Sure enough, the scout didn't ask any useful answer from the little boy's mouth, Xiao Ye pondered for a moment, turned his head helplessly, and ignored the long knife cut by the sergeant; This sergeant named Da Liu, his younger brother died in the battle on the stone pass.

As long as the long knife does not face his own people, Xiao Ye is very ostrich guarding his knife handle, it's fine.

Of the five long carts loaded with saltpeter and some leather goods, only three were used, and the rest were abandoned, but he did not leave any of the cattle and sheep that were grazing nearby.

"Baihu, there are still people here," the sergeant who drove the cattle and sheep in the distance shouted loudly, leading the dozen or so people who had been searched from the herd of cattle and sheep to Xiao Ye.

What kind of people are these, lean and can't see a flesh or two of bones, their eyes are deeply sunken in their sockets, and they walk staggeringly.

After counting, sixteen people in tattered clothes, unkempt and barefoot standing in front of Xiao Ye's horse, Xiao Ye almost thought that he had met a hungry ghost, but he looked at the corpse on the ground and looked stunned.

"We are the Ming Dynasty official army, what are you," swallowing dryly, Xiao Ye forcibly endured the stench coming to his nose, and asked in a deep voice.

"Officers and soldiers? You are officers and soldiers," a short, gray-haired middle-aged man at the head, wrinkled his old cheeks, raised his head in disbelief, and asked in a low voice, as if talking to himself.

"That's right, we are the officers and soldiers of Suzhou Wei Gravel Fort," Xiao Ye's face softened a lot when he heard the familiar northwest dialect, needless to say, these people were all Ming Han people who were plundered to the grassland.

"Official, please save us, another winter, we will all freeze to death," the middle-aged man had weak feet and legs, and he knelt down in front of Xiao Yema, and the others also knelt on the ground one by one, smashing their heads again and again.

These Han slaves who were plundered, women with better posture can live a good life for a few years, but young and strong men are tools for grazing and milking, mining slaves, and as for the older ones, whether they can survive the harsh winter, there are few.

Xiao Ye sighed softly, untied the bag of dry food from his waist, and threw it to the middle-aged man on the ground, "You have been hungry for a long time, you can't eat meat, eat some dry food to satisfy your hunger first," The regretful eyes and helplessness made these Tartar slaves even more panicked.

"My lord, my lord, I can ride a horse, the terrain here is familiar at night, as long as you can take us away, we won't drag the official down," didn't look at the dry food on the ground, the middle-aged man shouted loudly, kowtowed on the hard grass, and banged.

"Yes, my lord, we won't drag down the official," these anxious weak men in the back also wanted to break their heads, so that they could be taken away from this damn place. These bright people who knelt down in front of Xiao Ye made Xiao Ye unable to make up his mind.

"So, what saltpeter do you know and where it comes from?" Pointing to the leather bag on the cart, Xiao Ye asked casually.

"It's in Bailong Mountain, where the white fog is on the top of the mountain all year round," the middle-aged man replied without hesitation.

His words made Xiao Ye's heart move slightly, "Okay, I'll take you away, but you can't hold back, eat some dry food, you can pick and choose the horses at will,"

Sixteen rescued Han slaves collected the dry food given by Xiao Ye, hurriedly went to the tent to pick up dried meat and cheese, and took a large bag of milk wine and gave it to Xiao Ye.

"Official, the temperature on the grassland is cold in autumn, and these milk wines can keep out the cold," With the help of the locals, Xiao Ye's sergeant not only quickly gathered the cattle and sheep, but also brought a large bag of dried meat, milk wine, and the most precious felt blanket.

Xiao Ye, who was not prepared for travel and did not carry warm cotton clothes, can be regarded as a big suffer, and now he has finally solved the big trouble.

Those Han slaves ate a little bit of dried meat, stripped off the leather jackets on the corpses of the tartars, some got on their horses and picked up long poles, shouted at a large herd of cattle and sheep on the road, and some jumped on the long carts, skillfully drove the carts pulled by two horses, followed the sergeants, and prepared to turn back to the west.

The Tartar captives who were imprisoned in the same place, under Xiao Ye's deliberate negligence, Sergeant Da Liu took the people, waited for the convoy to leave, and then rode on the horse and slashed and killed, leaving corpses all over the ground; This autumn, the vultures and wild wolves on the grassland also have food rations.

Now that he has found his own person, Xiao Ye will not forget the purpose of this trip, and after some inquiry, he learned that Bailong Mountain is not far away, fifty miles away, at the end of a long valley, and a huge lake on the top of the mountain, which has been steaming white mist all year round, and the lake is full of open-air saltpeter with no end in sight.

The most important thing is that there are still hundreds of Han Chinese slaves there, under the supervision of a few Tartars, who work day and night to mine saltpeter.

There is not only saltpeter, but also a lot of iron ore, but there are too many impurities, and the tartar is also a piece of scrap iron for the Han craftsmen to smelt, so they can only give up helplessly.

Fifty miles away, holding torches, running horses is not more than a meal.

The sky was bright, Xiao Ye and his entourage, driving the carriage, a large herd of cattle and sheep jubilant, came to the valley of Bailong Mountain.

Although the Tartars, who had been alerted, were guarding the hill with bows and arrows in their hands, the twenty sergeants pulled out of formation, attacked on their backs, and fought with two who were shot in the abdomen, one charged, and in the smoke of gunfire, seven or eight fierce Tartars, screaming and falling to the ground.

More than 30 carriages full of large leather bags and nearly 30,000 catties of high-purity saltpeter descended the mountain along the rugged mountain road; The saltpeter fell into Xiao Ye's hands, and of course, these hungry and exhausted hundreds of Han slaves also made him pay the price of dozens of sheep in order to take them away.

Slaughtered on the spot, first feed these people, after Xiao Ye explained to the sergeant, he saw the two wounded fellows, led by two slaves, to check the saltpeter mine by the big lake on the top of the mountain.

The salty and bitter water of the lake, the mist is rising, and the black and bare mountains on the opposite shore are almost invisible; Under the guidance of an old craftsman slave, Xiao Ye walked to the edge of the big pit where the nitrate was mined.

This place is rich in nitrate, and the sulfur is only a small part, and it is buried deeply, but it is enough to make Xiao Yele close his mouth.

"Official, in order to mine saltpeter, we have died thousands of people, and they are all buried there," the scrawny old craftsman pointed to the grassy hillside in the distance, and said numbly, "My two sons are also buried there,"

"When did you get here?" Xiao Ye asked in a deep voice.

"In the autumn of Bingyin, it's been five years," the old craftsman's words reminded Xiao Ye that when he was eleven years old, his father and several Baihu uncles led troops to the side wall, and when they came back, not only did they suffer more than half of the casualties, but also brought back the seriously injured Uncle Kun, who recuperated at home for half a year before he could get out of bed and move.

Perhaps at that time, these slaves were brought here.

It was getting dark, one hundred and thirty-eight slaves, and two wounded soldiers, Xiao Ye commanded the convoy down to the grassland and began to move rapidly in the direction of Shiguan.

However, the procession traveled less than twenty miles, and night fell. There are too many slaves who have night sickness at night, and so do the sergeants, Xiao Ye helplessly looked at the anxious slaves who were running around, so he could only explain, stay in place, and talk about it when it was dawn.

Xiao Ye and twenty sergeants, these two months had a full meal, and meat was constantly replenished, and gradually some people lost the pain of night sickness at night, and were sent to patrol around.

There were so many seized materials, thousands of cattle and sheep alone, hundreds of horses, and more than 30 heavy carriages, no one would give up easily.

At dawn, the scouts roaming around the garrison spotted the Tartar rangers coming from afar, and after killing four or five of them, they dispersed the harassing Tartars.

Wang Hu, who was unrelenting, with the binoculars in his hand, took five sergeants and went around from afar, and more than a dozen Tartars were on the periphery of six miles.

"Baihu, the Tartars have already noticed us, haven't they?" Wang Hu looked at the cattle and sheep with screaming eyes, and he couldn't make up his mind. It was also the first time he had seen so many cattle and sheep, and the cattle and sheep seized by hundreds of households.

Xiao Ye groaned, "The cattle and sheep are moving too slowly, dragging us down, and none of them will be able to run away by then, and it will be too late to regret it, since you have something to say, as long as you think you are right, you have to tell me,"

"Yes, Baihu, my subordinates think that we can't get these cattle and sheep if we slaughter them, and don't think about it," Wang Hu gritted his teeth, his eyes regained clarity, and he looked indifferently at the large herd of cattle and sheep in front of him.

With Xiao Ye's acquiescence, Wang Hu beckoned the sergeants, issued Tartar scimitars to the slaves, and after a shout, the slaves quickly moved their hands.

Xiao Ye and a cadre of sergeants thought that they could not compare with these slaves in terms of slaughtering livestock; Holding his head, a knife slashed through the throat joint, and two steps on the hind legs can be seen, a sturdy ox, with hissing blood, fell to the ground with a spurt of blood.

In less than an hour, the convoy of horses quickly moved, leaving behind a large number of slaughtered cattle and sheep, covering a large meadow, and the sticky blood pooled into a stream.

Three days later, Xiao Ye led a convoy and hundreds of high-headed horses through the canyon and returned to Shiguan. The relieved sergeants didn't pay attention to the chaotic stone hill behind the stone pass, and the smell of blood there was still strong.

However, in Shiguantun on the stone mountain, there is a miserable scene, ten miles west of the stone mountain, on the low and stretching mountain range, there are more than a dozen new tombs. Next to the tomb, a small Jingguan made of Tartar skulls is terrifying.

Chief Banner Officer Yang, who was in charge of guarding Shiguantun, had his arm pierced by a sharp arrow, and if it weren't for the sergeant's desperate protection, he might have died under the hooves of the Tartar horse team.

Under the response of the sergeant under the mountain, the convoy on the mountain slowly drove into the wall, gathered behind the land temple, Xiao Ye followed Wang Meng, and hurried to his father-in-law's house.

In Wang Meng's brief description, Xiao Ye heard clearly that after he left, the horse team of the Tartars suddenly attacked from the direction of the gravel fort, and after five hundred fierce and abnormal Tartars were put into more than thirty by the vine grass, the Tartars found a path up the mountain.

The scout was caught off guard and shot desperately to call the police, but was soon shot into a bloody hole by the Tartars of the brigade, and the fire gun was lost; In order to protect the craftsmen who returned to Tunli, Yang Tianshou, who was leading the troops to exercise, hurriedly formed a military formation and met the Tartars unexpectedly.

The Tartars on the mountain on their backs, a sprint, rushed with horses, and knocked the formation of thirty people into pieces, but fortunately, Wang Dali led the men and took the fire guns and crossbows from Uncle Kun's treasury, which can be used to knock the Tartars down the mountain.

The Tartars, who had been surrounded for two days, saw that they could no longer bargain, so they retreated, and disappeared after crossing the canyon.

"Si," in the father-in-law's small courtyard, after listening to Wang Dali's statement, Xiao Ye secretly took a breath, if he came back a few days earlier, he couldn't say that he would meet those Tartars head-on on the road, then it would not be Shiguantun, and if he couldn't keep his own team, he would have to be wiped out.

After visiting the injured Yang Tianshou, Xiao Ye comforted Mei'er, who was crying, and asked Hanjuan and Zuo Shi to take care of them and return home.

"Five days ago, the Tartars raided Shiguantun, eleven sergeants and eight craftsmen were killed in the battle, and the wounded have been treated," Wang Dali took the roster and handed it to Xiao Ye, "The names of the war dead have been written on it by Li Langzhong, and the bereavement pension has also been distributed,"

"Dispatch sergeants to replenish the first and second small flags, Tunli immediately began to be on guard, and the scouts were released for twenty miles," Xiao Ye's return made the panicked atmosphere in Tunli dissipate most of it, plus the large number of captures brought back, the morale of the sergeants gradually rose.

None of the slaves who followed the convoy up to the mountain asked to leave, and they were detained by Xiao Ye and became military households in the tunli.

One hundred and thirty-eight slave households, except for the old and infirm, ninety directly joined the army of one hundred households; 100 households, 120 officers and soldiers, full for the first time.

Wang Dali's five small flags, Xiao Ye was not touched, and even equipped with weapons, and in the first general flag, a small flag led ten sergeants; According to Xiao Ye's plan, the craftsmen who act as servants will sooner or later be equipped with fire guns.

The treatment, there is no difference between a sergeant and a craftsman, the difference is the waist card, and the battlefield has been captured.

The extra twenty people, Xiao Ye chose Xiao Liuzi as the leader of his personal guard, this guy is too lively, being a small flag is the material for trouble, and being a soldier is condescending.

In the guards, there are already eight people in the night.

Xiao Ye, who used the military system of the border army directly, was not worried that someone was looking for ballast, this was already a place of war, and he did not get a few taels of silver from Qianhu, so he had to enrich his troops in order to protect himself. In terms of the strength of the soldiers, he did not violate the rules.

Wang Dali's five small flags, this time guarding Shiguantun is indispensable, Xiao Ye is very glad that he did not look down on these craftsmen.

"This time the Tartars raided, the scouts were too close, it was a gap, and the official was guilty," summoned all the small banners, as well as Wang Dali and a few old military households, Xiao Ye made a post-war summary.

The two stinkers are better than Zhuge Liang, Xiao Ye doesn't understand and asks, and he is very good at accepting other people's suggestions.

"The direction of the scouts is northerly, and there are too many of them, resulting in a lack of sufficient manpower warning on the mountain, which is one of them,"

"Yang Zongqi's guards are so heartfelt, they actually formed a formation to try to block the fast horses of the Tartars, delaying the opportunity to use firearms and crossbows, and using soldiers in an old-fashioned manner, this is the second,"

"The rescue of the Wang priest is timely, and he can save most of the sergeants, this is the third,"

"Pick up the enemy to meet the battle, the weak enemy to destroy it, the enemy to defend it, the strong enemy to avoid retreating and disturbing it, Sun Changqing's art of war, we should follow it, this is the military regulations of the hundred households, "killing the enemy a thousand and losing eight hundred, Xiao Ye can't afford it, after a few battles, the hundred households will soon be empty."

One by one, little by little, Xiao Ye is also growing step by step when he is making a summary with all his heart. At this moment, what he was most grateful for was that his father asked him to recite the dry and boring thirteen chapters of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

The opinions put forward by the priests and the little banners, Xiao Ye silently remembered them, and they could be used as soon as possible.

The next day, Shiguantun began to distribute the sergeant's salary, and the sergeant's monthly money was the same, or one stone and five grains, and thirty percent of the war was returned to him; The small flag has two dollars per month, or three stones of grain, and one percent of the small flag seized in wartime belongs to me; The general flag is five taels of silver per month, three stones of grain, and one percent of the general flag captured during the war belongs to me.

The priest has ten taels of silver and three stones of grain; 11 taels of silver per month for 100 households, and 10 stones of grain.

Ming Law did not enter the official position, and the moon was three stones, Xiao Ye did not dare to usurp it, so he could only supplement it with moon silver.

The salary, which was far more than double that of the guard, made the Shiguantun military households, when they got the actual hair in their hands for two months, they were already thunderous with joy, and even the newly joined slaves were all wide-eyed.

The panicked atmosphere in Shiguantun was swept away with the distribution of food and wages.

This time, Xiao Ye went out of the grassland, not only got the exact location of saltpeter, but also captured hundreds of war horses, collected thousands of taels of gold and silver jewelry, piles of leather goods, and silver was distributed immediately.