"General, shall we assign a little more men to the troops of the Turks who are fending off the reinforcements behind them? They couldn't resist it. An officer said to Mueller.

"If you can't resist it, you have to grit your teeth for me, you go and tell the army commander in charge of intercepting the rear army. As long as they have one person alive, they can't let these Turks come for reinforcements. Otherwise, one of them will be counted as one, and all of them will be punished as deserters. Mueller said with a cold face.

"General, you're going to send the entire interception force to a dead end! They were already inferior in numbers, and at this time, those Turks had already rushed forward desperately in order to rescue this army surrounded by us, and the brothers suffered heavy casualties! The officer said with a slight cry.

Mueller directly slapped the officer and said, "You are a general, I am a general?" Do I still need you to teach me how to fight? ”

"I'm sorry general, it's my subordinates who have said too much." The officer, who had been slapped by Mueller, bowed his head and said.

Mueller looked at him and didn't speak, but sighed and said, "Alas, I understand your thoughts, your feelings. And I'm more anxious than you, I'm more worried than you about the fate of that interception force. But if you look at the Turkic army that we are surrounding, more than half of them are dead and wounded, and we can annihilate them all here in an instant. You must know that there are a total of 20,000 Turkic troops in front of us, except for the 10,000 commanders who follow them as the front army, and they are on the way back at the moment, and then there are the 7,000 Chinese troops and 3,000 rear troops surrounded by us. You touch your conscience and say, let you take the same number of troops to fight the same number of Turks, how high is your chance of victory? ”

The officer looked up, thought for a moment, and replied, "Less than fifty percent." ”

"Yes, less than 50%. This is also the fundamental reason why I have made this decision here today, if, as you said, the troops that are now encircled are transferred to support the army that intercepts the rear army, it is true that the rear army can be guaranteed to retreat in its entirety, but then the two Turkic armies of the Chinese army and the rear army will be in one place, and the morale of the Chinese army, which is already close to collapse, will be lifted again, so that those brothers who died on the battlefield before will die in vain! And once they hold on to the return of the front army, then we can only choose to escape. And once the army breaks and flees, then the losses are incalculable. Our 20,000 people were pursued by the Turks, and 5,000 of us were able to return to Gaochang City alive, all of which were the result of Tengger's blessing. ”

Mueller looked at the somewhat gradually awakened expressions of the officers in front of him, and continued: "But if we resist the pressure of the rear army and annihilate this 7,000-strong Chinese army here first, then we will have a lot of room for maneuver, and we can not only gather all our forces to turn back and destroy the 3,000 rear army that came to help, but also gather these forces together to meet the front army that has returned to the east. Or we can choose to retreat, so as long as we destroy these 7,000 people, no matter which choice we make, we can retreat with our whole body. ”

"The general is far-sighted, but it was my narrow-mindedness that made a statement against the general, and I hope the general will not be angry." The officer also understood the meaning of Mueller's words at this time, and hurriedly said apologetically on the horse.

"It's out of the way, you and I are Tengger's people. If it weren't for the army at this time, we would have been brothers. It's just that all you need to think about is the survival of those 180 people, and I have to think about the survival of 20,000 people. Now that you understand, take your men back into the encirclement you joined, and annihilate that army as soon as possible. We've been talking for so long, and I'm sure your men are almost finished. You go and make it clear to the general in charge of the encirclement that if one of the troops in the encirclement suffers too many casualties, the other army should be dispatched in time to make up for it, so that the army can come down and recuperate. Although we are short on time, we have plenty of money for now, at least compared to the people who are surrounded. Mueller waved his hand and turned his gaze back to the encirclement.

When the officer heard Müller's order, he saluted Müller and rejoined the encirclement with his own headquarters, replacing an army that was covered in blood and relatively small in number. At this time, Mueller's eyes on the battlefield suddenly fell on a corner of the battlefield.

Müller narrowed his eyes and looked intently at the two horsemen running out of the encirclement one after the other, galloping away from the warband. Judging from the attire, those two people were the naturalized army under Muller, and as soon as he saw that there were people who had escaped from the battle in his army, Muller took off the bow and arrows from the saddle with a cold face, and aimed at the two deserters with his bow and arrows, and then shot the mounts under the crotches of the two deserters to the ground.

At this time, the gendarmes who had been following Müller were also aware of this situation, and without Müller's order, they were already galloping over. He dragged the two deserters out from under the carcass of the horses, tied their hands and threw them to the ground. Then the gendarmes immediately dragged the two people who had fallen to the ground, returned to Müller, and said: "The general has caught two deserters, and it is up to the general to decide what to do with them." ”

Mueller looked at the two naturalized soldiers in front of him with a cold face because they had been dragged on the ground for a long time, and their clothes were in tatters, and asked angrily: "Why do you want to be a deserter?" From the first day you joined the Naturalized Army, I should have told you that in my Naturalized Army, all major things can be regarded as small things, but those who escape from the battle cannot be pardoned! ”

"Back, back to the general's words. The two of us joined the Naturalized Army with the leader of the clan, and there were fourteen of us at the time. So far, the dead and wounded, only the two of us are left. Our children are still young, the eldest is just talking, and the youngest is still a baby. We don't want these poor children to be fatherless for as long as they can remember, so they risk their lives to become deserters. One of them threw himself on his knees and kowtowed to Mueller.

"You know the rules of the naturalized army. Escapees are meant to be thrown into the depths of the Tulum moraine after the battle, and I think it is better for your children to know that their father was a deserter than to know that their father was a brave warrior who fought to the very end of his life. Mueller said with a sigh.

"General, General. The two of us know that we are wrong, can you raise your noble hand and let us go back? We must kill more enemies in front of the battle to repay the general's kindness for not killing. At this time, the two of them also knelt down without the master, and kept pleading with Mueller.

"The reasons of the two of you are very touching, but there are no rules. The military regulations say clearly what the fate of deserters will be, but the two of you knowingly commit it. As the manager, I can't try to save the two of you, but I can give you both a relatively happy death. Then Mueller drew his saber and cut off the heads of the two kneeling on the ground, ignoring the blood of the two spurted on his horse's belly, trouser legs and shoes, and turned his head to the gendarmes sent by the Western Regions Army on the side:

"Even if it's to give me a face, remember these two people who died on the battlefield, is it okay?"

(End of chapter)