The huge momentum of the war horse jumping over the wheel made Zhao Xingde also fall to the ground one by one, just one step away from the horse thief, and both sides saw each other. The horse thief's hat had fallen off, his hair was braided indiscriminately, his face was full of filth, only the scars of different shades could be seen criss-crossed, his unkempt beard completely covered his chin, a pair of round eyes showed a fierce light, staring viciously at the surroundings, and there was a beast-like cry from the depths of his throat, and several villagers nearby were intimidated by the fierceness of the thief, not only did not rush forward, but timidly took a few steps back.

The horse thief was desperately trying to struggle out from under the horse, and at the same time glared at Zhao Xingde, as if a beast was eyeing its prey. Zhao Xingde was stimulated by his ferocity, roared lowly, and pounced, and a pair of big hands tightly choked the horse thief's throat. The horse thief who had just sat up did not expect the Han man to pounce on him unarmed, and was caught off guard by Zhao Xingde and pressed back to the ground, he raised one hand desperately, under Zhao Xingde's chin, and grabbed several blood marks on his neck, but with the other hand, he took out a short knife from his waist that was usually used to cut meat and eat, and suddenly inserted it into Zhao Xingde's left shoulder, and was about to pull it up and stab it towards the heart, an iron spear head with a strong wind brushed the side of Zhao Xingde's face, pounced, nailed the horse thief to the ground, and the spear was withdrawn. Brain blood splashed all over his body, Zhao Xingde looked back blankly, only to see Han Shizhong throwing out a spear used by Xiang Yong, inserting a horse thief mount that had just rushed into the car formation, and then dialing the horse with a backhand knife, flying out of the head of another horse thief nearby. At this time, the Iron Cavalry had already jumped into the chariot formation, and together they slashed and killed the dozen or so horse thieves who rushed in, and most of the Iron Cavalry jumped off their horses, constantly hitting those hurried villagers with the hilt and back of their knives, and ordered them to fire arrows at the horse thieves outside the chariot formation with all their might.

It was only at this time that he felt a heart-piercing pain in his left shoulder, but he staggered to find his bow and arrow, leaned on the wheel and opened the bow, and shot out with an arrow.

"You guys!" Han Shizhong waved his knife and pointed at the bodyguards who were guarding the businessman's employer and shouted, "Go and protect the archers!" While shouting angrily, he turned his horse and looked outside, only to see that more than a hundred horse thieves had rushed to fifty paces away, and the Xiangyong archers were hurriedly firing arrows under the urging of the dismounted iron cavalry.

Seeing that those bodyguards were still standing cowering beside their employers, Han Shizhong shouted to Xiao Yanping, the leader of the caravan, again, "Old Xiao, the thief brigade rushed in, and everyone was finished!" ”

Xiao Yanping is considered to have seen the world among many businessmen, and he didn't say much when he saw this, and shouted at the people around him: "What are you still doing in a daze, today's affairs are all up to Han Ye!" The seven or eight bodyguards around had just woken up from a dream and left the merchant employer at the center of the formation, and ran towards the periphery of the cavalry where the horse thieves had rushed over, and they also knew that the short-handled blades were not very effective against the cavalry, and they didn't care what they usually used, and each of them had a spear in their hand. Although these people may not be proficient in spearmanship, but after all, they are perennial swordsmen who lick blood, and at this moment they are facing the situation of nine deaths and life, piercing with spears at a distance and slashing with talisman swords at a distance, more than 100 men can actually fight with the horse thieves approaching the car formation to a stalemate, Han Shizhong was also able to gather more than 20 iron cavalry troops to garrison the formation, specifically to clear the fish that broke through the car formation and rushed in.

Xiang Yong was protected by the Iron Cavalry and these people, and after the initial shock period, the leader gradually woke up, and began to work hard to cooperate with the Iron Cavalry's command of his subordinates, and the rain of arrows shot out slowly became more and more powerful, forcing the horse thieves to no longer be able to rush forward and kill unscrupulously, but began to circle around the car formation. Seeing that the sky was getting dark, the horse thief did not seem to want to kill and wound more men to attack the chariot formation, and gradually stopped attacking, and dismounted not far from the chariot formation to rest, there were more than 300 horsemen in the east, and there were constantly whistles and shouts in the other three directions, and there seemed to be an endless number of horse thieves hiding among the woods and grass.

Until the end of the battle, Zhao Xingde had lost count of how many arrows he had released, only felt that his arms were sore, and the wound on the left back shoulder was torn wider in the battle, and after being bandaged by the caravan doctor with simple medicine, it was red and swollen, burning, and itchy, like a hot small saw kept cutting meat, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans flowed down his forehead, only gritted his teeth and endured the pain, sat on the ground by the wheel of the carriage, took out a handful of fried rice from his arms and stuffed it into his mouth and chewed, and the horse thieves outside from time to time put cold arrows on the fire in the car array, Roasting and cooking food near a fire is tantamount to death.

"You're not bad." Han Shizhong walked closer and threw him a piece of dried meat, Zhao Xingde took it and put it in his mouth and bit it, almost so salty that tears fell, this is the salted bacon that Han Shizhong bought back from Liao, if it is transported to Jiangnan, Zhao Xingde bit down that small piece just now, which is enough salt for the family to boil five pots of soup. Han Shizhong sat down with Zhao Xingde, and said with a gloomy face: "Seventeen died, all of them are brothers who have followed him for many years. He took a bite of the flesh, drank it, and looked out viciously, as if he were chewing the flesh of a horse thief, and drinking their blood.

Outside, behind the woods in the north-west of the east, there were shadowy fires everywhere, almost two or three hundred places, and with the occasional undulating whistle and the neighing of horses, it seemed as if there were horse thieves everywhere. Many villagers and merchants were intimidated by the horse thieves' formation, some sighed, some young people wept, and some quietly ate fried rice and fried noodles and other dry foods, but their mood was extremely low.

Zhao Xingde looked at the torches all over the mountains outside, was silent for a long time, held back the pain, and said in a deep voice: "The horse thieves are bluffing, they don't have so many people. "If there are really so many horse thieves, only one force is needed to attack during the day, only fifty iron cavalry troops, and more than 200 village brave bodyguards will definitely not be able to hold the car formation, and this battle will not be delayed at night.

"Even if there are only more than 300 riders, it is difficult to hold on. Even if they did, few people could escape. ”

"If you change places, you may be able to hold it, when you come, you pass by the mountain terrain is rugged, the forest is deep and the grass is dense, which is not conducive to the cavalry galloping impact, there is only a big road up the mountain, and it is not easy to walk, if you can form a formation on it, it is difficult for the horse thieves to attack." Zhao Xingde pointed to a hill road outside of Lixu in the north, although there were also torches scattered there, but he estimated that it was just a few horse thieves bluffing over there and monitoring the whereabouts of the Song caravan.

"As long as the car array is chaotic, these horse thieves will rush in, do you think you can maintain it with these townsmen and dart masters?" Han Shizhong didn't look at the direction Zhao Xingde was pointing, took out a grinding stone from his arms, sharpened the blade of the saber one by one, and made a click-click-click-clatter.

"We can strike at us. He put his clothes on the sheep, and attached them to their tails with greased ropes, and tied torches to them, and found a few brothers to secretly drive the sheep and the extra mules to the south, and as soon as they came into contact with the horse thief's sentry, they immediately lit the rope after sending a round of arrows, and the rope was burned, and the sheep with their tails on fire fled in all directions. But the thieves knew how many of us were, and when they saw so many torches moving, they would have thought that we were trying to escape by night, and they were scattered in all directions, and it was difficult to communicate with them, so we must go south to intercept and pursue them, and then we would throw away the heavy things and go up the hill quickly, and if we could do it quickly, we might be able to rearrange our position before the thieves turn back. ”

Zhao Xingde's eyes reflected the light of the bonfire, Han Shizhong followed his gaze, in addition to the mules and horses in the car array, there were more than 100 sheep, which were bought by a merchant from the Liao people, and there were constantly other merchants in the past few days, Xiang Yong and soldiers bought from him to slaughter, Han Shizhong felt that this merchant was really good at doing business, this group of sheep did not occupy the carriage, and they may all become silver money before they arrived in the Song realm.

If the sheep is wearing clothes, and the torches are tied to the horns, from a distance, it really looks like a man crawling around in the bushes and grass, with torches in his hands.

Han Shizhong pondered for a moment, slapped his thigh and said, "The left and right are dead, just try it according to the way you say!" He found Xiao Yanping and discussed the arrangement with him, Xiao Yanping went down and said to the merchants, the owner of the sheep was immediately willing to let these animals out to save his life, and more than 100 sets of clothes were quickly assembled.

The porter, Xiang Yong and the bodyguards were also assigned by Han Shizhong to the Iron Cavalry Army, Du Tou Xie Yuan took part of the dart division to protect those merchants to go up the mountain, Zhao Xingde in the meantime, another Du Tou Yu Dayi urged the porter to drive the horse to transport the most valuable goods, and as many carriages as possible up the mountain, Han Shizhong took the Iron Cavalry and some of the dart divisions to guard the horse thieves who suddenly killed them, and the head Dong Wei took the shepherd and a few soldiers to drive the sheep to the south, and after encountering the horse thief, he fired an arrow to light the fire rope and then retreated up the mountain.

It was a matter of life and death, and at last he ate something, and the merchant tied the burden of gold, silver and Jiaozi to his body, and sighed and chose the most valuable things from the carriage, Xiao Yanping and Xie Yuan together, and kept reminding those merchants who tried to bring more and more goods that it was important to save their lives. The dart masters and village warriors who survived the daytime battle had different expressions, and quietly listened to the soldiers of the Iron Cavalry explain the precautions.

The work was almost done, and everyone sat quietly on the ground waiting for the moment of departure, and all that could be heard in the formation was the sound of heavy, short breathing, and the grinding of knives with a click-click-click. At this moment, a song was singing in the horse thief camp in the east, and the song was faintly heard along the cold wind, but Zhao Xingde didn't understand what it meant, but a businessman named Jia Chang next to him was listening attentively, so Zhao Xingde asked softly: "What are these thieves singing?" ”

Jia Chang replied in a trembling voice, "It's a hunting song," he muttered, "The hunter raised his horse and whipped, surrounded a lot of yellow sheep, the yellow sheep was fat and big, the hunter was full of joy, opened his bow and shot it, the yellow sheep corpses were all over the field, desperately running away to break out of the encirclement, there was a wide river in the east, the corpses of the yellow sheep were piled up on the bank, there was a rapids river in the west, the corpses of the yellow sheep were piled up on the bank, the hunter shot the yellow sheep, the yellow sheep was all over the place, no matter how agile the yellow sheep, they couldn't escape the hunter's encirclement." The horse thief's singing became more and more cheerful, and Jia Chang's eyes showed a look of fear, and his face became more and more pale.

With a "snap", Han Shizhong broke the firewood branch in his hand and threw it into the fire, stirring up a spark.