readx; At night, when the wind blows and the cold bites, the old people and children take refuge in the empty houses of the town, and the refugees build piles of fires, wrapped in bedding and around the fire to keep warm. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

In front of a few bonfires, Ji Sheng and more than a hundred of his subordinates sat in front of the fire silently thinking about their thoughts, from Mozhou to Cangzhou, although the march of the refugees was very difficult, but it was smooth, there was no army to disturb, Ji Sheng also knew that this was related to the big war between Anshi, they had no time to take care of this side, but the war between Anshi was over at this time, and Shi Siming still did not move, which was a little unreasonable.

More than 60,000 refugees fled, this goal is very big, it is impossible for Shi Siming not to know, Ji Sheng has an intuition, Shi Siming cannot be indifferent, although he has sent scouts to investigate the enemy's situation, but the strong intuition still makes him unable to sit still, he stands up and walks towards the fire where Zhang Xun is.

Zhang Xunzheng and more than a dozen family elders discussed tomorrow's journey, from here to the sea there are still nearly two hundred miles, if at the current pace, at least seven days to walk, rations will be a bit of a problem, their food is not much, the time spent on the road is too long, the old and weak and sick drag down the whole team, the daily march speed is too slow, only more than 30 miles, this is absolutely not good.

"If we can increase our distance to 50 miles a day, we will be able to make it to the sea."

Zhang Xun looked at everyone and pleaded: "Everyone think of a way, can you let the team go faster." ”

"Zhang County Order, what if we get to the beach and the boat doesn't arrive?" An old man asked worriedly.

"The ship should have arrived, according to the agreement, the ship should have arrived yesterday, but we were walking too slowly."

"But I can't get up soon! Everyone has been walking for so long, they are all exhausted, and it is good to be able to maintain the current speed, so we can't let the young people leave the old and weak women and children and go by themselves! Then they won't do it. ”

"What then? Let's think about it again. Zhang Xun mobilized everyone again.

"Envoy, maybe I have a solution!" Ji Sheng walked over with a smile.

Zhang Xun perked up and hurriedly said, "General Ji said quickly, what way?" ”

Ji Sheng sat down beside Zhang Xun and smiled at everyone: "That's it!" I asked the two brothers to go to the beach to report first, and I guess the boat should have food in it, so we let the big boat sail along the floating water, so that we could go directly to the boat in the floating water, and we didn't have to go to the beach again. ”

"That's a good idea!"

Zhang Xun slapped his thigh heavily, "Why didn't I think of it!" ”

But he frowned again, and said worriedly: "Can the sea ship enter the floating water?" ”

"It should be possible, the floating water in front is very wide, one mile deep, six or seven zhang deep, I think it should be possible, even if it doesn't work, they must have a small boat, let the small boat transport some grain over, what do you think?"

Zhang Xun nodded, "These two methods are good, let's do it like this!" He also asked General Ji to send someone to the beach immediately. ”

"Actually, I've already sent it in the afternoon, and I'm looking for an envoy to discuss another matter."

Ji Sheng glanced at the old men, and said with a smile: "Come to me, come and talk about it!" ”

Zhang Xun understood, so he said to everyone: "Everyone go back, continue to set off tomorrow, don't be in a hurry, walk slowly along the floating water, and wait for the food to come." ”

Everyone was relieved, and they all got up to say goodbye, and when everyone left, Ji Sheng lowered his voice and said: "Envoy, I'm actually worried about Shi Siming's army. ”

Zhang Xun was taken aback, "Is Shi Siming's army coming?" ”

Ji Sheng shook his head, "Although there is no news yet, I have a hunch that Shi Siming should have discovered us, and I suspect that they are on their way to this side." ”

As soon as he said this, he only heard the sound of hurried horses' hooves, which could be heard clearly in the night, Ji Sheng's face changed, and he stood up sharply, "It's coming, there's news coming." ”

The sound of horses' hooves approached, and only one of the scouts asked loudly, "Where is General Ji?" ”

"Over there!"

The war horse rushed forward, and a scout jumped off his horse and knelt down on one knee in front of Ji Sheng, "Report to the general, we found Shi Siming's army, about 20,000 cavalry, and the vanguard has passed through Changlu County. ”

Ji Sheng and Zhang Xun's faces changed greatly at the same time, Changlu County is only seventy miles away from here, and the other party is a cavalry, so they can catch up with them in the middle of the night today.

Sweat oozed from Zhang Xun's forehead, he realized that he had made a big mistake, their march was too slow, they had missed the best time, his heart tightened, Shi Siming's massacre of refugees in Hengzhou was still fresh in their memory.

"General Ji, what should I do now?"

Ji Sheng bit his lip tightly and said in a deep voice: "There is no way, I will take my brother to intercept it, now our only reliance is on this floating water, so that the refugees will set off immediately, we can only look at the will of heaven." ”

Zhang Xun only knew that this was the only way, he nodded, bowed and saluted, "Everything depends on the general!" ”

Ji Sheng strode to the campfire, ordered his scouts to mount their horses, bring all their weapons, and in the black, more than a hundred scout cavalry quickly formed a team, urging the war horses to gallop westward.

The refugee team also began to prepare to go, the refugees silently packed up their things, the cry of the children echoed in the four fields, and the ** of survival made them beat their spirits, and they moved east overnight, and the speed was significantly accelerated.

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More than a hundred Tang army scouts rushed all the way along the floating water, Ji Sheng was not worried about this side, the floating water was very wide, the water was also very deep, and there were no boats, Shi Siming's cavalry could not cross the river from here, the only place to cross the river was Qingchi County, there were a few bridges to the west, as long as they rushed to the west to tear down the bridge, even if Shi Siming's cavalry arrived, they couldn't cross the river, they had to continue to the west, go to Nanpi to cross the river. In this way, he will be able to buy at least two or three days, and perhaps the big ship will arrive. This is their only hope.

This scout cavalry team is from the first falcon battalion in Anxi, they are all scouts among scouts, the elite of the elite, they were sent by Li Qing'an to Hebei to carry out a mission, that is, to protect the last batch of refugees fleeing Hebei, this is a plan was set a few months ago.

The scouts also knew that it was not so easy to escape from under Shi Siming's nose, and it was likely that they would encounter a vicious battle, so they made full preparations, each of them brought the latest crossbow of the Tang Army, in order to make it easy to carry, they all only brought small arrows, each prepared four boxes of two hundred, as well as two horizontal knives, long lances, round shields, military blankets, and they even brought twenty small earth-shaking thunderbolts and a large amount of fire oil.

If the army sent by Shi Siming was only a few thousand people, then their hundred scouts could also deal with it, but Shi Siming sent 20,000 people, and they were all cavalry, so they had almost no chance, so they could only use ambushes or sneak attacks to delay the time of Shi Siming's army as much as possible.

The scout team galloped all the way, an hour later, the scout team arrived at Qingchi County, Qingchi County has become an empty city, only hundreds of old people who do not want to leave their homeland, the scout team did not enter the city, let alone let anyone know that they exist, directly rushed to the big wooden bridge in the north of the city, this is the largest wooden bridge to cross the floating water, the floating water narrows here, only a dozen zhang wide, but the water is turbulent, still unable to cross the river.

The big black wooden bridge spans the floating water, it is like a behemoth, it has stood in the wind and rain for a hundred years, it is built with huge logs, a hundred years of wind and rain erosion, it seems a little dilapidated.

Ji Sheng stared at the big wooden bridge for a long time, he was not reminiscing about the history of the big wooden bridge, he had no interest at this time, he was thinking about how to delay the enemy's time to the greatest extent, he knew that there were two hundred miles to the west from here, and it was impossible to cross the river directly, and he had to rely on bridges and ferries, and the ferries were definitely not, and the slaughters and sweeps had already wiped out the ferries and fishermen, they could only rely on the bridges, and from here to the west, within one hundred and fifty miles, there were four bridges, two small bridges, and two bridges, And the largest bridge was this large wooden bridge, from which the enemy cavalry would definitely choose to cross the river, and if the enemy discovered that the bridge had been demolished too soon, they would definitely divert to the west.

Ji Sheng made a move, called two soldiers, and said to them: "The two of you take five earth-shaking thunders to the west, blow up the other three bridges for me, and blow up the bridge in Nanpi as well." ”

"But..... Will the earth-shattering thunder alarm the enemy army? A soldier asked worriedly.

Ji Sheng looked at the sky, the sky was surprisingly gloomy, without a trace of starlight and moonlight, he shook his head, "No, he will only think it is thunder, you can rest assured!" ”

The two soldiers agreed, took five earth-shattering thunders, and rushed westward, Ji Sheng quickly calculated, he had a total of one hundred and twenty-two people, including himself, except for ten who went to perform tasks everywhere, and there were one hundred and twelve people, the pressure was quite high, and he had to leave two people to hide under the bridge, two piers, one on each side.

Ji Sheng gave an order, "Withdraw!" ”

The soldiers immediately ran towards a forest next to the city of Qingchi County, which was only two miles away from the big wooden bridge, and the official road passed by the woods, which was the best place to hide for ambushes.

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Time gradually passed, about three o'clock, the sound of horses' hooves came from the other side of the river, a group of 2,000 Shi Siming cavalry vanguard rushed quickly, they jumped directly on the bridge, and soon ran across the bridge, galloping towards Qingchi County.

The momentum formed by the two thousand cavalry is also earth-shattering, the dust is flying, the dark sky is dyed yellow, they are getting closer and closer to the woods, it is obvious that this cavalry is not aware of the existence of the Tang army in Hebei, they are anxious, they all want to catch up with the refugees as soon as possible, choose the best fat sheep, for them, the best fat sheep is a young woman.

It was a cavalry of the Hui people, dressed in leather armor, holding a war knife, all of them with superb riding skills, and the 20,000 cavalry that came after this time were all Hui people of the servant bone department, for them, chasing the Han refugees was not a chore, but an opportunity to make a fortune and plunder the population, this kind of opportunity, how could they let it go.

The Uighur cavalry rushed along the official road, the official road was only a hundred steps away from the woods, and more than 100 scouts in the woods had already put their arrows on the crossbows, and the crossbow arrows at the flat end were aimed at the galloping enemy, although there were only more than 100 people, but they were still not afraid of the 2,000 Uighur cavalry.

There were difficulties, and there were risks, but the Tang scouts were in great need of the horses of the Hui cavalry, which would be of great help to the retreat of the refugees.

Just when the Hui cavalry rushed past about thirty percent, Ji Sheng gave the order to shoot, "Shoot!" ”

'Whoosh! More than 100 arrows came out of the string and fired at the galloping enemy, only to hear a terrible scream, and seventy or eighty enemy soldiers were shot and tumbled off their horses.

The sudden attack surprised the Hui cavalry, they reined in their horses, and at this moment, the second round of arrow rain arrived, this time, the Hui cavalry was like a stationary target, and in an instant, nearly a hundred people were on horse, and their leather armor could not resist the powerful crossbow arrows of the Tang army.

The Falcon Battalion is so great that they can quickly adjust their shooting range through the first round of shooting, unlike the first time, where many people shoot one person at the same time.

The Hui cavalry began to scream, they had already found that there were not many Tang troops in the woods, they had two thousand people, enough to strangle each other, the overwhelming cavalry rushed down from the official road, rushed towards the woods, in the dark, no one noticed the abnormality on the ground, there were mud-like things everywhere, and the air was filled with a pungent smell.

At this time, the cavalry of the Tang Army had already retreated, and withdrew to the other end of the woods, leaving only two soldiers, who used bows and arrows, only to see two fires suddenly lit up, and then the two fires shot out in a parabola, shot into the Hui cavalry, and plunged directly into the ground. With a bang, the flames burst out, and a belt of flames twenty zhang long and two long and wide quickly formed, and the flames burned.

Although the flames soared into the sky, the Hui Hui only stabilized the formation after a moment of panic, two zhang was not wide, and their war horses could jump over, but at this moment, a series of earth-shattering explosions suddenly broke out in the flame belt, and the earth and flames rose into the air, which was eight earth-shattering thunderbolts that exploded at the same time, and the shock wave and broken iron pieces brought by the explosion instantly blew hundreds of cavalry people on their backs.

But the explosion brought even more fear, and the two thousand Hui cavalry were in disarray, and the soldiers were terrified, and the horses were frightened, and they rushed around without a head.

The Tang scouts suddenly attacked from the east, and they flew around the enemy's crossbow arrows, shooting off the enemy one by one, and after only four or five rounds, they wielded their lances and slaughtered into the still chaotic enemy group.

After six or seven rounds of firing and explosions, the Hui cavalry had lost more than half of them, and a group of tiger-like Tang scout cavalry smashed into the enemy group, they were well-trained, and they smashed into the Hui army as a whole, like an iron fist, crushing all the enemy troops who dared to stand in the way.

The soldiers of the Tang Army slashed and picked, and the iron hooves rolled, and they were extremely brave, killing the Hui people to the point of rivers of blood and corpses all over the field. Although the commanders of the Hui cavalry tried to gather their troops several times, they were routed by the Tang cavalry as soon as they were assembled, and the Hui cavalry was already showing signs of imminent collapse, their morale was low, and the fear of violent explosions had long since wiped out their courage.

Ji Sheng was commanding the battle in the army, he was looking for the commander of the cavalry, and soon, he found it, the commander shouted under the military flag, trying to stabilize his position, Ji Sheng quickly raised his crossbow and aimed in the rapid running, 'Click!' With the sound of a crossbow, a powerful crossbow arrow shot out like lightning, and an arrow hit the chest of the commander, who screamed and fell to the ground.

At this moment, there were two thunderous noises from the big wooden bridge, the foundations on both sides were blown off at the same time, the huge wooden bridge shook, and the bridge piles in the middle finally could not support the huge body, and the wooden bridge broke into two pieces and rolled down into the floating water.

The tragic death of the commander and the destruction of the bridge were like the last two heavy stones that overwhelmed Luo Luo, the Hui army collapsed, and they began to turn around and flee westward, at this time the Tang army immediately changed its formation, like a split, an iron fist composed of 100 people, quickly split into a team of five people, and chased the fleeing enemy army, they no longer used their knives to chop and pick, but used crossbow arrows to shoot the enemy troops fleeing westward.

Hundreds of Hui cavalry were pursued by more than 100 Tang soldiers, frightened and scattered, and escaped less and less, and finally only more than 100 cavalry escaped from the pursuit of the Tang army, and the Tang army no longer pursued, but collected war horses and killed wounded enemy prisoners.

An hour later, the eastern sky gradually turned white, and the Tang army that collected the war horses came back one after another.

The deputy general, Qi Yance, immediately stepped forward and bowed to Ji Sheng: "General Ji, the brothers have lost seven people killed and twenty-one wounded. ”

Ji Sheng nodded, "The brothers who died in battle will be buried on the spot first!" ”

After a pause, he asked again, "How many war horses have you collected?" ”

"General Hui collected 1,200 war horses, and the rest were wounded or killed and could not be used, but the horse material brought by the Hui people could only last three days."

Twelve hundred horses can greatly help the refugees, and as for forage, there is no need to worry, there is a large meadow dozens of miles to the east.

Ji Sheng pondered for a moment, and then said: "Tell the brothers to move quickly, and try to cut a little more horse meat and take it away!" Besides, you take you back, and I and the thirty brethren remain. ”

"General, aren't you leaving?"

Ji Sheng shook his head, "I'm not very relieved, just now I suddenly thought of a question, how do the Hui people cross the river on the grassland?" I think I may have overlooked something, and you immediately take the brothers first. ”

Soon, the cavalry cut off a lot of horse meat and drove more than a thousand horses to the east, leaving only Ji Sheng and thirty Tang scouts on the broken bridge of the big wooden bridge.

Although they annihilated two thousand Hui cavalry, Ji Sheng was not happy at all, he had a bad feeling, the two soldiers he sent to blow up the bridge should have arrived at the first small bridge, which was only thirty miles away from here, but he didn't hear the explosion for a long time, did the two subordinates have something wrong?

At this moment, the earth began to shake slightly, Ji Sheng and his men retreated, they looked at the other side of the river at the same time, they were experienced scouts, they all knew that this kind of shaking was only when a large number of cavalry came.

Sure enough, on the faint horizon, a black line appeared, accompanied by the dust, Ji Sheng's face changed a little, this is the main force of 18,000 cavalry is coming, he looked at the remnants of the big wooden bridge, and his heart became extremely worried.

Shi Siming's cavalry team was getting closer and closer, and began to slow down, and the earth no longer trembled, but the cavalry team spread out, and there was no edge in sight, and this momentum made the little floating water insignificant.

Ji Sheng suddenly saw a yellow Luo top cover, and the Phnom Penh banner behind it was embroidered with the word 'history', which turned out to be Shi Siming personally leading the army.

But Ji Sheng soon saw another thing that made him desperate, after the other party found that the wooden bridge was demolished, nearly a thousand people immediately began to cut down trees, and soon they cut down dozens of big trees, tied up two layers of trees, and formed a thick raft, Ji Sheng suddenly understood, the other party was making a pontoon bridge, connecting it with rafts, and then laying wooden planks, it was a pontoon bridge.

Ji Sheng slapped his head hard, why didn't he think of it?

Sweat rolled down his forehead, his back was soaked with sweat, and all his efforts from yesterday to now had been in vain.

There is no need for the other party to take a detour, you can directly cross the river by pontoon bridge, Ji Sheng is a little desperate, and the 60,000 refugees will soon all become lambs of the Hui people.

The speed of the Hui people is very fast, they have already set up ten rafts, and began to connect them with iron chains, Shi Siming smiled a little proudly under the banner, these Tang cavalry are too naïve, they can block his way by demolishing the bridge, such a small river, they can build a pontoon bridge in an hour.

But at this moment, a Hui officer pointed at the West and shouted: "Look, big marshal! ”

Shi Siming put his hand on the curtain and looked west, and his face suddenly changed greatly.....

Ji Sheng also discovered the mutation, and a black army also appeared in the west, boundless, and the army quickly approached this side, Ji Sheng seemed to have fallen from the ice cave into the fire pit, he guessed that this could only be Tian Chenghe's army.

A wry smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, it turned out that not only Shi Siming would not let them go, but even Tian Chenghei didn't want to let them go, they really thought simply, how could 60,000 refugees escape easily?

I saw a team of cavalry galloping over, and there were two scouts sent by him in the galloping cavalry team, Ji Sheng was stunned, this.... What's going on?

I saw the cavalry galloping in front of them, and a veteran wearing a golden helmet came out of the team, he stroked his beard and smiled slightly, "You are General Ji!" ”

"Are you ....."

"Old man Tian Chenghe!"

Tian Chenghe's sudden appearance shocked Ji Sheng's subordinates to raise their crossbow arrows one after another, "Don't do it!" ”

Ji Sheng stopped them, and he arched his hand and said, "Tian Shuai is here, what do you have to say?" ”

Tian Chengsi laughed, "General Ji don't worry, I am here to meet you on the orders of King Zhao." ”

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The arrival of Tian Chengsi's army reversed the precarious situation, Shi Siming finally did not dare to cross the river, after a stalemate for half a day, the army withdrew to Youzhou, and Ji Sheng finally rejected Tian Chengsi's invitation to invite them to Weizhou, Tian Chengsi was not reluctant, sent troops to escort the refugees to the east, two days later, 400 large ships to receive refugees sailed into the floating water, successfully received 60,000 refugees, and the big ship returned to Yangzhou.

But Ji Sheng and his brothers did not get on board, they crossed the floating water and continued northeast to devote themselves to another great battle.

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(To be continued)