Tabu sat next to the extinguished campfire, warming himself by the heat of the embers.

It was already the second watch, and only the sentry had not yet slept, and rode horses to patrol the area they defended, and the sentry did not make a sound, but if you listened carefully, you could hear the sound of horses' hooves and the occasional coughing of people.

When the bonfire goes out at night, people cook meat here and eat it, and the pot hangs on the rack, and water is brought from a distance to boil it, and then the mutton is put out of it and cooked, and the meat is cut with a knife, and each man shakes out the salt from the salt packet he has with him, sprinkles it on the steaming fat lamb, and then feasts on it.

It is easy to see the collapse of people's hearts from these little things...... More than a month ago, as the most elite cavalry of the Mongol tribes, the Sentry Guards were eager to seize any opportunity to engage with He Yusheng, or to find any clues to report, and then hoped that the Taiji above would seize the opportunity to break the enemy in one fell swoop and remove the thorn rooted in the hearts of every upright Mongol who had rooted in the steppe.

However, after such a long time, the war has taken on an unfavorable shape everywhere, people's minds have relaxed, and they have not been able to live in their own felt bags for a long time, and the double exhaustion of the spirit and body makes it difficult for people to keep their spirits up...... The war here in Jining Fort is very unfavorable, every day is threatened by the artillery on the military fort, if it is too close to the military fort, it will also be attacked, the occasional attack of the cuirassier will cause heavy losses to the Mongols, large and small Taiji have lost confidence, and the upper echelons are at a loss...... Everyone felt frustrated, they didn't dare to attack, and they couldn't withdraw from the siege...... Zhang Han is in this military fort, and everyone knows that the battle of taking this person will be won, which is the biggest goal, but let this person not dare to fight, but withdraw his troops to other places, don't talk about others, Tabu Nang himself feels that if he does this, it is better to choose to surrender directly.

Previously, he set up an ambush in the area of Xiaohehe Fort, but the Ming people were not fooled, and mobilized a large number of people to set up an ambush in vain, but they did not catch anything, and they lost a lot of people under the surprise attack of the Ming people, and even the son of the Great Khan, the future Tumut Great Khan Omubu Hongtaiji, was also captured.

Whenever he thinks that the future Taiji will be reduced to a prisoner in the hands of the Ming people, maybe he will be insulted and abused, Tabu Nang's heart is burning like fire, and he can't wait to fight to the death with the Ming people immediately!

At night, the subordinates unsaddled their horses when they were full, fed the horses, drank water, and then tied the horses together to prevent them from running around, and most of them slept around the campfire wrapped in sheepskins, although it was summer, the grassland after night was also very cold, and the unobstructed terrain could not resist the cold of the night, and the people were wrapped in thick furs, and slept very sweetly.

Tabu Nang couldn't sleep, he simply got up, his eyes were like eagles staring at Jining Fort in the distance, there was an obvious light, the Ming people were not afraid of the siege of the Mongols, their castle did not ban the lights, the military fort in the distance was in a high place, the lights were like a little starlight, stinging Tabu Nang's eyes.

"Among the Mongols, are there no good men?"

Surrounded by the thunderous snoring of his partners, there have been fewer and fewer people volunteering to be a whistle recently, which has also caused Tabu Sang and others to become more and more tired.

"Get up, change your guard!" Under the darkness of the night, a dozen sentry teams were quickly assembled, the Mongol cavalry yawned, and many people fell on their stomachs again, allowing Tabu to ride the lead horse and lead everyone to the south.

……

At the second watch, all the people in Jining Fort who followed Zhang Han out of the fort were gathered, and the military resources used were also prepared.

Every soldier wears chain mail, in order to save physical energy for the horses, even Zhang Han did not wear cuirass or iron scale armor, of course, he did not wear cotton armor with poor protection ability and bulky cotton armor, the horses already have to wear curtains and chicken necks, as well as when the chest, more than ten pounds of chain mail are draped on the horse, if the knight wears heavy armor again, it is okay to gallop for a short distance, if it is pursued for a long time, the lack of physical fitness of the horse is likely to lead to the failure of the whole operation...... That, of course, would be catastrophic.

Several entire forts were alarmed...... The weather was cold at night, but everyone almost ran out of the warm room, and the soldiers on duty were restrained by the officers and walked away, but everyone looked back, and some soldiers couldn't help but have reddened their eyes at the thought that they were infantry and could not be selected for the cavalry.

In fact, it is the officers, and they are also excited, but they have received better training, and abiding by military discipline has become an unswerving creed imprinted in their bones, otherwise, the first people to run to Zhang Han are those officers who have followed for a longer time and have a deeper relationship with Zhang Han.

It was only at this time that people could better appreciate the importance of Zhang Han to this group!

Many people can't think about it, if this team of cavalry goes out and Zhang Han is unfortunately killed or captured, what will happen to He Yusheng next?

Almost all the officers who were not on duty stood beside Zhang Han, and people surrounded him, but they had given up persuasion, in the current situation, there was such a big leak in the rear, Zhang Han had to return to solve the trouble, and there was no substitute for others!

Han merchants, people's husbands, soldiers, soldiers, and military forts are full of layers of people standing on their feet, and people are inevitably worried.

"My lord, have a nice trip."

"My lord, have a safe journey."

"I'll wait for the good news from my lord."

Li Xuan, Li Shouxin and others were all seeing off at the gate of the fort, and what they said was nothing more than some words of prayer, and the eleven people who were selected followed closely, and Wen Zhongfa and the bald man led the horse in the front.

Everyone changed to the best war horses, the left and right pockets were throwing spears and flying swords, and the right pocket was a horse gun and a short gun with good medicine...... The number of short guns is still very rare, only Zhang Han's personal guards are equipped with short guns, and even Wen Zhongfa's team did not carry them last time, but many people feel that short guns are just melee protection, and they are not very useful in horse combat, and they can effectively kill within twenty steps...... The arrows of the North Captives shoot unusually accurately, many of the North Captives can also use the bead shooting method, that is, in the shortest time to shoot a considerable number of arrows, within fifty steps, the good archery of the North Captives can shoot more than a dozen arrows in a quarter of a moment, and can continuously shoot the bull's-eye, but in the battle, under the rapid movement, this accuracy rate will drop a lot, but within twenty steps, the good shooting of the North Captives can shoot arrows continuously, and each arrow can hit the face or throat of the person!

Three of the selected knights were Li Xuan's subordinates, and the rest were the best of the special and field personnel, and together with Wen Zhongfa and Bald Tou, they formed an extremely strong small team.

The fort gate gradually opened, Zhang Han and others came out, the moonlight was very good tonight, as far as the eye could see, the large Mongolian camp tent five miles away was clearly visible, and at the same time a lot of white shadows could be seen, that was the sheep grazing outside the tent, a few miles away, the north wind gently blew on the people's faces, and it seemed to bring the unique smell of cattle and sheep.

Wen Zhongfa and the bald man rode in front, they were very skillful, and led the people out of the winding road, and when they were out of the range of the barricade, everyone began to gallop southwest.

"The hour has come, the artillery crew fires!"

The eyes of the officers standing at the head of the city were red, but Tang Ruowang was the calmest one, and when he saw that the time for cooperation was up, he rushed to call out.

Li Shouxin glanced at Tang Ruowang and made an affirmative hand gesture.

The artillery crew opened fire immediately, and in the middle of the night, the muzzles of the guns spewed out strong tongues of fire, which pierced the night sky in an instant, and the shells flew out after a loud sound, and flew with a shrill roar towards the Mongol camp in the distance.

Almost soon after the cannon sounded, the opposite camp was filled with people shouting and neighing, horns sounded, and many herdsmen and cavalry woke up from their sleep, and the whole camp was in chaos.

Such a scene actually has a few days in the future, of course, it is impossible to set a fixed time for Jining Fort to fire artillery, sometimes it is morning, sometimes it is too noon, sometimes it may be night, even if it is night, the time is not fixed, under such artillery harassment, the northern captives stationed at close range are of course miserable, regardless of day and night, the pressure is very great, they can only be as far away as possible from the firing distance of five miles, but in order to put pressure on the castle side, it is inevitable to be stationed within five miles, or even within three miles, This drudgery could only be rotated, and whenever the artillery fire went off, the herdsmen and cavalrymen who were within range were in a panic, and no one knew where the shells would fall...... If you are unlucky, the shells will fall a few hundred steps away, and if you are unlucky, you will see that the tents hit by the shells are still burning during the day the next day, and there will be a residual fire, and then you will smell a violent smell from a long distance, which is the smell of people and horses being hit and then burned, and the corpses will add the smell, and the people who clean up the battlefield are under great mental pressure...... Of course, the fate of these people will not be very good, there are tribesmen stationed for more than ten miles around the periphery, and no one can escape.

After the cannon sounded, it was almost noisy, the small cavalry under the moonlight was inconspicuous, until Zhang Han and others galloped out of the side of the military platform a few miles away when they were discovered by the people there, the Mongols shouted, rode horses to pursue, when the two sides staggered, the fortress wall saw the cavalry set fire to meet the attack, close staggered and passed, several northern captives were knocked off their horses, and the rest were forced to run sideways to open the distance, after the lightning contact, Zhang Han's cavalry team did not fall off the horse, and no horses were shot over, However, the northern captives who came into contact with them turned on their backs, and the losses were not small.