Although the idlers in the Donggui team are very leisurely and do not worry about the future journey at all, Lao Luo, as the team's safe housekeeper, has a lot of things to worry about.

The blindfolded donkey was nothing more than an idea he had given to Siddüntür in his spare time, pieced together by craftsmen on the road. At first, I just thought of a way to be confined and confined, but there was no such condition to confine anyone on the road, so I combined the concept of corset to come out, and now it seems that the effect is really good, and it is very shocking to some naughty guys on the premise of not reducing combat power, and even a man like Cheng Shouru can't stand its effect.

The internal affairs are complicated, but fortunately, there are a few similar people to help solve them, and the external affairs are complicated, and no one can share Lao Luo's worries.

At least at this stage, no one can worry about Lao Luo, although the Tang Camp is still oriental in bloodline and language (most of them are mixed-race in appearance), but many talents such as strategy and strategy have been cut off, and it is difficult to find someone who can help with advice. It's not that tens of thousands of people in a Tang battalion can't help Lao Luo control a certain aspect, but they are either old, or they don't have the ability to coordinate one side of things at all, at least in Lao Luo's eyes, otherwise these people wouldn't have stayed in a foreign land for two hundred years.

It's already a rare thing to be able to keep your own language and clothing, and it's very demanding to talk about anything else. There may be people who can stand alone, but it is not because of age, it is a problem of heart, Lao Luo will never use it, similar to the Zhang family, the two parties can never be all the way, and the guy who disputes the right to speak at every turn, once he has the opportunity, it will only be a constraint to add chaos to the team.

What is loose on the outside and tight on the inside, tight on the outside and loose on the inside, etc., is not something that can be played now, everything is conscientious and cautious is what the Donggui team can do.

The matter of returning to the east is not a simple road, but a similar expedition, when it comes to the control of strategy or tactics, Lao Luo is in charge, and no one can replace him. Therefore, the problems in the general direction need to be controlled by Lao Luo, and small trivial matters must also be carefully investigated.

Because many wars, battles, battles and other things are often caused by some inconspicuous little things, which are often called the fuse in later generations, and being able to detect the signs of things one step in advance is the most important quality of a good commander.

For combat, being able to stay one step ahead of the enemy often results in not only the first strike and the outcome of the battle, but also means that you can avoid indescribable loss of human life. After all, the tens of thousands of people around him embarked on this eastward return road because of themselves, but it is not so simple to expect the enemy plane first, and Lao Luo can't help but put more effort into the safety and defense along the way.

The first is the scout procession that is thrown out.

Min Monkey's mountain ghost map was handed in three days ago, although it is not very mature, but it can be seen that the strokes are attentive, so he became the leader of the other team of scouts, as for his manpower, it was originally the followers of the night battle in the Dhamgan Valley as the foundation, and the rest of the people need to be recruited by himself in the garrison camp or other teams, how to arrange it, Lao Luo doesn't care. Min Monkey was also angry, and in just two days, he pulled three hundred people from the garrison camp.

With the two teams of scouts, although the number is not very large, it is barely enough as a report that does not need to fight in the early stage. Alke, who went to investigate ahead, had already entered Mashhad in disguise, and the Min monkey who was patrolling the back road had also entered the state, and because of the lack of supplies, Lao Luo was not worried about being copied back.

The best performance is actually the cavalry school, with women beckoning in front, the soldiers' desire to make meritorious service is soaring, from Damgan to the current Kashaf River valley this section of the road is actually not peaceful, but all the snooping thieves, yes, are thieves, no matter what their purpose, in the eyes of the cavalry academy people their identity is only thieves, and their destination is only one - to become a barren beach or dry bones displayed on the yellow sand.

You know, for the sake of fairness, a person's first military merit, the index that ten military merits can be allowed to marry is only after Dhamgan left, in just a few hundred miles, there are already soldiers of the cavalry school who have accumulated six or seven military merits, and the number of thieves along the way is not tens of thousands, just scattered snoopers or small teams who want to sneak attack, and the cavalry school that is already 1,800 people is really more wolf and less meat, but this also shows how dare these guys fight.

Oh, and the cavalry school of 1,800 is the most recently expanded number.

Because the cavalry school is the first time to contact the enemy, there are many opportunities to establish military merits, and all the guys in the garrison camp also tried to join the cavalry school, but in order to maintain the rhythm of the army, Lao Luo set up a selection mechanism, and only then did he control the number of people at the scale of 1,800 people. In his early plan, the current cavalry school will always be an elite force, and according to the current population conditions, a cavalry with strong combat effectiveness and flexible combat style is the most needed.

The number of cavalry schools nowadays is sufficient, just like a newly baked war knife, with a newly made solid armor to protect the jaws, a batch of forged long knives to throw spears and bows to make them sharp, and the enemies along the way as anvils, will sharpen more and more sharp, the only shortcoming is the lack of experience in facing the big battlefield.

The Great Battlefield, heh, maybe it will be provided by the Turks, right? Lao Luo couldn't help but guess that this was simply inevitable. In this land of Central Asia, only force is the root of speech, whether it is at this time, or thousands of years later, the war has never stopped for a moment, and those who believe in peace have become dry bones under the desert. According to the current momentum of development of the Turks in this land, they will never allow a force to appear that challenges their right to speak, even if it is a passing one.

"After all, you still have to rely on your own hands to make a path......" Lao Luo sighed in a low voice.

The team was stationed in a col northwest of Mashhad, Lao Luo no longer expected to be able to climb over the green ridge before the onset of winter, this was not what he had planned at the beginning, it was really the chaos of this land beyond his imagination, there was no high-powered power machinery in his hands, it was impossible to quickly avoid disputes along the way, and his calculation was still wrong after all.

This was a military meeting at the time of the station, and the participants were naturally the leaders of the various teams. Alk had just reported a consolidated message from Mashhad (1) that Mahmud had suspended his campaign in the south and had mobilized 20,000 direct troops to prepare for the encirclement of the Tang army returning to the east, in addition to 3 to 50,000 subordinate troops.

Hearing the news that tens of thousands of enemies were coming to besiege him, Cheng Shouru and the captains of several garrison battalions looked left and right with a little change in their faces, but the faces of several gladiator-born guys in Gonzas did not change, and Lao Luo continued to ask noncommittally, "Alke, have you heard any other news about the Turkmen?" ”

"It is said that the Grand Emir of the Turkmens, Mahmoud, is seeking the title of Sultan from the Caliph as far away as Baghdad, and it is quite possible that the will of the caliph Qadir (3) is already on the way...... There is also news that to the north of the Amu Darya River (4), the Qarluqs and Uyghurs are not at peace, they are marching south to Khotan, and they have crossed the Amu Darya River several times to reach where we are now to the north, and it is said that many women and children have been robbed there......" Alke said, looking at a parchment record in his hand.

"Amu Darya ...... It's Wuhu water, right, Lao Cheng? Lao Luo pondered for a while, and asked the man sitting in the tent with the door panel.

"That's right, Amu Darya is the name of the Turks, and Wuhu water is the name of the Han people...... But Lord Luo, do you mean to consider uniting the Qarluqs and Uyghurs against the Turkmen? Cheng Shouru was a little confused, in fact, he heard that tens of thousands of enemies were coming to attack him, and 20,000 were the elite of the Turkmen, so he was a little confused.

"No, these tens of thousands of enemies can only be dealt with by ourselves, and we must fight and win, otherwise the other tribes in this wasteland will all pounce on them like wolves......" Lao Luo never thought of relying on any tribe in this land, because all the tribes in this land are counted, there is no such word as credit, there is meat to eat meat, and it is their nature to bite without meat.

"There are tens of thousands of enemies, and we have less than 15,000 soldiers at most, old men, children, and women, what should we do?" Cheng Shouru was really messed up, there were many people in the tent, and he just shouted out.

"General Cheng! Sit down! Sedation! Lao Luo's eyes stared directly at this door board man, as the main camp guard, he was a little annoyed, this guy was also from the general's door, why couldn't he suppress himself so much? Driven by him, the captain next to him and some Qu Chang also panicked.

Lao Luo's two personal soldiers forced the door panel man to press down, and after a long time, this guy quieted down, took off his helmet, scratched the messy hair on his head and said with a red face, "General, I ...... it"

"Shut up!" Lao Luo didn't give him face, if it weren't for the fact that there was really a shortage of people, according to his performance just now, he could be beheaded on the charge of disrupting the army's heart, "What's wrong with tens of thousands of people?" Are you a vegetarian with knives and guns? What is a van used for? What is a float ball used for? There are also throwing crossbows, bed crossbows...... There are even bottles of fire oil, what enemies are you afraid of? ”

Lao Luo's roar spread throughout the tent, Cheng Shouru came back to his senses, his head was almost in the crotch of his pants in shame, and the few lieutenants next to him who were a little flustered just now were also full of shame.

"What if there are too many enemies? Isn't it a head on two shoulders? In Damgan, we killed nearly 10,000 people, tens of thousands more, that is, how many more knives each person slashed, what is there to worry about? The more Lao Luo said, the more angry he became, "Cheng Shouru, you roar at the camp, I can't whip you twenty lashes, right?" ”

"The last general admits punishment......" Cheng Shouru reacted too much, he shouted indiscriminately, purely for himself, put it in his garrison camp, the killing of the head is light, and twenty lashes are already a light punishment that cannot be lighter.

"Siddeck Nord, take him down to be punished, you personally supervise the sentence, don't let him in if you don't sober up!" is still a lack of talent, Lao Luo can't really do anything about Cheng Shouru, but this whip must not be missing, it is necessary to kill before the battle, but it is necessary to shock people's hearts, governing the army is different from governing the people, there is absolutely no mercy to talk about.

After a while, the sound of crackling whips came in, and the officers in Lao Luo's camp were all pale.

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(1) Mashhad, Arabic place name, the second largest city in Iran today, one of the holy cities of Shia Muslims, Mashhad means "place of martyrdom", the name of this city comes from the Abbasid al-Ma'mun in the 9th century A.D. before he became caliphate, was the eighth Shiite Imam Ali. The place of Riza's death is now estimated to be visited by at least 20 million pilgrims every year. During the period covered in this book, Mashhad was only a place the size of a township today, mainly because of Ali. Riza's cemeteries and mosques are a loose gathering place.

(2) Mahmud, also translated as Mahmud, Mahmud, the second leader of the Ghaznavid dynasty, during his reign still respected the Abbasid kingdom as the suzerain, but changed his title to "sultan", with independent governance, he once attacked India 17 times, occupied most of the northern part of India, and his reign was the most prosperous period of the Ghaznavid kingdom.

(3) Caliph Qadir, caliph of the Abbasid kingdom, reigned from 991 to 1031 AD.

(4) Amu Darya, Turkic Amu-Dar'ya, Amu is an indigenous noun, Darya's original meaning is the meaning of sea or river, as for the pronunciation of the Han people's Wuhu water, it comes from the ancient Greek word Oxus, also known as concubine (gui) water, which is the name of the river in the Central Plains as the name suggests. In the text, Cheng Shouru obviously does not understand the origin of the name of the river of his own people, he is a martial artist, and obviously does not understand the affairs of the literati.