Along the way, the transportation of the baggage greatly slowed down the speed of the army, although the baggage was pulled by ox carts, but still could barely maintain the daily travel of 200 miles. This way to Shuofang City, there are two or three thousand miles away, and it takes half a month to catch up, which is still a beautiful day, there is no result of rain, if it rains, the muddy official road may be slowed down by nearly half of the speed.

Li Jing rode a horse and led a few guards to patrol all the way, shouting and encouraging the soldiers. Don't let the morale of the army be low, such a long-distance march, the damage to morale is very great, this is not out for seven or eight days, after walking a small half of the distance, most of the soldiers have begun to show a trace of fatigue. The continuous rush put their physical strength and endurance to the test.

In these seven or eight days, a song "Tang Cavalry" was sung by the entire army, and the song resounded in all directions of the official road, and it was sung along the way, so that countless people of the Tang Dynasty remembered this song and remembered this army, they were going to fight the Turks, and they were going to be ashamed of the Tang Dynasty, these are good men! Therefore, countless people gathered on both sides of the official road to see off their warriors, wishing them a great victory and washing away the shame of Weishui. At the same time, I also send them simple blessings, hoping that they can return safely!

All the way, in the wishes of these people, the army passed through the land of Guanzhong and entered the border of Shanxi, which was already close to the Turkic border! Although the journey was hard, these days, the wishes of hundreds of people made all the soldiers burn with a fire in their hearts, and the fierce fighting spirit began to burn. The blood in my heart has not cooled. Morale is high and military discipline is strict. There was no trampling on farmland or ramming the people along the way. This made Li Jing very pleased, in the past, there would be more or less friction with the people on the march, which was also a headache for these commanders. Dealing with soldiers is the most basic, and if the magistrates are indomitable, they may all be reprimanded afterwards.

With such a blatant march of the Tang Dynasty, the news must be blocked, so Jieli on the grassland has learned that the Tang Dynasty has begun to send troops. Ready to attack yourself. But he was helpless, this year, the grassland was full of disasters. In spring and summer, there was a drought, and the grass in the pastures was not enough for cattle and sheep to eat, so countless herders had to move around in search of water and grass. This also caused countless Turkic warriors to scatter in all directions. It's hard to gather for a while. Moreover, it was only mid to late August, and there had already been two heavy snowfalls, and the third heavy snow was about to come, which also brought great inconvenience to the assembly of the Turkic army, at least the lone Turks could not catch up with this war. Alone, or a few of them, could not walk through the vast expanse of snow-covered grasslands. The harsh white snow reflected the sunlight and impaired vision, the Turkic soldiers all had to cover their eyes with poked animal skins, and the endless steppes were very difficult to discern in the cloudy weather. Let people get lost in that snow-white world.

Therefore, Jieli's calling horn has been sounding for more than half a month, and the Turkic army gathered in the king's tent is only 50,000 or 60,000 people. It was still far from the 100,000 string controllers he expected. Although there has been no war between the Tang Dynasty and the Turks in recent years, the secret struggle has never stopped. The Turks kept looting merchants, especially the Hu merchants of the Western Regions, and obtained countless goods from these people, which they then exchanged for grain, cloth, iron and other items that lacked in the steppe from the Tang Dynasty through their own secret channels. And the Tang Dynasty is not without action, since Li Er received the edict from Pei Ju, an old courtier who is very familiar with the Western Regions and Turks, in the first year of Zhenguan, he began to secretly carry out the plan formulated by Pei Ju. In recent years, it has also achieved results, and the originally unified Turks have been divided into two parts, the Eastern Turk leader is Jieli, and the head of the Western Turks is Jieli's younger brother Tuli. This also greatly weakened Jieli's strength and influence, so Jieli was only estimated to be able to gather 100,000 warriors, instead of the 200,000 people who controlled the strings when he went south to attack the Tang Dynasty before.

Jieli is waiting, waiting until the Turkic army is assembled, and then taking all the troops all the way south, trying to catch the Tang people off guard, he will not capture Shuofang City this time, although Shuofang City can be driven straight into after it is defeated, but this time no one will open the city gate for himself again, it will be difficult to overcome, it is better to penetrate directly from the gaps at those borders. Although they are all small roads, you can gather again after crossing the border!

Just when Li Jing led the army to the border, Zuo Wuwei also arrived, Li Xiaogong led Zuo Wuwei 30,000 soldiers from Longyou all the way forward, opened the road in the mountains, built bridges in the water, and finally joined the right Wuwei led by Li Jing, the 70,000 troops of the Tang Dynasty were completely assembled, and Li Jing once again held a symposium of senior generals and communicated with the generals. Then they discussed together how the war should be fought, who would be the vanguard, and who would be in charge of logistics. These must be clearly determined, otherwise there is no rules, wouldn't it be chaotic to order the two doors?

Just when the big generals and other big men were fighting for a place in the vanguard, Li Kuan's camp came to an uninvited guest, dressed in sackcloth, with his hair scattered, eight feet tall, carrying a longbow and carrying a Mo knife.

The soldiers guarding the camp stopped him, only to see that this person had a full beard, and an oversized Mo knife in his hand, as if he was carrying a straw, the soldier's pupils shrank, this is a master, compared to their previous commander, General Duan Zhixuan, who is not inferior to a master. These soldiers who guarded the camp were selected to join the Xuanjiawei after the first year of Zhenguan, and they didn't know the people in front of them. If the old man of Xuanjiawei was here, he would definitely recognize this person at a glance, this person was Xue Wanche, one of the only two fierce generals under the account of Li Jiancheng, the former king of Xi.

It was not surprising that Xue Wanche appeared outside Li Kuan's camp, this place was not far from the Taihang Mountain Range, the old nest he was staying in now. It's just that his outfit and the purpose of his appearance are worth pondering. Although Datang did not implement weapon control, it was only an ordinary literati sword, and a weapon like Modao that would only be used in the military was relatively rare.

With a longbow on his back and a Mo knife, he appeared in front of the barracks, so he must be in the army! But why did Xue Wanche come back to Li Kuan? The relationship between Xue Wanche and Li Kuan can not be said to be friendly, there is still this grudge between the two, it is impossible for this person to take refuge in Li Kuan! And Li Kuan is just a small Yunlu lieutenant, what can he do under his hands? With his Xue Wanche's talent, he is simply condescending to the extreme. Although the soldiers are the elite division, there are too few of them.

There are also many generals in this entire barracks, and most of them are old friends with him, if he goes to those people, he can directly take over a battalion of soldiers, and even directly cross the captain class and become a general or something like a general. When I come to Li Kuan, I am afraid that I can only be a military horse, and I will serve together with Liu Wei.

"A certain family is the old man of your captain, and I asked him to come out and talk about it!" Xue Wanche said loudly.

"May I ask what is your name, otherwise how would our captain know who you are?" The soldier guarding the gate asked.

"You just need to tell him, the old man of Xuejiazhai on Taihang Mountain is visiting, and he will naturally know!" Xue Wanche replied.

"Then you wait here, I'll help you out!" The soldier saw that Xue Wanche said in a very authentic tone, and it was unlikely that he was a spy of the Turks, so he was ready to help him pass it on, and even if he was a spy of the Turks, he was only one person, and there were still hundreds of brothers in his camp, how could he be afraid of him! It was better to inform the captain first, and the soldiers walked towards Li Kuan's tent.

"Report, there is a person at the door who said that he is the old man of the adult, from Xuejiazhai on Taihang Mountain, I don't know if the adult summoned him?" The soldier reported to Li Kuanyu.

"Oh! Xue Jiazhai! Li Kuan groaned for a moment, and when he heard the name of this place, Li Kuan remembered Xue Wanche, but what is he doing here now? After he brought his news to Xue Wanqian two years ago, he never paid attention to his news again, what does it mean that he actually came here at this time?

"Let him in! Forget it, I'll go in person! Li Kuan thought about it or went out by himself, just to go back to the little gray ash that was scattered on the grassland, this is the day of the border, this big dog was stocked on the grassland by himself, from time to time to bring back some game, now the grassland within a radius of dozens of miles has become the territory of this big dog, originally entrenched here A group of steppe wolves were actually subdued by this big dog to be a little brother, which also made Li Kuan have some different ideas.

When he arrived at the camp gate, Li Kuan saw Xue Wanche on the opposite side, hugged his fists and said, "I didn't expect General Xue to appear here, I don't know what happened here?" ”

"Ming people don't say secret words, Xue is here for this war, and he wants to serve under His Royal Highness the King of Chu, I don't know if it's okay?" Xue Wanche was not hypocritical, and directly stated his purpose.

"General Xue has a lot of acquaintances in this army! Why did you want to come to Xiao Wang? Li Kuan was surprised.

"It is precisely because I am familiar with them that I have to go to the tent of His Royal Highness the King of Chu to beg for food!" Xue Wanche replied a little bitterly.

"Uh......" Li Kuan was choked by his straightforwardness, it's really true, the two people who were originally the same name, now want him to work under the hands of another person, with Xue Wanche's pride is really a little difficult to speak, but Li Kuan is different, he was defeated by Li Kuan before. Now it is also said under Li Kuan's hands, and Xue Wanche does not want to use Li Kuan to return to the army. As long as he protected Li Kuan's thoughtfulness in this war, then Li Er's side would be easy to do, and he Xue Wanche was also ordered to act back then, and Li Er's family did not have casualties. It's not that it can't be revealed, reconciling this past incident is the biggest purpose of Xue Wanche's trip, in recent years, he has set up a small village on this Taihang Mountain alone, and most of the people in it are the widows and young sons left behind after the death of his soldiers in the previous war, these people are slowly searched for after he left Chang'an. In the past few years, Xue Wanche has suffered a lot for these people, and it was not until Xue Wanqian contacted him that he got better. (To be continued......)