The Han people in Hexi hope to be tied to the isolated city of Yumen, and the defenders of Yumen Pass hope to be tied to the reinforcements in Lanzhou. Reinforcements from Lanzhou are trudging through the desert.

With the blazing sun on his head and the dazzling quicksand when he looked down, Wu Yingying felt a fainting, and when his body was about to fall to the ground, Yu Furen helped him beside him, and asked with concern: "My lord, you better drink a little water first." After speaking, he took off a bag of water from his saddle and handed it to Wu Yingying.

Wu Yingying licked his chapped lips, firmly pushed the water bladder away, and said in a hoarse voice: "All the soldiers and soldiers of the army have their own share of food and water, except for the wounded and sick, this is the rule." He looked back at the sergeants who were peeled off by the scorching sun, mustered up his strength, and said loudly: "There are still fifty miles to Juyanhai, and the hussar battalion brothers have already prepared milk wine and tea, everyone hold on, and we must not be left behind." ”

On a normal day, these words of encouragement would have won a chorus of response from the sergeants, but now there were only weak echoes, "Well said the commander!", "Let's do it hard!", "There is nothing to be afraid of on the desert march." The sparse admiration seemed to echo the leader against his will, but it highlighted the mentality of most sergeants who could talk less and save a little physical strength. However, to Wu Yingying's relief, although everyone was listless and exhausted from the long journey and the scorching sun, everyone was trying to move forward.

The thousand-mile raid in Lanzhou was quite smooth, and all the way was under the cover and vigilance of the hussar battalion detachment. All the sergeants had experience in long-distance marching, and every day they set out at dawn, resting every 20 miles during the day, until the sun went down and camping to rest, and the sergeants in the tent practiced martial arts for a while under the supervision of the centurion before going to sleep, and the centurion and ten-captain reported to the camp every day the use of marching materials.

After entering the Badain Jaran Desert, there was a little problem with the planning of the march route and the carrying of fresh water. In the past, the water at the several water intake points commonly used by the Lanzhou caravans was too small, and could only meet the needs of nearly half of the people and horses in Lanzhou. The march of a large army in the desert was a disaster, all the water sources along the way were taken until they dried up, the oases through which the army passed were all plucked with edible plants such as sand onions and sedges, and the livestock carried with the army gnawed the meadows and bushes into almost a bare white field.

Is the desertification so serious in the northwest in later generations related to the several major wars recorded in history? The catastrophic damage to the oasis ecology by the war is almost irreversible, especially the oasis agriculture in the Western Regions, the original natural ecology has been replaced by man-made agricultural ecology, once the key element of human society in this ecosystem is destroyed, the agricultural ecological balance maintained by human digging channels to divert water and planting food and fruit trees is broken, and the oasis is becoming increasingly barren and desert.

Wu Yingying forced himself to think about these distant things, trying to hold back the feeling of thirst, the endurance of modern people is not as good as that of an ordinary person who struggles on the verge of life and death every day in this era.

Suddenly, a sergeant shouted, "Water, I see water!" It was not the first time that all the sergeants had walked this road, and they didn't bother to raise their heads, and some people even laughed: "Your turtle son is hot and dizzy, there are still fifty miles away from Juyanhai, and there is only quicksand everywhere here, where..."

Wu Yingying noticed that the speed of the army's march suddenly slowed down, his face sank, and when he looked up, he saw a blue lake embedded in the yellow desert like a green jewel, the lake was rippling, the shrubs on the lakeside were overgrown, the breeze blew the reeds and grass, startled pieces of birds, like a fairyland.

"It's a mirage. "Yu Furen track," I also heard the elders of the clan talk about it, but I didn't expect to see it today. ”

But ordinary sergeants did not have such insight as him, some people thought that they had encountered the legendary fairy mountain, and they fell to the ground excitedly, and some people thought that they had entered the demon realm, their faces were pale, and they kept muttering prayers and praying to the gods they believed in, and some people almost couldn't help but run over to get water. If it weren't for the strict discipline of the Lanzhou army to the point of harshness, the marching queue would have almost been chaotic at this time.

Wu Yingying knew that he was not to blame for his self-defeat, the principle of this mirage could not be explained to the sergeants for a while, he only smiled and enjoyed the rare beauty, and even forgot to be thirsty, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that the lake and sand dunes seemed to have been seen somewhere.

The breeze gently blows, and the scenery of the mirage in the distance is like a wrinkled ripple on the surface of the water blown by the wind, gently fluctuating, and like a huge canopy hanging in front of it, changing different scenery.

Suddenly, a lot of figures appeared in the mirage, all of them were dressed up as Han people, helping the old and the young, dragging the family with their mouths, some leading mules and horses, some pushing the common chicken carts in the Central Plains, men with daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law with children, at a glance it was the fleeing crowd. These people were hustly huddling in front of a magnificent city pass, and it was vaguely seen that some old men were still pleading with the officers and soldiers guarding the city, but there was no response. The people outside the city kept looking in the direction of the escape, as if they were really afraid of something. Suddenly, the crowd of people who had been in the rules of the year was in a commotion, pushing and shoving towards the city gate, and many middle-aged men cursed, and some even took out their bows and arrows and made a gesture to shoot towards the city.

Just when the situation was inextricable, a row of crossbow arrows suddenly shot down from the city, shooting the people near the city gate to death, and immediately scattered the crowd rushing forward, although the sound could not be heard, but from the people panicked and retreated, ran back, and trampled on each other's actions, the city gate must be crying at the moment The sound of crying father and mother. The people fled near the city gates, but they were reluctant to leave the gates, and they all wandered helplessly beyond the range of the crossbows at the head of the city.

Seeing that the people were so miserable, Wu Yingying said in his heart that these people were dressed in Han family clothes, and they must have encountered some kind of chaos, but the city they wanted to take refuge in was not allowed to enter. He turned his head to look inquiringly at Yu Furen, and saw that he was also engrossed in looking at the mirage in the distance.

Suddenly, the scenery in the mirage changed again, a Biao Uighur cavalry overwhelmingly came from a distance, as soon as they saw the large group of Han Chinese gathered outside the city pass, they all increased the speed of their horses, opened a large cavalry net, as if driving cattle and sheep on the grassland, drove the people outside the city more and more concentrated, occasionally Han people took out bows and arrows to resist, either by the galloping cavalry to the ground, or by several arrows. Even Hermes-Epitek, who did not resist, ran a little slower, and was knocked to the ground by the horses with a huge momentum, and died in the yellow sand. Eventually, all the fleeing people were gathered together and forced by the Uighur cavalry to turn back and forth.

The sergeants were immersed in the scene when a gust of wind blew, and the mirage dissipated. Many people were angry and angry, scolding and scolding, Wu Yingying suddenly remembered in his heart, turned his head to look at Yu Furen, Yu Furenliang saw his inquiring gaze, and confirmed in a deep voice: "That city is Dunhuang." He led the army to escort caravans between Dunhuang and Lanzhou many times, and although the banner at the head of the city could not be seen clearly, he could clearly recognize it from the shape of the city. Although Yu Furen is of Tuhun blood, he has lived in the Central Plains for many years, married to the Han people for generations, and has long been inseparable from the Han people in his heart.