He Mu'er was grateful, and learned that Ma Chao was going to attack Liu Bao's tribe overnight, so he hurriedly persuaded: "The snow on the grassland is very cold, and even the war horses can't stand it. ”

Ma Chao laughed and said awe-inspiringly: "What if it's cold? What are my Han soldiers afraid of! ”

He came to the grassland this time to prepare to make meritorious contributions, and he wanted to make a great meritorious service. Liu Xin is indeed a wise lord, he will give full autonomy to these lords who lead the troops outside, and he also said something "will be outside, and the king's order will not be affected". Ma Chao has to make full use of his power now and make a great contribution for himself.

This place is already very close to Liu Bao's tribe, if they rush overnight, maybe they will be able to rush to Liu Bao's tribe in the third watch, and they will definitely be able to surprise them. What's more, Ma Chao has learned that Liu Bao is not in the tribe, and no matter how many people there are in the tribe, there will be no leader.

Although Liu Xin had made it very clear in the order, asking them not to kill and injure the Xiongnu people too much, but Liu Bao was different, when Liu Xin sent them this time, he especially emphasized that they should guard against Liu Bao. Now that there is a great opportunity to eliminate the Liu Bao tribe, Ma Chao is not willing to miss it no matter what.

There is no doubt about the military discipline of the Han soldiers, not to say that they will march and fight overnight, even if they are allowed to jump into the fire pit collectively overnight, they will not frown. The soldiers, who had just finished cleaning the battlefield with those herdsmen and were about to camp and rest, heard Ma Chao's order, and gathered in less than a cup of tea, and set off towards Liu Bao's tribe in the direction pointed by the herdsmen of the Yehan tribe. Originally, many herdsmen of the Yehan tribe were rescued by the Han army and were willing to come out to serve as guides for the Han army, but Ma Chao did not have extra down jackets for them to wear, and he did not want them to be free, and he lost his life because he could not endure the cold, so he politely refused their kindness.

Liu Bao's tribe used to be a large tribe with more than 10,000 young and strong people, and now although most of the young herdsmen have lost, there are still many women and children, as long as time passes, it can still develop into a large tribe. Even so, this tribe can be regarded as a medium tribe, and there are more than 8,000 slaves in the tribe, including men and women, adults and children, Huns, Qiang, Xianbei, and Han.

In the nomadic season, so many people are scattered in the vast grassland, like a handful of sand thrown into the sea, and there is no way to find it. But it's not the nomadic season, so the whole tribe comes together, one family is one tent, and thousands of families have thousands of tents. Such a camp naturally needed a very large place, and on this moonlit and starry winter night, reflecting the silver light of the snow, it also became a very obvious target, so the outpost sent by Ma Chao found their camp without difficulty.

The Han army, equipped with skis, marched too fast, and when they surrounded this large camp from afar, it was not yet the second watch, and there were still many people walking around in the camp, and the sound of noise and noise came from time to time.

During the grazing season, these herder families live scattered throughout the grassland, and only gather together during major gatherings, which is also a good time for young men and women to fall in love. And in winter, when the whole tribe gathers together, it is their happiest time.

At this time, through the clairvoyance in his hand, Ma Chao could clearly see that there were many men and women singing and dancing around the bonfire in the square in the middle of the camp. In fact, what Ma Chao can't see is that in some dark corners, there are still many couples who are talking to me.

Ma Chao knew very well that these tribes on the grassland, both men and women, were heroic warriors before they were captured, and if these people rose up to resist, it would inevitably cause relatively large casualties to his soldiers. Ma Chao had a total of 20,000 soldiers under his command, 5,000 of whom were left near the Yehan tribe, and 15,000 people surrounded this camp, even if he launched a strong attack, he was confident that he would completely annihilate Liu Bao's tribe.

However, Ma Chao did not give the order to attack, because Liu Xin taught them many times that while fighting the enemy, they should protect themselves to the greatest extent, and slogans such as "sweat more in peacetime, shed less blood in wartime" and other slogans on the school field can also be seen everywhere, these concepts have long been deeply engraved into the minds of the soldiers of the Han army, so Ma Chao will never choose to do it at this time.

Hiding in the winter night is a difficult task, and lurking in the snow on a cold steppe night is an impossible task if it were handed over to the average army. But these difficulties were not worth mentioning in front of the Han army, which was armed to the teeth, not only did the perfect equipment allow them to overcome the severe cold, but also their usual rigorous training also gave them enough will and physique to resist the cold. This is only a recruit who has been trained for less than a year, and if according to Liu Xin's vision, after another two years, such an army can definitely sweep the world.

By the time of the third watch, the crowd dancing around the campfire had gradually dispersed, and the entire camp was quiet, and Ma Chao still had not given the order to attack, he was still waiting, waiting for the best time to attack.

After more than an hour, the bright moon in the sky gradually disappeared, and the sky became darker and darker, Ma Chao suddenly made a gesture to the soldiers behind him. The soldiers hurriedly lit a torch and held it up in the air and shook it three times. It didn't take much effort for a bright spot to appear in the distance in the other three directions, dangling in the air three times, and then, everything returned to tranquility, still pitch black. However, under this dark and quiet night sky, countless figures were approaching the camp from all directions.

Ma Chao chose the right time, this time is the time when people sleep the deepest in the night, and for those guards who are on duty outside, it is the time when they are the sleepest, coldest and hungriest. Ma Chao had clearly seen from the clairvoyance that the guards around the camp had shrunk into the tents one after another, after all, in their eyes, it was about to dawn, and this was Liu Bao's camp again, could anyone still dare to come and sneak attack?

As the guards snorted and fell asleep, the attackers actually came and stormed their camp and cut down their tents. Most of the herders had not yet understood what had happened, and some of them had come out of their tents and looked around, only to be stabbed in the head, without even knowing who the enemy was except for a pre-death scream.

The battle went very smoothly, and there was almost no decent resistance, so Ma Chao took control of the entire camp, and the soldiers searched one tent after another, drove all the people inside the tents out, and gathered outside the camp to screen their identities.

Last night, when rescuing the Yehan tribe, Ma Chao had already heard about Liu Bao's "liberation" of the slaves of the Yehan tribe, and thought that it was a good idea, so he made up his mind to do the same before launching the attack. In this matter, Ma Chao did it more thoroughly than Liu Bao. Not only did he "liberate" the slaves, but he also ordered the adult male slaves to immediately choose one of their original mistresses and form a new family, so that Liu Bao's tribe had a new look and became a new tribe. As for all the male herdsmen in the Liu Bao tribe who were taller than the wheels, Ma Chao did not dare to kill them, because they were all prisoners of war, and the killing of prisoners of war was severely punished by military discipline. These prisoners of war, numbering about 4,000, will be taken to Xiliang for hard labor.

At this time, the first rays of exposure had just risen in the east, and Liu Bao also walked out of the felt tent, stretching hard, and his men were busy dismantling the tent. The men on the grassland are physically strong, and sleeping in the open is commonplace, but if they sleep on the snowfield on this winter night, it is tantamount to killing themselves, so even a small team of only a few dozen people like Liu Bao must carry a few tents with them.

Liu Bao drank a large bag of mare's milk in the tent in the morning, and gnawed most of the leg of mutton, and now he is in good spirits. He was busy on the way, but his mind was not idle, although it was true that they were going to be unfavorable to Yu Fuluo, but he was so excited that he killed Ye Han, and now there is no witness.

Since returning from the defeat in Guanzhong and losing 100,000 Huns, Liu Bao obviously felt that Yu Fuluo was a little dissatisfied with him, and he did not stand on his side in that civil strife. Therefore, if Liu Bao said the unfavorable things that Hu Chuquan intended to be unfavorable to Yu Fuluo like this, he was sure that Yu Fuluo would definitely not believe him, and he had to find a way to make Yu Fuluo accept this fact as soon as possible. However, there were still three days to go before the tribe of Yuvro, and he still had enough time to think about it.

Just as Liu Bao was on the road, the men, women and children of his tribe also began to set off under the escort of the Han army. This new tribe of freed slaves, women and children, will merge with the Yehan tribe, and Hemur will become the leader of the merged tribe. As for those prisoners of war, they will also be handed over to Hemur's custody for the time being, and after the affairs on the grassland are settled, they will be escorted to Xiliang, and Ma Chao still needs to continue to rush to the tribe of Chiul, which is the focus of his trip to the grassland.

In the evening, the Han army escorted the new tribe to the new camp of the Yehan tribe, and after a simple handover, Ma Chao rushed to the tribe of Chiwule with 20,000 Han troops overnight. Because of the delay in this raid on Liu Bao's tribe, if you don't march overnight, I'm afraid it will be difficult to reach the tribe of Chiwul within the agreed time.

Liu Bao was not in a hurry, the bad weather made the war horse tired, and he ordered to set up camp early. After taking a sip of mare's milk wine and nibbling on a piece of lamb shank, Liu Bao breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, I saw a subordinate hurriedly walk in, saluted, and said: "Report to the prince, the villain found a strange thing under the saddle, please take a look." ”