(Thank you to "Zhao Wuxian 2014" and "丨Beiwei ↘ Xia Tong" for their support.) ）

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mother-help me!"

The running boy fell, cried bitterly, and crawled forward with his hands and feet.

Whoosh, an arrow shot out, flew over the boy's head, stuck in front of his three steps, and half-cut into the ground, the arrow feathers trembled violently.

Of course, the horse man did not miss, but the young man's cry of sorrow caused him to miss the arrow in time.

The boy spoke Chinese, and it was a Hebei accent with a round tone, which was in stark contrast to the stiff and difficult Chinese dialect before.

Ma Hao patted his horse and galloped to the young man, and looked down to see a thin and dirty black face about eleven or two years old, and a few lines of tears, washed out mud marks. Because of the small face, the eyes are particularly large.

"You're not from Karasuma?"

The young man raised his sleeves to wipe away his tears and shook his head vigorously: "I am Han." ”

"Han people, why are you dressed in Karasuma people's clothes?" Ma Hao seemed to remember something, and blurted out, "You are the fugitive slave that the Karasuma people hunted everywhere?" ”

The boy's face changed drastically, and he prostrated himself in front of the horse Hummer, and wailed, "Don't hand me over to the Karasuma people, they will drag me to death after tying me to the horse's tail." ”

Ma Han leaned over and pulled out the arrow stuck in the ground, rubbed it clean on his boot and inserted it back into the quiver, and smiled faintly: "Give it to Karasuma?" What are the benefits? Is there a bounty? A wisp of money? A bag of salt? Or a sheep? ”

The young man winced and shook his head: "Aso is not worth a sheep, only a lamb." ”

Ma Han frowned and said, "That's it, why do I want a lamb?" Well, you're not the only fugitive, how many are there? Ten or twenty? ”

The young man Aso raised his head vigilantly: "No...... It's just me......"

Ma Han shook his head with a smile: "You are too self-exalted, right?" You're the only one, and the Karasuma people will send so many people to hunt down? Okay, for the sake of the Han people, I don't embarrass you, you can go. ”

Aso broke into a smile and kowtowed heavily: "Thank you!" Looking up at the tall horse in front of him with envy and a little fear, he turned around and ran.

"Wait!"

Ma Han broke off his drink, and Aso suddenly seemed to be frozen, and he didn't dare to move.

"You can tell your friend who fled with you that the search party led by the Karasuma man, who had a golden ring in his ears, thirteen of them, all dead. Before their other search team arrived, let's go. Ma Han said, patted the horse and left.

Asu stood stunned for a while, then suddenly chased after the hillside and asked loudly, "Is the one you said with a golden ring in his ears called Wuma?" ”

Ma Han had galloped up to the top of the hill, turned around and waved his hand, and replied in a loud voice: "I don't know what his name is, and before I can ask, he will die." ”

Aso panted and climbed up, shouting as he crawled, "Can you tell me where I found them?" I have to see it with my own eyes for my friends to believe it. ”

The Humvee whip pointed westward: "In the forest over there, it is estimated that there are already wolves eating corpses and bones, and if you don't want to feed the wolves, it's best not to go over." Send you something and your friends will believe it. ”

With a wave of Ma Han's hand, a yellow and clear thing rolled down the hillside, Asu picked it up and took a look, and blurted out: "This is the golden ring of the black hemp leader!" ”

"Good eyesight. I ripped it off his ear and sent it to you as a souvenir. The horse laughed, rode his horse, and headed east along the ridgeline.

But after a while, a young man Aso shouted hoarsely from behind: "Wait a minute! Please wait! ”

"What's wrong again?" Ma Han didn't want to pay attention to it, but the young man chased and shouted for nearly a mile, his voice was broken, and he even rolled down the mountain and chased after him in pain. This perseverance forced the horse to obey, so he stopped to take the bean cake and feed the horse, while waiting patiently.

When Aso got closer to more than ten steps, he was no longer able to run, and he fell on all fours, kneeling on the grass, panting like a bellows, unable to say a word. Ma Han was not in a hurry, loosened the horse's belly belt, took out the map from the baggage, and kept comparing and referring to it with a compass while reading.

The map was obtained by Yuan Shao on the day he was captured. This is a topographic map of Hebei, including the topography of Youzhou, Jizhou, Bingzhou, and Qingzhou, which is estimated to have been made from the palace collection when Yuan Shaodong went out of Luoyang and plotted against Jizhou.

The drawing is very simple and abstract, and it is used for travel to worry about getting lost, and if you are marching and fighting, it is better to find a guide. This map is very imperfect, and after the Great Wall in the north, in the area of present-day Inner Mongolia, it is blank. Obviously, this is beyond the actual control area of the Han Dynasty.

And Ma Han is on the edge of this blank at this moment, and he doesn't know what is in the north.

Just as he was looking at it, a timid voice came from behind him: "This ...... Righteous man, Aso took the liberty to chase after him, and just wanted to ask...... Do you sell these armor bows and arrows? ”

"It turned out that I had a fancy for my equipment." Ma Tyrant rolled up the map, raised his eyebrows, and said, "This is all not for sale, but seeing that you are so sincere, I can sell you a little." The question is, do you have any money? Oh, don't trade that gold ring I gave you. ”

"Aso doesn't dare." Asu was overjoyed and worried, and said, "We don't have much money, and we don't have much grain and salt, so we have some horses, cattle and sheep, can we use these to change our careers?" ”

"I don't want horses, and the meat is not delicious." Ma Han directly rejected the horses, "The cattle are difficult to drive, you can exchange them for sheep, but I can't collect too many sheep by myself, it is better to use money, grain, salt, these convenient and easy to bring things." ”

"That's right...... Then I'll have to ask Daddy Muji to see how much I can buy. Aso looked at Ma Han, "You, can you come with me to our camp?" ”

Ma Han smiled: "What? Aren't you afraid that I'll be bad for you this time? ”

Asu's face flushed: "You are also Han, and you also helped us kill the villain of Wuma, just rush here, Daddy Muji and everyone will definitely be grateful to you." ”

Ma Han waved his hand: "I killed Wuma because he was looking for trouble for me, not to help you." Okay, I'll go with you. ”

Ma Warrior transferred some of the supplies on a war horse and asked Aso to sit on it, and the two chatted while walking, so that they could roughly understand what had happened.

Karasuma came from the Donghu branch and was attached during the war with the Xiongnu. During the Yuanshuo period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, Karasuma was attached to it, and was moved by the Han Dynasty to the Liaodong vassal state, Liaoxi, and the area of Youbeiping, and used it as a barrier to defend against the Xiongnu, which was the "three counties of Karasuma".

At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, after the Xiongnu moved westward, the vacated area of Mobei was quickly filled by the emerging Xianbei and Karasuma forces. Although these Hu people are not as powerful as the Huns, what they do is no different from the Huns in the past. When the Han Dynasty was strong, they were honest and tight, paid tribute and surrendered, and were willing to be eagle dogs; When the Han family was weak, they showed their fangs, plundered, and plundered. For decades, there were no less than 100,000 Han people in the border counties of the Han Dynasty who were taken captive.

Aso is eleven years old this year, and his parents are both captive Han slaves, so he has been a slave from the moment he was born. His mother is a native of Zhongshan, Hebei Province, and she taught him the native sound since she was a child, so that she should not forget her hometown, but she didn't want to pick up a life because of the hometown sound today.

Aso's group of fugitive slaves all belong to the Karasuma Lord of the Right Hokupira, the tribe of the self-proclaimed Khanlu King Uyan, and belong to the tent of the Karasuma leader named Guli. Because they could not bear the perennial oppression and abuse of the Karasuma people, under the leadership of Father Muji, they united more than 20 tents, about 50 Han slaves, and took advantage of the stormy night to flee en masse, and now it has been a full five days.

"More than fifty? How many of you are young and strong who can fight? ”

"There are twelve, no, thirteen, and Brother Donnu is the best warrior." Obviously, this kid counted himself in.

Ma Han nodded, no wonder Wuma's gang of only a dozen people dared to round up unscrupulously, it turned out that there were only a dozen fugitives with the power to fight back, and most of the rest were old and weak women and children.

The weapons of the Wuma gang were inspected by Ma Han, except for a mulberry bow used by Wuma himself, which was better and used an iron arrow, except for the troops, all of them were thick bows and bone arrows. This is the case with the people, let alone fugitive slaves. It can be said that if they can equip their own hard bows and arrows, this combat power will definitely jump a few steps, no wonder Aso is desperate to catch up, even if he saves rations, he wants to buy equipment.

The two of them rode in four, narrating all the way, and before they knew it, they walked out of four or five miles, turned around a dense forest, and entered a valley.

As soon as he walked to the front of the valley, four horses suddenly rushed out of the forest next to him, two in front and two behind, cutting off the road in front and behind the two, and they all stretched their bows and arrows, and shouted: "Dismount, be bound!" ”