The winter of this year was unusually long for the grasslands, and when the snow covered the entire grassland, mass starvation and frostbite spread among the tribes.

In the past, if there was a snowstorm in winter, the royal court alone would have relieved some poor tribes, although the herdsmen of these tribes were still hungry and cold, but they would not freeze to death and starve to death. Because the leaders of the steppe are not fools, every steppe man is their wealth, adult men can ride war horses to fight for them, women can reproduce for the warriors of the steppe, children are the future wealth of the leaders, and the old people can shepherd and milk sheep.

But this year's winter is different from the past, although the Shan Yu royal court of Longcheng is still there, it is no longer the supreme ruler of the grassland, and the annoying challenge from Lou has put the dominance of the Huns on the grassland in jeopardy. Relying on the shameless collusion with the Qin people, Kunmo, the king of Loufu, stole the supremacy of Mao Dunshan Yu over the grassland, and he united other tribes that had been oppressed by the Xiongnu for a long time, and launched a bloody war of revenge.

A large number of Huns were slaughtered, and Kunmo did not allow his subordinates to accept the surrender of the twelve tribes of the Xiongnu lineage, but used killing to repay the oppression of the Xiongnu and other tribes for more than 30 years. A large number of clansmen were slaughtered, which was undoubtedly the most fatal blow to the Xiongnu, but it also forced the Xiongnu tribes facing the crisis of extinction to reunite together, put aside the contradictions between each other, and closely united under the command of the new Shan Yu Ji Congee to fight for the survival of the Xiongnu.

Although Ji Congee tried every means to restore the decline of the Xiongnu and achieved a series of victories on the battlefield, the weakening of the Xiongnu national fortunes has become an indisputable fact. In order to piece together the troops, Ji Congee transferred all the available troops of the Xiongnu to Longcheng, and the various tribes that were originally subordinated to the Xiongnu suddenly found that their masters had become so weak and vulnerable, so they joined the ranks of beating the water dogs.

Kunmo's army grew larger, while the Huns' territory became smaller and smaller. The remnants of Yueshi, Ding Ling, and Donghu, who had been devastated by the Xiongnu before, also joined the siege of the Xiongnu. Now the Xiongnu in the land of Monan can only command more than a dozen in the vicinity of Longcheng, and the others have been annexed by Kunmo, and Lou Fu has become the overlord of the grassland after the Xiongnu.

In order to completely eliminate the Huns and truly become the supreme king of the grassland, Kunmo continued to increase his attack on Longcheng and tried every means to expand his army. Similarly, in order to resist Lou's annoyance, Ji Congee also desperately scraped all the military grain and grass that could be used to enhance his strength. Naturally, the red-eyed two had no time to take care of the old and weak in the poor tribe, and let them die in the cold wind.

Hunger and cold forced these herders to leave the grasslands where they had lived for generations and flee south, and in the cold wind, the herders supported each other, and some froze and fell on the side of the road, but no one wept for it, so that there was only one thought in people's hearts.

Go to the Central Plains, there will be food there, and there will be nobles to take you in.

Changshengtian seems to have played a big joke on his people, the grassland people have been reduced to the point where they have no food and no clothes today, all thanks to the Qin State, their people have suffered countless casualties in the Qin State, and the corpses are piled up. But now, what the herdsmen still remember is to defect to the Central Plains and rely on the monarchs of the Central Plains to make a living.

This is probably the difference between the grassland people and the Central Plains people, they have no national hatred and family hatred, or they have no sense of belonging at all, and death is just a common thing for them. In order to compete for limited resources on the grassland, the attacks between tribes are quite frequent, and no one's father and brother have ever died under the sword of another tribe? Who doesn't have a few lives on their hands? If we all remember to seek revenge for each other, I am afraid that there will be no living people on the grassland.

The war on the grassland has been stalemate, the Huns and Lou Fu are like two vicious dogs that have killed each other, entangled and biting each other, there is no order at all, just desperately trying to kill each other. It wasn't until December that the turnaround finally took place. The Lou Fu coalition army captured the holy mountain guarded by the Huns for generations, and Kun Mo personally led people to the top of the mountain, dug up the tombs of several generations of Shan Yu, and dragged their corpses out to whip them to their heart's content, in order to retaliate against the oppression of the Huns for several generations.

When the news reached Longcheng, the Huns wept blood day and night, the warriors cut their cheeks with knives, let the blood flow, and immediately ordered 20,000 elite horsemen in a rage, and made a detour to raid the hinterland of Lou to wash a tribe in blood. In retaliation, Ji Congee ordered the execution of more than 20,000 men, women, and children of this tribe, and built a viewing platform more than 10 meters high with their heads. Lou annoyed people quickly retaliated with a tooth for a tooth, and in several battles in the future, all the captured Huns were beheaded, leaving no more alive.

The bloody revenge between the Huns and Lou soon swept across the steppe, and many small tribes that had been neutral were also swept in, becoming the two families to vent their anger. In order to avoid the scourge of extermination, these small tribes joined the ranks of those who fled south.

The sharp increase in refugees has greatly increased the pressure on the newly rebuilt northern army camp, and food and grass are suddenly scarce. The new marshal of the Northern Army, Wang Qili, defied public opinion, insisted on sheltering these steppe people who had no way out, and personally rushed to the outside of Jiuyuan City to set up a huge camp to house the refugees, and embezzled the army's food stocks to make porridge and distribute it every day to maintain their livelihood, although they could not eat enough, but they would not starve to death.

At the same time, Wang Qi personally wrote to the imperial court of Xianyang, sprinkled thousands of words and carefully analyzed the long-term effect of this move, and for every weak point of the Hu people, the Qin state was stronger, and asked the imperial court to quickly mobilize grain and grass to relieve these Hu people who defected to Great Qin.

The exodus of the tribe caused Quunmo to be alarmed. After breaking through the Xiongnu Holy Land, Lou Fu's power has reached an unprecedented peak, 100 ministers, 200,000 control strings to dominate the grassland, on the other hand, the Xiongnu only have less than 100,000 remnants left, the defeat has been decided, just hard to guard around the dragon city. At this time, Kunmo already regarded himself as the lord of the grassland.

Since they are the masters of the grassland, all the grassland people are of course their own private property. Now this person is going to defect to the Qin State in the Central Plains, which makes Kun Mo's extremely proud self-esteem intolerable no matter what. At this moment, he had already heard that the Qin State was waging a huge war of unification, and the main force was deep in the interior and had no time to look north, and the restless thoughts in his heart couldn't help but stir.

So he ordered the general Mu Chi to gather 10,000 cavalry and quickly go south to pursue the tribes fleeing south.

Mu Chi chased and killed the fugitives all the way, and killed them outside the city of Jiuyuan, but he saw the endless tents outside the city but was defenseless, and he was naturally not thinking much about it with a simple mind, but just waved his knife and rushed up with an excited roar of excitement, and killed people when he saw them along the way.

The unsuspecting herdsmen didn't expect the Lou Fu army to suddenly arrive, and they all turned around and desperately poured towards Jiuyuan City in fear. When Wang Qi in the city heard the news, he immediately put on his armor and went to the city, ordered the whole city to be on guard, and at the same time the city gate was wide open, allowing the herdsmen to flee in.

Although Mu Chi is reckless, he is not stupid. He just ordered his subordinates to hunt down these rebels outside the city, and did not approach Jiuyuan City. Less than 500 paces outside the city, Lou's annoying cavalry smirked and brandished his broadsword, using his horsepower to effortlessly cut off one head after another, and trampled a young body into a pulp with the hooves of his horse. They wielded their broadswords with great ease, sprinting and slashing again and again, as easy as ordinary drills, and the desperate herdsmen screamed and stretched out their hands like the Qin army at the head of the city shouting for help, but their heads were cut off by the cavalry who caught up.

Above the city, nearly 10,000 Qin soldiers were furious and ready to crack. Although it was only the steppe people who died, it had nothing to do with their Qin State. Besides, Master Lou has always adhered to the rules, and he has never approached Jiuyuan City, but he is just a slow slaughterer of his own people outside the city.

But Lou's annoying attitude of not taking himself seriously angered every bloody Qin soldier, and they clenched the halberd in their hands and opened their eyes with anger. Seeing Lou Annoying looking at such a bloody scene, seeing the enemy despise him so much, the long-standing hatred for the grassland people instantly soared.

The Qin army was never a moderate army, on the contrary, their tyranny and bloodshed terrified the six Kwantung countries. They will also slaughter, and the killing of 400,000 Zhao troops in the First Battle of Changping is their most outstanding work. But this is only limited to the slaughter of the other party's soldiers, only in order to weaken the power of the enemy country as much as possible to choose to kill prisoners of war, the slaughter of cities and indiscriminate killing of innocents during the war is strictly prohibited by military orders, not to mention the killing of women, children, the old and the weak.

In the hearts of the Qin soldiers, the slaughter of the old and weak women and children was a coward's act, and the real warriors proved their courage by looking down on the enemy's head in exchange for military merits. Pit killing and surrendering is only a means to weaken the enemy country in a planned and organized manner, and it is not the innate bloodthirstiness of the soldiers. Therefore, they expressed their indignation at the annoying people of Lou and the women and children who had no power to fight back.

Wang Qi at the head of the city clenched his teeth, looked at the river of blood not far outside the city, and suddenly roared loudly; "Pass my command, all the cavalry assemble, follow me out of the city to meet the battle."

Changshi Pangtong, who was watching from the side, heard Wang Qi say this, and was immediately frightened, and hurriedly grabbed Wang Qi and said; "Old general, are you crazy, what does it have to do with us that they kill their own people. The task given to us by the general is only to hold the northern land, why should you start the war in vain, if it attracts the crazy revenge of the Hu people, then what should we do. ”

What Pang Tong said was the truth, the Qin State looked extremely beautiful at this time, and Lou Fu and the Xiongnu competed to pay tribute to the Qin State, and did not dare to offend the Qin State. However, the Northern Army was undoubtedly fierce at this time, although it had restored the establishment under the command of Meng Tian, but it only had an army of less than 40,000, and most of them were new soldiers of the Zhao people. If Kun Mo, the king of Lou Fu, made up his mind to strike a blow, the Qin army would have to abandon the Jiuyuan Prefecture and retreat into the Great Wall no matter what.

But Wang Qi is a good person, and his heart is already bright, and he guessed that Kun Mo must be trying to test Qin Guo's reaction by taking advantage of this incident. If he swallows his anger, then he will inevitably become more aggressive and aggressive: on the contrary, if he fights back strongly, he will be indecisive and dare not tear his face with Qin State.

So Wang Qi didn't pay any attention to Pang Tong's advice, but pushed him away with one hand, and roared with wide eyes; "Bypass, are you the boss or I am the boss, if you say more, I will behead you for disobeying the military order."

Pang Tong saw that he didn't seem to be joking, so he had no choice but to dodge and get out of the way. Wang Qifei got on his horse and rushed out of the city with the assembled seven thousand iron horsemen, causing the unprepared Lou Fu army to launch a fierce attack.

Mu Chijian's Qin army suddenly killed, and couldn't help but be stunned there, and it took a long time to come to his senses, and he hurriedly ordered to flee for his life in a panic. Wang Qi didn't chase far away, but hung far away until Lou Annoying left.

After returning to the city, Wang Qi did not give up, but gathered all the available soldiers in the four counties of the north, and asked the people to put on battle armor and pretend to be sergeants in the army, and gathered a vast "army" of nearly 100,000 all the way north, until the annoying Wang Court of Lou stopped. In the name of the Son of Heaven of Qin, he summoned Kun Mo, the king of Loufu, to come to the alliance.

Seeing that the Qin army reacted so strongly, Kun Mo was full of doubts in his heart, so he personally led an army of 80,000 to the south to meet with him. The meeting was only when Kun Mo saw that the Qin army's banner armor was in order, and Wang Qi's attitude was extremely tough, and there seemed to be no opportunity to take advantage of it, so he gave up and stopped doing his thoughts.

With the influx of refugees, the northern land has accepted nearly 400,000 Huns to defect, and Wang Qi's meager military rations will soon be exhausted, and the documents urging grain and grass are submitted to the imperial court almost every day. At this time, in Xianyang, there was only a small amount of grain left to supply the army for January.

Ying Ke, who was in charge of the DPRK, thought about it again and again, discussed it with Prime Minister Sun Hong and other ministers, and decided to temporarily transfer the surplus grain to the north to help these herdsmen who defected to the Qin State. At the same time, Shaofu Zongze was dispatched, and he personally went to Qi to explain the key points to Han Xin.