Thirty miles north of Yuancheng, where the battlefield of the two sides was located at the beginning of spring, the abandoned trenches and horse traps and the defective wooden city towers formed a weak defensive line, barely protecting more than 4,000 people inside.

The young and strong among the common people were armed with heavy weapons that had not yet been destroyed, water and food were extremely scarce, there were so many arrows that they could be used to burn wood for heating, and there were also a considerable number of strong bows and crossbows, which was also part of the reason why they were able to face the grassland people with a full force of 10,000 people to support them until now.

Ji Tingxian, who was tall and long-faced, stood on the wooden tower that everyone had erected and looked out, less than two miles away, the barbarians actually had the momentum of starting to set up camp, and the crude tents were set up one after another, and there were even people who took off their leather armor and roasted mutton on the bonfire, and the smell of meat wafted from afar, and the people in the camp secretly swallowed their saliva.

"General, be careful of the barbarian's bow and arrow!" shouted the soldier downstairs of the wooden tower, "More than ten brothers were hit with arrows when we were on the high ground yesterday, and they were all in the throat, so the general should be careful!"

The barbarian's archery skills were terrifying to the generals of Da Yao, and the arrows sharpened by the wild artemisia could not penetrate the armor of the armor, but the horse archers with excellent archery skills could even seal the throat with an arrow from a hundred paces away.

Yao people did not know that in the steppe, the children of the barbarians had to carry small bows and arrows to shoot wild mice since they were five years old, and they could not go home to eat if they could not shoot the number, and when they were older, they would shoot marmots and hares on horses, and the outstanding people could even shoot the slippery foxes and vigorous yellow sheep, and the sharpshooters who were one in a hundred miles could even shoot down the goshawks in the sky.

Rao is body is covered with three layers of heavy armor, as the leader of more than 4,000 people, Ji Tingxian, the captain of Fangma Guan, did not dare to use his throat to test the barbarian's bow and arrow, and saw clearly the distribution of those tents and men and horses, so he climbed down from the wooden tower, and two personal soldiers supported him.

"How many times have you said that Lao Tzu is a captain!" he yelled at the two soldiers beside him, making a gesture to fight, and saw that the face of the soldier next to him was cut by a flying arrow, and he grinned when he spoke, so he didn't have a hand, and just shook it.

With the remnants of the retreat from Fangma Pass, it was a helpless move, the nearby passes have fallen one after another, in the last time to set off a fire but did not get a response, Ji Tingxian with the remnants of more than 1,200 soldiers in Fangma Pass tried to take advantage of the night to retreat south, halfway twice encountered the barbarian rangers, reluctantly repulsed, but the number of wounded more than 100 people, the lightly injured people who could still walk were brought, and the seriously injured had nowhere to be treated, so they could only stay in the distance, give him a knife and three days of food.

"Our food can last for three days at most, and the water is okay, and these days the people have dug a well, and they can save and deal with it. The small official in charge of the military quartermaster and Ji Tingxian, who came to inspect, complained, "There are more than a dozen people who have been stealing grain in the past few days, and they are almost on the table to rob them openly. ”

If it is a sergeant who steals grain, he can be dealt with by military law, and he should be beheaded and whipped, and he will not be tolerated, but they are all ordinary people, including old and young women and children, and the little officials have nothing to do, so they have to pay the grain and return it to the warehouse.

"Take out all the food and make decent meals for the evening. Ji Tingxian saw the granary that was about to bottom out, and said with a sigh.

"Lord Lieutenant.... It's finally time to break through? ”

After being silent for a long time, Ji Tingxian still didn't open his mouth to answer this little official in charge of the warehouse, relying on more than 1,000 soldiers who were mostly young and strong people and dragging thousands of people, even if he was lucky enough to tear a hole, and before he could run a few miles, the barbarian cavalry casually took out a thousand people to catch up and slash and kill, how many of the thousands of people could survive?

"The reinforcements are almost here, and when the time comes, they will all be riveting, and they will kill the barbarians inside and outside without leaving a piece of armor, and they will swagger back to the city. ”

This is Ji Tingxian himself also feels that it is too false to speak, and this kind of relief can also coax children who have never seen the world, and the city is thirty miles away, standing at the head of the city, maybe you can see this camp, if you want to come to help, you will come early!

However, this dutiful little official who managed the warehouse seemed to be greatly relieved, "Since the captain has said so, then his subordinates will move all the grain out, the oats have long been eaten, the horse grass is limited, and the remaining dozens of military horses are also so thin that they can't carry people, so it's better to slaughter them all together, and give some to the people..."

"Boiled into soup, each person can probably get a bowl. Ji Tingxian responded to the little official's proposal with a wry smile, but he didn't object, "First divide the wounded, then the sergeant and the old and the young, the men who are not sick and refuse to go into battle, no matter what." ”

The little official had no objection, and walked a few steps quickly to beckon his men to carry the grain out.

"It's all these things. Ji Tingxian looked at the grain poured out of the sack, his face was extremely bad, where is this food for people to eat, he grabbed a handful, the bran fed to the pigs was mixed with sawdust and there was probably a little stick noodles, this is the military food of Jinzhou?!

The small official in charge of the military quartermaster commanded the people to carry the grain, and when he saw Ji Tingxian's face, he explained, "The stored grain has become such a thing a few months ago, but fortunately, the border pass has enough grain, and the old grain is eaten first, but it is still all serious grain, Lord Lieutenant, it was like this as early as when the horse was released." ”

Ji Tingxian just wanted to have a seizure, but he was choked back by the words of the little official, this was the case a few months before the release of the horse pass, he was unaware of it, and he, the captain of the horse pass, was inevitably too incompetent.

"Let's make it all into cakes, and this coarse cake with horse broth is a good meal. ”

The freshly baked cakes and horse broth were sent to Ji Tingxian's case, and the little official didn't know what tricks he used, but he actually conjured a stack of fragrant white flour cakes, and the horse broth was full of good meat.

There is also a pot of wine on his desk, Ji Tingxian sent the mouth of the pot to his nose to smell it, it is not a good wine for aging, but it is not in vain to go to the world to drink such a pot of wine before the decisive battle.

Breaking the cake and dipping it in the broth to send it to the stomach, the horse meat stewed in the big pot was also sweet, and after drinking all the wine in the pot in one gulp, Ji Tingxian straightened out the armor on his body, pulled out the short saber on his waist, and then the reflection of the blade scraped the messy beard.

After a few years as a soldier, he finally got to the position of the chief of the first pass, and before he could sit in peace for a few years, the barbarian came, but it was a pity that he bought the industries in Fangmaguan.

He went out of his tent, and the soldiers guarding the tent put down the bowl in his hand and followed behind him with a knife.

In the camp are the places where the people stay, most of these are military dependents in the border pass and tuntian, and there are very few people from nearby villages and towns, who are greedy for their homeland and have not been able to leave for a long time, and when they see the rangers of the steppe people, it is already late, but they are not driven out of everything, but are gradually driven to one place.

Men, women, and children all held bowls, and lined up in front of several cauldrons, and sergeants with knives stood by the pots, and if there were young men who did not lack arms and legs and wanted to sneak into the ranks with bowls, these sergeants would go forward and pull them out one by one.

Seeing that the people who received the food were all holding dishes and chopsticks, and did not speak, they did not care to stuff the bread in their mouths, and did not chew much, and after chewing two bites, they could drink the horse broth.

Everyone tried their best to stuff something into their mouths, after all, it was a day when they didn't know where the next meal was, and it was a great thing to have something to eat, and where to take care of what it was like.

"General!General!" Although Ji Tingxian said that he had never seen anyone coming, he knew that it was his own personal soldier when he thought about it with his toes, and when he couldn't tell him again that he was not a general, he was interrupted by the personal soldier with a happy face, "General!

"Where did the reinforcements come from...."The words revealed Ji Tingxian's true thoughts, but after a while, he came back to his senses, "Why don't you take this captain to see it!"

On the wooden tower, he climbed to the highest place, and also brought a copper-skinned shield to block the arrows, and saw that the white tents of the southern barbarian cavalry were already in flames, and people in different clothes were fighting with the cavalry who hurriedly got on the horse, and often could use many incredible means, and the weapons were not the same, one person could fight three or five barbarians alone or even more, and there were even more brave people, and they could kill a bloody road with the strength of one person. The swarming barbarians are still unstoppable.

"So much.... Jianghu martial arts?" Ji Tingxian was shocked by this scene, hundreds of Jianghu people appeared on the battlefield to kill the enemy together, in the battle with the barbarians for the first time there was a one-sided battle situation, the old saying of riding three steps can not be fulfilled in the martial arts who can not be calculated by common sense, seeing that there is no hope of holding the camp, hundreds of cavalry avoided the edge of these Jianghu martial artists, and slowly retreated to the northwest.

Immediately after that, he saw that the Chengjian cavalry, which was already very rare in Jinju, had cleared a passage and came out, and Ji Tingxian roared for those people to throw away their stupid luggage and travel south.

As soon as the people, who were still waiting for a bowl of food, heard that the siege had been lifted, they all rushed to the south after the emptiness.

"In the decentralization of Captain Maguan, Ji Tingxian. Seeing that most of the people rushed out, Ji Ting stepped forward and saluted the tall and thin officer who led the cavalry, "Thank you, Your Excellency, for leading the army to come to the rescue." ”

"General Jinju's staff officer, Zhang Ziwen. The officer on the horse also saluted, "Captain Ji, please urge these people to walk faster, if most of the barbarian cavalry knows the depth of our people, as soon as the team arrives, everyone will not be able to leave." ”

"And you shouldn't be thankful, the order you gave was to save people, but you have to protect the main force of this cavalry army, and it is those Jianghu people who really die hard. ”

Ji Tingxian looked in the direction of his horsewhip, and the people in the rivers and lakes covered in blood were also retreating southward, the wounded were supporting each other, and the living people of the same door were carrying the dead on their backs.

A young man was the last to go, rummaging through the pile of corpses, as if recognizing his fellow disciples, and then carrying the unspeakable corpse trampled by the horse's hooves, and silently returned south.