On the afternoon of April 28 in the first year of Longwu in the Ming Dynasty, the Sword Pavilion, an important checkpoint on the Golden Bull Road in Baoning Prefecture, ushered in a group of officers and soldiers of Daxi, and the general who led the team was the governor of Baoning Mansion.

The general of the town guarding the pass is in a hurry, he has heard about the defeat of the Great Western Army in Hanzhong, the emperor Zhang Xianzhong is stationed in Guangyuan, ready to fight to the death with the Tartars, has been flying to gather the town generals in central Sichuan, Qin Wang, gathered tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, and restored a little bit of strength before the battle of Hanzhong.

However, anyone with a discerning eye can see that in the battle of Hanzhong, the soldiers of the Great West poured the country, and they were defeated in a battle, and even the two princes were killed on the spot.

The general of the Sword Pavilion Shouguan Town has secretly sent people to clean up his wives who are housed in Chengdu, and send them to the territory of the Kuizhou Army in eastern Sichuan, where the wind and rain are smooth, peaceful and comfortable, and it is a pure land.

And the town will quietly prepare the linen clothes and shoes worn by the people, and if the situation is slightly wrong, he will be able to withdraw and slip away immediately, after all, following Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion is to eat with a mouthful of food, and now the rice bowl is about to be smashed, and he can't draw his life into it.

Li's sudden arrival made the town general very helpless, which meant that he couldn't slip away, and he had to accompany the governor to guard the pass.

With **** Lilai, it is a team of troops that are different from the ordinary Great Western Army, everyone is wearing white robes, holding spears with horizontal hooks, and the momentum is like a rainbow, so that the town general can not help but be speechless, the elite imperial camp of the Great Western Army, I am afraid that it is nothing more than this, when did the **** Li have such an elite army?

Under the town general, there are 1,000 guards of the pass, **** Li came, inspected the city, and followed him every inch of the young officer who seemed to be paralyzed and expressionless for a while, and then directly ordered, let the town general lead the team out of the pass, go to Guangyuan to support the emperor, this sword pavilion gate, and hand it over to him **** profit.

The town general was stunned, this is not in line with the procedure, he is the governor of the five armies of the Great West to guard here, and he has responsibilities, although **** Li is the chief officer of Baoning Mansion, and he has to obey him, but this right to transfer troops cannot be based on his words.

The town general felt that it was a little wrong, it depended on the order of the imperial court, the scene was embarrassing, **** Li couldn't get anything to fit anyway, at this time, the three thousand white-robed soldiers who entered the city with **** Li moved directly.

The young general, who was paralyzed, put the long knife at his waist on the neck of the town general without saying a word, tied him into a dumpling and threw him in the corner, and as for the 1,000 soldiers, they didn't even come out of the barracks, so they were disarmed, stripped naked and left only their underwear, and drove out of the city.

"Well, Master Ma, you see, what else can I do?" Li rubbed his hands a little embarrassed and asked Ma Xintian.

Things went wrong, the original plan was that **** Li would transfer this group of guards directly to finish the matter by virtue of his identity as the governor, but he didn't expect to let the white-robed soldiers make a move, which made **** Li a little panicked.

"It doesn't work for you to stay here." Ma Xintian didn't give face at all, and said calmly: "Please return to Chengdu, when General Wang's troops enter Chengdu, you can persuade the generals in the city who are familiar with you to surrender, if you can gain something, it will also be a great achievement." ”

Li was a little ashamed, but a little happy, after all, he could stay away from the battlefield, and it would be excellent not to fight with the Tartars, so he was "accompanied" by a small team of white-robed soldiers, and left with a smile.

After fighting inconsequential burdens, Ma Xintian immediately took Liu Li and Ma Zuoheng to carefully survey the terrain and prepare for the upcoming battle.

Sword Pavilion, there is a sword gate pass in it, Xiongguan Mandao, the only pass in the land of China that has not been broken from the front, there is no one.

The pass is located in the north of Chengdu, south of Guangyuan, the ancients had a cloud "the sword pavilion is magnificent and Cui Wei, a husband is a pass, ten thousand people are not open", as Si said. Guancheng is located at the break of the dangerous Big Arrow Mountain, the original continuous mountain situation to here, as if it was split by a sharp axe suddenly broken, forming a deep and precipitous canyon, the cliffs on both sides, the apes do not climb, the whole rock will be sandwiched in this canyon, the deep canyon into a narrow mountain passage, the Golden Bull Ancient Road, just through the valley.

The valley is in the north-south direction, the south is high and the north is low, the foreign enemy comes from the north, it is bound to attack from the back, the slope of the valley road is very large, about 40 degrees, a winding stone staircase extends nearly ten miles from the foot of the mountain in the north, can go up to the Guancheng. The left side of the canyon is higher, the right side is lower, and on weekdays, there are mountains and rivers flowing from the low-lying places on the right, and in the rainy season, when the heavy rain pours, the original trickle of mountains and rivers becomes a roaring torrent, rushing down. Only the higher places on the left can be passed, and the Golden Bull Ancient Road stretches from that curved stone staircase to the distant direction of Shaanxi.

The stone road is not more than a zhang wide, the narrow place can even only accommodate a wheelbarrow to pass, on both sides is the rocks and cliffs, there is no way to go, no matter how many people you come, you can only go along one road, there is a road in Huashan, but the difference is that Huashan can not be on, if you want to enter the middle of the river, you must pass from here.

The stone fortress is located on the top of the slope of the ancient road at the bottom of the canyon, and when you look up from the low north side, you suddenly feel that you are locked in the clouds and you can fly when you attack it, and in this kind of terrain, unless there are tanks that can climb the slope, it is extremely difficult to attack.

Historically, the regimes in Shuzhong regarded the Jianmen Pass as a barrier, and the fierce generals guarded it with heavy troops, and foreign enemies were not allowed to enter, so no matter what the Central Plains did in chaos, the country of Tianfu was often in a corner of peace, as if it was isolated from the world, and the Sword Pavilion was indispensable.

The three of them patrolled on the plank road, and couldn't help but praise and marvel, and they all sighed that there was such a strange danger in the world, Liu Li was a Datong person, and naturally he had never seen this kind of fortress built according to geography; Ma Zuoheng is a native of Shizhu and has never been to Chengdu, and he is also breathtaking.

Only Ma Xintian, the battalion officer who was so calm that he was different from ordinary people, slipped around inside and outside the city, and after asking a few words to a few old guards who had not left, he frowned deeply.

"Jianmen Pass is so majestic, the barrier in Shu in ancient times, no one can break it, why is there the Three Kingdoms Shu Han, the former Shu of Wang Jian in the late Tang Dynasty and the Hou Shu of Meng Zhixiang, all of which were overturned by foreign enemies, and what is the reason?" Ma Xintian stood on the plank road four or five miles away from Guancheng, where the mountains gradually opened, the field of vision could be seen far away, the mountains were undulating in the distance, and the scenery of northern Sichuan was unobstructed.

Liu Li and Ma Zuoheng were speechless, looking at each other blankly, neither of them had ever read a book, and they were literate in the Kuizhou army, but they could recognize more than a hundred words, these historical stories, they had never heard of them, how to answer.

So the two said: "The last general does not know." ”

Ma Xintian shook his head and said to himself: "Without him, take a detour." ”

"Detour?" Liu Li and Ma Zuoheng spoke in unison.

"There is more than one road into Sichuan, and this Golden Bull Road is just one of them." Ma Xintian said: "Because the development is very early, the road is relatively easy, so it is just to enter the Sichuan election, in addition to the rice cang road, lychee road and Yinping road, you can enter." ”

Liu Li was surprised and blurted out: "There are still so many roads, so let's stay here, what should we do if the Tartars take a detour?" ”

Ma Xintian said: "Lord Wang often taught me that I must be thoughtful and have no omissions, so that I can win all battles. Therefore, although we are guarding the Sword Pavilion, we must keep in mind that our task is to keep the Tartars out of the house before the adults arrive, and we must keep all the roads that can enter the river in our hearts. ”

"But Lord Battalion, we only have 3,000 people, how can we stand so many places?" Ma Zuoheng asked eagerly.

Ma Xintian squatted down, let Liu Li and Ma Zuoheng also squat over, picked up a stone on the ground, and drew it on the stone ground, he drew three white lines, with a circle to represent Chengdu, the starting point of the three lines are on the circle, and then wrote the words of Jinniu Road, Micang Road and Yinping Trail on each of the three lines, and drew a line a little south, pointing and saying: "It's okay, Lychee Road is not here, but from Chongqing Mansion to Shaanxi, where the distance is far away, the road is barren and barren, and it is extremely difficult to pass. If there is any trouble, it is completely too late to transfer troops in the past, and Chongqing Mansion is guarded by Lord Meng Zhiyu, which is even more secure, so Lychee Road is not to worry. ”

He moved his fingers up and moved to the rice cang road: "And the rice cang road, through Bazhong through northern Sichuan into Shaanxi Ankang, the road is also far away, and must pass through the place where Di Yi lives in northern Sichuan, the two know that Di Yi is uncivilized, more barbaric than the Tartars, if you want to cross the army from their territory, I am afraid you have to fight with Di Yi first." Therefore, it is unlikely that Yonekura Road will come to Tartar. ”

When the two of them heard this, they patted their foreheads and said, "In this way, there are only the Golden Bull Dao and the Yin Ping Dao left." ”

"That's right, Yinping Xiaodao, when Zhong Hui and Deng Ai avoided the Sword Pavilion guarded by Jiang Wei, it has become the choice for foreign enemies to enter Sichuan to bypass the Sword Pavilion." Ma Xintian nodded and said: "But this road is extremely difficult to walk, there are many cliffs, and almost all of them are paths that woodcutters and hunters have walked on. ”

Speaking of this, Ma Xintian's expression was serious and solemn, he looked at Ma Zuoheng, and said solemnly: "You are a veteran of the stone pillar and a white pole, and you are the best at walking in the mountains, so I want you to choose a thousand stone pillar native soldiers, with hooks and sickles and spears, and set off tomorrow to set off on the Sky Ridge on Yinping Road to set up defenses, in case the Tartars detour behind us from there and catch him off guard." ”

"But, Lord Battalion, what if the Tartars don't come? Didn't I waste my troops in vain? Ma Zuoheng pondered: "We only have a total of 3,000 people in the Huozi Battalion, and I will take 1,000 with me, and the troops are even tighter, so it is better for me to bring 500 people." ”

"Well, as you said, take five hundred men." Ma Xintian looked at him fixedly, and said word by word: "But you have to keep in mind that if the Tartar comes from Yinping Dao, unless you die, you can't let a person go!" ”

Ma Zuoheng clenched his fists, slammed it on the white line on the stone slab, and roared in a low voice: "Rest assured, as long as I am alive, it is impossible for the Tartars to get by!" ”