Chapter 2: Refugees from the Defeat

He Tengxiao and his entourage were on the official road near the mouth of the Sancha River. There is only about 180 miles from the official road at the mouth of the Sancha River to Gaizhou, this section of the official road is quite flat, and on weekdays, you can walk this section of the road back and forth as long as you ride a fast horse. But now the thirty or so old soldiers were already exhausted, and they marched slowly, and by noon the next day, they had only walked about fifty miles.

The official road is in a mess, and the ordnance, armor, and banners abandoned by the Zhao army can be seen everywhere. He Tengxiao's more than 30 people picked up the weapons and armor of better quality like picking up rags, wiped them clean and put them on. Wearing armor, this team barely looked like an elite division at a cursory glance. It is a pity that no scattered horses were found on the road, the cavalry battalion is an all-cavalry battalion, the cavalry is no longer the same as the infantry on the road without horses and legs, no one will think that these thirty people were once noble cavalry. In this era, cavalry was a noble branch of the army, and the treatment of cavalry and infantry was very different, and the salary of the imperial cavalry was three times that of the infantry. The entire battalion is composed of cavalry, and the Xiao Cavalry Battalion is the treasure bump of the He family, and He Fangxiong, the He family, has almost devoted all his efforts in the second half of his life to building the elite cavalry of the Xiao Cavalry Battalion. I don't know how He Fangxiong would feel when he saw that the original 3,000 elite iron cavalry now only had about 30 remnants left?

Walking on the official road, you can occasionally see a few corpses lying on the road. There were soldiers and civilians, who were either seriously wounded and died, or died of starvation without food on the way to flee. Most of the corpses were already stiff, and there were obvious trampling marks on the corpses that had fallen on the official road.

He Tengxiao saw a woman on the side of the road holding a baby tightly in her hand, and she didn't understand anything. He Tengxiao walked over and moved the woman, but there was no response, and with a glimmer of hope, he teased the baby that the woman was holding in her arms, and the baby did not cry, but quietly snuggled in his mother's arms and fell asleep forever.

A sour feeling filled He Tengxiao's heart, he was a soldier and was used to seeing life and death, but he was deeply shocked by the tragic situation he saw along the way. Perhaps this is what the history books say about the troubled times, and the lives of people in troubled times are as cheap as ants, and they are really rather peaceful dogs than troubled people.

"Heaven and earth are unkind, and all things are used as dogs." The words were followed by a helpless sigh. He Tengxiao looked up at the person who spoke, and saw a person in a Confucian shirt standing with his hands in his hands, and the Confucian scarf on his head was broken in the middle, and most of his bun was exposed.

"Meat eaters are unkind, and they use the people as dogs." He Tengxiao answered, closed the woman's unblinding eyes and continued to walk. Gao Guang, the governor of Liaodong, was greedy for merit and recklessly advanced, causing 100,000 Liaodong Zhenjun to be lured to Yingzhou by the Manshu army to encircle and annihilate, the Zhao army was defeated, and 60,000 Zhao troops were captured and killed by the Manshu army. Most of the 100,000 Northern Expeditionary Army that Gao Guang cobbled together at the beginning were the town army drawn from the military towns in the hinterland of Liaodong, and they were the main force guarding Liaodong. The main force of the Liaodong Town Army was completely annihilated, Liaoyang was lost, and it was these helpless creatures who were finally devastated.

The Confucian was stunned for a moment, and a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl hiding behind him came out, looked timidly at the back of He Tengxiao's departure, pulled the sleeve of the Confucian and asked, "Daddy, is the saint a meat eater?" ”

Confucius touched the little girl's head, "A saint must be a meat eater, and a meat eater is not necessarily a saint." ”

The Broken Land Temple not far from the official road became a post station for the defeated soldiers who fled south, and soon gathered six or seven hundred people. Six or seven hundred people filled this small land temple, and many refugees were carrying heavy household goods and luggage, and if we ignore the panicked looks on the faces of these people and the wounded soldiers covered in blood in the tide of refugees, this place may be more like a makeshift bazaar.

Six or seven hundred people poured into the small land temple at once, making the land temple very crowded, chaotic, and disorderly. Even the clumsy walls around the Land Temple are full of people, and it is very happy to find a sunny wall and take a beautiful nap on the wall for a while.

He Tengxiao's team was also mixed in with this wave of refugees. He Tengxiao's team was relatively well armoured, and everyone was carrying armaments, which looked different from the other routs scattered in the crowd, and it was more conspicuous in the crowd. Many people are still very taboo about weapons such as ordnance and other killing weapons, and consciously stay away from He Tengxiao's team. Moreover, in this world, the rebels can do everything, especially the rebels with weapons are no less than the robbers. In recent years, the Liaodong army has been poorly paid, the Liaodong town army has mutinied, and chaos has occurred from time to time. The scourge of the rebels is not inferior to that of Manyu, and many people in Liaodong have suffered the losses of the rebels.

The refugees consciously dispersed, and the space for activity was much larger, and He Tengxiao and them were also at ease. He Tengxiao asked the soldiers to sit down on the ground, with more than a dozen triangular scarves that had just been made on their shoulders, and untied the bandages of the wounded soldiers and re-bandaged them.

In this era, there were no sanitary soldiers, and the sanitary and medical conditions were low. Soldiers who are wounded on the battlefield can only ask for more blessings. In a sense, being wounded on the battlefield is basically pronounced dead. Most soldiers are not killed directly on the battlefield, but are wounded and die without timely treatment.

He Tengxiao took apart a bandage that a soldier had tied haphazardly and threw it aside, and used the bandaging method he learned in the army in later generations to re-bandage his wound with a triangular scarf. The soldiers who had been re-bandaged also felt much more comfortable than they had to come by themselves.

These people are all from the Xiao Cavalry Battalion, and they have a little understanding of He Tengxiao's background. Although He Tengxiao is for the marginalized children of the He family, he is also a child of the He family, and it is rare for an officer of a family to be able to bandage ordinary soldiers with his own hands in this era of strict hierarchy. The soldiers who were re-bandaged by He Tengxiao were surprised at first, and then this surprise was gradually replaced by emotion.

When He Tengxiao was bandaging the wounded soldiers, he noticed that there was something unusual about several people who looked like Zhao Jun not far from them. He Tengxiao couldn't help but look at them attentively.

"These people are suspicious." Ling Feng also noticed those suspicious Zhao Jun.

He Tengxiao nodded, and tightened the bandage of the last wounded soldier on the knot, "The remnants of the defeated soldiers here are either depressed or listless, these people are full of energy, no matter how you look at it, they don't look like soldiers who have just lost the battle." ”

"Uh...... It's a bit like a soldier who has won a battle...... Ling Feng glanced at those Zhao soldiers a few times and said, "Could it be the meticulous work of the Manshu people?" ”

"No, the physical characteristics of Manshu people and our Han people are quite different, and it is easy to distinguish that these people are obviously Han people." He Tengxiao lowered his voice.

"Horse bandits!" After He Tengxiao's reminder, Ling Feng immediately reacted! There are so many refugees gathered here, and there are not a few refugees who have fled with gold and silver. In recent years, the eastern Liaodong region has not been peaceful, and rat thieves have swarmed, especially horse bandits, who must have been eyeing the belongings carried by these people who fled. He Tengxiao glanced at more than a dozen people who looked like merchants, led by a person who looked like a scholar, with an air of elegance between his eyebrows and eyes, which was in stark contrast to the dozen or so rude men guarding the carriage around him. It was clearly a caravan, and the suspicious soldiers were pointing at them and whispering to them.

"Brothers, copy the guys, catch the horse bandits!" He Tengxiao grabbed the knife and jumped up and ran towards the horse bandits. The more than thirty veterans of the Xiao Cavalry Battalion were all elites who had been in battle for a long time, and they reacted extremely quickly, and followed He Tengxiao to pounce.

The horse bandits were overwhelmed by this sudden change, and before they could react, they were cut down several times. Seeing this, He Tengxiao abandoned the Pu knife in his hand, pulled his bow and arrows, and shot a horse bandit on the spot, and when he was about to aim to shoot the second one, the horse bandit had already fled from the land temple.

The refugees were frightened, and the crowd exploded in an instant, and the crowd surged. These refugees fled here in fear all the way, and when they heard that the horse bandits were coming, they couldn't help but panic, and rushed to the outside of the temple, and the Zhao army in the crowd didn't care much, and followed the refugees to the outside of the temple.

Not long after, puffs of smoke and dust rolled up not far away, followed by the sound of horses' hooves getting louder and louder. He Tengxiao couldn't help but look solemn, he didn't expect the horse bandits to ambush so close to them! Listening to the sound of horses' hooves, there were probably fifty or sixty horsemen in this bandit. The soldiers from the Xiao Cavalry Battalion are not afraid of horse bandits, and in the memory that does not belong to them, the Xiao Cavalry Battalion has also gone out to suppress horse bandits several times, and they have all returned victorious. If the thirty or so veterans under his command all had war horses, He Tengxiao would not take fifty or sixty horseback bandits in his eyes. But now his more than 30 veterans of the cavalry battalion have no horses, and the cavalry without horses is no different from foot soldiers, and even inferior to foot soldiers. The infantry soldiers have more or less been trained in foot combat, and in the memory of this body, He Tengxiao has no memory of the soldiers of the Xiao Cavalry Battalion who have been trained in foot combat.

"Little Third Master, my subordinates will take you out together." Ling Feng picked up a spear and prepared to lead the team to rush out.

He Tengxiao raised his hand and shouted in a deep voice, "Line up to meet the enemy!" "The horse bandits have at least one person and one horse, and some horse bandits even have two horses and three horses, and these remnants of his soldiers are not the opponents of these horse bandits at all in this flat plain, and now they will only become the living target of these horse bandits. It's better to form a formation to protect yourself.

As soon as the remnants of the refugees in the Land Temple stepped out of the gate of the Land Temple, they were shot back by a burst of arrows from the horse bandits, and more than a dozen corpses fell to death at the gate of the Land Temple. The people behind were frightened and hurriedly retreated, and they didn't even bother to cover the temple door and hurriedly retreated into the temple.

Fifty or sixty horseback bandits shouted that after all, the land temple, the smoke and dust were billowing and menacing, and it seemed that they could crush the dilapidated land temple.

The people in the Land Temple were in a mess and ran around for their lives, only He Tengxiao's team was quite calm and formed a formation on the spot. However, these old soldiers of the cavalry battalion were not determined, and several of them were obviously afraid of the horse bandits who rushed straight forward, and they were likely to run away before and after the horse bandits rushed into their formation.

The newly defeated pawn, even if it is an elite, is not as sharp as the horse bandits in front of him who are thirsty for money. He Tengxiao let out a helpless sigh from the bottom of his heart.