Zhuo Evil Mountain, the northern foothills.

In the mountains and forests, 25,000 cadres and cavalry rested here, and also waited for the arrival of the army of Rouran Khan Tuhezhen.

Zhao Junsheng concluded that the Rouran army would definitely go here and return to the Khan's Court, so he led his troops to wait here early.

Zhuo Evil Mountain is a famous mountain, it is famous not because of the picturesque scenery, but since the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains army went out to Mobei to climb over this mountain many times, and there are clear records in the history books several times.

Why did the army go out to Mobei on this road? Is there no other way to go? Of course there is, but only this road is the safest, and almost all of you have to cross the large desert between Mobei and Monan when you enter Mobei from other directions, which is very dangerous.

At that time, Hua Mulan followed Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao directly from Bigan City to the north to climb over the south bed, through the desert into the desert north, 60,000 troops only brought fifteen days of dry food and a few days of drinking water, this practice is actually extremely risky, if there is no guide who is familiar with the desert terrain and weather to lead the way, tens of thousands of troops are all buried in the desert are possible.

There are dense camp tents on the slopes of the northern foot of Zhuoye Mountain, and the coniferous forests on the slopes are dense, covering these dense camp tents, and they are not visible at all in the distance.

Zhao Junsheng led the generals to inspect all parts of the camp on the hillside, some soldiers were hiding in the camp tents and sleeping soundly, recuperating, some soldiers and generals woke up and were feeding the horses, and some people had already fed the horses and sat together and chatted in a low voice.

When the chatting generals saw Zhao Junsheng and his party coming, they all stopped talking and stood up one by one.

Zhao Junsheng pressed his hand on them and motioned for them to sit down and continue.

Chang Kun hurried two steps to Zhao Junsheng's side and whispered, "Your Majesty, it's been two days, and the Rouran people haven't come out of the mountains yet, they can't be lost, right?" ”

Dongfang Chen on the right said: "General Chang's worries are too redundant, how to say that this is also the territory of the Rouran people, they may not be familiar with every mountain, every set of mountain streams, and streams, but they should still know some general information, and they will not have a map in their hands!" They can get lost if they march at night, but they never get lost during the day! ”

Xu Yan, who was following behind, said at this time: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that they should not get lost, and what the minister is worried about is whether something will happen?" You think, according to the normal situation, they should have come out of the mountain road this morning, and now they haven't come out for almost half a day, and if something happens in the middle, we won't know in time! ”

While they were talking, a knight came galloping from a distance on horseback, ran up and down, jumped off his horse, and quickly climbed up the hillside.

It didn't take long for the knight to pant and come to Zhao Junsheng to bow down: "Your Majesty, something has happened, the soldiers of our army who are ambushed in Yanggugou have never seen the Rouran army coming, and it was not until this morning that they felt that something might happen, so they sent someone to reconnoiter and report to Your Majesty!" ”

After hearing this, Zhao Junsheng's expression on his face did not change, and he shouted: "Take the map!" ”

A royal guard brought a map of the mountainous area, and Zhao Junsheng took it and unfolded it and looked at it.

After looking at it for a while, Zhao Junsheng said: "If the scouts did not make a mistake in their exploration of the terrain, after entering from the mouth of the valley over there, there were only four exits to come out, and we arranged four ambush sites on the way, the purpose was to force them to take the route we set, and now that something has happened, then it is only possible that they discovered our intentions and did not follow the route we set!" ”

Zhao Junsheng didn't want to annihilate all the Rouran army through an ambush in the mountains, but this idea could not be realized, the four ambush points he deployed had very few troops, and only a small number of troops could rush over to set up an ambush as quickly as possible, there were too many people and the marching speed was too slow, so it was too late.

However, the number of ambushes was too small, and they could not completely annihilate the Rouran army, so the soldiers did not show up during the ambush, but only attacked with arrows, stones and rolling logs.

Zhao Junsheng saw that the ministers and generals frowned one by one, and said: "Zhuqing, don't worry, we have made Rouran people frightened, and the grass and trees are all soldiers, even if they escape, they will never be able to make big waves again!" ”

That being said, but this time the labor expedition cost a lot, and the ministers and generals also suffered a lot and suffered a lot of fright, if they let the Rouran people run away like this, they are really not willing.

Na Yan, the captain of the scout battalion, walked over quickly and reported: "Your Majesty, I have found Su Ji and the soldiers who broke through with him!" ”

"What? Where are they? Zhao Junsheng said immediately.

"Sixty miles to the northeast, it should be at the foot of the northwestern part of Junji Mountain. Our scout outpost met a scout sent by Su Ji to reconnoiter the enemy's situation, at first I thought it was the enemy, but finally found out that it was my own people, and when I asked clearly, I knew that it was Su Ji's people! ”

Zhao Junsheng has always been worried about the safety of Su Ji and the more than 4,000 people he took away when he broke through, it has been many days without their news, he is not worried that they will be scattered by the Rouran people, after all, the main force of the Rouran army has been held back by his main force, he is worried that they will be scattered because of lack of food.

It was late at night when Su Ji led more than 4,000 people to break through, and he certainly didn't carry much dry food, so many days have passed, and the dry food he carried must have been eaten long ago, and if an army has no food and grass, the soldiers will not be able to sustain themselves, and it will be a matter of time before they disperse.

Zhao Junsheng was overjoyed, "Quickly send an order for Su Ji to come and join us with his men!" ”

Na Yan hesitated for a moment and said: "Your Majesty, Su Ji has already eaten up their grain and grass, and they have been hungry for several days······

Dongfang Chen gave his hand to Zhao Junsheng: "Your Majesty, in the opinion of the ministers, I still send a thousand people to send them some grain and jerky, so that they can eat and drink enough, rest and then come to join us!" ”

Zhao Junsheng thought for a while and shook his head: "It will take at least two or three days to come here, you must know that the situation is changing rapidly, maybe the baggage team has just been sent out, and our main force will leave because of the change in the situation, and we don't know how long it will take to meet Su Ji and them!" It's only sixty miles, and there are horses, so are they so hungry that they can't go for sixty miles? Send an order to Su Ji and ask him to lead his troops to join him quickly, and I will prepare food for them here, and they can eat it as soon as they arrive! ”

"Yes!"

couldn't wait for the specific news of Rouranren, and now that there was news of Su Ji, Zhao Junsheng could only continue to wait in place.

At night, the scouts sent by Nayan led Su Ji, and Su Ji and more than 4,000 cavalry under his command finally came to the northern foot of Zhuo Evil Mountain to join Zhao Junsheng's main force.

The food has been prepared a long time ago, it is a pot of thin batter, which is boiled with dried meat and wild vegetables, and the soldiers who have been hungry for many days can only eat this first, and eating too dry and hard food is easy to have problems.

After eating, Su Ji was ordered to meet in the handsome tent.

"I've seen Your Majesty!"

Zhao Junsheng raised his hand: "No courtesy!" ”

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Zhao Junsheng asked: "You know the news that General Xue and more than 10,000 soldiers under his command were killed, right?" ”

Su Ji nodded, "The minister heard that General Xue originally had a chance to break through at that time, but he chose to stay in order to cover the minister and these more than 4,000 soldiers, and left the opportunity to us!" ”

Zhao Junsheng soothed: "If necessary, I believe that you will not hesitate to choose to lure the enemy away so that Xue Andu and them can break through." Don't feel guilty, I have already heard Xue Andu's son Xue Huanlong tell about the war, leaving the hope of life on the battlefield to his comrades, this is a fearless spirit, and the Great Qian Empire needs this spirit! Also, Xue Huanlong said that Xue Andu had been seriously injured before the breakout, and he knew that he would not survive, so he decided to distract the enemy's attention so that you could organize a breakout! What you have to do now is to survive and defeat the Rouran people, so that Xue An can laugh at Jiuquan! ”

"Yes!"

The next day, the casualties were high.

It had been a whole day since there had been any news related to the Rouran, and the ministers were a little anxious.

Zhao Junsheng sat on the horse in the shade of the tree and drank mare's milk tea quietly, he knew that other people could be anxious, and he couldn't, at least he couldn't show it on the surface, as an emperor and commander of the army, he must remain calm in this situation, only by keeping calm, the generals can feel at ease, if he, the emperor, is panicked, the generals are afraid that they will also have no master.

Zhao Junsheng was pondering, when a long eagle roared in the sky.

The messenger immediately ran down the hill with a few soldiers, and when they came to an open field, whistling in their mouths, the eagle in the sky saw them, circled in the air, and then flew down.

The ministers and generals all came to Zhao Junsheng's side, and they knew that there must be some important news, otherwise it would be impossible to use the eagle to communicate the news.

It didn't take long for Zhao Ping to come to Zhao Junsheng quickly to report: "Father, there is news of Rouran!" ”

Zhao Junsheng said in a deep voice: "Say, where are they?" ”

"Our commander who stayed at the entrance of the valley sent someone to report to King Jing that the Rouran army did not march according to our preset route, and they turned around and went back after a day of marching, because we only had a thousand people left at the valley mouth and could not stop the Rouran army, so they have been hanging near the Rouran army, and after Rouran left the valley mouth, they marched northwest along the south road of the mountain range, the speed was very fast, but they were soon discovered by the Rouran army, and after the Rouran people sent three thousand people, our men and horses have lost the news of the main force of the Rouran army!"