With one man and three horses, riding horses all the way without stopping, Li Guangyan's troops finally caught up with and surrounded the caravan that was camping and resting in the middle of the night. However, to Li Guangyan's disappointment, after a careful search, his subordinates did not find any of the suspects that Li Yiyin named and asked for arrest, such as Qiu Mingbo and Chen Baoqiang.

Such an outcome was naturally not what Li Guangyan wanted, so he immediately ordered someone to escort the leader of the caravan over and interrogate him personally. Although the agent in charge of escorting the "Dark Feather" Xiazhou Branch and the shopkeeper from the "Yijin" Silk Village had instructed the caravan manager not to reveal his whereabouts to others, how could the caravan leader who was just a merchant dare to deceive in the face of the extremely vicious party soldiers, Li Guangyan, who was full of coldness and murderous eyes. So, after only a few minutes, the leader poured the beans into a bamboo tube and told everything he knew.

Although the leader of the caravan, who was a friend and business partner of the shopkeeper of the "Yijin" Silk Village, and was not a member of the "Dark Feather", knew at least the time when the caravan where Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang and the others were hiding left the caravan and the general direction it was heading. Therefore, after only stopping for one meal in the caravan camp, Li Guangyan led the five hundred pro-army in Ya to turn around and turn back, and chased straight down the official road from Tongwan City to Lingzhou.

In addition, considering that Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang and their entourage may have defected to the Khitan by a detour to the west, or they may have defected to the Great Zhou court through Lingzhou. Therefore, while leading his troops to chase westward, Li Guangyan also sent a messenger back to Xiazhou to report to Li Yiyin the news that Qiu Mingbo and his party had been diverted halfway, asking for instructions on whether to continue the pursuit and enter Lingzhou or Yanzhou, which were controlled by the imperial court, once he failed to intercept this group of traitors in the territory of the Dingyan Army.

In the early morning of the next day, Li Guangyan's subordinates chased him to a place twenty miles north of Youzhou City in the southwest of Xiazhou. Although after a night of running, whether it was Li Guangyan himself or his subordinate Yanai pro-army, everyone was physically and mentally exhausted, but under Li Yiyin's order of "must pursue to the end, and must not return to the city until the border is reached", no one dared to relax in the slightest, and everyone was still struggling to support and continue to gallop for Gu Mali's horse. At the same time, in a sparse tree ten miles south of Youzhou City, Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang and others, who had deliberately bypassed Youzhou City and camped here, had just woken up from their sleep, and were packing up the campsite and making breakfast, preparing for the journey of the new day.

The distance of thirty miles is a blink of an eye for the cavalry, and if Li Guangyan continues to pursue at the previous speed, he is afraid that if he does not wait for Qiu Mingbo and the others to make breakfast, he will already be in the bag of the former. However, it was precisely at this critical juncture that Li Guangyan's mounts were overdrawn due to long high-speed running, and one after another horses were killed and soldiers were injured, so that Li Guangyan had to slow down to recover his horsepower, so that in the end the cavalry would turn into infantry and pursue the fugitives with two legs. In addition, Youzhou City is not far from the border of the Dingyan Army, whether it can be pursued across the border, Li Yiyin's side has not yet received an order, and Li Guangyan does not dare to rashly break into the border of Yanzhou. Therefore, after arriving at Youzhou City, Li Guangyan ordered his soldiers to rest for a while, drink water and eat for a while, and on the other hand, ordered the Youzhou guards to change their horses for themselves to ensure the speed of the pursuing troops, and at the same time eagerly waited for news from Xiazhou. While Li Guangyan and his subordinates were resting and changing horses in Youzhou City and waiting for orders, Qiu Mingbo and others in the south of the city had already finished breakfast, packed up the camp, and continued on the road.

However, because there are women and children in Qiu Mingbo and Chen Baoqiang's group, especially Qiu Mingbo's youngest son, who is just two years old this year, although he spent the whole journey in his mother's arms in the car, this kind of long journey is still very unsuitable for a toddler of his age. Therefore, the speed of the convoy can neither be fast, nor can it go on a day without stopping. In addition, this place is only fifty miles away from the border of the Dingyan Army, even at the current slow speed, it is completely certain to enter the territory of Yanzhou in the afternoon. At that time, even if they couldn't join up with the receiving soldiers and horses coming from the direction of Lingzhou, the Dingyan army would not dare to risk making enemies with the imperial court to commit cross-border murder. Therefore, Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang and his party did not walk fast after setting off in the early morning, and Zhong maintained a relatively comfortable speed in progress.

At the beginning of noon, Qiu Mingbo and his party were less than 20 miles away from the Yanzhou border. Seeing that victory was in sight, and that the women and children in the convoy needed a little rest and food, Han Shun, the deputy hall master of the "Dark Feather" Xiazhou Branch who was in charge of the convoy guard, ordered the convoy to stop temporarily and rest in place, and sent two light horsemen to set off first and continue to move in the direction of Yanzhou, trying to contact the Lingzhou soldiers and horses who should have been waiting to meet them in the border area between the Dingyan Army and Yanzhou, so that his group could meet the other party as soon as possible after entering the Yanzhou border, and did not have to wait in place for a long time.

It's just that what Han Shun didn't expect was that it was his decision to rest on the spot that gave Li Guangyan time to seize his last chance to complete his task. At noon, a messenger from Xiazhou entered Youzhou City.

In Li Yiyin's view, although it was a violation of the law to order the troops and horses of the headquarters to cross the border without the permission of the imperial court, it was a violation of the law to enter other states and counties. But first, this time the Dingyan Army is chasing traitors, which is a workaround when the situation is urgent, and it is not very likely that the court will pursue it. Second, his subordinates secretly infiltrated the territory of Yanzhou, and as long as things were done carefully and cleanly, they would not leave any handle for the imperial court. As for the possibility that Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang and others fled to the imperial court this time, and their arrest or execution might anger the imperial court, and then come to the Dingyan army to ask for their guilt, Li Yiyin was not very worried. After all, since the imperial court adopted such a covert way to bring Qiu and Chen out of the Dingyan Army, it was obviously unwilling to have a head-on conflict with the Dingyan Army over this matter. And the purpose of taking these two people away is more that he still doesn't want the Dingyan army to master firearms, rather than really valuing their talents. If this were not the case, then the imperial court could have issued a clear decree to ask for Qiu and Chen, and there was no need to make such a painstaking arrangement. You must know that although the Dingyan Army is located on the border, it is very important for the imperial court to stabilize the northwest. But Ruoqiu and Chen are really scarce talents urgently needed by the imperial court, and with tens of thousands of "Flying Dragon Army" in hand, Kaifeng will not care too much about the feelings of the Dingyan Army. In other words, the importance of Qiu and Chen to the imperial court was not as important as that of the Dingyan army. Therefore, Li Yiyin believes that if it is really the imperial court that takes Qiu and Chen away, even if he intercepts them back, or kills them in the process of pursuit, the imperial court will not publicly blame himself for this, let alone tear his face with the Dingyan army for this. Therefore, Li Yiyin's order to bring back the messenger was simple and clear: no matter how far the pursuit was, it was necessary to intercept Qiu and Chen and their families, and to see people alive and corpses dead. As for those meticulous works that protect Qiu and Chen's departure, they will all be killed.

After receiving Li Yiyin's order, Li Guangyan did not hesitate at all, and after confirming that the horses with insufficient body had been replaced, he immediately ordered to set off and continue the pursuit.

At the same time, after resting for nearly half an hour, Qiu and Chen, who had eaten and drunk enough, went on the road again and continued to march in the direction of Yanzhou in a hurry.

Although the speed of the march was not fast, the twenty-mile journey was not far for Qiu and Chen, who had horses and carts, and an hour later, this team of dozens of people and horses and vehicles had already crossed the border of Youzhou and entered the area under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou. Han Shun, who was walking at the end of the line, subconsciously glanced back when he passed by the stone tablet that marked the boundary between the two states of Youyou and Yan. Seeing that there was no sign of anyone behind him except for the vast grassland, his heart that had been hanging all the way to the self-unification of Wancheng was finally put back in his stomach. Now, the only thing he still feels unsteady is that the two agents who went to contact the Lingzhou pick-up have not yet returned, and his own group has to continue to sleep in the wild because they need to hide their whereabouts before joining up with the pick-up people, and cannot enter the town 25 miles away to rest. Therefore, after hesitating for a moment and weighing it, Han Shun decided to go forward another five miles before temporarily stopping his progress and resting in place, waiting for the agent who went to contact him to return, so as not to miss the other party because of the path problem.

As soon as the carriage stopped, a few little ones who had been suffocating in the carriage for a long time jumped out of the car and ran wildly on the ground. Fortunately, the grass was still lush at this time, soft as a large carpet that could not be seen at a glance, so that they did not have to worry about injuries from falling. Therefore, Qiu Mingbo, Chen Baoqiang, Zhao Zilu, Wang Han and others let them make trouble, and he sat on the ground with Han Shun and other guards, drinking water and chatting around a small table.

Just when everyone was talking and laughing and chatting, Han Shun had a strange feeling. At first, Han Shun thought that his arms and legs were shaking unconsciously, but he quickly denied this judgment, because he found that the small dwarf table on the ground seemed to be trembling as well, and the water bowls placed on the table also shook, causing the water in the bowls to produce subtle ripples. It was only then that Han Shun realized that it was the ground that was shaking, and the only reason for this tremor was that there was a large contingent of cavalry approaching.

As soon as he thought of this, Han Shun immediately subconsciously raised his head and looked west, but did not find anything abnormal in that direction. Then he looked in the direction he had come from to the east, but he was astonished at first glance. I saw a big dust rise from the east, indicating that a cavalry numbering at least about five hundred was rapidly rushing in his direction. Although it was impossible to distinguish the identity of the person who came due to the distance, the direction in which he was coming made Han Shun have to be careful. On the one hand, he ordered his subordinates to form a whole team in case of contingency, and on the other hand, he asked everyone in the Qiu and Chen families to get on the horse and board the car when they should get on the car, just in case.

The guards here and the Qiu and Chen families had just made preparations, and the two ranger sentries who were in charge of the guard after the break had already galloped like horses and gallops. A moment later, the shouts of the two ranger sentries reached everyone's ears - "The party is coming, everyone go quickly." ”

The courage of the party members to cross the border was beyond everyone's expectations, but now is not the time to consider this issue. Han Shun, who was tasked with protecting the Qiu and Chen families, immediately made a decision, gave up his plan to continue to hide his tracks, and led everyone to the north-west direction to urge the horses to gallop, and galloped towards the small town Bainijing that they had not planned to go to.

However, although the coachman had driven the horses to the limit of running, the speed of the carriage could not be compared with that of the cavalry, and the distance between the convoy and the party's pursuers was inevitably narrowing. Gradually, small black dots appeared on the horizon as far as everyone in the convoy could see, increasing from one or two to ten or twenty, and finally converged into a thick black line, sweeping towards the location of the convoy.

Seeing that he couldn't get rid of the chasing soldiers, Han Shun couldn't help but be anxious, and after thinking for a while, he shouted to Qiu Mingbo and Chen Baoqiang, who were galloping on their horses beside him: "The chasing soldiers and horses are fast, if we just blindly run for our lives, we will be caught up by them if we can't reach Bainijing." It's better for the two adults to take their wives and children to go first, and then lead their men to turn around and resist for a while, buy a little time for the two adults, and maybe have a glimmer of life. ”

"How does this work?" When Chen Baoqiang heard this, he refused, "How can I take the lives of these dozens of brothers for the sake of my two brothers and their families." Rather than let dozens of brothers do that desperate fight with no chance of victory, it is better to hand over my two brothers in exchange for the escape of these dozens of brothers. Since Li Yiyin is willing to take such a big risk to pursue and intercept my two brothers, it can be seen that my two brothers are extremely important to him. Even if they were caught, there would be no danger of their lives. At most, my two brothers will stay up in Tongwancheng for a few more years, and when the imperial court marches westward and pacifies the difficult army in the future, they will return to Kaifeng with the victorious army of the imperial court. ”

Chen Baoqiang's construction will naturally not be accepted by Han Shun. Even if Han Shun can be sure that Li Yiyin will not hurt Chen and Qiu Er, it is impossible for him to make the task assigned to him by the main hall for the sake of his own net worth and Wang Kunjun, Zhang Weixin, Liang Ziyue and Xin Feiyu and other adults ignore his entrustment, and exchange the lives of Chen and Qiu and their families for the lives of himself and his subordinates. Therefore, on the one hand, Han Shun categorically rejected Chen Baoqiang's proposal, and on the other hand, he picked out nearly thirty guards and prepared to order them to return and kill them, in order to be able to buy Chen and Qiu and their families time for even a meal or even a cup of tea.

Han Shun was about to send a "death squad" to stop the enemy, but Qiu Mingbo's side was in a hurry. When Chen Baoqiang said just now that he would exchange the two brothers for the lives of dozens of guards, although he believed that Han Shun would not be able to agree to such a proposal, he was still nervous in his heart. In his opinion, if the two brothers were caught by the party, Chen Baoqiang might not have any worries about his life, but he, the advocate of breaking away from the Dingyan Army and the perpetrator of the explosion of the secret base in Dijinze, may not have such a good end. Even if the party members do not kill themselves immediately in order to use their own skills to work for them, their status will plummet, and when other craftsmen learn the skills from themselves, the party members will "unload the mill and kill the donkey" and take their own lives. Therefore, while Han Shun refused Chen Baoqiang's offer and secretly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, he also began to think about how to get out of the current danger and go to Kaifeng to realize his desire to soar and prosper.

In order to get out of danger, it is necessary to get rid of the pursuit of the party members. At present, the biggest obstacle to getting rid of the pursuit of the party members is not whether their own guards can withstand the pursuers, but because they are dragged down by several carriages, they have never been able to give full play to the speed of stepping off their mounts. In fact, this place is only twenty miles away from Bainijing Town, and if you don't care about the urging of the horse, you can run into the town in half an hour at most. Once there, unless the party wanted to start an immediate war with the imperial court, the only option was to retreat quickly before being discovered by the town's garrison. In other words, as long as you are willing to give up one qiē in the carriage, you have a very good chance of escaping. If it was in normal times, or before a meal, Qiu Mingbo would never have the idea of abandoning the carriage. Because in those carriages, there are not only the money he has accumulated over the years, the technical materials he has compiled, but also his wife and children. But now, in the face of the approaching party chasing soldiers, there is a conflict between his own life and money, technology, and the lives of his wife and children, and when he needs to make a choice, Qiu Mingbo and Chen Baoqiang's "righteousness" and "bravery" behavior of wanting to exchange his net worth for the lives of the guards are completely opposite, and he chose to save his life very decisively.

So, at the same time that the thirty selected guards turned to kill the party members, Qiu Mingbo also waved his horsewhip and urged his mount fiercely, rushing out of the team like arrows from the string, and heading away in the direction of Bainijing Town at the fastest speed.

Qiu Mingbo's behavior made the others stunned, and then they understood his intentions. Although he was very disdainful and contemptuous of Qiu Mingbo's practice of abandoning his brothers, wives and children and running for his life on his own, Han Shun, who was duty, could only order two guards to quickly follow and protect the former while scolding in his heart. While Chen Baoqiang was surprised, he expressed deep sympathy for Wang Han, who was sitting in the carriage and knew nothing about the situation outside the carriage, and held the pistol that Wang Baochuan gave him before leaving, and firmly guarded the carriage where his wife and children were riding.

The counterattack of the thirty guards did not buy much time for their companions, and the obvious difference in speed made the effect of these guards' death-defying counterattacks even more insignificant, and finally Chen Baoqiang and the others were caught up by the party members fifteen miles away from Bainijing Town, and surrounded by the group. Although Qiu Mingbo evaded the main force of the party's chasing troops, he was targeted by the party's chasing troops from the side. Since the other party happened to block his escape to Bainijing Town, Qiu Mingbo had no choice but to turn his horse's head and run in the direction of Yanzhou City.

It's just that Qiu Mingbo and the two guards are all one person and one horse, while the fifty party chasers who came after him are one person and three horses, and some of the war horses are "vital horses" that have just been transferred from Youzhou City and have not gone through a long journey and are full of body. Therefore, after only running five miles more than Chen Baoqiang and the others, Qiu Mingbo and the others were already able to clearly see the facial features of the party chasing soldiers behind them, as well as the hideous expressions on their faces.

Seeing that the pursuers had arrived, and the opportunity to escape that he had bought at the cost of abandoning his wife and children was likely to be lost, Qiu Mingbo secretly complained to himself while also determined to fight the trapped beast. He took out the pistol that Wang Baochuan also gave him for self-defense, turned around and pulled the trigger.

Although Qiu Mingbo's marksmanship is average, the distance between the two sides is not far, and the formation of the party pursuers is relatively dense, so after a few gunshots, the two party pursuers fell off the galloping war horses in response, and then were trampled by their companions behind, obviously unable to live.

The sudden change made the other party pursuers stunned, and the instinct to avoid danger made them all subconsciously control the speed of their horses, so as not to become the next target. In this way, the distance between the two sides was widened again, and Qiu Mingbo once again saw hope.

However, the hesitation and hesitation of the party members were short-lived. Although all human beings have an instinct to survive, for these well-trained party elites, the orders of their superiors are often more powerful and important than instinct, and they are more decisive in their actions. Yes, after being stunned for a while, the party chasing soldiers came back to their senses, urged the war horse again, and chased after Qiu Mingbo and others. Moreover, unlike the previous one, which was just riding horses and chasing after him, this time nearly 50 party chasers were bowed and unsheathed, ready to counterattack Qiu Mingbo's resistance. As a result, after two more companions were shot and knocked off their horses by Qiu Mingbo, several angry party chasers opened their bows and arrows one after another, aiming at Qiu Mingbo - although everyone knew that their own jiedu envoy wanted to capture Qiu and Chen alive, but his order of "seeing people alive and seeing corpses when dead" showed that it was acceptable to bring back the corpses when they could not bring back the living, so these party chasers did not want to kill Qiu Mingbo and be punished by their superiors.

The party pursuers stretched their bows and arrows here, and the two guards who followed Qiu Mingbo saw it in their eyes and were anxious in their hearts. Although the two are ashamed of Qiu Mingbo's behavior of abandoning his wife and children, it is absolutely impossible for them to watch the target they protect be killed. So, almost at the same time, the two men turned around, drew their knives in their hands, and chased the party soldiers and killed them.

The two guards acted bravely, but their bravery could not make up for the huge disparity in numbers. The backlash of the two guards only caused a negligible obstacle to the party pursuers, and only caused the party pursuers with bows and arrows to delay the speed of drawing their bows slightly, and only gave Qiu Mingbo a chance to shoot the last few bullets in the gun and kill two more party pursuers.

The guards were killed, the pistol ran out of bullets, and seeing that the chasing soldiers were getting closer and closer, but he had no strength to resist, Qiu Mingbo couldn't help but be discouraged. Fortunately, the pursuers behind him found that the firearms in their hands were no longer ammunition, and their lives would no longer be threatened, and they planned to catch one alive and go back to receive more rewards. Otherwise, Qiu Mingbo was afraid that he would already have ten thousand arrows at this time.

Just when Qiu Mingbo was discouraged, and the party chasers behind him thought that they had a chance to win, a dull roar came from the front. Although the actual situation was not yet visible, the battle-hardened pursuers of the Communists could tell from the rumbling sound and the vibration of the earth that a cavalry force of no less than two thousand men was galloping in their direction, and the distance was no more than three miles.

Three miles, for a galloping cavalry, can run in the blink of an eye. Just when the party pursuers judged whether the comer was friend or foe, and whether to kill Qiu Mingbo immediately to get rid of the trouble, the opposite team had already come to the front, and the banner of "Zhou" raised high in front of the team indicated that this was a Great Zhou cavalry.

In the face of this sudden Zhou army, Qiu Mingbo was certainly relieved, but those party chasers were a little overwhelmed - after all, secretly chasing and killing traitors of the Dingyan Army and engaging in face-to-face clashes with the imperial court soldiers and horses were two different things. However, with the "Bang! Bang" a few muffled sounds, and several party chasers spewed blood mist from their chests one after another, and after falling off their horses and dying, the other party chasers immediately came to their senses. They couldn't care about dealing with Qiu Mingbo anymore, so they immediately turned their horses' heads and fled back and forth. And behind them, nearly two thousand Great Zhou cavalry were in hot pursuit.

At the same time, the observation and disposal of the Great Zhou Lingzhou, who was dressed in military uniform and full of dignity, made Yang Ye ride his horse to Qiu Mingbo, who had not yet recovered from the surprise, patted him on the shoulder, and motioned to the entourage recruits behind him to take care of him, and then urged the mount to continue to move forward and command his men to rescue the others.