The war mentality on the steppe is always similar, and if you win, you will fight, and if you can't win, you will run. Once they feel that they can't fight, they immediately run away with their wives and children, old calves, sheep, carts and horses, and for thousands of years, they have always been running around like this. For the steppe tribes, the victory or loss of the war is not whether the land is gained or lost, nor the number of kills and wounds, but the number of captives. If they captured more cattle and horses and captured more women than they lost, then it was a victory, and if they lost more cattle and horses than they captured, it was a defeat.

The Turki Khan did not have the slightest psychological burden for running away, and in this grassland in the north of the desert, the old Turkic Khan's court did not have much attraction to him, and there was nothing to make people reluctant to give up. Anyway, it's there, and when Datou and Du Lan's men and horses come over and plunder it back, he will come back again, and Du Lan or Da Tou can't stay on this grassland without leaving. He only hoped that he could run faster and avoid being overtaken by Du Lan and Datou's men and horses, in which case, he would have to be forced to give up many cattle, sheep and even the tribal population, which would be a great loss.

He had been gone for several days, and in the course of that time several of his sons had gone to gather their tribesmen returned, and tribesmen of all tribes arrived quickly, and their tribesmen, young and old, began to move eastward according to his orders. The horses sent to the west also returned, bringing with them even more disturbing news. The shape became more and more urgent, and the mood of the Tuli Khan became more and more anxious, and the envoy to the Sui Dynasty to the south had not yet heard of it.

According to the scouts, the Western Turkic cavalry of the Datou Khan moved quickly, and the advance had crossed the Jinshan Mountains, the boundary between the Eastern and Western Turks. All the way to the east, looting and killing. Dulan in the south has also been fully assembling troops and horses, and the Monan area. The cavalry of the tribes assembled day and night. The Turks are the overlords of the steppe, a people on horseback. In normal times, the young and strong people of various tribes graze and hunt, but when there is a war, the leader of the tribe sounds the horn, and the knights gather from all directions, prepare their own horses, bows and arrows, and all the people are soldiers. Although the Turks had established a khanate to unify the eastern and western steppes decades ago, the system of the Turkic Khanate was still in the nature of a tribal alliance. The sons of the Ashina royal family served as the little khan, she, special service, Tutun, Dagan, Burke, Meilu and other official positions, and branched out to all parts of the grassland. Divide areas of different sizes and manage shards. But on the other hand, it retains the traditional tribal leader system, and the big tribal leader bestows the name of the catty, also known as the sip or arrowhead.

The official positions and titles of the Turks were sometimes confusing, but by and large, the Great Khan was equivalent to the emperor of the Central Plains, and the Khatun was equivalent to the empress, but he also had great power to intervene in the Turkic military and political affairs. Ye Hu is equivalent to the crown prince. It is equivalent to the prince of the Sui Dynasty, the special service is equivalent to the king and the county king, the ton tun is equivalent to the assassin history, and the Dagan is equivalent to the governor. Tong Jin is similar to those who belonged to the King of Fan or the assassins of the southwestern barbarians.

Thus, the chiefs of the tribes were also the military and civil governors of the Turkic ranks, and each tribe was a military entity. They are simple in organization. Prepare your own food and grass weapons, and are accustomed to field battles. High mobility. Order the arrows to gather troops, and use the tribe as a military unit one by one. Gather tribes and unite into armies. Tribal chiefs in peacetime, after assembling in wartime, also became officers of military units at all levels.

Regardless of whether it is Tuli or Dulan or Datou, they all follow this traditional practice, and for a time the entire eastern and western grasslands are full of galloping heralds, galloping with the arrows of their respective leaders. The Great Khan is now the Little Khan, and the Little Khan has sent orders to each Tutun, Dagan, and Tongjin, and then they will finally summon the order to each subordinate tribe.

The special service of Duji has been gone for several days, but there is no news, and I don't know where he has gone?

Dark clouds hung low, wind and snow were blowing, and the north wind was whimpering.

The reckless wasteland was gradually covered with snow, and the undulating hills were like white and bloated beasts galloping across the wasteland.

The wasteland in the twilight became more and more lonely and desolate, and the air seemed to be frozen by the cold, filled with a choking stench of burnt and a strong smell of blood.

This is yet another steppe tribe camp that has just been attacked and looted and slaughtered.

There were no cows, horses, sheep, no cooking smoke, no human voices, only destroyed and lit tents, only fire and smoke that had not yet been extinguished, and only corpses littering the ground. Not only human corpses, but also horse corpses, dog corpses, broken scimitars and bows and arrows everywhere

In this hellish blood-soaked land, there are only a group of steppe wolves that smell blood, gray fur, dark green eyes, and a group of vultures that smell the same blood, they hover in the air, under the ugly bare neck, sharp claws tear open the robes on the corpses, and the sharp beaks like hooks peck the unwilling eyeballs, and happily enjoy this sumptuous meal.

Far away in front of the mountain pack, a cavalry team appeared, in the twilight, this team was dressed in white cloaks, wrapped in white robes, and even the war horses under their crotch were also draped in a layer of white, this costume made them hide well in the vast snow. The cavalry remained on alert, moving slowly forward in a skirmish line under the cover of twilight and snow, gradually approaching the camp after the catastrophe.

In the distance, bonfires burned, and the whining of trumpets and the shouts of horses and people were heard as thieves camped nearby. The cavalry squad touched the ransacked tribal camp in the darkness of the night. In order not to alarm the people and horses nearby, none of them made a sound, and the things that tinkled on the horses had already been wrapped in cloth, and even the horses' hooves were wrapped.

At the head of a majestic steed sat a young knight, under the white cloak, with a resolute face, very young. Beneath his robe was a light but sturdy cuirass, a pair of boots on his feet, and a slightly curved cavalry knife at his waist, his sharp gaze watched his surroundings warily.

"Tuanza, this is the fifth ransacked tribe we have encountered, and it has been observed that they are also Sogdians." A weather-covered knight immediately reported to the chief knight after a quick inquiry.

Guo Xiaoke's heart couldn't help but feel heavy when he looked at the miserable scene in front of him, not only for these Sogdians who were slaughtered, but also for the increasingly turbulent situation in the steppe. Guo Xiaoke was originally the head of the 11th Regiment under Wang Fubao, the deputy general of the 3rd Cavalry Battalion. I'm good at riding, especially polo. In last year's Huaihuang Polo League, he became a star player. However, playing polo is just a side hustle of his business, and his real identity is still an officer in a cavalry battalion. In the winter of last year, three cavalry battalions and cavalry regiments directly under the officers of the officer's total of 17 cavalry regiments conducted intensive training, and after the year, under the instructions of Yi Shuai of the Beijing Division, the cavalry was readjusted again, and some new cavalry was added, and finally the size of 21 cavalry regiments was reached, with three regiments and one battalion. The three battalions and one army were reorganized into two cavalry corps, plus one independent cavalry battalion directly under them, and the two cavalry corps reached the scale of nearly 12,000 people, and four new cavalry regiments were added. In the polo league, the captains of the two most outstanding teams, Guo Xiaoke and Wang Junkuo, are the heads of the capital, because of the dazzling performance on the court, they have a high popularity in the army, and they are also excellent during the training camp. He was very good on several missions in the steppe, and finally in this reorganization of the cavalry, he rose a big step and became one of the commanders of the four newly expanded regiments.

After the cavalry was adjusted again. Although it has been changed to a three-three system, it is far less huge than the five-five establishment of the infantry army, but it can be a basic regimental level. But it is still a regiment of five hundred horsemen, a regiment of five capitals.

Yi Shuai is not in Huaihuang. The three main generals of the cavalry, Shan Xiongxin, Qin Qiong and Zhang Jin, said that after Qin Qiong entered Beijing with Yi Shuai. The cavalry was mainly managed by Shan Xiongxin, assisted by Zhang Jincheng and Wang Fubao. However, in fact, since Daning Town invited Li Jing as a special envoy of Dayi to train as the general capital of the Huaihuang cavalry, Li Jing was mostly responsible for the training of the cavalry. And Li Jing's training of cavalry is not just practice in the barracks, he prefers to pull the cavalry out to fight, conduct actual combat drills, march, reconnaissance, and battle. At the beginning, Guo Xiaoke and many other cavalry officers had no good impression of this white-faced boy who was born in Guanlong aristocracy, used to be a county commander, and later worked as a foreigner in the military department of the DPRK, and felt that the handsome man was fooled by this guy. But after the actual training, they soon had to change this idea, this Li Jing is too tossed, and he doesn't play cards according to the routine at all. But after tossing for a while, everyone finally had to admit that his training method was very effective, originally the cavalry was mixed, and the members came from all over the world, but after this guy took over the training, he let these cavalry abandon the original estrangement in a short period of time and knead them into a group. It's not that Li Jing can speak well, the key is to fight again and again, so that these cavalrymen, who still had prejudices between them, had to quickly form a group. If you don't form a group and don't believe in trust, you won't be able to complete the training. And Li Jing's training, which is often actual combat training, can't trust his comrades-in-arms, the result will be miserable, and even pay the price of his life.

Guo Xiaoke now loves and hates Li Jing, this guy is too unpredictable. And he was too fucking bold, completely regarded himself as the commander of the cavalry, and threw the cavalry out at every turn, driving them to the grassland, nothing else, just to do it with the Hu people on the grassland. But this method is really effective, compared to the boring training on the school field, this kind of dangerous game, but let the cavalry grow up quickly.

Around Huaihuang Baili, there has long been no Hu tribe, and they were either defeated and captured by the Huaihuang cavalry, or they fled far away.

Now, if you want to find a tribe that can practice, you have to run at least a hundred miles away, and now one of his regiments led by Guo Xiaoke has gone far away from Huaihuang and gone deep into the grassland, and the grassland is more than 200 miles away from Huaihuang.

The cavalry regiment of 500 men was divided into ten teams and dispersed.

The ten teams are not far apart, between ten and twenty miles apart, and can quickly support each other if there is a policeman. But along the way, Guo Xiaoke and the others found that the situation on the steppe was very wrong, the Turks actually tore each other apart, or could not say the word "tear each other", based on what he had seen these days, it seemed that the Tiele tribe under the Turks was slaughtering the Sogdian tribes under the Turks.

Along the way, they encountered five tribes that had been sacked and slaughtered, all of them Sogdians, and the slaughterers were all tribes of the Tielers.

The Sogdians were originally a well-known merchant people in the Western Regions, and after the Turks conquered the Western Regions, they also controlled the Silk Road and controlled the commercial trade between the East and the West. The Sogdians of the Western Regions submitted to the Western Turks, and further developed as the Western Turks continued to expand in the Western Regions, and their footprints spread all over the Silk Road. In the common interest of the Silk Road, the Sogdians, who were very good at commercial trade, and the powerful overlord Turks, worked together to become the leaders of the East-West trade. The Turks controlled the Silk Road, while the Sogdians used their expertise for trade. Both parties share the benefits. It was because of this good cooperation that the Sogdians living in the Western Regions greatly increased their status in the Turkic Khanate. The Sogdians also continued to enter the Turkic Khanate, and even into the Mobei region. After decades of development. The Sogdians had many settlements and tribes in the Turkic and even in the Mobei region. From the beginning of trade, to later settlement, and finally many Sogdian tribes were not only engaged in trade, but also began to settle in the Turkic steppes, even nomadic hunting, and began to Turkicize.

The Sogdians, along with the Tielers, became an important part of the Turkic Khanate.

However, although the indigenous Tiele people were conquered by the Turks, they did not have a good impression of their new companions, the Sogdians. Their view of the Sogdians, much like the view of the Jews in modern Europeans, contained envy and jealousy. These foreign Sogdians are very good at doing business, and their lives are much better than those of the Tiele people, and when the Sogdians become more and more powerful in Mobei, they will inevitably arouse the eyes of the Tiele people and hatred. It turns out that there is often some friction between the two sides, and this time, the grassland is turbulent.

Last year, the Tiele tribes suffered several big losses on the East Road. Several of the big tribes have suffered heavy losses, but they can't help those damn guys for the time being. At this time, the Great Khan ordered arrows to gather the cavalry. It's going to be a big one. The Tiele people were told that the Tuli Khan had rebelled against the Sui State, so they asked the Tiele people to destroy the traitor first, and then everyone went south together. Fight to the Central Plains and rob the Huahua World in the Central Plains. Money silk woman.

Although the Tiele people were fooled south by Dulan Khan last year, they didn't catch a single hair. Later, on the return trip, some Tiele tribes wanted to beat a rabbit with grass to compensate, but they were beaten by a soldier and horse on the Sui border and vomited blood. After that, Dulan sent envoys to let them prepare, saying that they might have to go on an expedition after the year, and a few Tiele tribes wanted to follow the old practice of previous years, first go to the eastern tribes to rob some cattle and horses, and by the way, also deter those easterners, so as not to have any thoughts that these guys should not have after the expedition. Who knows, this time it hit the wall again, and the damage was even greater.

The Tiele tribes were simply beaten inexplicably, and they all couldn't figure out what was wrong, could it be that they were not pious enough to the sacrifice to the Immortal Heaven?

While the Tiele tribes jointly negotiated to hold a solemn sacrifice ceremony, they were also preparing to discuss together after the sacrifice how to unite and completely destroy the scum who dared to provoke them. Before the ceremony was ready, the envoys of Dulan Khan came again, with the arrows of the Great Khan, and asked them to immediately send troops to intercept Tuli. Du Lan got the information that Tuli had heard the news and was about to escape. And the direction in which he ran away was the east, and he was going to defect to the Sui State from the east, that damn traitor.

After getting the order of the Great Khan, the great men of the Mobei Provinces Tiele immediately accepted it, Dulan is the Great Khan, Tuli is just a small Khan, and he follows the Big Khan to fight the Little Khan, although it is a civil war, but they don't care what a civil war is not a civil war. The jungle is the strong, and there are many civil wars. They don't mind being a thug at all, in short, after defeating Tuli, they will eat meat, and they will naturally be able to drink some soup and gnaw some bones, which is more profitable than grazing and hunting.

But the ritual of the sacrifice has not yet begun, the weather is still cold, and it will take time to gather the tribe's soldiers and horses. Therefore, in the end, the various tribes first sent out the standing cavalry of their respective tribes, all of which were directly subordinate to the soldiers, and the number was not much, three or five hundred, or one hundred and eighty, in short, the tribes regarded these cavalry as the vanguard, and let them immediately go south to intercept the Turks.

The knights of the various divisions went south one after another, and there was no unity, and they fought separately.

On the way south, they had already begun to open before they had even met Tuli.

In the name of intercepting the Turks, the cavalry of the Tiele tribes first targeted the Sogdians, who had always looked unpleasant. They claimed that the Sogdians were the lackeys of the Turks, and then used this as a justification to attack and raid the Sogdian tribes along the way. As for the Sogdians, who were actually subjects of the Turks, and what kind of great enemy they were at present, they should unite internally and externally, the Tiele people didn't care about it, they didn't understand, they only knew that the Sogdians were very rich, and the Sogdians were weaker than the Tielers. In the past, there was a little northern khan who supported the Sogdians, and they could only occasionally blackmail the Sogdians, but now that Tuli has become a target, the Sogdians can naturally pick up the grass and beat the rabbit and rob his mother.

Guo Xiaoke's team had already seen five destroyed Sogdian camps, and like the previous four, the Sogdians here had killed men above the height of the wheel, and many old people had also been killed, but few of the corpses lying on the ground were young women and children below the height of the wheel. According to his knowledge of the steppe tribes, the war between the tribes was often to break through the camp of the other party, and then kill the adult men of the other party, and then take their women and children, as well as cattle, sheep and horses as trophies. The bodies of the adult men on the ground had no heads, and their heads had been cut off.

Guo Xiaoke knows that this is also a tradition of the Mobei people, and the head is not only the basis for their military exploits and the spoils of war, but also will become a manifestation of their personal bravery. Eventually, these heads would be taken home by them, and they would be kept, and when they died, they would be planted in front of their graves with murderous stones, and the number of stones would represent the number of murders they had killed. If the head of the enemy is preserved, a killing pillar will be erected, and the enemy's skull will be inserted into the wooden pillar, and the killing pillar will be more glorious than the killing stone.

"Dog eats dog!" A knight said disdainfully.

Guo Xiaoke shook his head, "It's not that simple, I feel that this time things are a little unusual." He slapped his palm lightly, and the knights around him gathered around, and he lowered his voice and said, "I feel that something is unusual, let's find a way to capture a few Tiele prisoners." ”

The knights nodded, they were not afraid of the capture of Tieler's captives, some were only excited, and finally it was about to open again. (To be continued......)