At noon, the scouts came to report that they had found a barbarian beacon thirty miles ahead. Prior to this, Bai Liyan had never heard that the Jin Xuedi people also had the habit of setting up beacon towers.

"Fang Liang, the beacon tower here, but the outermost beacon tower in Posong City?" Bai Liyan hurriedly asked.

"No, it should be a frontier beacon, and it should be more than five hundred miles away from the outermost territory of Po Province. This is the road that was taken last spring, and it should be right, it is a frontier beacon. ”

"How many people are there?"

"There are about three or five people, but I heard that they have not been used for a hundred years, and the defenders are extremely slack."

Hearing this, Bailiyan decided to capture the beacon tower after dark, and pulled out all the two beacon towers to the south.

At night, Jiang Jie fell out of the front point, and Bailiyan came to the nearby snow-covered mountain to watch the battle situation.

When I looked to the southeast, I found a large flame halo seventy miles away, which was extremely suspicious, like the light halo produced by the lights of a human settlement. Bai Liyan immediately called Fang Liang to inquire about the situation:

"Fang Liang, a large halo is faintly visible in the southeast direction, is there a city fortress there?"

"No, never. Unless it is caused by the baggage army of the Jinxuedi people passing along the way. ”

"You mean, someone marched?"

"Yes. When I was young, I used to go there to cut wood and work, so there should be no city. ”

Fang Liang didn't know the difference between the marching bonfire and the light of the residents. It is impossible to march and raise fire everywhere, and it is almost difficult to see a strong halo with a four-fold telescope from a distance of sixty or seventy miles.

Only a lit sky-high fire can produce a striking halo. Bai Liyan suspected that there was an anomaly seventy miles to the southeast, and it would never be a simple marching camp.

By the time Jiang Jie led people to kill the three beacon towers along the way, it was already the second half of the night, Bailiyan did not dare to send scouts to the southeast, and quickly threw people to the southeast early the next morning, and traveled more than 40 miles before noon, and found the source of last night's fire 25 miles away, and the Jin Xuedi people were building a city or some kind of city fortress 550 miles northeast of the periphery of Posong Province.

Bai Heluo people approached to investigate, and initially found out that the barbarian army was building a stone city with a circumference of about ten miles.

Shitiao Castle is a typical feature of the Jinxuedi people's castles, who learned the Sanhe soil method from the captured craftsmen of the Central Plains.

After improvement and formula adjustment, a small amount of sand and gravel, a large amount of clay, bauxite and lime are calcined into powder, and then water is added to stir and blend, pressed into the mold and sent to the kiln to fire bricks with a length of more than one meter and a cross-section of one foot by one foot centimeter, which are used to build small city fortresses. For large fortresses, rammed earth was used to build the walls, and then the base layer was covered with bricks.

When used to build a small fortress, there is no need to ram a very high earthen wall, only a person-high earthen wall is rammed, and then bricks are wrapped from the bottom, and the bricks are covered to the same height as the earthen wall, and then the bricks are built, the speed is quite fast, almost not affected by the season, and it is durable.

The composition of this kind of brick is already very similar to cement, and even better than the performance of early cement, and at the same time, it can be seen that the productivity of the Jinxuedi people is far above that of the princes of the Central Plains, because almost all of their cities are covered with bricks, and if they are not highly productive, they cannot do it at all. So far in the Central Plains, there is less than one hundred cities covered with bricks.

"This group of barbarians has about 5,000 people, dressed in cowhide light armor and iron blades, among which there are about 1,000 cavalrymen, shuttling back and forth in the vicinity, relatively scattered, and the rest are spears and swords, about 2,000 are in the unbuilt Sein, and the other 2,000 are outside the city to oversee the handles." Bai He said quickly, roughly sketching the deployment of the troops in the camp of the Jinxuedi people on the ground.

"There are crossbowmen." Bai Liyan asked carefully.

"Yes, they have crossbows, and they didn't find the archers."

"How many people are there, are they all from the Central Plains, or are there Jin Xuedi people?"

"There are about 20,000 people, all of whom are descendants of the Central Plains, and there are sporadic suspected craftsmen who are Jinxuedi people."

"Only 20,000 people?"

"There are only 20,000 people in sight, and the situation in the city is not clear."

Bai He affirmed, and at this time, Sikong Nandao:

"General, you can't try to provoke them!"

"What's not. This place is more than 550 miles away from Posong Province, and our army will have no food and grass guarantee if it continues to move south. If you don't lay down here, what will you eat in fifteen days. If you get close to the vicinity of Posong Province and then plan grain and grass, it will inevitably alarm the defenders of Posong Province, so it is better to do his vote here. ”

"The enemy is outnumbered, even if it can be defeated, the huge battlefield, I am afraid that it will not escape back to Posong Province to report the news, and at that time tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of barbarian troops, the consequences are unpredictable." Sikong Nan worried.

"We don't need to be afraid of them. Let's still follow the old rules, let's do it tonight. This group of barbarians never imagined that the Central Plains army would be killed here, and their combat readiness would inevitably be slack, and they were accompanied by prostitutes, and there would be nothing good at night.

In order to confuse the barbarians, everyone untied their hair buns and wore their hair and hair and did not carry any flags. Even if the barbarian army broke up and fled back to Posong Province, most of the Posong defenders would only think that it was a rebellion in the Central Plains, and they would not take our army seriously when they attacked. ”

"But even so, in the future, our army can't drag tens of thousands of people all the way to escape!"

"Of course not, I have asked Fang Liang, but all the descendants of the Central Plains who were exiled in Posong Province are the descendants of the lowest status, and there are many descendants of the second generation, and there are even a generation of people who went south thirty years ago, and this year it should be thirty-seven or eighty or early forties, if they can be armed, after combat training, they are an incredible combat force."

"General, I'm afraid it's not so easy at this time."

Bai He worried, and Bai Liyan hurriedly asked:

"What does General Bai mean?"

"You haven't been a bandit, you don't know the power of the bandit rebels, if the rebels riot outside the city, the defenders of the city are not holding a family as hostages, how can they let the mob rise up so easily."

"Yes, Brother Baihe is right." Sikong Nan agreed, and then said: "There are more than 20,000 people, not to mention how many are willing to return to the Central Plains, it is good not to betray our army. Second, their families are all detained in the hands of the enemy, and in the event of a riot, the barbarian army will inevitably use their families as a threat, so that these Central Plains citizens will not only not help our army, but may also wipe out our army, and the consequences are unpredictable.

More than 2,000 people in our army have been mixed with 16,700 foreigners, and we can only reluctantly convert them, and now if we want more than 2,000 people in our army to mix in 20,000 people, then it is not 2,000 people who will be transformed into 20,000 people, but 20,000 people into our army. ”

Sikong Nan reminded him like this, and Bailiyan suddenly felt reasonable.

"Well, the two of you are reasonable, it seems that Ben will not think about it."

The lack of cultural identity and a sense of belonging has created a huge chasm, and the foundation of a nation is the sense of cultural identity. These descendants of the Central Plains are of different composition and different situations, and it is difficult to ensure their loyalty to the Central Plains under the forcible intervention of external forces.

The atmosphere was silent for a moment, and Su Hong said:

"General, the last general has a note."

"Tell me about it."

"This group of people also has to look at the situation, as long as there are people, they must have their own thoughts. We can take away those who are bitter and hateful, and those who are willing to stay and return to the Central Plains, and let those who are unwilling to stay let them go.

Moreover, these descendants who are unwilling to return to the Central Plains will definitely have no good fruits to eat after fleeing back to Posong Province, and the Jin Xuedi people categorically can't let them go. In this way, the Jin Xuedi people will make an example in the rear, not only will it not play a role, on the contrary, as long as our army can become bigger here and pull up the mountain, the more the Jin Xuedi people suppress it, the more it will backfire. ”

"Well, yes, I think it's feasible." Bai Liyan affirmed Su Hong's suggestion, and then said: "Leave those who are willing to belong, most of them have no burden and no worries, and store them as elite exercises, and then continue to deal with the barbarian army, which can help our army fight for a long time." And those who do not want to stay, there are many entanglements in the family, and they resolutely dare not be with our army, and they are bound to flee back to Posong Province to get rid of their wives and daughters. ”

Su Hong's suggestion undoubtedly completed the group reshaping in a short period of time, stripping off the dross to the greatest extent and leaving the essence, which not only streamlined the size of the team, facilitated the control of training, reduced the defection caused by the complex composition of the enemy, but also saved rations, which is conducive to long-term perseverance.

However, Bailiyan was also worried that the Central Plains thieves would lurk during the mixed period and cause losses to the Xian army in the future.

Setting the policy, Bailiyan quickly dispatched troops and gathered 2,000 people to encircle and annihilate the barbarian army. Fang Liang and the other 1,6700 people only had one body of strength, no experience in hand-to-hand combat, and the ingredients were also complicated, so being sent to the battlefield not only could not help, but could also cause chaos.

As a precaution, Bailiyan left 100 Xianjun soldiers to monitor the accompanying Central Plains people, and at the same time sent more than 50 people around the camp to secretly monitor, so as to prevent the Central Plains thieves and undetermined people from escaping.

As soon as the sky was dark, Bai He, Su Hong, and Jiang Jie each led their troops to attack, and Bai Liyan led the rest of the people to the nearby mountain bag to wait and watch the changes in the battle situation.

After dark, there were only more than 1,000 people on the periphery of the Jinxuedi people monitoring the camp of the descendants of the Central Plains outside the city, and the campsite was piled up with huge logs, illuminating a large area, and the glow of the fire seen last night was the heat radiation emitted by the huge log bonfire.

The rest of the 4,000 Jinxuedi were cowered in the unfinished walls, drinking and merry, and could not hear the moans of the ravaging women.

Looking up at the moonlight, around four o'clock, there was an undercurrent in the air surging and murderous. The barbarian soldiers in charge of the perimeter guard were rapidly disappearing into the snow at a speed invisible to the naked eye, and when a few black shadows flashed, the Jin Xuedi sentry had already fallen in a pool of blood, disappearing silently into the darkness.

Although Jiang Jie is young, he has been taught by Baili Yanyan for many years, how can he kill the sentinels without knowing it, how can he find the lurking enemy, Jiang Jie is not inferior to any old pawn.

Fang Liang was still worried, and he was not very optimistic about the outcome of tonight's battle.

"There are so few of you that even if the raid is successful, many of you will die. We should strike together, and the odds will be greater. ”

"Then we'll see."

Bai Liyan didn't answer directly, as the saying goes, a good man doesn't mention the courage of the year, and the reputation of the Central Plains is a fart when he reaches someone else's territory, and he is worthless.

Dealing with such a miscellaneous force as the security regiment, Bai Liyan is still a little confident, at least he has not suffered any big losses against the regular army, two thousand people against five thousand women who prostitute women all day, and the security regiment with idle cramps, that is more than enough.