Zhao Ning led the army all the way to the north, passing through several small tribes in ten days, and the leaders of these tribes were humble when they saw the Yanmen army, and no one dared to refuse the military food requirements put forward by the Yanmen army.

The dried beef and mutton and cheese in the tribe were bought by Zhao Ning at market prices, and the soldiers were allowed to carry them with them, and they always had a seven-day ration.

As a cavalry combat unit, the soldiers of the B battalion are also equipped with one person and two horses when they go out this time, so they don't have to worry about the overburdened rations of men and horses.

Although the military rations on the seventh day were not much, as long as they did not enter the remote areas, they were enough, and with the footsteps of the cavalry, after walking for a few days, they could always encounter tribes large and small.

Even if there is an accident and the military rations are not easy to raise, the shepherds' cattle and sheep can be forcibly requisitioned.

This time, Zhao Ning's destination was the royal court of the Dadan Ministry, and the distance was not too far.

Among the four royal courts of the grassland, the distance between the Dadan Department and Yanmen Pass is the closest, and there are no other royal courts in the middle. In other words, the Dadan Department borders on Daqi.

Comparatively speaking, the Tianyuan royal court was located farther away, and the entire territory was in Mobei, and the envoy team of Charahan needed to pass through the territory of other royal courts in order to reach Yanmen Pass.

The Dadan Ministry is backed by Daqi, which is their geographical advantage, and the Tianyuan Royal Court did not make a move against the Dadan Ministry early, which is also due to this factor.

On this day, in a small tribe with only a few hundred tents (falling), after a little supply of military rations, when Zhao Ning left, he saw that the tribal leader wanted to speak and stopped, and seemed to have something unspeakable, so he cautiously asked the reason.

Although this tribe belongs to the Dadan royal court, the control of the grassland royal court over the territory is far less strong than that of the Central Plains Dynasty, and the tribe's autonomy power is very large, and correspondingly, many things must be solved by themselves.

In addition to the headquarters of the Dadan Ministry, the Dadan Royal Court is equivalent to the leader of the tribal alliance for the tribes in the other areas controlled by the Dadan Ministry.

Through the old man's cowardly explanation, Zhao Ning quickly figured out the other party's thoughts.

It turned out that more than 100 miles to the west of the tribe, on the edge of the Gobi, there was a fierce horse thief, with a number of nearly 2,000, and the leader was still a strong person in the Yuan Shen Realm, who often came to the small tribes in this area to plunder.

In the tribe of the old man, there are less than five hundred people who control the strings, and the highest cultivation is only in the late stage of the imperial qi realm, so he can't compete with the other party, and he has to give in after a while, and now he has to contribute a lot of cattle and sheep to buy peace every time.

After coming and going, the tribe that was originally relatively wealthy is now living in a very tight situation.

Survival is the law of the jungle, and this is especially evident in the grasslands. As the strength of the tribe declined, several stronger tribes in the surrounding area had begun to fight their ideas and were ready to annex them.

Once annexed, they become vassals and slaves of each other.

When he was helpless, the old man saw the Heavenly Empire soldiers led by Zhao Ning, although fear was greater than respect, but he still mustered up the courage to ask Zhao Ning if the Yanmen army could help them exterminate this horse thief.

Zhao Ning only thought about it for a while, and then agreed to the old man's request, planning to solve this group of horse thieves by the way.

There are less than two thousand horse thieves, and Zhao Ning has no intention of asking for help from Yanmen Pass, just with the thousand light horsemen under his command, he has absolute certainty to destroy the other party.

A horse thief is a thief after all, and he can bully ordinary people, and when he encounters a regular army, there is no room for them to be arrogant.

As the elite of the Yanmen Army, if the Yizi Battalion can't even deal with this single horse thief, it will be too unbearable, and the Zhao family has no face to say that he is the first general of Daqi.

Of course, Zhao Ning made this decision not to meddle in his affairs, nor to simply sympathize with the tribe.

Leaving the tribe, the team turned around and headed northwest under the guidance of the tribal guides.

Not far away, Zhao Xun asked Zhao Ning:

"Although our trip is not too urgent, it always takes a lot of effort to deal with a team of nearly 2,000 horse thieves, why did Brother Ning take this errand?"

This time Zhao Ning went out of the customs to the north, of course Zhao Beiwang and his wife couldn't help but send a master to accompany him, Zhao Xun had just walked out of the haze of life, and he was thinking about walking around and relaxing, so he chose to go with Zhao Ning.

Zhao Ning didn't answer directly, and said with a smile: "Fourth Uncle must already have an answer in his heart. ”

Zhao Xun was also not modest, and said bluntly: "Yanmen Pass has been peaceful for a long time, and the big war may come soon, before that, do you want to borrow this horse thief team to understand the real combat power of the Yanmen army?"

Zhao Ning nodded.

In fact, he also has a purpose, that is, to gather the hearts of those tribes under the control of the Dadan Ministry step by step.

Others don't know, but he knows very well that the next war with the Tianyuan Royal Court will definitely not be easy.

The Dadan Department is the only force on the grassland that has not yet been conquered by the Tianyuan Khan, so the people here are more or less close to the Yanmen army, which is conducive to the two sides fighting side by side in the future.

A day later, Zhao Ning and the others approached their destination, the mountainous area on the edge of the Gobi.

The steppe is no longer green here, and under the rolling mountains, it is the edge of the Gobi Desert, and further west it will go deep into the no-man's land. According to the guide, the den of the horse thieves was in the valley.

Zhao Ning looked at the terrain for a while, and understood very well that the horse thief chose the lair here. Because they can easily escape into the desert, they can survive even if they encounter a large group of people attacking.

As long as you are familiar with the desert to the west, it is not difficult to drag down the pursuing party.

Zhao Ning was about to send some elite scouts with good cultivation to the mountains to explore the situation and provide a basis for the next actions of the light cavalry, when he heard a strange noise in the mountains.

Because it was a little far apart, the sound was not loud, but the unique movement of the qi explosion could not be clearer, and it was as if there were cultivators fighting over there, and the cultivation was good.

The movement became louder in an instant, and the sound of people shouting and neighing came out, and the situation there seemed to be quite intense, and before Zhao Ning could think about whether to pass at this time, a crane-like chirp suddenly sounded in the valley.

It's very clear and harsh.

Immediately afterwards, the phantom of a white crane soared from the valley and emerged from a mountain, with lifelike wings spread out for a full fifty feet, which set off the whole white crane with a domineering spirit.

Seeing this huge crane, Zhao Ning's eyes lit slightly,

"Yang's 'White Crane Jue'! There are Yang's cultivators in the valley? Looking at the condensation and body shape of this crane, the cultivation of the other party's 'White Crane Jue' has been completed, and it should have reached the realm of the middle stage of the Yuan Shen Realm. ”

Zhao Xun was shocked. The family's inheritance exercises are all of good grades, and it is not easy to cultivate to Dacheng.

Zhao Ning didn't have to think about which Yang clan was here.

He's seen it.

Under the white crane, on the steep mountain, there was suddenly one more person.

The other party is tall, holding a knife in one hand, and twisting a bloody human head in the other, looking at it from a distance, it is very visually impactful, which not only looks heroic, but also gives people a lot of oppression.

The other side looked at Zhao Ning's side.

Noticing a group of Yanmen army light horses, she did not hesitate at all, and jumped down from the top of the mountain, her robe fluttering in the wind, making her look like a wild goose, and her toes borrowed strength in a few suitable places on the mountain, and glided down in a blink of an eye.

The movements are swift and full of beauty.

"It's Jiani's little girl. Zhao Xun had an appreciative smile on his face.

At this time, Zhao Ning had already seen that behind Yang Jiani, there were many elite cultivators among the horse thieves who chased them out, and seeing them waving the blades in their hands in anger and scolding, they knew that the human head in Yang Jiani's hand was not an ordinary person.

Zhao Ning immediately raised his hand, "The Yizi battalion listens to the order: the scout team goes first, occupies a high place, looks at the situation in the valley, and points out the way forward for the brigade! The brigade is advancing at full speed in a goose-shaped formation to exterminate the horse thieves in the mountains!"

Several lieutenants immediately agreed loudly, and Zhao Xun did not delay, and personally took a few strong men, and the scout team, which was all elite cultivators, flew out first, not only to meet Yang Jiani, but also to complete Zhao Ning's deployment.

The 1,000 elite riders who stopped on the side of the mountain soon set out and left in the billowing yellow smoke.

Zhao Ning himself did not move.

Those horse thieves who rushed out of the valley obviously did not expect that a large number of Yanmen army elite horsemen would suddenly rush out from the blind corner of the mountain vision, and they were panicked for a while, and they involuntarily stopped.

When the Yanmen army all rushed out from the other side of the mountain, they screamed, turned back one after another, and shouted louder to retreat into the mountain, their movements were quite flustered, and they should have gathered their men and horses.

Yang Jiani, who was in the dust, was not pretentious, and after bypassing the elite cavalry and rushing into the formation, she rushed straight to the small mountain bag where Zhao Ning was.

Looking at her sweating profusely and panting, there was a fierce battle just now, and she should have almost consumed her true qi. However, her watery and fair face, although it was full of dust and stains under the eyes, still couldn't hide her clear eyebrows.

Throwing the bearded head to the ground, Yang Jiani sat directly on a stone on the side with the Mo knife in her hand, and the posture of the big horse golden knife was very majestic.

After taking two breaths, she looked up at Zhao Ning, her big moving eyes were as clean and pure as ever, without the slightest impurity.

"How did you get here?"

"Why are you here?"

The two spoke out almost at the same time.

"You speak first. ”

"You talk about ...... first"

Zhao Ning was slightly embarrassed.

Yang Jiani didn't feel the cramped atmosphere at all, waved her big hand, motioned to Zhao Ning and others, and said first: "When I passed by the nearby tribes, I heard about this group of horse thieves, and they were idle left and right, so I came over." ”

As she spoke, she kicked her feet and stared at her eyes, "This guy is the leader of the horse thieves, and he is in the middle of the Yuan Shen Realm, but he didn't fight at all, and he died with a single knife, almost making me run for nothing." ”

Obviously, she regarded rushing into the horse thief's lair to kill the horse thief leader as a brick and stone for her cultivation, but the performance of this horse thief leader made her not satisfied.

Zhao Ning didn't know what to say. When he arrived at Yanmen Pass, Zhao Xin also said that Yang Jiani was only in the early stage of the Yuan Shen Realm, and now that he is goodbye, the other party has changed, and he is already in the middle of the Yuan Shen Realm.

It didn't feel good to him.