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"Do you want to be cut? If I were Korean......." Liu Hongji gestured with a hair-pulling and head-cutting pose. Wang Yuantong immediately jumped up and slashed forward with the wooden knife in his hand in a frenzy.

He didn't want to die, and his family still had thousands of family fortunes to inherit. If he was cut off by the Koreans in a daze, he would just be cheaper than a few brothers who were coming out.

"Brother Qi, come here and help the handle!" Li Xu smiled and led a ram to the open space in front of the camp. Qi Poning grabbed a small horizontal knife and walked over tremblingly. Suddenly, he jumped up and stabbed the sheep in the heart.

"Catch blood in a wooden basin, that's a good thing!" Li Xu reminded loudly beside him. Qi Poning, who was already white, picked up the wooden basin, and forcibly put the wooden basin under the sheep carcass with the disgust in his heart.

His name sounds majestic enough, but he can't see blood. In the fall, when the soldiers were killing sheep and hoarding meat, he vomited a mess next to him. Now, he still wants to throw up, but he has opened his eyes in the face of death.

Qin Ziying was dressed like a camel and staggered forward. Li Xu stretched out his leg and slapped him on the head, and then stuck the scimitar scabbard in his neck.

"Qin Lushi, offended. Kill a list to join the army, I don't know how many levels of merit to remember? Li Xu asked with a smile.

"Record the matter of joining the army, eight grades, five, five levels!" Qin Ziying gasped and stretched out five fingers. Suddenly, he realized that the other party was talking about himself, and rolled on the ground in anger, trying to stand up. was pushed down by Li Xu with a finger.

"You can't kill the other party, and it's useless to wear multiple armors. On the contrary, he dragged himself down, was captured alive, and was taken to the capital to sacrifice prisoners! Then, Miss He stood by the river....." Li Xu smiled and put on a posture of looking at him.

Qin Ziying got up angrily and reached out to peel off her armor. One floor, two floors, three floors, and suddenly, he stopped. There was a warm feeling from his fingers, which made him feel peaceful. It was a jade amulet, tied with yellow silk and hanging around his neck. He looked around to see if there was any, and carefully tucked the talisman into his shirt, which was close to his chest.

Miss He is the granddaughter of General He Ruobi, and was exiled to Liaodong as a prostitute in the third year of Daye because of her grandfather's case. Qin Ziying had already asked someone to redeem her, and when she came to the class teacher, the two made an appointment to go to the right side of the ridge to meet Qin Ziying's father and mother.

Li Xu smiled and no longer forced Qin Ziying to continue practicing martial arts. Although he was much younger than Qin Ziying, he always felt that he could see through Qin Ziying's mind. I have had that happy look myself, but not long ago, I completely lost it.

He smiled and put down his knife and went to carry the water bag that had been placed aside. In winter, the cold well water has a unique refreshing feeling, especially like drinking. He smiled and shook his head, and put the water bag at his feet again. waved the knife to separate Qin Ziying, who was desperate.

After the two sides really got to know each other, Li Xu found that these friends who were eating and waiting for death actually had a lot of cuteness. They already knew that Li Xu was not a child of a family, but they still didn't care about calling Li Xu brothers. They knew that Li Xu had an old-fashioned temperament, and when he drank flower wine a few times, he left alone after being half drunk, but next time he still had to call this little brother to go with him. They all have higher positions than Li Xu, but they never put up an official position with him......

In fact, these people have good qualifications, but they have too many scruples in their hearts. Li Xu flicked his wrist slightly, deflected the force on Qin Ziying's knife, and then stepped sideways, knocking the other party into a stumbling one.

If they hadn't messed with these people on the heap of wine and meat, they would never have accepted the teaching of a teenager who was nearly a year younger than themselves and had a lower position than themselves out of the love of face. But since everyone drank wine and ate meat together and became friends, the age issue was automatically ignored.

This is also one of Liu Hongji's intentions when he forced himself to drink and eat meat with everyone. In terms of dealing with people, this Brother Liu is even smarter than Brother Mao Gong.

Li Xu understood that he had unconsciously learned a lot from Liu Hongji. Looking at a few friends around him, his heart was full of warmth.

In the wax moon, the weather is getting colder and colder. From Tongding Town, which is close to the Khitan in the north, to the old estuary that enters the sea in the south, nearly 300 miles of the lower reaches of the Liao River are frozen. Li Xu rode the black wind to the river to inspect several times, only to see that the ice was already dark blue. Even in the middle of the river, there are no traces left by the Khitan savages digging ice to take fish.

"If you go to the army to fight, you only need to burn the granary of Huaiyuan Town. The attack time of the Great Sui soldiers and horses has to be delayed for at least half a year! When everyone sat together to discuss the matter, Li Jiancheng's words were full of worry.

As the eldest son of the family and the right-hand man of his father, he often organized small gatherings of the Li family's descendants. Although the current scale of Tang Gong's subordination is far less than when he was a big official, there are still many famous heroes and wise men among them.

Because of their recent performances, Li Xu and Liu Hongji were exceptionally allowed by Li Yuan to participate in this kind of gathering of their descendants. It's just that the two of them don't talk much, and they still need time to get used to the atmosphere here.

Most of the time, Li Xu was fiddling with the charcoal in the brazier. The weather outside was terribly cold, not the same as when it was on the shore of Crescent Lake. Although it snowed all day in the winter of Susibu, the air was very dry, and as soon as the sun came out, the body would be warmed up immediately. However, the wind here in Liaodong is so wet that it can condense ice foam, and the water vapor will inadvertently burrow into any crevices, and if you run on a horse for half an hour, no matter how thick the felt armor is, it will freeze into an ice shell. The people wrapped in felt armor were also cold, like dead fish lured out of the ice by the Khitan savages in early winter.

"They will come sooner or later, if I am the lord of Goguryeo, I will definitely not wait for you to start fighting when the soldiers and horses of the Great Sui Dynasty arrive!" Looking at the sky outside the window, Liu Hongji made the following judgment. To defend such a long border, the more than 30,000 soldiers and horses under the command of Xin Shixiong, the general of Zuotunwei, are inevitably overstretched. If the Koreans come to attack, they can find a place to cross the river on foot. If it weren't for the fear that the Great Sui Dynasty would retaliate with the power of the country, they could even take advantage of the freezing of the Liao River to sweep all the three counties of Liaodong into their pockets.

"I guess our emperor wants to find a more suitable reason for going to war, so he is going to use Huaiyuan Town as a bait to the Koreans!" Qian Jiulong, the guard of the Li Mansion, muttered and complained. When the word emperor is mentioned, he always has a strange tail note, which sounds particularly sarcastic.

He turned out to be a thief who had been confiscated and was redeemed from the quarry by Li Yuan because of his skill in arching horses. Loyalty to the Li family is loyal, but resourcefulness is very unbearable. And because of his big mouth and impulsive speech, he has always become the target of criticism.

Sure enough, as soon as his words fell, Sun Shunde, the former head of the right guard, frowned. "Now is not the time to complain, the problem is, if there is any loss of grain and grass in Huaiyuan Town, the responsibility will be borne by Tang Gong alone!" He looked around at everyone and set the theme for this meeting, "We just want to have a way to survive this winter safely, and unrelated topics are best talked about in private!" ”

"It is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, and the best way now is to expand the strength of the defenders. While strengthening training, we will see if we can ask Liucheng and Yanjun to send some reinforcements over. There are also scouts, so try to make the search as wide as possible! Joining the army, Chen Yanshou said with a frown. He is an old strategist who has followed Li Yuan for many years, and is known for his quick changes. So far, I can't think of a good way to deal with it.

"I'm afraid it's difficult!" Si Kai joined the army, Ma Yuangui shook his head with a blue face. Since the snow had fallen, no new soldiers had been sent from Luronse's side. Although General Yu Wenshu, who was stationed in Liucheng County, sent more than 500 soldiers into Huaiyuan Town to assist in the defense, for Huaiyuan Town, which was less than 70 miles away from Liaodong City, an important town in Goryeo, this assistance was obviously a drop in the bucket.

"Even if there are soldiers coming, Tang Gong has no right to dispatch them. If you recruit people into the army, you will be given a handle! The eldest grandson Shunde sighed and added.

The biggest problem at the moment is that Li Yuan, the Duke of Tang, is not trusted by the current emperor Yang Guang, and his position has been reduced from the third rank to the fifth rank. For the soldiers and horses in the vicinity, he has no right to dispatch. In non-critical moments, there is no power to expand the size of the food guards. The identity of not being embarrassed or embarrassing makes other generals unable to help, and sending fewer people will not work, if a Lang general is sent with thousands of soldiers and horses to assist in the defense, Li Yuan will have to obey the other party's orders.

"Since the beginning of the month, we have lost fourteen veterans, twenty-seven scouts!" Qian Jiulong stared at his reddened eyes and reported a string of numbers. The old soldiers under his command who gave up their fame to follow Tang Gong were the pillars of the Li Mansion to survive in the troubled times. Fold one less than one, he didn't want to watch the brothers around him break it down.

Everyone is gossiping, but no one can think of a better way. Bad weather, unsusceptible soldiers, and a court harboring evil intentions, all kinds of unfavorable factors are gathered in one place, ready to launch the deadliest blow.

"Zhong Jian, what do you think?" Li Jiancheng's gaze swept over everyone, and finally stopped at Li Xu. My father had a very high opinion of the boy, and when everyone was helpless, maybe he could bring some new ideas.

"If it's just to burn food, sending a small number of elite soldiers to surprise attack is probably more effective than launching a large-scale attack!" Li Xu's views are relatively optimistic compared to others. "Since the last failed sneak attack, there hasn't been a large-scale attack on the Goryeo side. There has been a lot of harassment across the border recently, and there are signs of increasing frequency as the ice thickens over the river. But the brothers in Huaiyuan Town were also slowly frightened. You can take the initiative to go to the city to face the battle every time! ”

"Are you saying that the Koreans will not use troops on a large scale in winter?" Chen Yanshou's eyes flashed and asked in a low voice.

"It's hard to say, the key depends on whether the opposing generals are willing to take risks. The cold weather has a great impact on both the enemy and us. Especially camping in the wild, the risk is high. Li Xu shook his head and said. Last winter, Xu Dayan also analyzed Suotou Xibu in this way. But at that time, Xu Dayan's judgment was wrong, and he was almost successfully attacked by Suo Tou Xiren. However, there is a difference between the situation of Huaiyuan Town and Su Sibu, the city wall of Huaiyuan Town is high enough, as long as the city gate is not taken by surprise by the enemy, there is still hope for holding out for a day or two. And the men and horses stationed in the field to attack the city have to endure the test of the harsh winter.

He has a stupid mouth and is wordy for a long time, but he has no point. Everyone's eyes suddenly dimmed again. so much so that he ignored Li Xu's inference about the surprise attack of elite soldiers at the beginning.

"Brother Zhong Jian is right, the weather is too cold, and it will be a big trouble for both the enemy and us. If you go all out to attack, once you are blocked by the wind and snow, I am afraid that the gains outweigh the losses. After all, Goguryeo has few soldiers and horses, and its lord is reluctant to spend so much money! Li Shimin, who was sitting on the side and listening, suddenly stood up and interjected. His views are somewhat similar to Li Xu's. Out of respect for his opponents, he did not contemptuously refer to the country on the other side of the Liao River as Goryeo, as everyone else did. Instead, it called its official name, Goguryeo.