At dawn the next day, the sky was pitch black, and the wind was as cold as a knife.

The entire military town of Toyosu was quite quiet like a sleeping giant, with only patrolling soldiers holding torches and walking back and forth neatly.

Suddenly, there was a loud fight, which woke up the entire city!

Toyosu is never relaxed, and all the soldiers are accustomed to sleeping in their clothes, beware of urgent battles. Now Diao Dou is the clarion call of war, and the soldiers jumped up from their beds in an instant, rushed out of the tent with their weapons in an orderly manner, and assembled in a very short time!

Xue Shao has already come to the colonel field with Li Duozuo and Tang Xiujing, and these generals are in command. The scout flew to report that there was a peak fire in the east to warn that there was an enemy army attacking the white-maned plain at night!

Along the banks of the Yellow River, east of Fengzhou and bordering the Yin Mountains, there is a rather rich grassland that is particularly suitable for grazing, called "White Mane Plain". In the past, it used to be a pasture used by the Tang Dynasty to settle Turkic households, but after the Turkic rebellion, the Hu herdsmen here gradually decreased, and only a group of Han people remained to make a living here. In addition to a small number of herdsmen, more of them are merchants from the mainland.

After the war between the Tang Dynasty and the grassland, the imperial court explicitly banned the border trade between the Central Plains and the grassland, and the Turks would often rob the original Han merchants. But it is precisely because of this that the trade profits between the Central Plains and the grassland have increased geometrically, after all, the industry and commerce of the grassland are very backward, and they are extremely dependent on the tea, rice, cloth and production tools of the Central Plains.

Merchants are born for profit, and they always have a way to make a profit.

As a result, Whitemane Plain, a small place that was once unknown, became a gathering place for smugglers and merchants, and a large amount of wealth and goods were collected and transferred here, making Whitemane Plain a border field where oil was rich and dragons and snakes were mixed.

After Xue Shao came to Fengzhou, he wanted to ban the big black market of Baimane Plain, but after consulting with the generals, he decided to turn a blind eye and acquiesce to the existence of Baimane Plain.

The reason is very simple, the merchant has always been well-informed, and the smuggler in the white-maned plain can be Xue Shao's free "scout". Moreover, even if Xue Shao bans the White Mane Plain, the businessmen will still try their best to smuggle it, and it is impossible to prevent it. Instead of this, it is better to standardize them and secretly send people to manage them in a unified manner, so that they can not only collect a share of taxes, but also obtain some insider information about the grassland that the army cannot find out through normal channels.

Today, the white mane plain is already a "border trade field" that does not exist on the map of the Tang Dynasty, and the umbrella behind it is the famous Shuofang Army!

Now the Turks attacked the white-maned plain at night, which is equivalent to hitting the Shuo Fangjun in the eye and snatching the wallet with a punch - is this worth it?!

Xue Shao was furious on the spot, and immediately ordered the most elite cavalry unit of the Shuofang Army to rush to the rescue of Baimane Yuan. To the surprise of all the soldiers, Young Marshal Xue, who has always been in command, personally raised his sword and got on the horse to supervise the battle this time, and all the soldiers couldn't stop him.

But a moment later, Tang Xiujing served as the vanguard and led the front to quickly kill out of Fengzhou City and go straight to the white-maned plain. Immediately afterwards, the two generals of the Shuo Fang Army, Dugu Yizhi and Sha Zha Zhongyi, were responsible for responding. Guo An and other scouts quickly turned into ghosts, and quickly disappeared into the vast night as soon as they left the city.

Xue Shao led the main force of the Chinese army, and drove out of Fengzhou City in an orderly manner with a little slow and half a beat.

Li Duozuo patted his horse and followed Xue Shao's side closely.

It would take some time for tens of thousands of troops to leave the city, and the two walked to a secluded place.

"Young marshal, do you really want to go?" Li Duozuo's brows were furrowed, full of worry.

"Toyosu, I'll leave it to you." Xue Shao whispered, and handed Li Duozuo a letter, "The only thing I'm worried about now is that rumors will spread when I leave for too long, and the hearts of the people in the army will fluctuate. So I wrote this handwritten letter, which can be regarded as an explanation to the soldiers. Choose a moment and show it to all the armies! ”

"Okay......" Li Duozuo knew that he couldn't change Xue Shao's decision, so he had to accept the letter, and then said, "After the young marshal left, the military Li could barely do it for him." But what can be done about the people's livelihood and government affairs of the Xiazhou Governor's Mansion, especially the affairs of the Yinchuan Juntun? ”

"I have already made arrangements, Liu Youqiu, Su Wei, Li Xianyuan, Wu Mingyuenu and others have their own assignments." Xue Shao said, "I don't think there will be any big mess." But in case, please ask General Li to draw his sword to help support them! ”

"Rest assured. The young marshal is not there, and the Shuofang army is still their strong backing! Li Duozuo said categorically.

Xue Shao nodded gratefully, glanced back at the assembled formation of the sergeants, and said, "I should go." ”

"Young marshal, take care!"

Xue Shao didn't say anything more, Le Ma walked in front of the cavalry array, drew his sword and shouted loudly: "All the soldiers, follow me to attack!" ”

The iron hooves shook like thunder, and the most elite cavalry of the Shuofang army followed Xue Shao to the east.

Li Duozuo returned to the city with a heavy heart, and then dismounted and walked up to the city tower. Looking east, I saw a fire at the location of the white mane plain, as if there was a fire. Guo Yuanzhen took Yan Jingrong and Gan Yuanzhen and other generals to find Li Duozuo in a hurry, with Li Duozuo's expression, he already roughly understood the whole story in his heart.

Li Duozuo smiled bitterly, "This is clearly a cover-up!" ”

"Not to mention, those smart people in the court sometimes just eat this set." Guo Yuanzhen said with a smile.

"Will it work?" Li Duozuo was very worried.

Guo Yuanzhen was still smiling, but he was confident, "Brother Li, has you ever thought about why we are all just generals, and only Young Marshal Xue can become a handsome?" ”

"Not really." Li Duozuo replied truthfully.

Guo Yuanzhen said: "That's because Young Marshal Xue's political mind is far clearer than ours. In fact, no one can fool such a trick of covering their ears and stealing bells, and it seems quite stupid. But once the matter is brought to the court for discussion, his ...... can be revealed Still waters run deep! ”

Li Duozuo smiled bitterly, "Okay, it seems that I can only be a general for the rest of my life!" ”

Guo Yuanzhen took a long breath, looked at Dongmian with a smile, and said softly: "The only thing I want to know now is ...... The first battle in Hebei, what kind of shocking will it be? ”

……

Tang Xiujing led thousands of fronts to kill the white-maned plain, the enemy army had already fled, leaving the white-maned plain full of fire and wolves, many herdsmen and businessmen were fleeing in panic, and a large number of cattle and sheep ran out of the livestock pen and ran around. From time to time, some corpses can be seen, and the scene is indeed chaotic and bloody.

When Hermes-Epitek saw the Tang army coming to the rescue, they ran to seek help. He also told Tang Xiujing that about thousands of Turkic cavalry attacked the White Mane Plain at night, killed some people, set fire to them, and took away a batch of yellow and white goods before fleeing.

"In which direction?"

"East!"

Tang Xiujing didn't say a word, and led the army to chase after him.

Xue Shao led the main force to arrive later, and ran forward without stopping to follow Tang Xiujing, leaving only a few envoys and soldiers who were responsible for the aftermath in the White Mane Plain.

After seeing the Tang Dynasty, the Han people were a little relieved and returned to their homes one after another. Soon after, they were surprised to find that all the ruffians and hooligans who had been killed tonight were the ruffians and hooligans who had run rampant in the white-maned plains in the past, and they were no longer the deep-eyed and blue-eyed Hu people. Even the looted gold and silver and the burned houses and tents were the assets of these people.

The local Han people and the Han merchants who settled down did not suffer any major losses except for being frightened!

"What's going on?" Many people began to think curiously.

Soon, the envoy who came to deal with the aftermath made an "official statement" and summarized today's events - the Turkic cavalry suddenly attacked the Han villages under the rule of Toyosu at night, and the Toyosu army urgently attacked to protect the good people, and pursued all the way to recover the captive population and goods!

Such things happen most often in border cities.

The speech of the envoy will be officially recorded as a "military situation at the front", and sooner or later it will be reported to the imperial court for information. Naturally, Hermes-Epitek's private voices could not overwhelm the military's official statements. Anyway, there was no injustice, so the Hermes-Epitek did not dig into it and let it go.

Xue Shao and Tang Xiujing led the cavalry to pursue the enemy cavalry, and the pursuit lasted all night, and the army was stopped at dawn to rest for a while.

At this time, they were already two or three hundred miles away from Fengzhou!

When he was resting, two horsemen came back and reported to Xue Shao.

"Young Marshal, we have searched for the secret code documents left by the former army." The scout reported, "According to the instructions of the young marshal, General Zhang Renyuan led the Jumping Army to become a Turkic ranger, and has cleansed the white-maned plains of hooligans, bullies, Turkic laborers, and collaborators. Now the former army is pretending to be Turkic cavalry, camping on the south bank of the Yellow River, a hundred miles east of our army, waiting for the young marshal's military order to act! ”

Xue Shao smiled with satisfaction and said, "Pass my order, let them go east along the south bank of the Yellow River without stopping, but they need to pay attention to reconnoitring and avoiding the Turkic scouts - the target, Shuozhou!" ”

"Yes!"

"In addition, I have sent an order to Guo An, before I arrive in Shuozhou, I must know the movements of the Turkic rebels and the general situation of the battle situation in Hebei!" Xue Shao said.

"Yes!"

The scout quickly sped away.

Xue Shao breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, sat down to rest for a while, took out the Taiyi Treasure Knife given by the first emperor, and wiped it with a piece of deerskin.

Tang Xiujing came to see Xue Shao with a basket of mutton soup cooked by the sergeant and a few Hu cakes, and the two sat down together to eat and replenish their bodies.

"Young marshal, subordinates but have a concern." Tang Xiujing said bluntly, "The enemy situation in front is unknown, and our army's thousand-mile attack is bound to become the end of the strong crossbow." If you encounter a large number of enemy troops on the way, will you be in danger? ”

"Our army rushed thousands of miles to help, not only the Turks could not think of it, but even our own people could not think of it." Xue Shao replied, "Besides, there are Turkic cavalry in front of Zhang Renyuan pretending to be. Even if you encounter an enemy, you won't start a fight all of a sudden, but at least you have to make sure about it. After this roundup, we have time to react. Also, we have reason to have confidence in our scouts! ”

"......I see," Tang Xiujing's eyes lit up, and he said with a smile, "I have long heard that Young Marshal Xue is using soldiers to complement each other, and it is difficult to distinguish between fiction and reality, and I know the true essence of Wei Gong's art of war. Looking at it today, it really lives up to its name! ”

Xue Shao smiled indifferently and said, "This is just a trick, not worth mentioning. The battle of Hebei must be a difficult battle, the Turks have a huge army and are determined to win, and they are also resourceful and difficult to deal with with tricks...... So, we must be ready to fight to the death! ”