Hearing the sound of horses' hooves shouting and killing before and after the gate, the dozen or so people guarding the doorway did not seem to be nervous, holding guns and knives and staring at the people on the opposite side, their ears pricked up and waiting for the officer's order. These are all people who put life and death aside from the situation early, and what they have in their hearts is the idea of cutting one to cut two to make money, and now that the enemy is close at hand, they all seem to be eager to try, if it is not for the advance and retreat of the formation, they must follow the order, they would have pounced on it and fought with the enemy to their heart's content.

Now Sun Zhongshan has no idea of killing the marching method in his heart, but what to do next, he is as expectant and confused as the soldiers around him. Whether to fight or to defend or retreat, he is also waiting for other people's orders.

Shang Cheng shouted twice to withdraw, and told the border soldiers who wanted to grab the wall but were forced back by the feathered arrows on the wall not to give their lives. greeted him several times, and seeing that everyone didn't listen to him, he immediately turned his face to Sun Zhongshan and said, "Give an order!" Remove! Withdraw now! "This man is the only officer alive at the doorway, and his orders must be obeyed!

Sun Zhongshan's forehead and the tips of his nose were shining with a faint silver light, and he blinked his eyes vigorously and swallowed saliva without speaking. He was only a commander in the border army, and he was not as good as a small officer, and he was never qualified to give orders to advance or retreat on the battlefield, so he inevitably hesitated in his heart, and he would risk the destruction of the whole army if he took a further step back from the current situation, and he did not dare to make a decisive decision.

At this time, the half-curved moon hung quietly in the dark night sky, sprinkling the cold light on the land that had just been stained red with blood in front of the wall, and the land that was still vague and hazy just now suddenly changed its face. The trickle of the Liang River passed through the water gate under the wall, and ran into the distance with a whisper. The black cliffs are as steep as axes, stretching to the north. The rammed earth wall is like a majestic giant standing between the cliffs on the east and west walls, looking down coldly at the battlefield in front of him. A few crows let out unpleasant cries and circled over the treetops in the distance.

Shang Cheng shouted twice, and when he saw Sun Zhongshan's pestle there and a wooden stake silent, he was in a hurry, kicked him on the leg, and shouted, "Give an order!" Fall back! If you don't withdraw from the enemy's encirclement, no one will be able to escape! ”

Sun Zhongshan stumbled, and the person also came to his senses, seeing that the two border soldiers were about to make a move on Shang Cheng with their knives and guns, he hurriedly stopped, pointed to the door and ordered: "Retreat!" All back! "Reach out and drag Shang Cheng." Withdraw! ”

"I'm broken!" Shang Cheng gritted his teeth and said. He knew in his heart that staying and breaking off would be death, but the situation did not allow anyone to do it, he thought that one by one, the enemy had already been killed by him, and he was afraid that when he came to take the responsibility, the people would not dare to chase after him immediately. He wiped away the blood stains on his eyelids and said in a dumb voice, "Leave two people with me!" ”

Sun Zhongshan immediately called two border soldiers over. Zhao Shishi also ran over from the side of the wall with a scimitar, and after hearing that Shang Cheng was going to break the team, he stood beside him without saying a word.

Seeing that the border army began to retreat slowly, the troops of the Turpents were not sorted out, and they pressed up with a shout. Shang Cheng immediately called out to an archer, pointed to a feathered helmet in the pile of Turpents and asked him to shoot, looked at the distance, took a spear from the hand of the person next to him, took two steps forward, and shouted in his mouth: "Follow me!" As soon as he raised his arm, he threw his spear at the officer of Tukutz, and without missing the target, he rushed at his opponent with his scimitar.

Seeing that he was suddenly in trouble, Zhao Shishi and the two border soldiers who stayed behind were a little stunned for a while, until they heard a few clanging knives fighting on the opposite side, and someone hissed loudly, so they remembered that they should go up to fight one by one.

Shang Cheng covered his left arm with his right hand, and carried a scimitar that was still dripping blood in his left hand, and he had already retreated, saying "Withdraw!" Then he led the three men and the archer into the dark doorway.

At this time, the horse team in front of him was getting closer and closer, and the sound of countless horses' hooves galloping and trampling was dense, and the rumbling was like thunder. Even the walls and floors in the corridors of the city gates seemed to tremble slightly in the thunder.

Shang Cheng no longer cared about guarding the people behind him, and shouted in his mouth: "Quick! Fast! Evacuate! As soon as he looked up and saw that the bonfire in the open space outside the city gate was still burning, he immediately ran and scolded: "What are you doing by the sissy plague!" "This fire is lit on the side of the official road in front of the doorway, and a large part of the place is shrouded in its shrouded light, and the border soldiers and townsmen who pass by here are completely exposed to the bows and arrows of the Tu Jie people on the wall!

From the city gate to the campfire and further away, there were many border soldiers and villagers lying on the official road, and the general of the brigade Sima was lying on his back on the side of the road, with a few arrows stuck in his chest and abdomen. Some people still have a breath, ** crying out for help, desperately crawling towards the dark place outside the official road. A border soldier held his right leg torn to pieces by the giant crossbow on the wall, curled up on the ground and cried, and a border soldier who was broken off with him just went over to help the man, but he heard a buzzing sound, like a large swarm of wild bees flying and preying nearby, and then there was a boom, and the gravel and mud and turf on the ground suddenly splashed up all the people, and when a few frightened people looked intently, the arrowhead of the iron-headed crossbow shot out of a large bed crossbow on the wall was slanted into the pipe, and the two border brothers were only half cut off with flesh and blood......

Shang Cheng and the others abandoned the official road and ran to the burned peach forest outside Guangping Fort.

This section of the road is about two miles long, is a gentle slope, and now has become the hunting ground of the Tukutsi stationed in Quang Binh Fort, twenty or thirty horses up and down the slope, the soldiers of the Turbids on the horses whistle in their mouths, dance with scimitars in their hands, and the competition of riding knives generally reaps the lives of the scattered border troops. Occasionally, there were fierce border soldiers who stopped and resisted, but most of them only had a wooden stick in their hands, and it was infantry against cavalry, and they could dodge one or two times if they were flexible, and those who were tired and tired could only stand and wait for death.

Shang Cheng and the four of them became a zigzag when they ran, Shang Cheng was in front, Zhao Shi and the remaining border soldiers protected the left and right, surrounded the archers in the middle, and fought and walked. Shang Chengli is brave and brave, Zhao Shishi is fierce and clever, although the border army is not good-looking, capable and thin, but the experience of fighting and killing is very rich, the three of them together, even in the face of the cavalry of the Tu Tu people, they will not suffer, and the three or two enemies who want to pick up the cheap are all killed by the three of them. The archer was probably also the elite of the border army, and the cavalry of the Turpentine came and went, and he shot a few arrows and wounded two horses and one person. Gradually, the people of Tuqi also knew how powerful they were, and they did not come to pick up the bargain alone. The four of them maintained a formation and fought and walked, and gathered a few lone border soldiers, and this time the enemy did not dare to harass, so they could only watch their team slowly retreat into the peach forest.

Where to go now?

The skinny frontier soldier who had entered the woods asked the question.

Shang Cheng didn't think about it, so he said, "Go to the place where you gather during the day." "Whether it is breaking through from Guangping Station or venturing over the mountain, or playing hide and seek with the Tuqi people in this seventy-mile Sichuan Road, the first thing is to merge with a large team to have more strength than one person. Otherwise, with a dozen or so of them, they would not be able to stir up any storms, and even if they wanted to rob a messenger of the Turgish, order the soldiers to kill horses and get some food, it would only be delusional. And he felt that since there was no mention of the second rendezvous point after the failure of the night attack, then the people who withdrew could only go there to find the team one by one, in the current situation, gathering is people's instinctive reaction and first choice.

Sure enough, as Shang Cheng expected, by the time they arrived at the forest where they had rested during the day, dozens of people had gathered here again. Most of them were people who had escaped from the first battle, and a few of them had been brought over after meeting them on the road. Whether it was someone who had escaped or a newcomer, everyone's face was full of pessimism and despair on their faces, and no one looked at them much when they saw Shang Cheng and their group of blood-gourd-like people coming back.

Sun Zhongshan also fled back. Before Shang Cheng could find a dry place to sit down and catch his breath, he brought two officers to find him. An officer asked, "How many cavalry are there?" ”

Shang Cheng sat on the ground and glanced at the officer with his eyes, ignoring him at all, he took care of his wet and bloody jacket, tore off a piece of his underwear and gown, tore the cloth into several wounds on his right arm with his teeth, pinched his fist and stretched it a few times, then looked at the officer who was persuaded by Sun Zhongshan and said: "There are about 100 people who came from the Guanli, and there may be 40 ambushes outside the Guanguan, maybe 50 ......."

Another officer pondered for a moment and said to his companions: "Even if there are still twenty of them left in the pass, there are more than a hundred people on the wall of the pass, plus thirty of them in Guangping Fort, so it seems that there are at least three hundred of them...... The assault is not successful, I have to think about whether there is any other way, I really can't do it, I can only go over the mountains during the day and find two flexible people to go out to report the news first, find the rope and then come back......"

His companion and Sun Zhongshan looked at each other without saying a word. They don't approve of the way to climb the mountain. It has just rained for half a day, the cliffs are drenched, the rock wall is slippery, and even if there are good hands who climb the cliffs and climb the ridge, it is difficult to keep it safe. This is one of them. Second, everyone is a day and a night without touching their teeth, fighting in the middle of the night, and now everyone is so tired that they are almost out of strength, where do they still have the strength to climb the cliff dozens of zhang high? Third, it is difficult to say what the south of Guangpingyi looks like now, even if the Tujici did not sweep and loot, the rope of dozens of zhang is not an object that can be had......

The opinions of the three people were not in agreement, and none of them could come up with a good idea, so they had to continue to think of a way with a sad face.

Shang Cheng said: "They shouldn't have three hundred, at most between one hundred and fifty to two hundred." ”

An officer glared at him and was about to have a seizure, Sun Zhongshan preemptively asked, "How do you say this?" ”

"There shouldn't be many people closing the wall. You see, in the beginning, there were no crossbow arrows on the wall, and then when they shot crossbow arrows, they stopped and shot one arrow, and there was never any such thing as four crossbows firing at the same time, which means that they did not have enough men, or that they did not have enough men to make bed crossbows. And there aren't too many bows and arrows on the wall, because whenever the bed crossbow is used, only a few bows are still shooting......"

The officer who proposed the method of climbing the mountain nodded thoughtfully and said, "That's the truth. It took at least fourteen people to fiddle with the Jiao Huang crossbow at Guangping Station, and they stopped shooting for a long time, and there were many fewer bows and feathers when they put on the crossbow arrows, which must have been due to the lack of manpower. He immediately rested his opinion. There are only thirty people on the wall, no more than forty. He pondered and asked Shang Cheng, "Even so, there are not many people on the wall, and there are about two hundred and fifty people in Guangping Station, how can you say that they are only one hundred and fifty people?" ”

"It's not the men and horses they have laid in ambush beforehand."

Before the questioning officer could speak, the impatient officer had already shouted: "Nonsense! It's not an ambush, how can the ambushes in the two buildings be able to attack at the same time? ”

"It's a coincidence." Shang Cheng sighed and said. On the way back, he was thinking about the reason for the failure of the night attack, the enemy's situation was unknown, and rash action was one of the reasons, but this was not the key factor in defeat, the side army also had a chance to win after paying a considerable price; The key is that the two teams of cavalry outflanked one by one in tactics with suddenness, occupied an overwhelming advantage in the confrontation of arms, and also regained their previous disadvantage in numbers......

“…… If they have 200 cavalry, they don't have to go into such a hollow ambush, put a hundred behind the wall, another hundred on the official road, and put a few people on the wall to wield bows and arrows......"

He was only halfway through his words, and the three officers all figured out what it would be like: if there were 200 cavalry in Guangping Station, they didn't even need to send people to the wall, and they only needed to block the official road in front and back, and a few charges would be able to slaughter their more than 200 people who didn't even have the swords and guns in their hands.

"The cavalry coming from the south was on the way, and they happened to meet our night attack." Shang Cheng continued, "I think that since they are going to travel at night, it means that things are in a hurry, and it is impossible for them to stay here. I have an idea: This group of people in Guangpingyi fought with us all night, and now they have won a big victory, and seeing that the sky is about to dawn, and the horses and food teams of their own people on the official road are constantly coming and going, naturally they will not go to guard against it wholeheartedly......"

He didn't finish speaking, and the eyes of the three officers were all lit up, and they went to fight again and again?

Yes!