On the wine table, Ma Ping talked in detail about how Li Yanzhao borrowed troops from Xiping, how he went to attack the thief camp at night, and how he dug a pit and set up an ambush on the edge of the woods, so that the thieves would lose their troops and lose their soldiers. Hearing this, Ren County Ling and the two county officials sitting next to him were all in admiration, and the generals of Gu Zang, who were sitting opposite Ma Ping, were already applauding.

After Ma Ping crossed the Huangshui again, he saw that the thief army attacked Xiping County, and he had expected that the thief army would cross the Huangshui and go straight to Changning after the unsuccessful siege of the city, and it happened to be raining heavily in the sky, so he turned back to the upper reaches of the Huangshui to build a dam, and finally released the water to cut the thief army into two sections.

Then he talked about how the remaining thieves on the south bank were defeated by the Xiping defenders out of the city, and then how Li Yanzhao discovered the difference in the ranks of the thief army, so he divided his troops overnight to capture the families of the thief army.

How did Ma Ping and Wei Yun, the cavalry commander of the Xiping army, lead the Xiping cavalry to repeatedly harass the sluggish thief army, making the thief army march slowly and ignore the end.

What happened after that, Ma Ping didn't see it with his own eyes. Ren County Commander talked and laughed, and explained how Li Yanzhao led some of the thieves' families to Changning County. Then it was only a quarter of an hour, the thief army had swept in, how Li Yanzhao and the Zhao scribe of this county persuaded him to surrender, and how the family members of the thief army called their relatives on the city tower.

Then the thieves were in chaos, and they were in flames with each other, and then the thief chieftain was bald and ambushed, and all the thieves surrendered, and the rebellion was put down.

The generals on the table were stunned when they heard this, and they were all stunned. When Song Pei heard this series of stories, he was also excited and surprised, and he couldn't close his mouth. After a while, he sighed: "Really handsome! It is no accident that such a profound plan has today's victory! After listening to the twists and turns in this series of counterinsurgency processes, the generals were already impressed by the Guangwu cavalry. The generals of Guzang got up one after another to toast to the generals of Guangwu. Ma Ping and the three horsemen Sima were flattered when they saw this. In the past, I always felt that Gu Zang's generals believed that they were the elite of the state governor's guards, and they had always been above the top, but they often lacked respect for the local garrison generals. And today, everyone fought a beautiful counterinsurgency battle, but it made these soldiers who were above the top in the past get up and toast themselves. Ma Ping and the horsemen Sima all had a sense of raising their eyebrows.

Raised eyebrows in their hearts, but on the face, everyone did not dare to slack off in the slightest, several people got up one after another, touched the wine in the cup with the generals of Guzang, and then took a sip of pride and dryness. The two sides spoke flattering and flattering words to each other, and the scene was harmonious.

In the end, the banquet ended in harmony. Gu Zang, the general of the reinforcement army, and the forward supervisor Song Pei had a lot of interest in Li Yanzhao, and he wanted to ask Ma Ping to call this chief to come and see him. Unexpectedly, after Li Yanzhao finished eating, he sent wine and food to the two brothers who were in charge of the horses. Not being able to meet this person also made Song Pei can't help but show a slight regret on his face.

At the end of the banquet, gathered all the subordinates who were full of food, Ma Ping stepped forward to say goodbye to the county commander and the county officials, and said goodbye to the generals of Guzang one by one, and then led hundreds of subordinates to ride and go towards the urn city. All the horses were tied to the outside of the urn, and their weapons were piled up there to keep an eye on them.

After turning a few streets, the group reached their destination. Ma Ping asked his subordinates to rest for a while, and then everyone packed up their armor, weapons, dry food and other things, and lined up on their horses one after another.

Ma Ping saw that the morale of his subordinates was high, and he was also relieved in his heart, so he turned over and got on his horse, and pointed to the north with the whip in his hand: "Go!" ”

All the soldiers cheered and cheered, and hundreds of men rode their horses out of the city and went east.

It was the afternoon of August 20. Although it was not a good time to set off in the afternoon, Ma Ping was also homesick when he saw his subordinates. Most of them were willing to leave for their hometowns immediately, so they listened to the will of the people and immediately led everyone on the way home.

After all the horsemen left the city, they all rode their horses and galloped. Fortunately, the horsepower of the military horses selected by Guangwu County was almost the same, so although all the horsemen rode their horses and galloped, no one was left behind. When marching, Ma Ping was the leader, so he naturally ordered Li Yanzhao to go to the end of the team.

Li Yanzhao pressed the formation at the end of the team, and the horses under his crotch galloped up and down, and he was still not very used to it. After all, from the afterlife, I haven't yet summed up my experience of horseback riding. Fortunately, this expedition was not carried out on horseback, but he had never fought on horseback with high intensity, and for him, the horse under the crotch was more like a means of transportation. One of the reasons for this lack of riding skills is that the horse does not have stirrups, which is a priority that must be solved first when you go back.

The appearance of the stirrup in history has undoubtedly greatly shortened the difference in riding skills between individuals, it has made the rider have a strong support point for his feet on horseback, and its appearance has freed the rider's hands, so that even if he has not spent many years on horseback, the rider who is not very skilled in equestrianism can complete the action of drawing the bow and archery and slashing left and right on the horseback. After a period of training, the cavalry of the Central Plains Dynasty was able to compete with the cavalry of the nomads in horsemanship. Although the nomadic cavalry has practiced riding and archery since childhood, they are skilled in arching horses. It makes it difficult for the cavalry formed under the Central Plains agricultural civilization system to be able to match it, but a small stirrup undoubtedly greatly shortens the distance between the two, so that the cavalry formed by the Central Plains Dynasty, after a period of hard training, also has the power to fight in the face of the nomadic cavalry who come and go like the wind.

In this way, this little stirrup that plays a key role must be manufactured, Li Yanzhao secretly thought in his heart.

Anyway, there is no shortage of ironware workshops in Xiping County, and there is no shortage of craftsmen in the county. As long as Taishou agrees, the hundreds of horsemen under Guangwu are just a matter of course. In the future, after the benefits of stirrups are discovered by others, they can be promoted, so that all the cavalry of Liangzhou are equipped with stirrups, and at that time, the combat effectiveness of the Liangzhou cavalry can have a qualitative leap.

However, in addition to stirrups, the pencil seems to be the progress of the Taishou, after all, in this era, he has not mastered too many products that can change the overall situation of this era, and the pencil, if it can be manufactured, it is a financial way for himself.

The journey home always seems to be relatively long. Although the horsemen who had galloped for more than two hours still did not feel tired, looking at the sun that was gradually sinking in the west, Ma Ping still ordered everyone to dismount, find a camp, and prepare for the night.

The camp was on a leeward hillside, and Ma Ping did not order the logging to be built, considering the physical strength of the soldiers. The soldiers set up shelters for themselves. Since there was no logging and setting up a village, Ma Ping ordered more sentry horses, and at the same time, the horses were gathered together and guarded by Sima Fanting, a cavalry officer of Lingju.

There was nothing to do all night, and the next morning, everyone woke up and dressed up, and simply ate some dry food, and set out on the journey home again.

These hundreds of horsemen are wanderers who are eager to return home. All the way to go, basically do not stop, but Changning is far away from Guangwu County, although the distance is only about two hundred miles, but it is difficult to travel in the mountains, the cavalry over the mountains and mountains, or two and a half days of hard work, before arriving at the county seat of Guangwu County.

When everyone stood on the hillside, looking at the outline of Lingju County not far away, these horsemen who had been running for ten days all let out bursts of cheers. Among them, there are more than 100 cavalry soldiers belonging to Lingju County.

And when these horsemen gradually approached the county seat of Lingju, they were surprised to find that not far from the gate of the county seat, a dense crowd had already gathered.

Previously, Li Yanzhao sent Niu Erzhuang to send a letter back to the county town to inform him of the news that the Taishou rebellion had been put down. When Taishou learned of this, he immediately sent people to the temporary resettlement sites of the county residents in the three counties of Lingju, Zhiyang, and Yongdeng to inform the officials and people of the rebellion and the people everywhere. When they learned that the rebellion had been put down and that they could return home, the officials and the people cheered.

This morning, Ma Ping sent a vigilant sentry to arrive at the county seat of Lingju. When the people heard the news that the cavalry sent by the county to quell the rebellion was about to return, they spontaneously came to the city gate to greet them. Many of them were family members of the county's horsemen, and they gathered on both sides of the official road at the city gate, from the hour until nearly noon, and no one complained.

The dust in the distance was getting closer, and at the end of the road there were the dusty and slightly tired faces of the horsemen. When the people who had come to greet them saw them approaching, they suddenly burst into bursts of cheers.

Eleven-year-old Yang Mengyun squeezed through the crowd, eager to catch a glimpse of the warriors who had put down the rebellion and returned from the dust. Unfortunately, she was too short, and no matter how hard she tried to beat her toes in the crowd, she couldn't see the heroes who had returned from counterinsurgency. Yang Mengyun couldn't help but be in a hurry, and regardless of the call of his mother behind him, he struggled to squeeze forward along the human slit. Others saw that this little girl was struggling to squeeze to the front, and many well-wishers made room for her.

Yang Mengyun spent a lot of effort and finally squeezed into the front row. She looked up at the horsemen who had approached and were riding on tall horses, all of them wearing helmets and armor, holding swords and spears, and bows and arrows hanging from their waists, and they were extremely powerful.

Yang Mengyun, like the adults beside him, cheered to these soldiers who had returned from the counterinsurgency, and in their hearts, it was these soldiers who went out to fight the rebellion to save them, so that their homes could be saved from the war and disasters, so that they could finally return home safely after a few days of refuge. The horsemen were also very excited, and some of the people in the line were constantly smiling or waving at the crowd of appreciative cheers on the side of the road. Seeing the friendly response of those horsemen, the crowd that came to greet them boiled even more.

Many of the relatives of the Lingju riders waited by the roadside, and when they saw their relatives passing by on horseback, they shouted their names. Seeing their relatives who returned safely after the expedition, they were all excited, and the emotions of the reunion turned into tears of happiness on their faces. At this moment, they are no longer the families of soldiers with low social status, but people who are immersed in the happiness of reuniting with the heroes who have returned from the battle.

Ma Ping looked at the warm scenes in front of him with satisfaction, and happily accepted the cheers and appreciation of these people. Sima Fan Tingze, the cavalry of Lingju, slowly came to his side, hugged his fists at him and said, "Du Wei, I will return to the county later, Du Wei, please take care." ”

Ma Ping stretched out his fist and gently slapped Fan Ting's shoulder, and said, "How does it feel to return home?" Go ahead, you and Lingju's brothers have worked hard with me this time. ”

Fan Ting said solemnly: "Take care of the captain, in order to meet again in the future." ”

Ma Ping smiled and waved: "Go back." ”

Looking at the back of Fan Ting turning around and walking towards the city, Ma Ping also turned his horse's head and said to his subordinates: "Let's go, we should go back too." ”

All the horsemen waved goodbye to the people of Lingju County, and then followed Ma Ping and continued to move towards the county seat. Zhiyang and Yongdeng cavalry Sima said goodbye to Ma Ping on the road, and then led their troops back to their county seat.

Soon, Ma Ping also led more than 100 of his subordinates back to Guangwu County. Outside the city of Guangwu County, they were also treated in the same way as outside Lingju County.

Thousands of people greeted them in the streets outside the city, and everyone was grateful and cheered with all their might. Some people even took steamed buns, eggs and other food at home, squeezed into front of the horses and stuffed them into the hands of the passing horsemen.

Looking at the triumphant scene in front of him, Li Yanzhao also smiled with satisfaction, in front of the gate of Guangwu County, among the cheers and appreciation of thousands of people, Li Yanzhao savored the joy of his triumphant return for the first time in his life.