At the foot of Wild Sheep Ridge Mountain.

After Zhao Junsheng led his men and horses to join Gao Xiu, the three hundred-man teams of the first thousand cavalry who were responsible for the attack had been withdrawn, the second batch of three hundred-man teams were sent out in shifts, and the soldiers of the second and third two thousand cavalry teams had already fallen asleep with their heads covered in the gathering place.

The air seemed to be more humid, and Zhao Junsheng felt that his battle robe was soaked while sitting on a big rock, and he stuffed a piece of dried meat into his mouth and chewed it, replenishing his strength.

Mosquitoes were buzzing around and around, very annoying, Zhao Junsheng stretched out his hand and waved an afterimage in the air, and the annoying buzzing sound disappeared.

Gao Xiu walked over quickly and hugged his fists to report: "Dutong, the losses have been counted, two hundred and twelve people are killed or missing, and thirty-three people are injured!" ”

Zhao Junsheng raised his head and asked, "Including the people of the 1,000th cavalry team responsible for the attack?" ”

"Yes!"

"These are great men!" Zhao Junsheng said quite distressedly, he was worried about affecting morale, so he cleaned up his mood and adjusted his emotions, "We don't know how big the loss of Rouran people is, but it is definitely much greater than us!" Next, I believe that Pi Lixian will not dare to send troops to pursue him deeply, and the brothers should be able to sleep well! Our priority is to hold back Pirixian's men and horses, and if we don't have to, we can't attack the Rourans with casualties! ”

"Understood!"

Gao Xiu sat down beside Zhao Junsheng, took out a piece of jerky and stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it, chewing and asking, "Dutong, if we have a chance to deal with Pi Lixian's army, but we have to bear a lot of casualties, what will you choose?" To fight or not to fight? ”

Zhao Junsheng said: "Unless it can be guaranteed that the casualties do not exceed 30%, there is a certainty that more than 80% will be able to win!" ”

"Why?" Gao Xiu felt very surprised, if he could defeat the 12,000 Rouran army with 3,000 cavalry, this record would not be said to be a world-class feat, but he would be able to become a well-known No. 1 general today.

Zhao Junsheng said in a flat tone: "If we run out of people, even if we win, what can you and I gain?" It's nothing more than a resounding fame, nothing more than tens of thousands of horses, hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep, and some booty! Everyone knows that the Xianbei people do not trust us, and they always try to be vigilant, without the brothers, what is the use of these things outside our bodies? Can it be kept? People can take away these with a word, and they can make our heads fall to the ground! ”

Gao Xiu was silent for a moment and said: "I understand everything that has been said, but are we suspected of supporting the army and respecting ourselves by doing this, the emperor and the imperial court, and even the king of Yongchang are afraid that they have already seen it, right?" ”

"Self-respect? You asked this question well, there are very few Han people in the imperial court today who are the generals who command the army, but do you think which of those Xianbei generals is not suspected of supporting the army and respecting himself? The military system of the Xianbei people evolved from the tribal military system, the tribal chief is the supreme commander of an army, the emperor can change people to lead the army, but there is no guarantee that the army will obey his orders, the master of an army can only be a person from his own tribe, and a person from a foreign tribe will not be able to sit in a stable position at all when he comes to serve as the military master, and will only be set aside! ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Junsheng asked: "If the emperor changes a Xianbei general to lead you, will you listen to him?" ”

Gao Xiu hurriedly shook his head: "That's impossible, don't even think about it!" ”

"That's right, if the emperor wants to sit firmly on the throne, he can't do whatever he wants! Which of those Xianbei commanders is not unruly and does not regard the army as his own private army? ”

While the two were talking, a scout rode his horse and ran back to report: "Qi Yu Dutong, the Rouran people have extinguished all the lights in the camp, and we can't see the situation in the camp clearly!" ”

"Oh?" Zhao Junsheng was quite surprised, Pi Li Xian found a way to deal with it so quickly, so that he couldn't figure out the reality and deployment in the camp, so he threw a mouse trap.

After thinking about it, Zhao Junsheng said to the scout: "You go back and tell Bai Jinguang to continue to attack, if you don't know the situation in the camp, don't rush into the camp, our purpose is not to kill many of them, but to make them eat and sleep well, let them be frightened, so that they don't have the strength to go on the road tomorrow, go!" ”

"Yes!"

Bai Jinguang, who had received the latest order, faithfully carried out this order, and a team of 100 people, led by the centurion, rushed from the darkness to the camp of the Rouran.

The secret post arranged by the Rouran people outside the camp found that the Wei army was coming, and immediately fired arrows to warn.

The Rouran cavalry of an army mounted their horses in a very short time to complete the assembly, and the leading general drew his scimitar and shouted: "Follow me to meet the Wei army, kill-"

The Rouran cavalry rushed out of the camp with a strange scream, and no one could see anyone clearly in the night.

The centurion of the Wei army heard the movement of the Rouran cavalry in large groups, and immediately turned his horse's head and ran, shouting: "Shoot the arrows, withdraw!" ”

"Whoosh ······"

The Rouran cavalry were greeted by a rain of arrows, but the Rouran cavalry crashed into the air, and some arrows flew from the flanks, and people kept falling.

"Follow me to the left!" General Rou Ran spotted the arrow strike from the left side, and roared and chased the men and horses in the direction where the Wei army was.

The Wei cavalry retreated and fired arrows, constantly inflicting casualties on the pursuing Wei troops, and the screams never stopped during the pursuit.

After chasing for a few miles, General Rouran remembered Pi Lixian's order, stopped the pursuit in time and returned to the camp with men and horses, and when he returned to the camp and counted, he lost more than 200 horsemen on the way to the pursuit.

In fact, the casualties directly caused by the Wei army's bow and arrow strikes were not large, and those Rouran cavalry who were shot and fell to the ground tripped the people behind, and some even tripped several people in a row, and the probability of being intact after falling to the ground was very small.

After this hundred-man attack, another hundred-man team began to relay and continue to attack, and Pi Lixian had to send another army out of the camp to pursue, and the result of the pursuit was naturally that it failed to catch up, but lost more than 200 people.

This was followed by a relay of the third hundred, which attacked again, and Pi Li sent another army to attack, and after leaving behind more than 200 corpses, he returned again in vain.

At this time, it was past the ugly time, and until now, no one in the camp of the Rouran people had fallen asleep, and every time they were awakened by fright.

"Tong Lifa, there are still two hours before dawn, if we continue to send people out of the camp to meet the attack, and wait until dawn, we are only afraid that we will lose more than a thousand people, if the same is true tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, all of us will be consumed!"

In the tooth tent, the generals are anxious and worried, some of them are obviously tired on their faces, if they don't sleep all the time, they will be woken up one after another before they have time to fall asleep, no one can stand this kind of noise, the generals are all angry, unable to control the violent emotions.

Kuhehan said to Pi Lixian: "Tong Lifa, my subordinates sent people out of the camp with torches to check, almost all the corpses were ours, and the Wei army left very few corpses, and my subordinates believed that they did not have time to take the corpses away, which means that our casualties were far greater than theirs!" ”

Pi Li Xian frowned: "Why is this happening?" Our troops are pursuers, and they are retreating and fleeing, how did they manage to make the casualties less than ours? ”

"This is also something that my subordinates didn't understand!"

At this moment, there were horns, shouts of killing, and even drums outside the camp again, this time it was different, the Wei army attacked from three directions at the same time, and Pi Lixian and the generals in the tent changed their faces again, and quickly ran out with Pi Lixian one by one.

Before Pi Lixian could give the order to stop the attack, the three generals who were on the night vigil took the men and horses out of the camp again to meet the attack.

Pi Li immediately ordered: "Go and give them an order to come back, go quickly!" ”

"Yes, Lifa!"

After all, it was too late to convey the military order, and by the time the military order was delivered to the hands of the commander general, the three commanders had already returned with men and horses, and this time the three armies lost a total of more than 700 people.

When Pi Lixian and some of his generals got the report, everyone's faces turned pale at this time.

"So far, we've lost nearly five thousand people!"

This number reached Pi Lixian's ears, and Pi Lixian felt his brain dazed, dizzy for a while, and his body was unsteady and swaying.

"Tong Lifa!" The generals shouted in concern.

Pi Li was first held up by Kuhehan, he eased up, and quickly issued an order: "From now on, no one is allowed to attack without an order, the task of the night vigil is still according to the previous deployment, the men and horses of the night vigil are in strict formation, as long as the Xianbei people do not enter the camp, we will not take the initiative to attack!" If they make it to the camp, we'll fight back! ”

"Yes!"

Pi Li first knew that his deployment was problematic, if he waited for the Xianbei people to enter the camp before attacking, it would actually be too late, as long as the attacking Xianbei people's troops reached a certain number, there would be enough impact to crush them, but he believed that the leading generals of the Xianbei people did not have the courage to attack on a large scale without knowing the reality of the camp.

Pi Li bet right, in the next attack and harassment process of the Wei army, no matter how the Wei army clamoured and provoked, the Rouran people always held the camp and did not attack, the number of Wei troops responsible for the attack was too small, and the camp of the Rouran people was pitch black, under the premise of not knowing the situation in the camp, the Wei army did not dare to rush into the camp, and could only keep beating gongs and drums and blowing horns outside the camp, or rushing to the vicinity of the camp to release arrows, but it is unknown how many casualties this had on the Rouran people.

Slowly staying up until dawn, Pi Lixian finally breathed a sigh of relief, and all the Rouran people were also relieved, but Pi Lixian found that most of the sons were not in good spirits, and last night's attack made his sons and daughters exhausted.

"Tong Lifa, today······ Do you want to continue the march? Kuhehan walked over to the tent and asked Pi Lixian.

Pi Li thought for a moment with a tense face, and said in a firm tone: "Keep marching!" Before leaving, you take someone to check the scene of last night's battle, I need to know some news about the Wei army! ”8)