In the long border between the Turks and the Central Plains, almost most of them were the territory of the Sui Dynasty, stretching for thousands of miles from Liaodong to Fengzhou, while the border between the Tang Dynasty and the Turks was only Hexi, which was hundreds of miles long, most of which were deserts and Gobi, and were cut off from people.

Only Zhangye North Road is the only trade road that the Tang Dynasty entered the Turks, Zhangye North Road is also called Juyan Trade Road, that is, along the Zhangye River north, hundreds of miles later to arrive at Juyanze, Juyanze is the northernmost border of the Tang Dynasty, after Juyanze is the Turkic border, the endless vast grassland.

Since the Han Dynasty, merchants from Asia Minor have traveled thousands of miles to Juyanze, and then traveled south along the Zhangye River into the Hexi Corridor, where they bought silk and porcelain from the Central Plains in Zhangye County, where commerce and trade flourished, and then shipped them back to the far west to make huge profits.

Since Huining County has been occupied by the Sui Dynasty, the Turkic envoys can only cross the Yellow River through Jincheng County, and then enter the Hexi Corridor and return to the grassland along Zhangye North Road.

Jincheng County is later Lanzhou area, in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the climate here is mild, the rainfall is abundant, the vegetation is lush, the land is fertile, the population is relatively dense, since the Han Dynasty, here is the rich Guanlong area, but the population of Jincheng County is mainly concentrated in the east of the Yellow River, and in the west of the Yellow River, due to the overlapping mountains, less arable land, most of the Gobi and grasslands are distributed, Qiang, Di and other nomadic peoples are distributed in this area.

At noon on this day, a cavalry team composed of 300 people galloped from the north, this is obviously the cavalry of the Sui army, although their armor is basically the same as that of the Tang army, but the eagle on their helmet is fiery red, like a flame burning above their heads, all of which are called red flame eagle helmets, which is the biggest difference from the Tang army.

Secondly, each arm also has a fiery red armband, which can be clearly seen from behind, but the more important difference is their battle flag. A red eagle battle flag waving in the wind. From afar, you can recognize that this is the cavalry of the Sui army, which is very different from the red and white flags of the Tang army.

However, because this is the territory of the Tang Dynasty, this Sui army is still relatively low-key, did not show the battle flag, they galloped on horseback and galloped south on the vast alpine grassland, led by a nearly forty-year-old veteran, he is the second general Ma Shao.

Since the age of 20, Ma Shao has followed Yang Yuanqing, who is still a fire chief, and he is a native of Zhangye County. He has half Hu blood, and his father was originally a Han martial artist, and after accidentally hurting people in the Central Plains, he fled to Zhangye.

Later, he married a Qiang woman in Zhangye and gave birth to Ma Shao, who began to learn martial arts at the age of eight, and from the age of twelve he followed his father back and forth in the Hexi Corridor, making a living as a guard for merchants. He joined the army at the age of eighteen. In the nineteenth year of the emperor's reign, the twenty-year-old Ma Shao met Yang Yuanqing, who had just joined the army, and became his first batch of subordinates.

Nearly 20 years have passed, and Ma Shao has gradually become a general from a small soldier, the official worships the general of Youtunwei, and is the marquis of Zhangye County, and he is Yang Yuanqing's loyal confidant.

Ma Shao was originally in charge of the security of the capital, because the Sui Dynasty captured Huining County. He was reappointed as the governor of Huizhou and led 5,000 troops to garrison Huining County to protect the safety of the silver mine, which was also Yang Yuanqing's trust in him, so he was in charge of the safety of the silver mine.

About ten days ago, Yang Yuanqing ordered the general Pei Xingyan to lead an army of 20,000 to reinforce Huining County, because Pei Xingyan was a general. Both official positions and titles are one level higher than Ma Shao, so Ma Shao temporarily became the deputy general of the Guanbei Army, and three days ago, Yang Yuanqing sent an order again, ordering them to intercept and kill the Turkic envoys to the Tang Dynasty, and Ma Shao took the initiative to ask Ying to complete this task.

Ma Shao's martial arts are not very high, so that a sixty-pound machete, a little strength, but the knife skills are not refined, he is more experienced, he himself is a scout, after twenty years of military career, his experience is extremely sophisticated.

The three hundred cavalry brought this time were all selected from the elite of the 25,000 army, all of them were skilled in cavalry and archery, strong in martial arts, and in addition to Ma Shao, there were two very young generals, one was the seventeen-year-old Xiao Yannian, and the other was the fifteen-year-old Qin Huaiyu.

Xiao Yannian is the son of Yuwen Chengdu, needless to say, and Qin Huaiyu is Qin Qiong's eldest son, in fact, he also has a brother who died of illness ten years ago, so Qin Huaiyu became the eldest son, with two sisters above, both married, and a younger brother below.

Qin Huaiyu looks like Qin Qiong, with tiger eyes and a high nose, a pair of big ears, but her eyebrows are more delicate than Qin Qiong's, her skin is very white, her figure is six feet two, her shoulders are wide and her waist is thin, and she is heroic.

Qin Huaiyu cultivated both civil and military, practiced martial arts at the age of five, studied at the age of ten, accompanied Yang Yu to study in the palace for the first two years, and was also Yang Yu's palace guard, three months ago when he turned fifteen, Qin Qiong officially agreed to join the army and followed his master Pei Xingyan to go to Huining County.

Qin Huaiyu also used a horse lance, the back of the dead, got the father Qin Qiong and master Pei Xingyan true inheritance, martial arts are extremely strong, is the best of the young generation of the Great Sui, Qin Huaiyu is only fifteen years old, but he has a calm personality, integrity, quite a bit of his father's shadow.

Xiao Yannian joined the army at the beginning of the year, and he has already experienced several major battles, and his experience is much richer than that of Qin Huaiyu who went out for the first time, but he is relatively proud of himself and is not very willing to teach Qin Huaiyu any experience, basically Ma Shao taught Qin Huaiyu some scout experience.

Ma Shao is silent, but he has an excellent heart, he always nods Qin Huaiyu on key points, and then lets him think about it himself.

Marsho pointed to a forest in front of him, "Rest in the woods ahead!" ”

Xiao Yannian didn't say anything, but Qin Huaiyu asked curiously: "Uncle Ma, we also passed through a forest just now, and we relied on the official road to find out the situation, why don't we rest over there?" ”

"Relying on official roads is easy to be discovered by the Tang Army patrol, and it is the business of the scout team to investigate intelligence, so we just need to rest."

Ma Shao said simply, and the horse ran towards the woods two miles away, Qin Huaiyu pondered for a while, and then suddenly realized that if he was discovered by the Tang army patrol, he would notify the Turkic envoys and make them fail in their mission.

At this time, Xiao Yannian galloped past him, which suddenly aroused Qin Huaiyu's competitive heart, and he also urged the horse to gallop, his war horse was sent by Yang Yuanqing, and it was also a big horse, with a tall physique and strong limbs, and he caught up with Xiao Yannian at once.

Xiao Yannian bit his lip and whipped the war horse, the two of them fought for me, and ran side by side, running towards the woods, stirring up smoke and dust all the way, Ma Shao looked at their backs, couldn't help shaking his head and laughing, it's still young!

The two arrived in the woods almost at the same time, they looked at each other, and smiled, and then three hundred cavalry also arrived one after another, and everyone went into the woods, and looked for a place to rest, took out the water bladder to drink some water and drink the horses, and took out the horse bag and tied it tightly with dried lotus leaves, and gnawed it.

Ma Shao found a flat boulder, spread out the map, and carefully searched for the route on the map, he was extremely familiar with this area, and knew that the Turkic envoys would inevitably take this road if they wanted to enter the Hexi Corridor.

Halfway through the journey, they received news that the Turkic envoy had crossed the Yellow River yesterday morning, and that after a day and a night of traveling, they should have approached this area by this time.

Ma Shao closed his eyes and pondered, and then Xiao Yannian stepped forward, squatted in front of the map and asked, "Will the Turkic envoys have outposts?" ”

This sentence is a very good question, there are a total of eighteen Turkic envoys, but there are more than a hundred Tang troops escorting, close to noon, there must be an outpost to explore the way, and their task is to wipe out everyone, and destroy the corpses, of course, the outpost can not let go.

Ma Shao groaned for a while and said: "There is a small river twenty miles to the southwest, there should be traces of them over there, we can divide the army into two routes, I will give you twenty people, you are responsible for killing the outpost of the path, and I am responsible for the brigade behind." ”

Qin Huaiyu may still bargain, but Xiao Yannian will not, he knows that this is an order, he must carry it out, he immediately got up and clenched his fists, "Obey orders!" ”

Xiao Yannian turned over and got on his horse and led the twenty cavalry to gallop away, Qin Huaiyu was puzzled, ran forward and asked, "Uncle Ma, where is Brother Xiao going?" ”

Ma Shao patted him on the shoulder and said to him in a deep voice: "Since you are a soldier, you should call me a general, call him Captain Xiao, remember!" ”

Qin Huaiyu's face turned red, and he hurriedly bowed down and said, "Remember the humble position." ”

Ma Shao glanced at the soldiers who were desperately drinking water and eating dry food, and said to Qin Huaiyu seriously: "Learn hard from the brothers, hurry up and have lunch, and we will set off in a quarter of an hour." ”……

Just twenty miles away on the official road, five Tang cavalry galloped forward, they were the Tang army outpost guarding the Turkic mission, it was close to noon, they needed to find a place to rest for the mission, this area happened to be sandwiched between two large mountains, on both sides of the dense forest, they needed to find a stream or river.

They had run two or three miles, and when they saw a mountain pass, one of the soldiers pointed ahead and shouted, "There is a little river!" ”

Sure enough, there was a small river in front of them, and they rushed forward, only to see that the river was about four or five zhang wide, the riverbed was very shallow, the river water was only up to people's ankles, the water was turbulent, splashing strings of white water droplets, cold and clear.

They looked around again, and saw a maple forest not far away, the leaves were red, and the whole forest burned like a fire, and it was so beautiful that it was just right to rest.

The five Tang sentinels were overjoyed, and they turned their horses' heads together and ran back, they had just run into the mountain pass, when suddenly, only the sound of the bowstring sounded, and twenty arrows were shot from both sides, and the four Tang sentinels screamed miserably and fell off their horses.

The other soldier who was later was so frightened that he turned around and fled, but he escaped less than a few dozen paces, and an arrow 'whoosh!' The ground shot and hit him in the back of the neck, the Tang cavalry covered his throat, turned over and fell off his horse, dozens of steps away, Xiao Yannian put down his bow and arrow, and said to himself coldly: "Can you escape my bow and arrow?" ”