At the foot of Bears Ears Mountain, the Qin army camp, the Chinese army's big tent.

"General, His Majesty has sent a decree ordering our army to attack Gorizia in three days!" The herald walked into the big tent and reported to Su He.

Su He stood in front of the map, didn't look back, stared directly at the map and said, "So we only have three days?" ”

A division commander echoed: "Yes, General, according to His Majesty's will, within three days we must annihilate the coalition forces on Bears Ears Mountain, and then quickly march west to attack Gorizia!" ”

Another regiment commander stood up and said loudly: "General, it seems that we have only a strong attack!" ”

Su He turned around and said: "No, continue to wait, it's been seven days, I don't believe that their horse meat hasn't been eaten yet, wait for two more days, if they haven't surrendered within two days, we will attack!" ”

Another human: "General, I thought they would probably rather starve to death or rush down the mountain to fight to the death with us than surrender!" ”

"Oh?" Su He asked curiously, "Why?" ”

The man spoke his opinion: "Because Ardaric has betrayed us, will he believe that we are willing to accept their surrender?" Was the general willing to accept the surrender of the enemy several times in a row? Would you believe that he was genuinely surrendering? Conversely, if you were Aldarik, would you believe without doubt that our army would sincerely accept surrender? ”

Su Heyan smiled when he heard this: "Ardaric will not surrender, because he has already surrendered once, and he is worried that we will kill him after surrendering, he knows this very well, and we know it, but if he does not surrender, it does not mean that others are not willing to surrender!" ”

The man was surprised, "What does the general mean?" ”

Su He smiled and didn't answer, just said, "Wait." Anyway, there were only two days, and after two days, I would see that I would know and give orders to the other ministries. Cheer up General Ben, maybe the enemy will strike a decisive blow when there is no way to live."

…….

Mountains.

All that remained of the woods on the hill was the trunks and branches, and all the leaves and wild vegetables were plucked and eaten by the remnants of the coalition army, and the remnants of the coalition soldiers lay on the ground, all of them hungry and weak.

Egidious watched the situation down the hill from the rock, and one of his henchmen came over with a piece of roasted horse meat and said, "Governor, eat some!" ”

Egidious looked back and said, "Give it to the soldiers." I'm not hungry! ”

The guard said, "The soldiers have already eaten, and this is for you, my lord!" ”

"Really? All right! Egidious stepped down from the boulder, took the horse's meat, and nibbled on it, taking only two bites. He bent down on the boulder and vomited.

Spit out the horse meat, spit a few more mouthfuls of spit, turned around and said angrily: "Why is the meat for Lord Ben to eat stink?" ”

The guards probably knew that Egidious would react in this way, and after bending down, he saluted and said with a bitter face, "My lord, even though the weather is starting to get cooler now. But meat still can't be stored for long. Especially when exposed to the outside and not salted, it is still easy to perish, but even so, we don't have much food, we can only eat for two days at most and then we will run out of food, and this is not very terrible, what is even more desperate is that we have no water, at the beginning some people are so thirsty that they can't help but go to drink horse blood, but they don't know that horse blood is hot. More than 1,000 people died of thirst because of lack of water! ”

Egidious was stunned. Immediately said angrily: "Since there is no water, then send someone to find water!" ”

The guards smiled bitterly: "The whole mountain has been searched, there is no water, the soldiers are so thirsty that they have no choice but to cut down the trees and use their mouths to suck the water on the trunks, now the trunks of the entire forest can be directly set on fire, if you don't find a way to get water, most of the people will die of thirst by this time tomorrow!" ”

Egidious muttered, "Has the situation been so severe?" ”

The guard hung his head and said, "I'm afraid so, my lord! ”

After a long time, Egidious had to face a reality that he was unwilling to accept, and he was afraid that there was no other way but to surrender, so he sighed and said: "It seems that I can only surrender, go and let the officers come over!" ”

The guard hesitated, "Are you really ready to surrender?" If you really have this intention, it's best not to let the people of Gepid know."

Agadius asked, "Why?" ”

"The villain heard some soldiers gossiping behind their backs, and some people said that Ardaric would rather die in battle than surrender, because he was a person who betrayed the Xiongnu Empire, and even if the Qin army accepted his surrender, I am afraid that they would settle accounts with him afterwards, so ......."

Hearing this, Egidious nodded and said: "This matter is known to Lord Ben, but Ardaric betrayed the Huns, not the current Great Qin Empire, this is a difference, but this kind of thing is not good, after all, he has already betrayed once, I am afraid that it will be difficult for the Qin army to believe that he will sincerely surrender, or will not rebel again in the future, it seems that we really can't let the Gepid people know if we want to live, we can only leave them alone, you go and give an order, it is strictly forbidden to leak the news!" ”

"Yes, sir!"

After deliberation, the officers unanimously agreed with Aegidius' decision to surrender, and decided to immediately send people down the mountain secretly to negotiate with the Qin army, and as long as the Qin army did not kill them and allowed their relatives to ransom them, they chose to surrender.

Things went very smoothly, and Su He, the commander of the Qin army, personally received the envoy of Egidious, and it took the two of them an hour to finalize all the details of the surrender, and when the envoy returned to the mountain and told Aegidius and the other officers about the negotiations, Aegidius and the officers were overjoyed, and began to prepare according to the requirements of the Qin army.

The time of surrender agreed between the two sides was late at night, and after late at night, Aegidius was at the front, the others followed, and the officers of the various divisions were in charge of their soldiers, although there were less than two thousand men, and there were no horses, and all of them had to walk down the hill on their legs, but it was impossible for so many men to make no sound at all.

Egidious and his men and horses only walked halfway up the mountain when an accident occurred, and a large number of men and horses appeared from nearby. Egidious was astonished, and the light of the torches made Egidios and all his men recognize these men as the Gerpids. Isn't it just a coincidence that they were all on the top of the mountain just now, but now they are gathering halfway up the mountain?

Although the old Ardaric had gray hair and beard, these still could not hide the fierceness and domineering in his body, he walked out of the crowd with a snowy broadsword and stared at Egidious and said coldly: "What are you going to do, Lord Doge?" Want to surrender? Why don't you even say hello? Do you disdain to be in the company of my Gerpid people? ”

Egidious, who had been a governor for so many years, had already become a de facto warlord, and he knew that no amount of justification was useless. Simply opened the skylight and said, "Well, now that the leader of Aldaric already knows. This governor will not hide it from you, you are right, I am going to take my people to surrender now, and I don't think I need to analyze the current situation with the chief. You can see that, too. Except for surrendering a way to live, everything else is dead, and the life of this governor does not matter, but this governor still has these nearly two thousand men and horses under him, they can't die here, it was this governor who brought them out, so it is the responsibility of this governor to bring them back! The Governor also advised the chiefs not to be dead-headed, and that surrender was not a very shameful thing. Many people in military rank and position higher than mine have surrendered, and I ask the leaders not to stop us. Whoever doesn't let us live, we will fight with whom! ”

Aldaric blushed, his snow-white beard trembled, and pointed at Egidious and scolded angrily: "Shame on surrender? Hahaha, this is the first time I have heard such remarks, I have to say that you Romans are too good at self-comfort, and only you are so shameless that you will ignore such a move as surrender, no wonder the Western Roman Empire will fall to this point, just because there are too many officials and generals like you in the Western Roman Empire! ”

Ardarric's words embarrassed Egidios, and when he heard this, his face turned red and white, and he said angrily: "Old dog, don't take advantage of your tongue, what do you want?" You want to stop us from going down the mountain? You yourself want to wait here for death, I won't stop you, I and so many soldiers under my command don't want to die yet, if you don't let us go down the mountain, then we can only meet here in life and death! ”

Aldaric sneered: "You guessed right, not only you can't go down the mountain, but everyone under your command can't go down the mountain, if you are allowed to go down the mountain and surrender, the strength of the Qin army will be even stronger, and you are very clear about the situation on the mountain, which is not good for me and my people, so you still die the heart of going down the mountain and surrendering, now, you let your people put down their weapons, otherwise I will order an attack!" ”

"Okay, come on!" Not to be outdone, Egidious was not to be outdone.

Ardaric shook his beard in anger, drew his sword and pointed forward, shouting, "Kill—"

"Kill—"

The two sides started a bloody battle on the mountainside, and the shouting of killing was pierced to the Qin army camp at the bottom of the mountain, and the Qin soldiers watched the fire on the mountainside at the bottom of the mountain, and the shouting of killing kept coming.

After about an hour, the battle was over, with Egidious and his more than 1,000 men killed, none alive, and only 5,000 of Artarik's men remaining.

Ardaric gasped, touched the blood stains on his face, inserted his broadsword into the scabbard and said loudly: "Order, strip these corpses of their clothes, and peel off their flesh while they are still fresh, and we will still rely on these flesh to survive!" ”

The more than 5,000 Gepid people around were stunned, eating human flesh? Oh my God, it's horrible! Not a single person carried out Aldarik's orders, and not a single person did it for a long time.

Seeing that no one was carrying out his orders, Aldaric shouted, "What? Don't you want to live? Still not executing the order? ”

Suddenly, a general behind him lifted his sword and slashed it, and Ardarik's head rolled to the ground, blood splattered from the broken neck, and the body fell to the ground.

Someone reacted, pointed the sword in his hand at the general who killed Ardaric and said angrily: "Bhaktai, you, you actually killed the leader, you are so bold, come here, kill him to avenge the leader!" ”

"Who dare?" Nabaktay exclaimed, "Doesn't he deserve to die?" Lao Tzu has had enough of this old horseman, does he think that he is the leader and can control the life and death of the clansmen? Since he decided to betray the Huns, our fate began to change, the life of our people became more and more difficult, originally we could live well on the grassland, it was because of his wrong decision that the whole tribe fell into misery, we because of his stupidity and constantly evaded the pursuit of the Qin army, had to move around, but now at this point, he still thinks about his face, for himself, he actually wants us all to die here with him, if we all die, the Gepid people will be wiped out, In order to continue the bloodline of the race, we can only endure humiliation and live, the only way is to surrender to the Qin army, if anyone is not willing to surrender, you can go up the mountain now, no one will stop you, but no one is allowed to stop those who want to save the bloodline of the Gepid people from going down the mountain and surrendering, otherwise they will be my enemy! ”

One by one, the Gepid chose to follow Bhaktai and surrender to the Qin army, because only in this way could they avoid the extermination of the Gepids. (To be continued......)