In the eyes of the birds flying in the blue sky, this grassland is like a thick green blanket, lying between the Qiwu Mountains in the west and the Wuding River in the east, which is the paradise given by God to the nomads for herding horses and sheep.

The only slightly stinging thing is that the "grass blanket" on both sides of the river has an extremely obvious color difference in the thickness of the Wuding River, and the grassland on the east bank was burned to white ground by the Kanbei Army last autumn, but this year it still grows, not only is it not inferior to the west bank in density and height, but it is even better, and the grass and wood ash caused by the fire is scattered on the vast plain, providing enough nutrients and fertilizer for the growth of vegetation. As a result, the pastures on the east coast appear to be more lush than those on the west coast.

After surviving the heart-wrenching winter of last year, the Tuoba Rencong family's troops had been sharply reduced from more than 240 to less than 170, and almost one-third of their Dingkou had been lost. More than forty old men in the family left the clan to fend for themselves in order to save food, grass and dried meat for the winter during the famine last winter, so that they could save enough rations for the men and children of the clan who were in their prime of life. Therefore, at this moment, as a dignified Tuoba family, Lu Ze, Tuoba Rencong himself had to go into battle in person, and took his two sons to graze the horses every day. The other tribes kept more than 600 foals. There were also five hundred head of cattle and more than seven hundred sheep. After the population has plummeted, it has become quite difficult to herd these livestock with the current population.

It was already very difficult, but three days ago, a lacquered gold arrow came from Tongwan City, and ten tents of young men were taken from the clan at one time. This makes the herding manpower even more stretched.

Tuoba Rencong complained about this, and he also heard some news about the urgent recruitment of the patriarch, which was said to be because the devil named Li Wenge in Yanzhou came to make trouble again.

For this devil, Tuoba Rencong and other inferior nobles privately agreed that this person was the lingering nightmare of the Tuoba family. Before the appearance of this person, Yanzhou had always been a godsend place for the eight departments of the party to hunt grass valleys to search for winter supplies, but since this person appeared in Yanzhou. The situation is reversed. The flames of war not only made it difficult to cross the Luzi Pass, but burned to the prairie.

The fire last winter really made the Tuoba family suffer from top to bottom.

This year's year is good, and Tuoba Rencong was originally counting on being able to raise more livestock and restore the vitality of the family.

But now, this guy is making trouble again.

Tuoba Ren Cong rode his horse and stood on the west bank of the Wuding River, staring at the looming mountains in the distance with his eyes stunned, and suddenly heard someone shouting behind him, and he looked back. In the distance, he saw Tuoba Xianying, who was in charge of grazing the sheep in the clan, wading across the Wuding River on a pony and running towards him.

It is located in the upper reaches of the Wuding River, only 200 miles away from the birthplace, and the drop is also small. Therefore, the water surface is wide. But it is not deep, and it is far less turbulent than Yinzhou and Suizhou downstream. At this time between the spring flood and the summer flood, it is still possible to wade into the land.

Xianying came to the front and wiped his sweat while reporting: "Eight more lambs were born, and those ewes did not have hay to eat last year, and they did not have enough milk. I'm afraid I won't be able to feed ......"

Tuoba Rencong frowned, thought about it, and said simply: "Kill, divide the meat among the accounts!" ”

Tuoba Xianying agreed, and was about to leave, Tuoba Rencong told again: "Give each of those slaves a piece of meat, now there are only a few dozen warriors left in our clan who can fight in armor, be careful of these slaves, don't treat them too harshly!" ”

Tuoba Xianying nodded, and said: "More than a dozen slaves graze more than 700 sheep, there are always lazy ones, besides, many tents on the east bank are grazing, and the pasture is not enough, I think, it is not possible to drive the sheep to the west bank to graze, and add a few more slaves, maybe, we can have a thousand sheep this winter, except for those breeding sheep and ewes, the rest can be slaughtered and dried, and the food for the winter will be sufficient......"

Tuoba Rencong's eyes flashed, and he hesitated for a long time and sighed: "Forget it, the sheep can't be expanded anymore, if you have spare energy, you might as well raise more cattle......

"Cattle are harder to raise than sheep, and they take a long time...... Tuoba Xianying obviously disagrees with Tuoba Rencong's decision.

Tuoba Rencong shook his head: "Sheep will eat grass seeds together, raise too much, the grassland will become a desert in the coming year, it is better to have cattle and horses, beef can be eaten, cowhides can be used to make armor and tents, horses can be used to fight or exchange food with the Han people." ”

Tuoba Xianying agreed, and turned his horse to the east.

Tuoba Rencong turned his head, his gaze crossed Tuoba Xianying's back, crossed the Wuding River, and looked far east.

A few hundred miles to the east, the war is going on, and I wonder if this time in the face of Li Wenge, the warriors of the tribe will be able to let this devil return?

Tuoba Rencong didn't know that just behind him, in the depths of the Qiwu Mountains far to the west, the devil he had feared was walking in a procession as scruffy as he was, dressed in a purple robe stained with mud and dust, with a wooden gun in his hand and a dirty felt hat on his head.

The team was no more than a few hundred people, but it was two miles long, and everyone in the team was dirty, and there were almost no unopened shoes on their feet, and everyone had blood blisters on their feet. If it weren't for the knee-length leggings, these warriors would have been wounded all over their calves.

There was an unconcealed tiredness on everyone's face, his eyes were hollow and glazed, and almost no one had the strength to open his mouth to speak during the march except for the mechanical movement of his legs.

In the distance, a sentry cavalry flashed over the pass. Look in the eyes of these warriors. But immediately he was frightened.

Xi Feng Minda personally led two cavalry to gallop to the head of the team, it was difficult to control the horses in the mountains, these cavalry who had been trained for less than a year had suffered enough, these days because of falling into the valley and causing non-combat attrition has reached one-tenth of the total number of cavalry, this number is already quite terrifying. But the good thing is that after these days of hard marching. These young Han Chinese cavalry gradually became accustomed to marching on horseback in the mountains.

On mountain marches, the speed of the cavalry was not an advantage, but a cause of casualties. On rugged mountain roads, slowly pulling the reins to make the horses trot far more efficiently than galloping, which is a special experience that cannot be trained in the plains.

Three of the ten horsemen around him had several unrecognizable heads around their horses, which were not the heads of the enemy, but their own heads.

Six days of long marching. Dozens of people tried to escape. And the horses of the cavalry were hung around their necks, and it was the heads of these people that hung them.

Before arriving at their destination, the cavalry of the fine seal Minda had only two tasks, the first was to protect the infantry from being discovered by the enemy, and to keep abreast of the enemy's situation in the mountainous area within a radius of dozens of miles; The second is to prevent stragglers and escapes, because any deserter who escapes halfway may leak the entire army's marching route and strategic objectives, and Li Wenge cannot afford to take this risk.

Before leaving, Li Wenge told everyone that they only had two choices, or to follow. Or be killed!

This is not a lie!

The quality of these Gyeongju soldiers was indeed not very good, and on the first day, they only walked less than 10 miles before they put down a large area, and after camping, they held their legs and feet one by one and cried bitterly, staggering from side to side, and even the marching speed of the left battalion on the left flank was slowed down. It is surrounded by endless mountains. At night, I have to endure snakes, insects, rats, and ants. The open-air camping was miserable, and many of them quit that night. But without exception, they were blocked back by the cavalry of the fine fiefdom, and the eight unbelieving guys were even beheaded.

This was very effective, and early the next morning, despite reluctance, the weak soldiers, driven by their own officers, got up and lined up, and began the next day's march on time.

It's not all about killing people to deter.

As the commander of the whole army, the highest military and political chief of the imperial court in the northwest region, the commander of the Eighth Route Army, the general of the Right Xiaowei, made Li Wenge march on foot with leggings and wooden guns like ordinary soldiers, carrying the same heavy backpack on his back.

On the first day of camping, after camping, Li Wenge walked from the head of the camp to the end of the camp, and the ten infantry teams walked again, under his attention, those Yanzhou veterans who were serving as team officers and Shiwu officers in the team at the moment did not dare to slack off, brandishing bright knives to lay down the sleeping recruits who fell into the camp one by one, and washed their feet with hot water, and then punctured the blood blisters on their feet with the horse's tail sent by the cavalry, and then wiped the soles of each person's feet with the wine carried in the wine bag in each person's equipment, and then it was over.

Wiping the soles of their feet with wine literally cost the recruits their lives, and the soldiers, who knew nothing about modern medicine, thought that their commander was deliberately torturing people. Some of the recruits secretly drank all the wine in their bags on the way. In desperation, Li Wenge had to send someone to bring some wine bags from Zuoying.

For those soldiers who drank all the alcohol in violation of the prohibition order, Li Wenge unceremoniously applied military law and cut off their heads on the spot. For those who drank but did not drink all, Li Wenge did not punish them, he just gathered these people together to watch the punishment, and saw that twelve people were beheaded by Li Wenge's personal army brandishing a big knife, and the recruits who drank secretly trembled with fright, and another weaker one rolled his eyes and fainted on the spot.

Li Wenge stood in a pool of blood on the ground so carelessly, and said to the dozens of recruits who were watching the execution: "The wine in your bag is for your own feet, and I need your feet before I go to the place." Whoever drinks all the wine in the bag will throw away his two feet, without which you will be useless, and those who are useless will end up with only one, and I will never spare your lives to divulge the secrets of the march. Don't leave anything to chance, even if you kill all of you, I won't let anyone escape or be left behind! ”

After saying this, General Li ordered the recruits to sit down, and then ordered someone to bring a large cauldron, and in the pot was boiling hot water. Right in plain sight. General Li took off his shoes and socks, scalded his feet with hot water in public, then punctured the blood blisters with his horse's tail, poured out some bags of wine and rubbed them on the soles of his feet, and the marshal did not look at the recruits during the whole process. The movements of the hands are skillful and swift, without half a minute of hesitation and hesitation.

On the first day of the march, the right battalion of the Yanchuan Independent Regiment was reduced by twenty people, and since Li Wenge established the army on Fenglin Mountain, he had never killed so many people in one march, and even Xifeng Minda couldn't help frowning secretly when he looked at the twenty bloody heads.

The next day, after the sun rose, the whole army was in formation. Before departure. Li Wenge once again briefly and clearly proclaimed the simple and rude marching discipline, and then the general said again: "The brothers present at this moment, one is counted as one, together with the left battalion and the cavalry battalion, as long as they can follow me to the destination and do not die under the military sword, they will all be promoted to the first rank and given five acres of water."

The second day of the march. Three people were reduced, one of whom was a cavalryman, who accidentally fell down the valley with men and horses.

On this day, the right battalion walked twenty-eight miles.

Anyway, the head of this battalion of more than a hundred veterans and a few hundred recruits. After several days of continuous arduous marching. Gradually, it finally got some of the appearance of an army.

The soldiers had visibly lost weight, and their brand-new uniforms had become muddy and dusty. I don't know how many blood blisters I have on my feet. Even the most temperamental, the most flying, and the most heart-popping soldiers, are a little sluggish at the moment, and they have all lost their former spirit spirit and aura.

More than a hundred miles away, I just walked over.

From the third day, the troops began to march at night and rest during the day. In order to avoid unnecessary attrition caused by not being able to see at night, the soldiers borrowed the waist strap on the outside of the military uniform and knotted it into a long rope, dragging and pulling each other forward. When you camp and rest during the day, you can't just fall asleep, you must find a hidden place to camp before you can rest. This was something that would have been impossible for these soldiers, but now, they quickly learned to obey.

The pain in the foot has given way to fear and recognition of military law. Although this General Li killed people ruthlessly, it was very fair, in addition to the fact that there were always some personal soldiers around him to protect him, he marched on foot every day, carried his own backpack, washed his feet and picked blood blisters, and sorted out his leggings. Moreover, after setting up camp every day, he had to do it himself, without ambiguity, and after a few days, he was even able to call out the names of some recruits at will.

When he was not killing, the marshal's face was not stern, though still gloomy, and the soldiers often saw him casually walking up to some lying pawn and sitting down to talk and gossip. The questioning of the land does not involve military affairs in any way, and has nothing to do with training and fighting. More often than not, the conversation between the general and the soldiers revolves around "home".

Is there a home, where does the family live, how many people are in the family, how many acres of land per capita, and how many cows are in the field......

Are the parents still there, are they marrying a daughter-in-law, do they have any children......

And so on and so forth......

For these, the veterans of Yanzhou did not feel strange at all, they did not have the slightest fear when facing Li Wenge, and some veteran soldiers even dared to say a joke or two with meat to the general, and the marshal did not think it was angry.

It was the first time for the recruits to meet such a festival envoy.

It seems that he can't talk about loving soldiers like children, and this "adult" really doesn't even blink his eyes when he kills people.

Do you say that he is easy to kill? It seems that this "lord" is known for his "benevolence and righteousness" in Yanzhou, and even the emperor of the capital, Lao Tzu, has praised him for not being good at killing.

The methods he came up with, though weird, were very practical.

The "leggings", the first few days felt quite strange, always felt that the legs and stomach were swollen, after walking for a few days, the soldiers realized the benefits, every day walking very hard, but after camping, after sleeping and getting up, there was no soreness in the legs, and the feet became more and more brisk when walking.

Picking bubbles and rubbing wine every day, the wine is smeared on the broken blood bubbles at the beginning, and the hot pain can make the toughest man cry out in pain. However, as long as this pain is overcome, the feet are very relaxed when you go to bed the next day, and there is only a slight pain when you walk the next day, but it does not affect the march. After doing this day after day, some blood blisters gradually scabbed, and calluses appeared on the feet, and they could not be blistered easily when they walked again......

All this, the recruits can't help but feel fresh, and even the veterans secretly talk about it, this adult, there is really some magical doorway.

One day when he was marching, he rode a horse to catch up with Li Wenge and asked Li Wenge, after the bubbles on his feet burst, they will form cocoons after a period of time, which is considered an attempt, but what is the effect of the wine smeared on the feet?

If it's to avoid mosquito bites, it seems that you should wipe it on your body, not on your feet!

In this regard, Li Wenge used two words that Tinky Minda did not understand at all to explain: "Disinfect to avoid infection ......"