suyi defenders in the east.

However, these three or four thousand defenders who were originally in Suyi in the west are not the most difficult and urgent problem at present in Zhao Wen's mind, and the most important problem is Chang'an.

It can only be Chang'an.

After thinking about it, Zhao Wen finally chose to protect himself first.

Although it is said that sending soldiers to Tongguan may be one after the other with Hongnong's Yang soldiers, and the soldiers sent to Tongguan by Zhengxi will be flanked, which is certainly an absolute advantage in Tongguan, but for Zhao Wen, it is also equivalent to losing hope of contacting Chang'an. Even if he can defeat the part of the original army of General Zhengxi in Suyi, if he loses control of Chang'an, for Zhao Wen, isn't his Jingzhao Yin equivalent to an empty title?

Besides, if he is in contact with Chang'an's troops, even if Tongguan is lost, he can still rely on these troops at hand to compete, not to mention, Zhao Wen still doesn't believe that Tongguan will be lost so quickly.

The reason why he is here is nothing more than to cut off the grain route of the army that General Fei Qian supported to go west to Tongguan!

Without the support of grain and grass, even if these front soldiers and horses of General Zhengxi can take Tongguan, what can they do?

What's more, Tongguan will not be lost at all.

Even if it is 4,000 soldiers, how can it be so easy to attack a pass with 2,000 defenders?

Normally, if you don't have more than five times the number of troops, if you want to attack the city pass, even if you can win, it will be a miserable victory!

Zhao Wen still knows this.

Before attacking Chong Shao, he communicated with Yang Biao, and Yang Biao also said that he would send a soldier and horse to assist him in defending against General Yu Zhengxi.

Therefore, no matter how it is calculated, it is impossible for Tongguan to be defeated under such a superior force!

So there is no need to rescue Tongguan by yourself at all......

For myself, the two places of Chang'an and Suyi are the key to the key!

Zhao Wen finally made up his mind, so he sent the cavalry troops at hand to drive away the Zhang Ji cavalry troops in the surrounding area and open up an information channel in the direction of Chang'an.

The rumbling thousand-man cavalry rushed out of Suyi and drove away Zhang Ji's scattered cavalry, so that Zhang Ji could no longer disperse his forces, so he collected the cavalry accordingly, and then slowly retreated to the north.

As Zhao Wen's cavalry troops, they didn't dare to pursue excessively, but just followed from afar......

Seeing that the cavalry in front of Feiqian, which was disturbing around him, finally drove away, Zhao Wen breathed a sigh of relief, and then sent messengers again to Chang'an and Tongguan......

………………………………

Zhao Wen's cavalry, who came out of Suyi, ran out for more than twenty miles in fright, and then saw one or two headless corpses of those messengers who had died before, scattered on the left and right sides of the road......

It's kind of fresh.

Haven't had time to finish eating......

Earlier, it had almost all fallen into the belly of the beast on the land. After all, in winter, it is not easy to find some food, whether it is for people or wild animals. This suddenly has a lot of food sources, which attracts wild dogs, wild wolves, and some scavenging birds.

Fortunately, because of human activities, there are no large-scale wolves, and those big cats are mostly in the distant mountainous areas, and they will not easily move on the flat land in Guanzhong, so these wild dogs are given these precious ingredients.

Several wild dogs who were having dinner heard the sound of horses' hooves, and they raised their heads from the corpses, their red eyes staring at them, and they had no intention of retreating, but just stood and stared deadly.

One of the wild dogs may have felt that the large intestine in the abdomen of the corpse in front of him was more greasy and chewy, and quickly gave up the desire to continue staring at the messengers galloping on the road, lowered his head and pulled the intestines of the corpse, and then the other few quickly joined the ranks of the robbery, leaving only the outer one, still on guard.

The liver and spleen were the first to be eaten, and the flesh and limbs were the last......

On the fork of the tree near the corpse, a dozen black crows had gathered out of nowhere, quacking, as if protesting the domineering behavior of the wild dogs, or announcing the death of the new messengers......

"Bad luck!"

One of the horsemen on the march cursed in a low voice, perhaps to vent his anger at the wild dogs, or to declare his disdain for these deaths, so he took his bow and arrows from his horse's back and fired straight arrows at the wild dogs that were feeding.

With a whoosh, the long arrow slashed through the sky, but it slammed into the side of a wild dog that was pulling its intestines, startling it, and then the large intestine in its mouth was snatched away by another wild dog, and immediately howled angrily at the cavalry who disturbed its feeding, and then turned around and continued to look for a new target in the belly of the corpse.

"That's it! Let's go! Serious matters! ”

The first one, seeing that the cavalryman behind him who had shot empty, was about to shoot again, stopped him.

Seeing this, several cavalrymen also fell silent and continued to rush towards Tongguan with their heads down.

These are the costs that humanity pays for war.

After leaving the county town of Suyi, they walked for another day, and in the early morning of the next day, not long after the cavalry set foot on the road, they found a cloud of smoke and dust rising in the direction of the far east......

Several people hurriedly rode up the small dirt slope on the side of the road and looked into the distance.

After another moment, one of the sharp-eyed soldiers shouted, "I seem to have seen Yang Gong's banner!" It must be Yang Gong's soldiers and horses coming! ”

The cavalry leading the team carefully identified it for a while before saying, "...... It seems that it is really the banner of Yang Gong...... The number of people is about 1,000...... In this way, it should be the front vanguard...... Little dog, you take someone to unfold the banner and go up to see ......"

Suddenly, two people unfurled a small flag, then stuck it on their waists, and rode forward. It didn't take long for one of them to run back happily, shouting loudly, still shaking something in his hand, "It's really Yang Gong's soldiers and horses!" The captain who led the team is surnamed Li! There are 1,000 soldiers and horses in the front, and it is said that there are 3,000 men and horses in the back! Seal the letter is correct......"