In the early morning of midsummer July, the grassland is lush and green, and all kinds of unknown wildflowers are blooming among the grasses. The air is fresh as washing, the cool breeze blows on the face, sweet and pleasant, refreshing and refreshing, and you can see small puddles everywhere, like crystal shining pearls inlaid in the verdant grass. Several early shepherds rode on horses, sang melodious pastoral songs, and whipped long whips in their hands, driving the countless cattle and sheep to the depths of the grassland, and began another day of nomadism.

The sound of horses' hooves made the herdsmen look sideways, and when they saw the red flag fluttering in the wind and embroidered with white swans, they knew that it was their young patriarch. Looking at the direction in which the horse team was heading, it was the Running Bull Plain under the Green Bull Ridge, which had been very dangerous lately, and the shepherd could not help bowing slightly and saluting from afar, and chanting in a desolate and mysterious tone:

O God! O sons of the sun god! O shaman! Please bless our people and come back safely after departure!

It's too far away! Zhuang Yi didn't hear the old shepherd's blessing prayer, and even if he did, he couldn't understand the prayers and congratulations of the shamans, but the three of them, Gu Nu, Shuli, and Bao En, seemed to feel something, or saw something from the shepherd's movements, and suddenly turned sideways on the galloping horse, bowed to the shepherd in the distance, and at the same time hummed a few strange words in his mouth, which made Zhuang Yi a little incomprehensible.

"What are you doing? Saluting a shepherd? Zhuang Yi asked curiously.

"He's my shaman!" And the bone slave replied angrily.

"Oh...... Shaman! ”

Zhuang Yi also followed their example and bowed to the shepherd, in fact, he had some understanding of shamanism, and he was very disapproving, and his demeanor was not pious at all. This is a stubborn and conservative religion with stubborn spiritual thoughts, and even some ignorance, born in the primitive nomadic fishing and hunting era, with the belief in heaven, earth, wind, thunder, sun gods, etc., and the main god is not single, and there is no scripture passed down to the world. Shamans purify the minds of the steppe people, and also work part-time as langzhong, music and dance, etc., that is, witch doctors.

When the Huns unified the grassland, the Kunlun god that the grassland people believed in was a bit of a religious child; When the Xianbei people unified the steppe, shamanism began to salivate and was widely accepted by the steppe people, and its influence was weakened by the Manichaeism brought by the Turks from the west, until the Hui fell to the country, and Manichaeism lost its survival foundation.

And shamanism has no unified organization, and the shamans of each tribe still live their own small lives, only knowing how to protect their own tribes, and do not realize that spring has come, so the beliefs of the steppe Hu people are actually fragile and complicated. Both the Xi and Khitan people came from Donghu Xianbei, and shamanism was passed down from here.

Zhuang Yi has no good impression of this conservative religion that believes in multiple gods, because its survival and expansion power is too weak. He even fantasized that if he had a foundation in the future, would he also create a religion and let all these stupid steppe Hu people become believers, so as to achieve a high degree of spiritual and ideological unity.

The more he thought about it, the happier he became, and he began to think excitedly...... One day, he will become the leader of the sect, or the monarch, and there will be countless believers and people under his rule, and he can also lead a million armor and compete for hegemony in the world!

At the end of the hour, the sun rises three poles, and the midsummer sun blooms hotly, shining on people's faces hot. The group of men and horses rushed up a low and undulating hill, laughing and shouting loudly with the bone slaves in front: "Yo ho...... It's here! Ren Suchen has arrived! ”

More than 500 soldiers cheered with their horses, and the quiet grassland under the hill was alarmed, flocks of birds fluttered their wings and flew up, and wild animals such as foxes and hares flew from the grass. In the distance, under the blue-gray mountains, a jade belt-like river stretches gracefully from southwest to northeast.

It is not surprising that the river flows gently from south to north, because it is actually a hilly plateau, and the river is only a tributary of the Rensu Chenshui, which eventually joins the Tuhuzhen River, merges with the Huangshui to the north, and merges into the Raole Water, and the Khitan Tooth Tent is located on the bank of the Raole Water.

"See? That is Ren Suchen water, also called Qingniu River, the grassland on both sides of the river is called Benniu Plain! In fact, this season is the time when wild animals are fat, and hunting is not suitable, but we can't lose this Yaxing. Go to the river and rest for a while, let the guards set up camp, and then begin! Our lunch is right there! He Bone Slave waved his horsewhip and pointed to a green field on the other side of the river, and talked eloquently.

"Good ......," everyone cheered together in unison.

Looking at the boundless green grass and the sparkling surface of the Zhangxu wide river, Zhuang Yi suddenly felt relaxed and happy, eager to try some expectations, and turned around to see that his own guards also followed, so he greeted everyone, and rushed down the hill with a horse.

The temporary camp was located under a gentle hill on the bank of the river, and the soldiers were busy, and more than 50 tents were erected from the ground, which was naturally divided into three camps, with the Shuli and Hegu slave camps in the middle, Baoen's Murowei camp in the south, and Zhuang Yi's camp in the north. He only brought one personal guard, and it was more convenient to have fewer people, so he only built five tents and lived in one tent with a total of ten people such as Shagu and Bian Wu.

After a short rest, he left a hundred guards to guard the camp, and ordered someone to blow the horn of assembling and leaving. His guards and the guards of the sorcerer were in one place, and three hundred elite horsemen slowly drove out of the camp and lined up. Zhuang Yi was also despised after being unwilling, leaving Shi Dali with ten people to stay behind. He was dressed in a set of Mingguang armor obtained from Yuyang, with a one-stone six-bucket bow and a pot of arrows on his back, a crossbow hanging from his waist, a dragon spear in his hand, and a forty horsemen stopped twenty paces away from the queue in the operation.

"Hunting is like fighting, but also pay attention to skills, wild things are hidden in the grass or forest, we must first surround a grassland, and then gradually close, swing the goose-shaped array left and right to outflank the detour, then we need to assign a task. I have the most men and horses, and I can serve as the main force, the right Ji in the operation, Zhuang Langjun and Bao En are the left Ji, whoever hunts the wild things will belong to whom, do you have any objections? And the bone slave suggested loudly.

"That doesn't seem right? Since it is a separate attack, the prey should be distributed uniformly...... What's more, once it starts, how can you tell whose people hunted the wild things? Zhuang Yi said with a chuckle.

"Haha...... Zhuang Langjun, you don't understand this! If it's uniformly distributed, what's the fun. If you want to tell whose people are hunting the wild thing, it's actually very simple, just look at the arrows, the arrows used by our soldiers are homemade, different from yours, if you can't tell the difference, you can also tie a small strip of cloth to the shaft of the arrow, or engrave a mark. And the bone slave explained.

"The arrows used by my soldiers also have unique markings, so they don't have to. If you and I shoot a wild object at the same time, how can we divide it? ”

"Then it depends on whose arrow is deadly......" He Bone Slave laughed.

Zhuang Yi nodded and said no more. He Gunu immediately gave the order to set off, and the first leader trotted towards the river. Zhuang Yi looked at it from a distance, and the river water was directly submerged under the belly of the war horse, and the Xi soldiers all raised their legs and waded through the water with the horse's neck between them.

The brigade crossed the river in detachments and formed a "goose-shaped formation" in turn. Because Bao'en's cavalry crossed the river first, Zhuang Yi's men and horses arrived later, and they were at the tail end of the goose's wings to the south of Bao'en, which was equivalent to the position of the striker, and Bao'en was behind him, which made him very unhappy. Someone was sent to discuss with Zhuang Yi and wanted to change positions, but Zhuang Yi did not agree.

The four hundred elite horsemen were in place, and the order was given in the operation, and the bone slave gave the order, and then gradually dispersed in an inverted "eight" shape, and the two Ji extended out for four or five miles, and the soldiers cheered excitedly, but the sound of horses' hooves gradually intensified.

Suddenly, the half-man-high grass rolled and fell like a tidal wave, and the dormant beasts were alarmed and rushed out, and a large area of hundreds of yellow sheep appeared, followed by a hundred and ten sika deer; The rogue wild dog family, which likes to be low-key and hidden, greedy and loves to steal and grab food, also sensed the danger coming, and screamed and found a way to escape.

But they are all in the pockets that are surrounded and gradually retracted, and it is difficult to escape the fate of being hunted when they rush left and right. Sure enough, the sound of the bowstring of "collapse" sounded impatiently, the arrows shot away like rain, the red and bright blood splashed, and the yellow sheep "bleated" and fell down in pieces; The sika deer were not spared, and after leaving behind dozens of companions, they screamed in terror and scattered in all directions. Only the cunning and scoundrel wild dogs quietly hid in the depths of the grass and lurked.

The fleeing yellow sheep and sika deer did not waste their horsepower to chase wildly, but none of the encircled survived. This is the first round of hunting, and there is no surprise for the big guys, each soldier went to find the prey, carried it aside and guarded it, and this hunt will not be in vain.

He Gunu sent someone to give an order, Zhuang Yi marched forward for more than ten miles, and Qingniuling was seven or eight miles away, but the mountains on the grassland were really not high, and the lines still looked delicate and soft after all, and at the foot of the gentle mountain was a large dense forest, and everyone's eyes were firmly locked there. The movement of hundreds of cavalry was so great that the beasts and birds of the land for miles sensed the danger and moved away one after another, and the scene could be described as spectacular.

Three or four miles away, the commander of the operation set up a formation in the north, and followed behind with the men and horses of the bone slave. Suddenly, a burst of cheers came, Zhuang Yi looked back, and saw that it was Shagu, who had left the team and ran around, and hunted a colorful pheasant with long tail feathers.

The pheasant is not large, with short golden feathers on the top of its head and neck, golden red on its wings and belly, and black and green on its back, and black and green markings on its yellow tail feathers. This rare bird, because of its beautiful feathers, has always been loved by emperors and generals. Because he also has a noble name, called "Hua Worm", which is one of the twelve chapters of the emperor's crown.