And two hundred miles north of the round city, outside the pass, Huangyangyuan.

From the gate tower of the Yellow Sheep Pass to the north, this grassland undulating soft like the back of the Yellow Sheep, hence the name, the bold herdsmen of the grassland people covet the abundance of this water and grass, and set up their tents to the place less than five miles away from the gate, which is a distance that can be reached by a trot of horses.

The soldiers on duty at the border were often seen waving the herdsman's daughter on horseback on horseback, and the snow-white lambs surrounded her, and the brave ones were not afraid of the whipping of the captain of the Yellow Sheep Pass, and they also had to whistle to the north.

Whenever the herdsman's daughter shyly turned her horse's head and drove the sheep to the north, there would be a burst of laughter from the gate tower of Huangyang Pass.

The heavily armored general ascended the gate tower, and the guards beside him cleared a way for him from the various ordnance and miscellaneous items that defended the city.

However, since the Huangyang Pass was broken in the spring of last year, this is the first time that the Yao people have climbed the city wall of the Huangyang Pass, the battlements are full of arrow marks and knife marks, as well as the gray and black of smoke and fire, Rao is the personal soldiers have washed once before going to the city, and the dried and blackened blood stains can still be seen in the cracks of the city bricks, which is enough to show how tragic the battle of the siege of the city in the spring is.

"General, fifty miles further forward in the Yellow Sheep Plain in the north, you can find scattered rangers, these barbarians have just gone through a big battle in the spring, and they abandoned this Yellow Sheep Pass not long ago and retreated north, but they have not retreated far. The tall and thin staff officer beside him is the duty is the matter of these geographical retreats, and he spread out a map next to the general wearing a mask armor, "My southern camp is only fifty miles away from Huangyang Pass, and half of the scouts have already been scattered, and the movement of the barbarians with wind blowing and tall grass can't escape their eyes." ”

"It's all sprinkled out, Huangyang is not a flat river that looks dozens of miles, even if it is hundreds of scouts to go in, it won't help at all. ”

The tall and thin staff officer saw the general lying on the map very indecently and looking at it carefully, so he also lay down, "General, the emperor's battle in Yuancheng this spring, although it is the result of both defeats, but in the final analysis, it is more difficult for the vitality of the barbarians to recover, the imperial court is now waving his hand in various states, and he can make up 200,000 people casually, but the elite cavalry of all the tribes on the grassland lost more than half of the battle in the north of the city, how to see that the victory and defeat on the board are between five and five, why the emperor..."

He didn't say any more, for the general was looking at his face through the armor.

The people of the Central Plains laughed at them and called these people who wrapped themselves in fur and sheltered their bodies, herded cattle and sheep to survive, and drank blood.

There was not a single city in the steppe, the tribes divided the pastures according to their population and power, and all the barbarians pitched their tents around their cattle and sheep. The poorest land in Jiangzhou can sow two crops of rice, while in the north, even in the southernmost Huangyang Plain, only one season of millet can be ripened in a year.

In the event of a bad year, the nobles on the steppe can still eat lambs and drink milk, the poor herdsmen and slaves even have to take the oats that the wild mice and horses eat to feed their stomachs, and all the cattle and sheep that a herdsman depends on for a living can be frozen to death in one winter, not to mention the slaves who do not have a horse and a precious horse, these desperate people can only go south in groups, and when they starve to death and die at the hands of the Yao people, many barbarians choose the latter to fight for that line of life.

It was rumored that the towns of the south were full of gold and light silk, and that the flesh and skin of women were smoother than silk, and that the gold and silver of an ordinary shop were equal to all the fortunes of the great nobles, and that all these nerves were stimulated by the hunger of the green eyes, so they took the big stick of the horse and sharpened the rusty iron knife and rode south.

Since the people of the steppe don't care whether they live or die, they go to find a way to live themselves.

However, most of these longing steppe people were strangled by the cavalry of the Dayao border pass, and these rogues who did not even have a few bows and arrows did not even have the bow and horse that the barbarians were good at, and the slaves who could only ride a horse for the first time in a few days could not even release the reins on their horses and swing their swords, and the weapons in their hands could not break through the fine armor of the Dayao cavalry, and the Yao people even put armor on their horses! This made many herdsmen who were still wearing kudzu cloth clothes envious, and they died unwillingly on the way south, and their heads were cut off and brought back to the border army camp to exchange for silver.

The rest of the people were lucky enough to escape the strangulation by the Dayao border cavalry nicknamed the winter hunt to the territory of Yao, the city protected by the city wall could not be attacked, these rogues had to loot the weak villages and towns that could not defend themselves, Rao is so, many people's income has far exceeded the pre-estimate, if you can escape the pursuit of the state army and the border army, and return to the grassland smoothly with the wealth obtained, the surviving people brought back the silk silk gold and jade is enough to make all the nobles see the red.

When these slaves and herdsmen stood side by side with the nobles of the steppe by virtue of the wealth they brought back from the south, the nobles who had been enjoying roast lamb and mare's milk wine in the big tent saw the silk, gold and silver on the clothes of these people, and their eyes were blushing, and they were also moved to the south to plunder.

The border cavalry is no longer against the herdsmen and slaves who can't eat enough, the barbarian cavalry wearing raw cowhide armor shoots the wolf's tooth arrows made of wild artemisia to the throat of the Dayao cavalry without armor, and then brandishes the saber and stares at the rain of arrows and roars towards the Dayao cavalry that the formation began to scatter, the cavalry who are accustomed to strangling herdsmen and slaves have never seen the real barbarian cavalry, and the steppe horses that are one head higher than their mounts rushed into the formation effortlessly, and the knives of the barbarian cavalry on horseback slashed through the throats of one person after another.

"The budget of the Ministry of Households, if the war is corrupted until this summer, the expenditure of grain, grass and reserve troops will cost the treasury a whole year of tax revenue for the next year. The general, who always has more than one sentence and one less sentence on weekdays, unexpectedly answered the staff officer's question, "And this year, there are signs of spring famine in Jiangzhou, and all the ministers in the court are worried about the emperor's Northern Expedition with all his might, even if he and the barbarians have a superior victory, the barbarians win, and the court's income is limited, if it is really defeated." ”

The general categorically said a number: "Ten years, ten years, the northern states will be allowed to come and go by the barbarian cavalry, and Da Yao cannot afford to take such a risk." ”

The staff officer was also terrified, he was not unaware of the news of the spring famine in Jiangzhou, but this Jiangzhou, which has always been rich enough to overpower nearly half of Dayao's taxes with the financial resources of a state, seems to be in people's inherent impression that there will never be a famine.

In the fifth year of Emperor Dayao Lie, the spring cold on the grassland, which was rare in a hundred years, froze to death the cattle and sheep of almost the entire tribe and the entire tribe, and the herdsmen and slaves who did not have warm tents also froze to death and suffered a considerable number of frostbite, and the nobles with a population of hundreds of families under their hands could no longer receive support from the herdsmen, and the nobles who were once high and high also fell into the predicament of not having enough to eat, so they had to follow the example of those herdsmen and slaves and set their sights on the south.

The first to be breached was the Yellow Sheep Pass, a low-walled pass that was held for five days under the siege of 20,000 slaves and herdsmen, and the 769 soldiers who were garrisoned in the city, including a lieutenant and two lieutenants, died in battle, buying time for the army that rushed to Jinju to breathe and gain a foothold.

"In this battle, Da Yao suffered more than 40,000 casualties, and even the Imperial Forest Army and Jin Wuwei who guarded the capital had varying attrition, and the cavalry of the barbarians was less than an arrow away from the emperor. The general straightened up from the map and looked north, "The emperor's ambition to march north has not diminished, and the ministers in the capital are all terrified... ，”

"General, General. The staff officer nearby lowered his voice and looked left and right, and saw that the guards were dozens of steps away, so he breathed a sigh of relief, "General, have you heard that the dead soldiers sent by the imperial court to the generals outside are not only guards, but if there are bad remarks, they must be recorded and reported to the emperor." ”

The general under the mask seemed to smile: "You are not the dead soldier who guarded me, where will anyone complain to the ministers about my misfortune? Before you came to be a staff officer, the imperial court was afraid that even the eight generations of your ancestors had found out what they were doing, but your father, who was a dart leader in the army and the dart bureau, asked you to study, why did you come to the army to be a staff officer again?"

The slender and yellow staff officer pulled the loose light armor on his body, and rolled up his sleeves to reveal an arm like a hemp rod, "If these thin arms and thin legs really go to the army, they are not for the barbarians to be cut and killed casually, and their subordinates have read many military books, just thinking that one day they can help our Dayao have a better chance of winning on the battlefield." ”

"This winter, the barbarian cavalry will inevitably appear under the walls of Huangyang Pass. The general looked at a few black spots on the snowfield in the distance, and said indifferently, "The emperor's army has returned to the capital to rest, and there are only 2,000 cavalry left in the Jinju field battle, and they are not the opponents of a thousand horse herdsmen." ”

The staff officer was worried about the remaining military strength of Jinzhou, "There are four battalions in Jinzhou, east, west, north and south, and the northern battalion has been flattened by the northern barbarians, and the remaining three battalions have less than 10,000 soldiers in each battalion. ”

There are horns sounding in the military camps in Huangyang Pass, it is a daily drill that cannot be moved, the staff officers look under the city wall, a few breaths of time, the armored soldiers hold spears and swords in their hands into formation.

He is a scholar who can only talk on paper, and he can't lead the army to kill the enemy in person, so he can only serve as a staff officer behind the general's horse, but he also hopes that one day he can go into battle to kill the enemy.

Husband Xu Guo is really lucky.