The nights in early autumn were a little longer, the moon was like water, the sky was full of stars, and it was still a little cold in the second half of the night, however, Xin Sheng, the cavalry general of the Qin army who was standing in the chariot, had his lips tightened, and his head was full of sweat. The sweat and the dust that clinged to the face formed a thick layer of dirt.

Galloping at night, even if there are torches in the car, is very dangerous. Fortunately, this is the Qin Road, and this road is related to the transportation of grain and straw for the Qin army on the front line. The only thing that worries people is that Qin Dao is no better than mud, extremely hard, and after galloping like this overnight, the military horse does not know how much it will be damaged.

"General, there are still thirty miles to Jiyi." Outside the cavalry queue that was speeding with the car, a horse came in reverse.

"Order: Reprimand the cavalry to reconnoiter the road ahead, and the whole army will stop feeding the horses." Xin Sheng looked at the moon, which was already in the west, and decided to feed the horse for a while. For the cavalry, it was not difficult to gallop for a hundred miles in one night, and he wanted to accumulate horsepower to cover the Chu army that was besieging the city from the flank at dawn.

"Hey!" The rider loudly agreed, and turned around and gave the military order to 'reprimand the cavalry to recontour the road ahead, and the whole army to stop feeding the horses'.

Qin Dao, there are Lu in ten miles, there are houses in thirty miles, and there are cities in fifty. Although 5,000 horses were not enough to feed the horses, there was also water in the sheepskin bladder, which could barely feed the horses. The thousands of cavalry who were ordered to slowly stopped, galloping in the middle of the night, most of the horses were sweating, and the temperature in the mountains was very low at night, and white smoke rose from some military horses.

The Qin army's cavalry was only thirty miles away from him, which no one had ever imagined. But the prestige of the Qin cavalry and the generals of the Chu army are very clear. Not only because of Changping, but also because of the 40 years of Bai Yan, relying on the cavalry - at that time, the Qin army had one person and three horses, carrying soldiers and grain and straw, and traveled more than 300 times in one night to Deng County (now near Xiangyang) and pulled it out. After the loss of the northern Fangcheng, the barrier in the north was Deng, and after the loss of Deng County, the Qin army could drive straight in.

"It's all done?" Xiang Yan didn't sleep all night, and her eyes were bloodshot.

"It's over." Pan, who had just come in, replied. The military order was issued in the first half of the night, and it was completed in the second half of the night. "It's a pity that the fire started in a hurry, and we only found more than 600 heavy vehicles and 730 military horses inside and outside Jiyi."

Jiyi is equivalent to the Qin army's garrison, and since it is captured, the Chu army naturally wants to change its guns and artillery, and its two feet become four feet. After listening to the report, Xiang Yan didn't feel that there was anything wrong, and said, "Six hundred grain trucks are enough." ”

"This car is not a Chu car, it is a unique double-wheel car of the Qin people; Most soldiers will not ride military horses. Sima Pengzong interjected.

"Double-wheeled?" Only then did Xiang Yan think of the originality of the Qin people: the double-wheel car. The normal car is a single wheel, because the wheel is in the middle, so it needs at least two horses to pull the horse. The Qin State double-wheel car has found another way, two wheels on both sides of the car, and a single horse can be towed.

"Exactly." Peng Zongdao, "Although it is easy to drive, it is not as much as a two-horse carriage." ”

A double-wheel car is naturally not as much as a single-wheel car, but the Qin people are not stupid, the two double-wheel cars add up to more than a single-wheel car, the most important thing is that a single horse is convenient for the imperial envoy, and the training time of the royal hand is short - it is true that the skills of the soldiers in the Warring States period are not as good as those in the Spring and Autumn Period, but the Warring States Period is a contest of the country's overall war, and the number is the foundation that determines the victory of the war, not an individual, or an elite army. The military system of the Qin State reflects this everywhere, and the military system of the Chu State violates this everywhere.

"How many people can be carried is a few people, and the injured must be in the car. As for the seven hundred military horses, they were tied to their horses if they could not ride. Xiang Yan was very helpless about this, he suddenly thought of his son who might have arrived home, he could ride a horse, and his riding skills were very exquisite.

"That's all there is to it." Pan replied without a fate. "Then when will our army pull out of camp?"

"Don't stay here for a long time, give the order to go down, make food immediately, and start before dawn." Xiang Yan waved his hand.

"Is this worried about the Qin army's cavalry?" After Pan Wuming went out, Peng Zong asked. "If the cavalry comes, how should our army respond?"

"Fight it with a chariot." Xiang Yan didn't even want to think about it. He added, "Is there a report from the east?" ”

"Most of the cavalry belong to Xiang Zhi's department, and Quandong, who can ride horses, will go to investigate." Peng Zong said this, and looked at Xiang Yan a few times. When it came to reprimanding the horse, a sentence blocked in his heart, and he didn't know whether to say it or not: The chief who led the rider to the east to explore the enemy was probably Xiang Chao.

"Drive, drive——!" When Peng Cheng remembered Xiang Chao, Xiang Chao was lying low on his horse and galloping on the official road.

Just now, outside the Taoist house thirty miles away from Jiyi, he happened to see the cavalry of the Qin army who stopped by the roadside to feed the horses. The horses traveled miles away, and the neighing of the horses was incessant. Thinking about the important task of scouting, he wanted to get closer and count how many people there were in the Qin army, but he was suddenly discovered by the secret sentry of the Qin army, so another desperate run was staged on the official road under the moon.

The Qin knight's crossbow is a standing weapon, but unfortunately the distance at night is not easy to judge, and after the first few arrows missed, Xiang Chao, who was riding a Qin horse, gradually opened the distance between him and the Qin knight. When the pursuers disappeared, he did not slow down his horse and galloped towards Jiyi.

"What order?!" Five miles outside Jiyi, someone in the dark drank in Chu Yin.

"Kill Qin!" Xiang Chao replied loudly.

"Yes, yes. Chu people don't shoot. The dark whistle replied, and at this time Xiang Chao had slowed down slightly.

"Did you really meet the Qin cavalry?" The camp is about to be pulled, and the military tent has been dismantled. Xiang Yan, who was fully armored, stood in the open space like a nail, and Pan Wuming and Cheng Tong were also there, and everyone was extremely surprised by Xiang Chao's news, this was too fast!

"Yes, father. The child did see the Qin cavalry, which stretched for miles and horses, numbering more than three thousand. "With a son like Xiang Yu who 'brocade clothes never travels at night', Xiang Chao, the old man, is no better. At this time, his face was full of excitement, the scene just now was really thrilling, and now he has goosebumps on his back when he thinks about it a little. As soon as this matter was returned to Xiang County, those playmates must envy themselves, but it was a pity that they did not kill a single Qin soldier.

"Father, there are few people in Qin, our army can set up an ambush on the official road, and the Qin people will be unprepared." Xiang Chao suggested.

"Ridiculous!" Pan Wuming was about to respond, but Xiang Yan angrily reprimanded. "Pull out the camp at once."

"General, where are you going?" Cheng Tong asked urgently. The established plan was to go west to join Xiang Zhi's troops, and whether Fuyi was captured or not, the mountain pass would be blocked, unless the Qin army advancing east to the Chu realm came back with a large reinforcement, or the Qin army advancing east from Nanyang broke through the mountain pass. Now that the cavalry of the Qin army in the east suddenly appeared, Chengtong couldn't help but think of the predetermined retreat: thirty miles straight south of Jiyi is the Tongbai Mountain Col, where there is a trail that can climb over the mountain and return to Liyi (now Yindian Town, Sui County) in Sui County, Chu State on the west side of Dabie Mountain.

"Where else can we go?" Xiang Yan asked rhetorically. The wounds and illnesses of the march, coupled with the casualties of the first battle at dusk, the number of soldiers led by Cheng Tong was less than 3,000, and some soldiers were also required to wear armor and hold the army, but Xiang Yan didn't care. "Naturally, it's a reciprocating eup. If our department blocks the mountain pass for one day, the Qin people will cut off the grain for one day, and the grain will be exhausted, and Chengyang will be safe. ”

"Yui!" The main general insisted on fighting the Qin army in this small basin, and everyone could only take orders.

The cows and horses, frightened all night, finally left the stable where the night had been lit. This army, which numbered less than 10,000 men, including the servants, marched westward. After they left, Xi secretly came out of the firelight, and looking at the women and children of the merchant travelers who also came out from everywhere, he tightened his body, avoided the search of others and entered the city, and returned to the Yifu, which had long been burned out and collapsed by most of it. He must hide inside and be discovered, otherwise he will be suspected of being a traitor in the Chu State.

Thirty miles away, Xin Sheng, who was discovered by the Jingren scouts in the middle of the night, was even more cautious because he was worried about being ambushed, in addition to sending more scouts to investigate the situation in Jiyi, he only started walking after dawn on the last thirty miles.

This did not violate the military order - the Qin ruler was 0.232 meters, one step was six feet, one mile was three hundred steps, and thirty miles was only 12.528 kilometers, while the cavalry trotted at a speed of 150 meters per minute, which was 9 kilometers per hour. He only needs to be a little faster to reach Jiyi at dawn according to Mengwu's military orders.

Besides, the Chu army has been alert, and it is impossible to take advantage of its unpreparedness, if he gallops through the darkness regardless of the danger, once he loses his men and horses in the ambush, he may be dismissed and imprisoned. One choice is to be fruitless, and the other choice is that he may be dismissed and imprisoned, and his choice is unclear.

Qin is a country with a legal system, and legal avoidance of crime is the choice of all smart people, and so is Xi, and so is Xin Sheng. They are not evil, it is human instinct to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, they just want their wives not to be official slaves, they can be Qin generals, and kill enemies for the country.

The real 'hateful' are those who seek profit legally, such as the famous uprising leader Chen Sheng. Over the centuries, Chen County has produced countless businessmen, and he is the most successful one. With the shrewdness and calculation of the people of Chen County, he used the true or false law of 'heavy rain is out of date, and if it is out of date, it should be beheaded' to drag 900 soldiers into the water and turn it into his original capital. No matter how many men and horses he has under his command in the future, this first pot of gold is always the most important.

When Xin Sheng, who had legally avoided the crime, rushed to Jiyi twenty miles away, he finally got the exact information: the Jing people captured Jiyi yesterday and withdrew from Jiyi before dawn. In the end, the scout cavalry also brought back two Qin soldiers who were not fully armored, one of whom was actually Shangzao (second-class title).

"Jing Ren Geometry? How is Jiyi pulled? Xin Sheng felt a kind of pressure, and the responsibilities of Jiyi were completely different from those of those who did not pull out. He felt the need to pursue the Chu army and overdid it.

"General Yu, I don't know how many Jing people there are......" It was Shangzao who spoke, he was not an old Qin man, with a strong Nanyang County accent. We only knew that the city captain went out of the city to meet the enemy, and when he was defeated, the Jing people killed him. ”

"That's all?" Xin Sheng had some letters, "Where did the Jing people go?" When to leave the city? ”

"General, I'll wait...... I don't know where the Jing people are going. Shang Zao replied that his pause was not due to fear of Xin Sheng, but to organize the language. When it was, the flag was overwhelmed, the tun chief, the army chief were all killed, we had no rate, outnumbered, had to fight out of the encirclement, hiding in the forest at night, I don't know when the Jing people left the city. ”

Xin Sheng smiled, "Is that really the case?" ”

"If you don't believe it, ask the military officials and the division to check it." Shangzao's gaze met him, and he was frank.