The soldier nodded, and was about to wake up the others, but was stopped by Amba: "Give me the bow and arrow!" ”

Amba took the horned bow from his soldiers, and fastened the birch bark bag full of arrows to his belt, and he walked to the battlement and looked down. With the help of the moonlight www.biquge.info he could see some dark shadows moving beside the moat, which was not very real because of the narrowness of the battlements, and he thought it would be better to wait a little longer and wait until these enemies crossed the river before shooting. Amba pulled out an arrow from his quiver, a black shaft and gray eagle feathers, and he put it on the string, quietly waiting for the opportunity.

The moonlight shone on the water surface of the moat, and a silver light appeared, and three black shadows appeared on the water. Amba pulled the bowstring to the base of his ear, then released his finger, and the feather arrow hissed out of the string, and a moment later, only two black shadows remained in the river. They paused for a moment, then picked up speed, and Amba drew a second arrow, but this time it was too quick to miss. By the time he drew his third arrow, the two shadows had crossed the moat and entered the dead end of the shot. He turned his head to look for a new target, when a rocket flew from the top of the city, and hit the asphalt-soaked stake outside the city, and a fire rose up to illuminate the bodies of a dozen running sneak attackers, short spears, axes, bows and quivers on their backs, and patterns on garden skin shields: vipers, bear's paws, mountain eagles, and deer. These are all beggars, their shields depict the totems of their tribes, and at least four tribes were involved in the attack, who united them?

At this time, the defenders on the city wall began to shoot arrows at the attackers, and the first row fired rockets, lighting the dry firewood and grass laid out in advance on the outside of the moat, and the rising fire dug the attackers out of the darkness. Amba could hear the incessant swishing sound in his ears, the sneak attackers under the city fell, some of the survivors took up their bows and arrows to shoot back, some raised their shields and retreated into the darkness, and the silence was broken by screams and dying moans.

Anti-Ba shot intently, he set up his arrows, drew his bow, and released his arrows, completely oblivious to the passage of time, not even a begging and charming arrow shot through the soldiers behind him.

I don't know how long it took, but the battle was finally over. The remnants of the beggars retreated into the darkness, leaving only corpses in the light of the fire. Amba flatly refused his men's request to open the door and pursue, knowing full well that the brutal battle had only just begun.

"Look, my lord!" An officer with an arrow in his hand and a solemn face. Amba took the arrow, a well-made armor-piercing arrow with a duck's tongue-shaped arrow emitting a dark blue glow in the firelight.

"This is a barbarian's arrow?"

"Yes, sir!" The officer whispered: "This was pulled out of Old Bayan's body, he wore two layers of leather armor, but this arrow penetrated two layers of leather armor and inserted it into his lungs!" ”

"Are you okay?" Amba asked in a low voice, Old Bayan had been following him for twenty years, and he was the best night in Ningguta City.

"It's no longer possible!" A gloomy look appeared on the officer's face: "The wound is too deep, blood gushes out of the mouth, and the doctor can't do anything." ”

Amba sighed, although the people at that time did not know much about physiology, they still knew that this was a phenomenon of the approaching death. He made a gesture, and the officer knowingly gave a few words to the others, and then whispered to Amba, "My lord, the situation is very wrong, these arrows—"

"I see what you mean!" Amba interrupted his subordinates' report: "This is an arrow specially designed to pierce armor, even if you are wearing iron armor, you can shoot through it within fifty steps, these beggars should not have these arrows." ”

"You should tell Sheng Jing about this!" The officer whispered.

"I'm afraid it's too late!" Amba whispered, "Didn't you notice? The patterns on the shields of those sneak attackers just now are different, which means that they belong to multiple tribes, if it were under normal circumstances, these barbarians would have fought on their own, and now they are besieging us together, and this armor-piercing arrow, this can only mean that someone behind them is manipulating all this, do you think he would not have thought that we would send someone to Sheng Jing for help? ”

The officer's face turned pale at once, and he knew very well that there were only two roads leading from Ningguta to Shengjing, and that the roads were lined with endless forests, and that if the beggars had been ambushed in the forest beforehand, the chances of the messenger reaching Shengjing alive were slim.

"You pick eight people, each of them prepares two horses, a team of two, and the departure time is half an hour apart, and they take two roads to Shengjing!" Seeing the surprised eyes of his subordinates, An Ba smiled bitterly: "Even if it's unlikely, we have to gamble!" ”

After giving the order, Amba went back to his room and lay down on the bed. He knew he had to sleep as much as he could—he probably wouldn't have much of a chance to sleep for the rest of the day. Even though it was summer and he was covered with several layers of fur, Antigua still felt cold. "It's not that it's cold, it's that death is coming!" Amba said to himself that he swore to the gods that he was not afraid of death. Seven or eight out of ten of his peers who followed Lao Khan to take up arms like him have already passed away, he is in his fifties, his grandsons are all seventeen, and he is still light and strong enough to die on the battlefield to avoid the torture of aging and illness, isn't this the best ending that a warrior can get? But despite this, he was still distracted and unable to sleep.

It was the sound of the trumpet that woke Amba, who was still immersed in the chaos of his dreams, and a second horn followed, louder and louder than the first, as if urging him to get out of bed. Amba pushed away the fur and stood up, he hadn't unfastened the iron armor at all last night, which made his back and shoulders feel a little numb, he moved twice, picked up his weapon, and staggered towards the city.

It was still dark outside, and even in summer, Ningguta was still very cold at night, and the Jurchen soldiers streamed out of the barracks and fortresses, arranging their armor and walking towards the city walls. Amba has such an intuition in his heart - the enemy who has been hiding behind the scenes and manipulating all this is outside the city, and he will fight him to the death, which is good, whether it is victory or defeat, life or death, he can rest in peace.

The road near the gate was crowded, and Amba saw many familiar faces: the pockmarked boss of the tavern, his fat daughter-in-law, the rabbit-toothed worker, the big leatherman, and his mute apprentice, and there were not enough soldiers guarding the city, and every one of them, whether they were in love or not, had to take up arms—they knew that if the beggars came in, they would never make an effort to distinguish between soldiers and civilians.

When Ambar ascended the tower, he saw the soldiers standing behind the women's wall, placing bags of arrows in their hands, and behind them every four or five battlements were placed iron shelves, on which were placed iron basins, filled with charcoal, on which rockets could be lit, and boiling water or oil could be poured over the heads of the besiegers. The pock-faced owner of the tavern, with his fat daughter-in-law and bunny-toothed buddies, handed out large pieces of bread and warm wine mixed with water to the soldiers, who chewed and swallowed silently, and for many of them, it might be the last meal.

The pock-faced boss walked up to Amba and stopped. Amba took the bread and the wooden cup filled with warm wine, and ate it in large gulps.

"My lord, can you hold it?" The pock-faced boss's voice trembled a little.

"Yes, as long as everyone keeps their posts!" Amba's voice was as calm as usual, and when he saw the other party's relieved expression, he was glad that he had sparked this little panic. The battles of the past flashed through his mind, and he suddenly felt that he had no appetite, and threw the leftover bread out of the city.

On the city wall, the guards lit the charcoal in the iron basin behind them, and the raging fire rose, and the night wind was like a sharp sword, stirring the flames, and the terrible orange light could not help shaking, and bundles of arrows, spears, stones, and grease were ready behind them. As a battle-hardened veteran, Amba prepared everything well, the only thing lacking was manpower, and his gaze swept over the dark city, hoping that what he heard was nothing more than an illusion.

"Did you hear that, sir!" A veteran asked in a low voice.

The sound of the wind, the sound of men and horses trampling broken branches, the neighing of cattle and horses, the sound of muffled conversations, the sound of felling wood, and maybe something else. Amba shook his head, forcibly interrupting his thoughts, thinking too much at this time would only make him timid, he picked up his bow and whispered, "It's coming!" ”

The veteran took a deep breath, his thick chest rising high, and the breath he exhaled sent a white mist in the pre-dawn air. Outside Ningguta was an infinite darkness, as if it were an ocean, but he could see the flickering and moving red stars in the forest outside the city, just like the stars in the sky, but in the eyes of the city defenders, these sparks were much darker than the night outside the city.

"We can't see anything clearly, what should we do?" The veteran asked.

"Then let him bring us light!" Ambar whispered, he turned and took down a flag, tied it tightly to the flagpole, dipped it in the asphalt bucket, lit it, and threw it outward, and the burning flag flew out in the night sky, emitting a bright red flickering fire, illuminating the ground of the path. With this light, Antigua could see that at least hundreds of beggars were already standing in the clearing about two hundred paces from the city wall, and behind them, there were many more people coming out of the woods, some on horseback, some on deer, and even carriages. These wild men with scattered hair and animal skins lined up in silence and looked at the city wall, waiting for the destiny of heaven, which made people shudder.

"You have to do something, or the soldiers will be crushed by this invisible pressure!" Amba took the horn from the hands of his own soldiers and blew it with all his strength: Woo woo! The sound of the trumpets seemed to be a provocation of the castle to the besiegers, and the provocation was answered, almost a dozen horns sounded at the same time, along with many leather drums and some instruments similar to flutes, as if to announce to the people of Ningguta: We are here to destroy your walls, to plunder your property, to take possession of your women, to eat your corpses, to suck your bone marrow!

After a few minutes, the sound of trumpets and drums had subsided, and the people inside and outside the city were waiting for the dawn to come, but the inside of the city was terrified, and the outside was impatient. In this darkest hour, a thought suddenly flashed through Amba's mind - what was the enemy hiding behind the curtain doing?

"How long will it take to get light?" This is the third time Lin Heshui has raised this issue with Acton. And this time, Acton gave the same answer: "Lord Lin, wait a little longer, our Northland is like this, even in summer, it will be dark early and bright late!" Speaking of this, a smile appeared on his face: "Don't worry, with these three treasures, I will definitely win this battle!" ”

What gave Acton so much confidence were the three six-pounder cannons behind him, which had been painstakingly brought from Yangzhou by the Lin River, and four of them were unloaded from Niluhan, only to sink one of them into the water on the way, and three remaining. If it is really a frontal battlefield in Liaodong, just three six-pounder cannons are naturally nothing, whether it is the stronghold of Houjin or the Guanning army, there are not ten or eight red-clothed cannons of several thousand catties are embarrassed to come out to meet people, but in Ningguta it is another matter. The Later Jin regime did not have the luxury of equipping the barbarian fortified city with artillery, whose main enemy was not even equipped with iron arrowheads, and although the six-pounder cannon could not break through the walls, the archers who bombarded the gates and suppressed the city head were still easy and pleasant.

At this moment, there was the sound of cattle and horses behind Acton, and a group of beggars were driving the cattle and horses to drag over the freshly cut logs, which were used to build the forts. Acton urged the group of beggars twice in brute language, looked to the east again, and said with a smile: "Lord Lin, look, it's dawn!" ”

Lin Heshui looked to the east suspiciously, and before he knew it, the world had faded from darkness to a kind of gray, and a certain shape was faintly emerging on the eastern horizon, could this be his own hallucination? Lin Heshui couldn't help but ask himself.

On the city wall, Amba watched as the sun rose from the east and broke through the clouds, casting its light on the earth. When he saw the clearing between the city walls and the forest, he couldn't help but hold his breath. The bodies of the attackers from last night lay on the ground, inviting flocks of crows to feast on them. But behind them were densely packed with unkempt hair and fur-wrapped savages, as if the wild people in the vast and dense forest stretching from the sea in the east, the Changbai Mountains in the west, the Outer Xing'an Mountains in the north, and the Ningguta in the south had all come here: herds of archers, men on bantam horses and reindeer backs, black pressed human heads like dense forests, and all kinds of totems fluttering on the flags. All these strange-looking barbarians were gathered and gathered under the city of Ningguta. It dawned on him that the small victory of the previous night was nothing, it was just a reconnaissance, a test of the strength of the defenders, a gentle jab, a prologue before the main drama began, and now everything had just begun. (To be continued.) )