In the north of Xingzhou, at the junction of Bairen County and Baixiang County, a group of more than 500 knights is rumbling northward, and there is Haidongqing flying in the sky.

In this cavalry team, each knight was dressed in black steel armor similar to lobster shells, the fiery red helmet on the black helmet jumped up and down, and the war horse was also covered in leather armor made of sperm whale skin.

Fully armed, each with two strong crossbows, a riding bow, spears and flails and horizontal knives, each of them is a pair of horses, and the mounts are all Arabian horses that are extremely strong, able to bear weights and have endurance.

The first sixty horsemen were surrounded by a young general with a face like a crown of jade and a heroic face, which was none other than the king of Jianning of the Tang Dynasty and the general of the auxiliary country, Li Qi.

Compared with the five hundred horsemen behind him, the sixty horsemen who surrounded Li Qi, the war horses under the crotch were more majestic, and the knights on the horse were also extremely strong, their eyes were like electricity, and their expressions were introverted.

When Li Longji and Yang Guozhong, the centers of the imperial court, were still sluggish and hesitant, 70,000 Tiance soldiers and horses who crossed the Yellow River north had been urgently mobilized, and large-scale migration began in Wei, Xiang, Wei, Bo, Di and other prefectures in Hebei Province.

As for Huaizhou, Huazhou, Puzhou, and Jeju, which are also in the north of the Yellow River, which are subordinate to Dugi Province and Henan Province, as early as the day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the people were evacuated almost within two days.

The Chinese's love for the land should be strong and clear, and the family should move, and the resistance is naturally not ordinary. And the Four Seas Trading Company also showed its true character as a local tyrant. All the losses of ordinary people were borne by the Four Seas Trading Company. When it came to Dugi Province and Henan Province, clothing, food, housing and transportation were also managed by the Four Seas Trading Company.

But there is a condition, the order prohibits those who must listen to the Four Seas Trading Company, and the strong laborers among them must be organized to do things, and as for the rich merchants and squire families, they must take money to the Four Seas Trading Company.

Rao is like this, and such favorable conditions are offered. There are still nearly half of the people who refuse to evacuate, time is pressing, the peasants and soldiers of Tiance Mansion and the employees of the Four Seas Trading Company often simply use force, pick up the children at home, drag the old people at home and run, so after a few days, a lot of conflicts broke out honestly, and many farmers and soldiers and employees of the Four Seas Trading Company were beaten by the villagers who were unwilling to transfer.

Because of the presence of instructors and strict discipline, for such conflicts. The Tiance Mansion generally adopts the method of not fighting back as much as possible, and the other party has to move the knife and hoe. Then they disarmed, but many people were still scratched and stoned by these people.

These peasant soldiers and employees of the Four Seas Trading Company also shouted and threatened with red eyes: "The Hu soldiers of Youzhou have already been killed, millions of people have died in the north, if you don't leave, when these beast soldiers come, you will all die, the old and the young will be hacked to death, the men will be captured and done hard labor, and the women will be ruined!" ”

Then they replied that they were even more fierce resistance and insults, and these peasant soldiers from Togi Province and the employees of the Hesi Trading Company gritted their teeth and cooperated with the local officials to tie and drag away the beaters' hands.

The conflict intensified until it almost reached the point where it became uncontrollable.

For these local people, the world has been peaceful for decades, and although the Hu soldiers of Youzhou have ravaged Hebei this year, most of them are in Youzhou, Yizhou, and Mozhou, even if An Lushan rebels, they will not do anything to these ordinary people, so they don't believe what Tiance Mansion said that these Hu beast soldiers will kill everyone.

And for the peasants and soldiers on the side of Tiance Mansion and the employees of Sihai Trading Company, it is obviously for the good of the other party, they will be beaten, scolded, and they can't fight back, and the grievances in their hearts are naturally conceivable, but fortunately, a lot of publicity and education have been carried out before Tiance Mansion, otherwise they can't hold on at all.

The situation began to take a turn on the afternoon of the third day, when the first refugees arrived.

Speaking of which, most of these first batch of refugees who fled from the north were big landowners with money and horses at home, Hebei ****, An Lushan tried to rebel, they are not fools, they are naturally always concerned, and they sent people to watch the wind on the road early.

Therefore, after these people raised troops in An Lushan, before most of the people and villagers could react, they rode horses with their wealth and ran south in a carriage as soon as possible. As a result, when they were about to reach the bank of the Yellow River, they were stopped by the roadblocks set up here, and they were required to go everywhere to tell the local people how the Hebei army was murderous, burning, killing and looting in Youzhou, and did all kinds of evil before letting them continue to go south and arranging ferries for them.

To be honest, they actually didn't see the burning, killing and looting of the Hebei Army, and if they saw it, they couldn't leave, but the situation was stronger than people, and they could only do it, but the effect was not good, because it wasn't their own experience, it naturally seemed very fake, but it wasn't without a little effect, these local people were naturally thinking, even these landlords and rich businessmen ran away, presumably what Tiance Mansion said might be true, right?

It wasn't until the fourth and fifth days that someone finally saw the war refugees coming, and they didn't need to ask for it from Tiance Mansion, so these people saw people and said: "It's so miserable, these Youzhou soldiers are simply not people, they are just beasts, they sweep one village after another, rob things, kill people, and set fire to the village." Wang (Li, Zhang) Jiazhuang because of the resistance organized by several hunters, more than 400 men, women, and children were killed to the ......"

"If we don't see the fire burning the village from afar, and run away overnight, I'm afraid we will all die at home......"

"Your fate is good, there is a Tiance army in front of you, why don't you run quickly, do you have to wait for those Youzhou beasts to kill......

Until this time, the people of the prefectures on the north bank of the Yellow River, wiping their tears and helping the old and the young, with the assistance of the peasants and soldiers of Tiance Prefecture and the employees of the Sihai Trading Company, as well as the local officials, evacuated their families to the south.

From time to time, there were red-eyed apologies to these peasants and soldiers who had beaten people before, and the efficiency of evacuation was increased several times; And further north in these states on the north bank of the Yellow River, there are many more refugees who have not organized and have spontaneously evacuated south.

From north to south, the roads leading to the various Yellow River crossings were crowded with people, some on horseback. There are those who ride in carriages. There are also those who help the elderly and the young to walk with their families. There are also many families who are reluctant to give up their belongings, carrying copper coins, and those who have grain are secondary, leading cattle and sheep, and carrying pigs, and they refuse to throw away these things no matter how much they are persuaded to do so.

The old man was physically weak, fell to the ground, and the child was lost and couldn't find his parents crying. There were also some wealthy families who drove four-wheeled carriages and ordered their servants to open the way with sticks and whips, and the scene was chaotic.

Rao is Sihai Trading Company and Tiance Mansion have surpassed many of the organization, management and coordination capabilities of this era, and they are still busy as a mess, and Cao Xueyang, the female general of Tiance Mansion who is in charge of all this, has been working day and night in the past few days, and she can't sleep for more than two hours a day.

While Cao Xueyang and 70,000 Tiance peasant soldiers organized the transfer of the people along the Yellow River and cleared the wilderness, Li Qi led 9,000 Tiance veterans and 30,000 Tiance army newly trained soldiers to Xingzhou and Beizhou in the north. Texas, fortifications along the way. Prepare to meet the enemy.

Of course, theoretically speaking, before the arrival of the emperor's new order, these places were actually under the management of An Lushan, so Li Qi did these things extremely unjustly, and he really suffered a lot of resistance.

And Li Qi did not do too much entanglement with these local officials, it can almost be regarded as an armed occupation, directly dispatched special combat teams and Tiance veterans, rushed to the yamen of various states and counties, and controlled the state and county guards, don't drive, long history, county orders, and county lieutenants, and forced them to obey orders, efficient is naturally extremely efficient, but to be honest, this move dedicated to Datang did give others a lot of handles, leaving troubles, of course, this is a later story.

After building several lines of defense, Li Qi began to wait, the strength of the Youzhou army was too strong, equivalent to 130,000 soldiers and horses in Fanyang Town and Pinglu Town under the original An Lushan, plus 50,000 private troops raised by An Lushan, plus more than 100,000 Khitan and Xi soldiers and horses that were integrated and absorbed after the defeat.

In the process of Shi Siming's bulldozing, these soldiers and horses consumed tens of thousands, and finally the total number became 270,000, but these 270,000 were all elites of a hundred battles who had been tempered on the battlefield, and Li Qi did not think that they could be defeated with only 10,000 Tiance troops and 30,000 newly trained soldiers.

Therefore, it is necessary to let half of them go south first, and then use Changshan and Raoyang as two sharp knives to cut off the Youzhou army that is going south, and then go to the rear of Fan Yang to set a fire, so that there is barely a chance of two or three percent of the victory.

On August 21, Li Qi received a letter eagle from Changshan that was returned by Gu Xiaojun, so he arranged for Nan Jiyun to sit in command in the local area, and he took 1,500 Tiance cavalry to the north to intercept the southward speed of the Youzhou cavalry, and buy more time for the transfer of the people behind him, and then rush all the way to the foot of Changshan to help defend the city.

After turning a small earthen beam, the pure white Hai Dongqing, who was called Xiaobai in the sky, suddenly let out a terrible eagle chirping, Li Qi shouted, the guards around him blew the horn, and the whole army accelerated forward, galloping four or five miles, and then saw fireworks rising in front of him.

Li Qi reined in the war horse, waved his hand backwards, the horn sounded, and the five hundred and sixty horsemen stopped at the same time, jumped off their horses one after another, fed the war horses, hung up the material bags, and then began to drink and eat to replenish their strength.

Li Qi stood on the saddle and looked north with the binoculars that Xiao Qu's illness had passed on to him, only to see that about five or six miles away, a village and town with a radius of about two miles, a few fires were lit, and in the fields outside the village and town, there were these horse stakes set up by Youzhou Hu Qi, and thousands of war horses were eating the crops that had been grown hard in the field, and dozens of Hu Qi were lazily taking care of them.

In the villages and towns, more than 1,000 Hu cavalry were cooking on fires, dozens of cauldrons were steaming, and dozens of piles of bonfires were roasting whole sheep, and right next to these bonfires, there were many corpses of Han people.

There were also some who were not dead, who were tied up with ropes and locked up in the sheepfold, guarded by Hu soldiers with knives, but their minds were obviously not in the sheepfold, and their eyes were looking out.

In the direction of their gaze, there was a body lying on the ground, constantly moving up and down, and below them were Han women who were wailing in pain.

Li Qi's face was pale, his eyes were so red that he wanted to breathe fire, his left hand squeaked, and he roared angrily: "The whole army has it, change horses, and kill all these beasts with me!" ”

……

Since the start of the army, including An Lushan, the Youzhou army that has gone south for 200,000 times can be regarded as having a good life.

It can also be regarded as An Lushan's intentional indulgence, before the rebellion, An Lushan raised 270,000 troops with a small amount of money, and all kinds of financial routes were cut off by Xiao Quai's and Anxi Long's right Shuo army, and the finances were clumsy, and the 27th army under his command was unstable. It was almost on the verge of mutiny.

Isn't what these Hu barbarians are pursuing is interests and benefits? The biggest reason why they submitted to An Lushan was that An Lushan could bring them benefits. can't feed them, let alone the Great Light God, even the King of Heaven Lao Tzu doesn't work.

And these Hu barbarians who use killing, looting, and forcible annihilation to stimulate morale and murderous nature are honest and unkind, burning, killing and looting more and more excited and unscrupulous, and many times they also change tricks to play torture and killing, watching these Han farmers wail more and more under their knives, and these Han women scream louder and more miserable under them, watching the beautiful homes owned by these Han people destroyed in front of their eyes. The more excited these Hu barbarians became, the wilder they became.

And the towns and villages where they passed became hell on earth in an instant, and the deaths of these children of the Han family were simply tragic.

An Lushan was also very excited, the situation was exactly the same as he imagined, since the army was dispatched for more than six days, it was really overwhelming, without encountering the slightest resistance, the army drove all the way to Zhaozhou, and the governors of the prefectures and counties along the way were all looking forward to surrendering.

On the other side, the Hedong battlefield is also progressing smoothly. Neng Yuanhao and Gao Miao led twenty horsemen to Taiyuan and kidnapped Yang Guanghui, the envoy of Hedong Jiedu, An Zhongzhi (that is, Li Baochen. Formerly known as Zhang Zhongzhi, the first Jiedu envoy of the Chengde Festival of the three towns of Heshuo in the later generations) is really a peerless fierce general, that is, he suddenly rushed out to kidnap Yang Guanghui, and then after the single ride was broken, he killed nearly 10,000 Hedong pursuers and did not dare to continue to pursue, and the courage was not much better than the dead Xiao Qu sick dog thief.

At the same time, Gao Xiuyan also fought all the way from Datong to Yanmen Pass, while Taiyuan Yin Wang Chengye was basically a waste and had no ability to command troops; The imperial court was also slow to react, and the Hedong Army had no commander, and he did not appoint one in a hurry, so it seems that Gao Xiuyan broke through Yanmen Pass and captured Taiyuan.

The other soldiers and horses of the imperial court are really vulnerable, and now the Shuofang army and the Hexi army have been dragged by the Hui soldiers and horses, and the main force of the Anxi army and the Longyou army went to attack Tubo, and the main force of the Tiance army is far away in Yunnan, and their 200,000 troops can drive straight in, all the way to Dugi Road, and then all the way to Chang'an, and win the game in one fell swoop. When the Anxi Army and the 20,000 Tiance Army returned to Shiqin Wang, they would have already entered Chang'an!

So after arriving in Zhaozhou, An Lushan ordered a two-day rest, and the 40,000 vanguard cavalry could plunder around on their own, improve morale, obtain food and military funds, capture the husband and serve as logistics, and at the same time wait for the follow-up infantry.

And the leader of the cavalry team that rushed to the forefront in front of him was An Lushan's command in addition to Shi Siming and An Shouzhong, An Zhongzhi and An Lushan's two youngest sons, An Qingyou and An Qingchang.

Although An Zhongzhi is extremely brave, he is not a brave and resourceless person, otherwise he would not have become one of An Lushan's most favored generals by a Xi slave, as a warrior of An Lushan's henchman, he has been very close to An Lushan's sons since he was a teenager.

After the three of them arrived in Zhaozhou with An Lushan, An Qingyou and An Qingchang followed An Zhongzhi to loot everywhere, but they were always one step behind the others, and only grabbed some scraps and cold burning, these Hu barbarians were arrogant, and naturally they would not deliberately curry favor because they were An Lushan's youngest son, and divide the looted money and treasures among them, and besides, what the three of them pursued was not these, but the pleasure of killing and destruction, and the excitement of annihilating silver and plundering!

So seeing that the two little masters were disappointed, An Zhongzhi proposed to take 3,000 cavalry and go all the way south to the front. There was no resistance along the way, and the nearest enemy was digging trenches and organizing the transfer of people on the banks of the Yellow River, almost 400 miles away, and the two younger sons of An Lushan naturally readily agreed.

So when most of the other troops were plundering in the east-west direction, An Zhongzhi led 3,000 cavalry all the way south for more than 70 miles, and today he came to two or three villages and towns in the vicinity and began their killing spree.

Three thousand Xi cavalry rushed into these three almost undefended villages and towns, and the thousands of villagers who had not had time to escape were immediately attacked, and the old people and children and the men who resisted a little were killed almost immediately, and then there were robberies and carnivals of silver-destroying women, up to fifty or sixty years old, down to seven or eight years old, all of them did not let go, one had fun and the other followed.

As the leader of this cavalry team, An Lushan's confidant An Zhongzhi and An Lushan's two youngest sons, An Qingyou and An Qingchang, who were born in Xi Nu, were in the big mansion of a large family here at the moment, wantonly changing their tricks and destroying more than a dozen of the best-looking women in these three villages and towns who were collected by their guards, and let more than a dozen guards watch and applaud from the sidelines.

At this moment, when the three of them were having a good time, An Zhongzhi suddenly heard an eagle chirp, and then shook his whole body, stood up, and looked south. (To be continued.) )