Liu Ze himself chose a golden armor, wearing a bright red cloak, hanging the Longyuan sword on the left and wearing the Tai'a sword on the right, Guan Yu is also wearing a green robe in gold armor, holding the Qinglong Yanyue knife, Zhang Fei is a black armor and black robe, and a Zhangba snake spear spear is in the palm of his hand, majestic.

Straight to Jia Xu was dumbfounded, this is a caravan, it is simply an army armed to the teeth, and the distinctive armor is clearly the special equipment of the Yulin Army of the Jingshi Forbidden Army. Jia Xu was thinking in his heart, could it be that this Liu Ze was not a horse dealer, but a court official with a special mission, disguised as a caravan and sneaked out of Yangguan to perform some secret mission.

Liu Ze seemed to see through his thoughts, and said to him with a smile: "Did Mr. Wenhe treat me as some court envoy and came here to carry out a secret mission?" ”

Jia Xu was speechless, he was waiting for Liu Ze's answer.

Liu Ze smiled and said: "Mr. Wenhe is wrong, he is not a court official in Xia, nor does he have any special mission, he is an authentic businessman in Xia, and the purpose of this trip is to find a bloody horse, and the reason why these guys are armed is just in case." I heard that the Huns are also looking for sweat and blood horses, and if they encounter them, they can also resist one or two. Although the sweaty horse is precious, it is not worth throwing one's life on this desert for it. ”

Although Jia Xu nodded yes, the suspicion in his heart did not decrease.

Pan Feng came over to report: "Lord Qiqi, the cavalry team is fully equipped, please instruct!" ”

"Very good, the three hundred cavalry are divided into three teams, Guan Yu led the first team to open the road, Zhang Fei led the second team to the rear of the palace, Pan Fengwu Anguo led the third team to guard the Chinese army, abandoned all the carts, and the whole army set off and went straight to the Green Ridge!" Liu Ze immediately gave the order to march.

Although Zhang Fei was not satisfied with letting him be the queen of his palace, Liu Ze's expression at this time was solemn, and he was not easy to refute.

During the march, Liu Ze quietly instructed Pan Feng: "Pan Feng, you send two people to protect Mr. Jia, you must ensure the safety of Mr. Jia's life, and never let him escape, in short, if Mr. Jia is missing a finger, I only ask!" Pan Feng happily accepted the order.

Winds, sandstorms, and unapproachable roads, to be precise, there were no roads at all, and everywhere they passed through was ankle-high sand, and as far as the eye could see, there was only endless yellow sand. In order not to get lost in the desert, Liu Ze kept fiddling with the compass and correcting the direction of the team. Jia Xu was very interested in this thing, and Liu Ze simply sent one to him and asked him to study it slowly.

On this day, just after noon, the sky suddenly changed, the sky had become chaotic, and the color of gray and yellow, the wind from the north was blowing cold, the horses were neighing uneasily, and the camels were on their knees, and the people could not be whipped, and the faces of the native guides showed a look of horror. Liu Ze saw this in his eyes and was busy inquiring about Jia Xu beside him.

Jia Xu had a heavy face and said: "This is a sign that the sandstorm is coming, you have to find a sheltered place to hide quickly, otherwise when the sandstorm comes, the sand dunes dozens of feet high can move, and once it is buried alive, it will really have no place to be buried." ”

Although Liu Ze has not personally experienced the sandstorm, he has watched a lot of movies in his previous life, and he is no stranger to the sandstorm. But as far as the eye could see, there was no shelter from the wind except for the low sand dunes.

Just as he was thinking about how to avoid this big sandstorm, Guan Yu, who was exploring the way in front, sent someone back to report that he had found an abandoned ancient city, Liu Ze was in great spirits, and immediately ordered to advance to the ancient city at full speed. As soon as the group stepped into the ancient city, the big sandstorm swooped down, and the wind carried the bean-sized grains of sand raging, and people could only squat on the ground honestly, praying that the ghost weather would end soon.

The sandstorm lasted for an hour before it ended, and the sky turned blue again, and people crawled out of the sand, shaking off the dust from their bodies, spitting out the sand from their mouths and noses, and cursing the damn weather. Liu Ze looked at this abandoned ancient city with interest.

This city is square, all are more than 300 steps, the city wall is not a brick and stone structure but is built with soil, reeds, and branches, so that Liu Ze is most interested, is that there is no house in this city, but stands a number of high towers, there are three towers and six towers, the highest has nine floors, the octagonal base is round the top of the tower, he seems to feel that this is the legendary Loulan ancient city. Asked Jia Xu, the answer was yes, this is Loulan City, obviously this city has not been abandoned for too long, although it is uninhabited, but all the buildings are still intact, not dilapidated, occasionally see a white skeleton, it seems to tell people that this place has just experienced a terrible massacre.

"Loulan was destroyed by the Xiongnu but three years ago, after the Xiongnu moved westward, they marched into the Western Regions, and successively destroyed the countries of Weixu, Qiuzi, Wusun, Dawan, Yueshi, etc., Loulan claimed to have a population of 100,000, 8,000 soldiers, but under the impact of the Hun cavalry, it was also powerless to resist, Loulan City was soon broken, the Xiongnu slaughtered after the city was broken, regardless of the old and young, all slaughtered, it is rumored that the Peacock River was dyed red. The Huns abandoned the city after killing and looting, and the city of Loulan was covered by the wind and sand, and disappeared from people's sight. As a native of Liangzhou, not far from the Western Regions, Jia Xu has a very detailed understanding of the situation in the Western Regions.

Liu Ze sighed: "The Huns are really cruel and tyrannical, and they have never spared women, children, old and young, could it be that these people don't have a little humanity?" ”

In their eyes, killing a person is no different from killing a sheep, it is to slaughter the city and exterminate the clan, not only the countries in the Western Regions, but also our Han Dynasty has been constantly plundered by the Huns for hundreds of years, and the common people in Hetao, Hexi and even Youzhou and other border fortresses are all living in Yunnan Pei and displacement, bloody wind and rain, and are always on the verge of precarious death."

Jia Xu was born in Wuwei, Hexi, and naturally has a personal experience of the survival dilemma of the people here, not to mention that he himself was also born in the Wuwei clan, and his ancestors were also in Leishizhou County, but it was this place of frequent wars that the Jia family could not buy any industry, so that Jia Xu was destitute after resigning, and could only deign to go to Yangguan to act as a translator to make a living.

Liu Ze listened and was silent. Wu Anguo came over to report that the team had completed the assembly and whether it would set off immediately. Liu Ze breathed a sigh of relief and ordered briefly: "Go!" ”

Leaving Loulan, the team has been heading west, Liu Ze chose the road to Nanshan (Kunlun Mountain in the Western Regions is called Nanshan, Tianshan is called Beishan), although it is more bumpy, but there is the nourishment of Nanshan snow water, oases are everywhere, drinking water and food can be guaranteed, and the morale of the whole team has not been dragged down by the harsh environment of the desert, and has always maintained a high fighting spirit. Jia Xu saw it in his eyes, secretly admired, in his eyes, the army of the Han Dynasty, especially the forbidden army, the military discipline was sloppy, and the army was lazy and tired, if Zhenhe marched on this desert, he would have fled a long time ago, and he had slipped away, but Liu Ze's team had strict military discipline, neat team, and high morale, which was very different from the army of the court. Jia Xu didn't know that the training of this team on weekdays was ten times more rigorous than that of marching, not to mention that some of the soldiers in the team had been trained by the "Hell Journey", and for them, this Death Desert was nothing at all.

After many days of marching, the team has approached the intersection of Green Ridge and Nanshan. At this time, Zhang Fei, who was exploring the road ahead, ordered someone to report back and found a small group of Hun cavalry traces. Since leaving Yangguan, Zhang Fei has been obsessed with his role as the queen of the palace, and has privately asked Liu Ze to reschedule many times. Liu Ze also took into account the hardships of the pathfinder march ahead, so he arranged for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's two teams of men and horses to rotate every ten days, which was when Zhang Fei served as the vanguard.

Liu Ze rushed over to check it out in person. The small group of Hun cavalry about 100 people, is camping in a river valley in Nanshan, the river valley is quite wide, the west is a cliff, the east terrain is a little gentle, after the steep slope is a large poplar forest, after the poplar forest, is an almost dry riverbed, the 100 or so Hun soldiers are picnicking on the riverbed, barbecue the whole yellow sheep and elk, it is the tempting fragrance that makes Zhang Fei find them.

I don't know whether it was the negligence or arrogance of this group of Hun soldiers, they all gathered on the riverbed to nibble on game, and the horses were leisurely grazing a hundred or so paces away, and they did not send a single guard post. Liu Ze is overjoyed, you deserve to be unlucky. This is the first battle he came to the Three Kingdoms, which seems to be easy, but he is facing the Hun cavalry who have been killed like a man in a hundred battles, and he is careless. Liu Ze ordered all the men to abandon their horses and walk to the mouth of the valley to assemble, and all the men crept and sneaked without making any noise, so as not to alarm the Hun soldiers who were picnicking.

After all the personnel were in place, Liu Ze ordered Guan Yu to lead his team to detour to the back side of the valley, Zhang Fei led his team to seal the valley mouth, and personally led a hundred people to cross the poplar forest from east to west, and launched a surprise attack from the poplar forest to the Huns on the riverbed. After the battle began, Guan Yu attacked from the inside to the outside and Zhang Fei from the outside to the inside. Liu Ze demanded that all the enemy be annihilated, not let one person escape, and capture as much as possible if he can.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei took the order, and Liu Ze visually measured that the distance between the poplar forest and the Xiongnu was about 100 steps, so he asked all the personnel to abandon the longbow and use the compound short bow instead, and quietly crossed the poplar forest and approached the Xiongnu.