Autumn in September.

After the cold dew, the rain in the northern part of Yanzhong almost never stopped. From Yanzhou to Yanshui Yueliu Town to Luhe Mogan, sometimes the heavy rain is pouring like the mouth of the Tianhe River, and sometimes the filaments are like the green meng in March, suddenly intermittently lingering, suddenly pouring down, stretching for hundreds of miles of mountains and grassy beaches are full of mist and mist and blue lan surging, or falling endlessly. Occasionally, when the rain subsided, the cool breeze swept away the gray clouds, leaving a pale sun hanging alone over the sky, shining, with a bleak and cold light, and Orr reluctantly hid behind the dark clouds of leaden gray. The cold rain was still drifting and falling endlessly...... From the northern foot of Yanshan Mountain deep into the desert, looking at the extreme, there is hardly a trace of green as far as the eye can see. Whether it is a tall meadow or a large meadow, there is no place where the grass is withered and the trees are withered. The fallen grass leaves were swept by the wind, whirling weakly against the ground. A few stragglers cleared the sparse array of geese, dragging their desolate cries all the way to the south. The cold dew has passed, the frost is coming, the grass yellow worm is bowing, the wind is coming, and the cold and killing winter is coming.

On September 23, the day before the frost fell, a group of thirty or forty horsemen, wrapped in slurry and cement spots, galloped from south to north among the withered grass and yellow beaches against the bitter wind. Because of the continuous rain, the road that the man stepped on the wheels of the horses was full of water, and the water mixed with mud could be half devoid of wheels, so the horse team divided into two columns and tried to advance on the hard ground on the side of the dirt road, and the muddy water splashed by the horses' hooves flew everywhere. A grain team that was struggling to advance could not avoid it, and even the people, carts, horses, and grain bags were smashed into a sturdy knot. In the panic, several pack horses were frightened, and threw a dozen sacks into the mud, and the men who drove the horses and the soldiers who guarded the grain stood in the knee-high muddy water and looked at the back of the cavalry and cursed.

The cavalry paid no attention to the shouting and scolding of these men, and only galloped along the road, and in a short time left the grain team without a trace. It was only when I saw a large grassy slope rising slowly in the distance ahead, that I slowed down my horsepower slightly.

On that grassy slope stood several small walled towns. Because it's still far away, I can't see their details for the time being. But these walled cities are extremely famous. From the 19th year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty to the present, in less than three years, the vicious battles between Da Zhao and Tu Ji Ci have all started around this place. In the autumn of the 19th year of the Eastern Era, 100,000 Zhao troops were defeated here, and more than 60,000 were killed and captured; A year later, Yanshanwei sent cavalry to attack the grassland, and it was only here that they stopped. That battle was the famous work of Sun Fu, the rising general of Yanshan, who first cut down and killed people on the grassland when he saw people, and then set up an ambush in Liuzhen to encircle and annihilate more than 1,000 Tuqi pursuers, and also spared a son of the king of Donglu Valley in Tuduci. In the spring of this year, Shang Cheng, the governor of Yanshan of Great Zhao, personally led the troops to fight here again, with Moganzhai as the center, the 8,000 Zhao army refused to block the north and 20,000 soldiers did not fall behind, and the 9,000 soldiers and horses of the king of Donglu Valley were pressed in the white wolf valley for a full fifteen days. It is particularly worth mentioning that when this Zhao army had to retreat gloomily because it could not get the support of friendly forces, the Turks did not even have the courage to pursue at the end of the year, and they could see the "deep impression" left by this Zhao army.

Now, less than half a year after that battle, the Yanshan Zhao army once again erected the military flag on the wall of Moganzhai. However, as the saying goes, "this time and that time", the stockade is still the same stockade, the soldiers are still those soldiers, and even the generals of the Zhao Army who led the troops are almost still those people, but the discerning people know that this time is different from the past at a glance. Don't talk about anything else, it's just that those walled camps up and down the slope, the seats are triumphant, the drums don't sound, the war horses don't sing, and they are lifeless, far from the high-spirited bearing in the spring. Several military flags on the wall of the south gate of Moganzhai are also listless, and the horns of the flags that are wet by the rain are lifted by the wind from time to time, and they hang down wetly. There were more than a dozen officers and soldiers on duty under the wall, although they all tried to straighten their waists, but their faces were not a little angry, and their expressions were as dull as early frost formed by fog. Even their eyes were as dull as the cold and bleak weather.

At present, the cavalry from the south had passed through the two small camps under the grassy slope and went straight to the gate of the fortress that could not hide the defeat. The soldiers guarding the gate of the village have probably experienced the guards brought by the sharp soldiers, and they have already lined up to salute from afar, and the scarlet-robed general led by the cavalry returned the salute with his crossed arms, but the war horses did not stop, and dozens of horsemen rushed in with the sound of horses' hooves, and they could reach a courtyard at the end of the road before they restrained the horses.

The scarlet-robed general rolled the saddle and dismounted, and casually threw the horse whip and mud-splashed robe to his own soldiers, and a blue-robed captain hurriedly greeted him and reported: "General Wen, our Sima has been waiting for you for a long time. ”

This person known as General Wen is Wen Mu. He was about thirty-six or seventeen years old, of upper-average stature, with a pair of deep Danfeng eyes under his slender and delicate eyebrows, coupled with a slightly pale and clear face, and a deep melancholy expression in his expression, all of which made him look less like a general and more like a scholar who had entered the examination. He asked the lieutenant: "Have General Sun Huan and General Shao Chuan of the Chinese army arrived?" ”

The captain who led the way replied respectfully: "General Yu, the two generals Sun Shao have arrived. General Qi of our left army is also here. ”

Wen Mu's face was silent, but his eyes couldn't help but freeze for a moment, but it was fleeting, and he nodded his head and stopped talking. He had already seen the general of the left army Qi mentioned by the captain, that is, Qi Wei, the Sima Governor of the Yanshan Left Army, standing at the door of the hall and smiling at him.

This is a veteran, the seniority in the army is no worse than Xiao Jian Yang Du, in the sixth year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, he has already achieved the history of Hexi Erzhou Assassination, and his promotion is fast, compared with Xiao Jian, it may be inferior, but it is a few points stronger than Yang Du. This person is not only old, but also good at military training, in the first year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, the third year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty and the fourth year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, the soldiers he led were among the top three in the big military exercises of the Liyuan Battalion, and in the fourth year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, he was the first in one fell swoop, and he was a figure that even today's saints have praised. Not only that, but his record is even better, in the fourteenth year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, Zhao and Tubo had a dispute on the front line of Hezhou, and he broke the Tubo soldiers with 120 cavalry in Hezhou 6,000. Qi Wei has such feats, even if he praises the "Northwest Earthquake", it is not too much. However, it was such a general, after the end of the Hezhou War in the 14th year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty, he was transferred to Mengzhou as the assassin, and soon transferred to Caizhou as the assassin, and then became a deputy commander in the Hedong Racecourse...... Now, as long as he talks about this experience, Qi Wei has never had a good word for Shangzhuguo, An Guogong, and Yan Gu, the governor of Longxi.

It is true that the reason why Qi Wei has not been promoted for many years and his position has been slightly reduced is most of the "credit" of strictness.

But is Qi Wei really as he himself said, purely because he was harmed by strictness to incur today's results?

In the past, Qi Wei did not serve in the Yanshan Guard, and his affairs were rarely mentioned, even if he was occasionally said, it was only regarded as gossip after tea and dinner. But now it's different, Qi Wei has become everyone's colleague in Yanshanwei, and this person's past has of course become a matter of concern to everyone. What's more, the days in the military are the most boring, and the most are idle and boring people, so naturally there are good people to find out.

Qi Wei is not a monk and the other is not a commander, and his colleagues in the past are also famous figures in the army, a group of good people in the Weifu climb relatives and friends to find old friends, and take advantage of the unimpeded convenience of the post road in the border army town, in just a few months, Qi Wei's bottom was dug out. The origin of the matter is this: among the northwestern Zhuhu, there is a small state of Wuyu sandwiched between the Great Zhao, the Tubo and the Tujici. As a small country, Wulang has its own way of survival, and the previous king of Wulang had a group of concubines, but the most important thing is four concubines. One of these four concubines is a native of Tubo, one is a native of Tuqi, one is a orchid from the Western Regions, and one is of course a woman from Da Zhao, but she is not the daughter of an official eunuch, but the daughter of a merchant. This clever king of Wubi probably thought like this, since he was the "son-in-law" of the four families, he would not be embarrassed by the four families. It is true that during his reign, during his reign, the three behemoths around Wuzheng did not trouble him; It is precisely because of these three that no one in Zhuhu dares to go to the idea of ** 罽. However, there is a good and a bad in everything, in the spring and summer of the twelfth year of the Eastern Era, King Wubi died of illness, and when he died, he did not leave a will to inherit the throne, and several princes fought for the throne, and the country was in chaos. None of the princes had the upper hand, so they applied for "political protection" from each of the three great powers. For more than 100 years, the national policy of Dazhao has always been "active defense in the north", in addition to attaching great importance to Tubo and Nanzhao, only a little concern for Tubo and Nanzhao, and the rest of the countries regardless of large and small countries basically do not pay attention, if it is not for the second prince of Wuzheng State to send people to deliver the national credentials, Shangjing would not even know that there is a Wuzheng country in this world. Because of this, the letter of the prince of Wubi was not taken seriously, and the letter was pressed in the Ministry of Rites for several months, where the Tubo and Tuqi had already fought in the territory of the Wuqi country, and the prime minister's office here was still repeatedly discussing the reasons why the two countries that did not even border half an inch of land did it. This battle lasted for two years, and it also beat the country to pieces, and the two sides were exhausted and could not distinguish the winner, so they had to sit down and negotiate. In the summer of the 14th year of the Eastern Era, the negotiations were fruitful, and the Wuzheng State was divided into two, with the Eastern Wuzheng belonging to the Tubo sphere of influence, and the Western Wuzong being subsumed into the Zhuhu led by the Tuchuci. Tubo helped the new king of Dongwuyu establish a royal line, and began to gradually withdraw his troops. It was at this time that the Hezhou War between Great Zhao and Tubo in the 14th year of the Eastern Yuan Dynasty officially began.

The first battle of the Hezhou War was Qi Wei's famous work "One Hundred Horsemen Break Six Thousand". One hundred and twenty cavalry is indeed one hundred and twenty cavalry, but more than 5,000 of the 6,000 Tubo soldiers are "people" who transport grain and grass and baggage, and Qi Wei here has captured countless prisoners, and another Tubo army on the way back to China took advantage of the fact that the assassin history of Hexi Erzhou was not stationed, and easily captured Hezhou City, and by the way, he joined forces with another Tubo army to set up an ambush, and wrapped dumplings for the 3,000 Zhao troops who came to the rescue in a hurry; And the commander of these 3,000 Zhao troops was the later Shangzhu State, An Guogong, and Longxi Admiral Yan Gu. It is said that at that time, Yan Gu jumped into a dung pit and hid for two days and two nights, and only then did he escape with his life. With this "fate", Yan Gu's later actions were not for no reason, one by one, Yan Gu was nicknamed "Yan Baisheng", he had never suffered a few defeats in his life, even if he occasionally lost battles, he was defeated in a chic manner, but what happened in those two days and one night in Hezhou must have been the first shame in his life......

The well-wishers of the Wei Mansion also found out a jaw-dropping thing. Qi Wei was fighting uninvited in Hezhou at that time, and he was fighting against the order, and the Longxi Governor's Mansion ordered three times not to do anything with the Tubo people, and Qi Wei just did it; He not only made a move, but also personally led troops to cover and kill the Tubo people for more than 60 miles, and as a result, he lost Hezhou City. What's even more incredible is that it was such a guy who inadvertently provoked the Hezhou War, and after the war, he didn't have any punishment, just leveled the Central Plains. In the past few years, he has been in a few painless positions, and he was actually promoted to a level, and then he was drenched on his head by dog urine, and he was transferred to Yan Shanwei to be the captain of the left army. You must know that this is the Yanshan Left Army, not the Liyuan Forbidden Army, let alone the Central Plains Garrison. What is the place of the Yanshan Left Army? That's the first-class main force of the Yanshan Guard! What is the Yanshan Guard? That is the first-class main force of the Great Zhao Zhujun! The left army of Yanshan is the main force of Da Zhao's first-class main force! Obediently, this Qi Wei ascended from a horse breeder to the sky to become the governor of the Yanshan Left Army, and his luck was simply too good to be added!

Of course, while people envy Qi Wei's good luck, they also admire this person's ability. The two years he served as a commander at the Hedong Horse Farm also gave him a deep understanding of cavalry and mounted infantry, and these things were of great benefit to the transformation of the Yanshan Left Army from a mixed infantry and cavalry army to an all-cavalry army. But this person's fault is still as prominent as in the past, and he still acts rashly regardless of the overall situation. Perhaps, it is still light to say this......

In the past month or so, the situation in Yandong has deteriorated dramatically because of the repeated mistakes of the Zhao army on both Yandong and Yanzhong. Sun Zhongshan, who was supposed to advance into the grassland with the "momentum of thunder", in hesitation, hesitation and hesitation, spent thirty-nine days walking the 350-mile road between Liuzhen and Mogan; Because the pressure exerted by the middle route army was not enough, the situation that Yanshan Weifu expected to lead his troops to rush to the aid of Heishui and then snatch back and kill back did not appear; The Donglu Valley Wang's Department and the Fourth Left Division of the Tuqi Mountain not only did not come back to help, but instead set up a pocket formation in the Baiyu River Valley, waiting for the Yandong Guards to throw themselves into the net; But the sky is not as good as people, Guo Biao's cautious character saved the life of Yandong Zhao Jun, he should have entered the grassland before the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, but I don't know why, he actually postponed the time of the march back by five days, it is this extra five days, so that the ambushed Tu people exposed their intentions, and after a series of fierce battles, the Zhao army was outnumbered and had to retreat gradually, fortunately, most of them retreated to Yanshan safely, but Guo Biao who led Zheng Qi's cavalry brigade was broken and fell on the grassland. From the end of August to the present, Ruqizhai and "Yandong's throat" Guangpingyi have fallen successively, 30,000 Tuqi people bypassed the lonely city of Beizheng, all the way to the west to attack Duanzhou, all the way south to Yixian, Yandong was swept by the war of villages, towns, forts and cities are countless. It was in this critical situation that Qi Wei disregarded Yandong's military order to command Ximensheng, and was bent on implementing the autumn grassland strategy formulated by the Admiral's Mansion and the Weifu at the earliest, and finally pulled out two and a half cavalry brigades of more than 4,000 people from the left army, which was already overstretched, carrying ten days' supplies, from Ma Zhichuan out of the grassland, and drove three or four hundred miles in the wind and rain, and rushed to Mogan and the Central Route Army after seventeen days.

Wen Mu remembered clearly, five days ago, he was attending a meeting in this hall, and when he heard a report that Qi Wei's four thousand men were less than a day's journey away from Mo Gan, the whole room was silent, even though there was a red charcoal fire burning in the main hall, everyone still felt that the backbone of their chests was cold. After a while, I heard Shao Chuan burst out of his teeth:

"it! Why didn't Ximen Sheng cut this bastard?! ”