The second year of Chongzhen, the second day of the Lunar New Year.

In the desert ten miles southwest of Liancheng, this place is barren.

Except that sand is still sand.

On one of the sand dunes, there were several people lurking quietly, and one of them, a young man with a small appearance, was staring intently into the wilderness below the mountain, and after looking for a moment, he quietly climbed back to the other side of the sand dune, opened the kettle and took a sip of water, and then handed it to his comrades beside him.

The weather in the New Year on the grassland was very cold, and he wore a thick sheepskin coat and a felt hat on his head.

The robe, felt hat, half-new, and even somewhat torn, coupled with his simple and rough black face, anyone who saw him at first glance would think that he was just an ordinary local herdsman.

However, the occasional gleam in his eyes, the cloth armor opposite in the sheepskin jacket, and the waist knife pinned to his waist will make people realize that he is not simple.

A cold wind blew, and there was a faint pain on his face, and the young man sniffed and took out a delicate small wine jug from his arms, he smashed it and smashed it, opened the lid and took a small sip gently.

The young man moved his neck and handed the wine in his hand to his comrade-in-arms.

"It's cold, drink something to warm up."

"Hey, hey... Or the class is always atmospheric. ”

"It's just that the wine in our shop is much better than the ones outside, and I usually don't want to buy it."

"Alas, leave me some."

The sentinels in charge of Xiao Liuzi have a class of ten people, and each class has a class leader.

Each person in the squad has two horses, so that the sentinels can find out the news.

Just as a few people around him were grabbing wine and drinking, he looked fixed and stretched out his hand to signal them to silence.

Everyone was silent.

He sprinkled a layer of yellow sand on his felt hat, crept up to the top of the hill, and watched the situation in the distance.

He saw a few groups of Tartar sentry horses whizzing by, and after some time, he exhaled slowly.

"It's really fast, yesterday a brother said that they were still in the Huangfuchuan area, and today they will be in the city of Toto."

His accent is somewhat strange, like a combination of Datong and Mongolian dialect tones.

In fact, he was a border soldier in Datong Province.

In the battle of Datong Mansion that day, his team was scattered, and later he fled to the mountains, and was arrested by Wang Zezhi's bandit brigade.

Because he didn't collect at night, he was favored by Xiao Liuzi and was assigned to the sentry camp.

And he speaks Mongolian.

However, what is more strange is that he does not speak the official language of the Ming Dynasty, but only the dialect of the Datong Prefecture.

It should have something to do with the environment in which he grew up, after all, he was illiterate.

The comrades-in-arms beside him seemed to have heard too much and did not care.

A young man dressed in the same sheep robe and felt hat frowned: "Listen to our secret whistle, these Tartars even rob their own people, if these guys are beaten to the Naturalization City, then what will happen to the Naturalization City?" ”

The secret whistle he said was the spy who infiltrated the tribes after Wang Zezhi subdued the Tartar soldiers.

The other person didn't have such worries as him, he didn't care and said: "What are you afraid of, they just come to fight."

I waited for the sixth general order to come out to investigate, and it has been a few days since I came out, but I have not found out the important news, and I have not caught two live mouths, and when the time comes, I will go back empty-handed, and I will not even have military merits, what a shame. ”

The six presidents that this whistle probe said are the little six sons.

Another sentinel said: "Yes, Li Banzong, the commander of the sixth battalion, took his brother to spy the day before yesterday, and I heard that they cut off the heads of two Tartars and caught one alive."

Brothers from the same battalion, they went back empty-handed, they had no military merits, and it was not easy to see people. ”

The sentinels went out to spy on intelligence in batches, stages, and layers.

Otherwise, it will be too late to spy on information back and forth.

Their class received the information of Mr. Li Ban and came here to investigate the information.

When the class leader of their class heard this, his face was a little unbearable, and he said, "Of course we can't go back empty-handed like this.

Did you see the Tartars who had just passed?

We sneaked up and found an opportunity to cut them down and catch a few alive. ”62

After listening to Mr. Ban's words, everyone became excited, even the most timid one became active.

Now Wang Zezhi's military merit system has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the sergeants under his command are thinking about how to obtain military merit all the time.

Now that the military exploits are in front of their eyes, how can they let go of the military exploits that have come to their mouths.

Although there were more than 20 Tartar sentry riders in the group just now, and there were only 11 of them plus the class, they were not afraid at all.

This squad of sentinels received an early order to survey the terrain of the area.

So, they knew that there was a water source a mile away from the dunes.

But whoever travels by this road will go there to replenish their drinking water.

Whether it's a person or a horse, it needs to be supplemented.

Of course, they dared to observe the enemy from this position, and in addition to the high position here, it was because they also had a small water source behind them.

The prepared one is said to be a small pool of water.

Next to the puddle, there were more than 20 war horses, all of which were waiting for war horses, and at this time there were three sentry scouts serving them to drink water and eat food.

Two of the sentinels were nearly thirty years old and burly, and their faces were cut by the wind and snow due to the cold weather.

The other sentinel was nearly forty years old, tall and thin, with high and bulging cheekbones, giving people a gloomy feeling.

It is said that this person used to be a bandit who ravaged the area of Jinping Mountain, and it was Wang Zezhi's bandit brigade that destroyed his stockade and arrested him.

This person is also a man, and after being caught, he only wants to die.

He said that his strength was not as good as that of others, and he was caught and convinced.

He did not expect that the officers and soldiers of the bandit suppression battalion would not kill him, but would arrest him and assign him to the barracks after training.

Since then, he has honestly stayed in the sentry camp.

They were also dressed in sheep robes and felt hats, as ordinary local herders, but all three carried swords at their waists and carried a lacquered cowhide quiver full of arrows.

The cold wind blew open their robes, revealing the thick placket of the opposite cloth inside.

For the equipment of the soldiers and horses under his command, Wang Zezhi is willing to spend his blood.

It is no exaggeration to say that even Chongzhen's Imperial Forest Army is not well-equipped under his command.

In view of the fact that gunpowder is easily damp, although half of them can make firearms, Wang Zezhi still did not match them with firearms, but with strong bows.

Hearing the voice, the three sentinels raised their heads smartly, and when they saw that it was the general squad, they were relieved.

When these three people were feeding the horses, they were also constantly observing the surrounding movements.

"Big boss, how's the horse feeding?" Mr. Ban said to the bandit leader who was nearly forty years old that year.

Because everyone knows that he used to be a bandit leader, everyone in the class likes to call him the big boss.

He was originally the big boss in the bandits' den, and he didn't mind everyone calling him that.

Mr. Ban asked, these three sentinels are all older than him, although he is the head of the class, he must be polite to the three of them.

"Feel free to have fun."

The big boss, the bandit leader, replied with a gloomy face.

Not to mention that he is the oldest in the class, even in the battalion, there are few older than him.

The main thing is that Dadang is very good at feeding horses.

This feeding horses is not a simple job, three meals a day can not be broken, field sentry march, but also to the kind of good horse material, a horse a day at least four catties of feed, eight catties of grass.

Sometimes it is even served with fried noodles in salted water, otherwise the horses will lose weight and run fast, and it will be difficult to quickly solve the fatigue.

After they had eaten and drunk enough, they had to hoist their heads high to help them digest, and the eleven of them had twenty-eight mules and horses, several of which were specially used to carry their rations and forage.

This kind of work can't be done by ordinary people, and the other two can be said to be his apprentices, so these two people take him as the leader, and sometimes the class can't call the two people, but the big boss can.

In addition to his gloomy face, the big boss looked like an ordinary old farmer, but Mr. Ban didn't dare to underestimate him.

That's because the big boss is not only good at feeding horses, but his torture skills are also among the best.

It is in the entire sentinel camp that he is ruthless, and this person is the first.