() Bollinger Pass, the castle guard.

Xu Shouyi, the city guard who was slightly shorter, was sitting in the hall worriedly at the moment, thinking about whether the news about the imminent attack of the Atterbury Kingdom that had been circulating in the city recently was true or false.

Originally, I thought that the convening of the "Youth Martial Arts Competition" would allow me to spend this winter with peace of mind. Next year, a new castle guard will take his place. And after the age of sixties, his temples have long been gray, he can retire and go home, end his nearly forty-year military career, and spend his old age in peace.

At this moment, Xu Shouyi remembered the scene when he left the village to go to the capital of the kingdom to serve in the military. Although his wife was not a beauty, she was also gentle and considerate. Since marrying herself, she has given birth to a son and a daughter for two years, and her life can be regarded as happy.

But that year, there was a big flood, and Xu Shouyi's family, who lived on the edge of Luoshui, including the village where they lived, were washed away by the flood. In order to survive and pay off the debts owed for building a house, Xu Shouyi went to Kefield to enlist in the army, just because he served in the army, he could get five silver coins every month.

At that time, Carroll and Atterbury were constantly clashing on the border, and although the scale of the war was small, it was quite frequent. So much so that it was called "the war of the old donkey" by the then King Carol. That war lasted for ten years. And Xu Shouyi was also promoted from an ordinary soldier to a partial general of the kingdom, and none of his comrades-in-arms who enlisted with him and were assigned to a squad returned alive from the battlefield.

With his rich combat experience and the deepening of his seniority in the army, at the age of fifty-two, Xu Shouyi was appointed as the city guard of Bollinger Pass. And holding such a high position in the kingdom as a commoner is also very rare in the more than 100-year history of the kingdom.

Although Xu Shouyi has already become a viscount by the king, he can be regarded as a nobleman. But he still retains the characteristics of a civilian. Whether it is food or clothing, Xu Shouyi is exactly the same as his subordinates. Therefore, in the army, Xu Shouyi has quite high prestige.

Xu Shouyi also differed from other nobles in that his son did not enter politics or the army like the children of other nobles, but became an ordinary peasant in his father's fief, and as for his daughter, she was also married to a commoner's descendant.

Xu Shouyi often asks himself, if it weren't for the flood back then, he should be an ordinary old man now, hugging his grandson in his backyard (his only grandson Xu Ruoyu is already a teenage boy this year), basking in the sun and enjoying the joy of family. Perhaps, that is the life I yearn for. This is also the reason why I let my son be an ordinary person at home.

"City guard, scouts have been dispatched, and it is estimated that there will be definite news back tomorrow morning!"

A shrewd-looking, fair-faced young man hurried into the hall. After reporting the task assigned by the city guard, he stood aside with his hands down.

"Very good!" Xu Shouyi bowed his head and pondered for a moment, and his old voice sounded again, "Have you ever investigated where the news came from?"

"It has been investigated, and it seems to have spread from an ordinary restaurant in the city, but it is not known exactly from whose mouth it came from. However, there is no wind and no waves, and this time our country has held a 'youth martial arts competition,' which is indeed a good opportunity to launch a surprise attack! The subordinates believe that the news of Atbury's raid on Bollinger Pass has great credibility. I have ordered the city gates to be placed under martial law, and a single person passing by is checked. ”

"Good!"

Xu Shouyi is very satisfied with the efficiency of young people.

"Order the city gate to be closed, from now until the end of the 'Youth Martial Arts Competition', no one is allowed to let go of a person or a rider without my warrant, and those who violate the order will be punished according to military law!"

After giving a command, Xu Shouyi leaned his whole body into his seat again, closed his eyes and said nothing. The young man who had been standing quietly had also left in a hurry.

As night fell, Xu Shouyi sat alone in the backyard of the City Shoufu. The November night is already a little chilly, and the weather in late autumn is already very noticeable.

Looking at the few dead leaves on the trees around him, Xu Shouyi began to sigh in his heart about the passage of time. What about the enthusiasm of the year? What about the pride that traveled on the battlefield? I may have entered the late autumn of my life just like this weather.

The comrades-in-arms and brothers who once fought side by side seemed to appear in front of them one by one.

Alas, all gone, all gone. Look at yourself, your temples are already gray, and the years have mercilessly left its marks on your face.

I thought of those bloody days again, and I thought of the enemies and comrades-in-arms who fell in front of me and around me. They are all the same bright red blood, and they are all young and passionate and hopeful lives.

War, what is war? is a devil that devours young lives.

Xu Shouyi, who had been in the army for nearly forty years, seemed to be disgusted with this thing that brought him status, status, and glory in an instant.

The rain began to fall from the endless night sky, bringing a chill with it.

Xu Shouyi didn't move a bit, and let his clothes gradually get wet.

I remember that it was also such a night, such a thin and dense rain, for forty years. That night was Xu Shouyi's first contact with war. A squad of about fifty soldiers was stationed in a small valley, and they were the scout detachment responsible for pathfinding. This is the most dangerous errand in the army, but Xu Shouyi still resolutely signed up. The squad, with the exception of him, were all veterans with considerable combat experience.

When he was on the road, Xu Shouyi was still thinking about the reward of the three silver coins he could receive when he came back. But the harsh reality really taught me a lesson about what war is all about.

The bowl, shortly after they were stationed, they met the main force of the enemy.

The sound of horses' hooves that makes the earth tremble breaks the silence of a rainy night. The veterans quickly gathered their equipment and observed the surrounding terrain as they prepared to evacuate to the highlands and dense forests to the right. Because there it was possible to limit the speed of the cavalry and facilitate their escape. But Xu Shouyi, who had no combat experience, was stunned in place, because he had been stunned by the momentum of the countless enemy horses that appeared in Taniguchi.

That is, because of his own delay, the entire team failed to hide in the first time and fell into the enemy's layers of encirclement. Blood mixed with rain splashed around him, and at that moment, Xu Shouyi's entire head was blank, and he just stood in place stunned.

That situation would be unimaginable for someone who had not experienced war. On the battlefield, anything that moves will be the target of the opponent's attack. Raise the weapon in your hand and slash it down with all your might, stabbing the person who is different from his own clothes from the horse. The endless repetition of the same action can even make you feel numb and realize that you are chopping nothing more than some lifeless wood. Everyone who is immersed in the scene will fall into a semi-crazy situation, and completely destroying the enemy in front of them becomes the only thing that can be done and must be done at this moment.

In this short moment, neither the enemy nor the enemy nor the belligerents noticed the soldier who was standing silently. However, the cavalry that arrived later did not ignore Xu Shouyi. A war horse rushed towards Xu Shouyi like a fly, and the enemy on the horse had already raised the weapon in his hand and was ready to send the dumbfounded enemy in front of him back to his hometown. And Xu Shouyi was still in a trance, unaware that death was only one step away from him.

The enemy's sword was about to pierce Xu Shouyi's chest, when a comrade-in-arms on the side suddenly jumped over and threw him to the ground, and the two of them hugged each other and rolled into the grass on the side.

The moment he fell to the ground, countless weapons fell on him and his comrade-in-arms. The sharp pain like being pierced through the heart made Xu Shouyi wake up and understand that he was now on the battlefield.

"Go back and see for me!"

These were the last words that the comrade-in-arms said to himself.

Both of them were covered in blood, and they didn't know how many swords they had received, but the fatal sword that was supposed to be stabbed in Xu Shouyi's chest was blocked by him. Blood poured out from his chest and the corners of his mouth, and only then did Xu Shouyi truly understand the cruelty and ruthlessness of war.

With a wound on his back, Xu Shouyi rushed into the battlefield like a mad tiger. For a time, the enemy's cavalry turned on their backs, and he cut down three people with stabs, and when his comrades-in-arms saw it, they also killed him in unison.

There was only a small road in the middle of the valley that was only wide enough for three horsemen to walk in parallel, and on both sides was a sloppy forest area, which was not conducive to the march of the cavalry. It was precisely by relying on such terrain that the enemy's cavalry fighting in front of Xu Shouyi would never exceed thirty, and due to the narrowness of the road, it fell into a rather chaotic situation, and could not give full play to the overall combat capability of the cavalry.

But after a day of marching on foot, the members of Xu Shouyi's team were already quite tired, and at this moment they faced countless enemy horses, and the casualties were quite heavy. In just a few minutes, there were only more than ten people who could still fight, including Xu Shouyi, and about eighty percent of them were killed or wounded.

And just when everyone gathered around Xu Shouyi, two more companions fell in a pool of blood, and at this moment, Xu Shouyi also cut down one of the enemy's cavalry. The look of horror and despair on the face of the cavalryman was suddenly deeply embedded in Xu Shouyi's mind, and Xu Shouyi's spirit, which had already fallen into a chaotic situation, collapsed at once, and the sword in his hand also fell to the ground, and a desperate roar made both the enemy and us stunned for a moment. Just when he couldn't tell the difference between east and west, north and south, he was pushed onto an enemy's war horse by his companions, and the captain, who was already covered in blood, stabbed the war horse with his sword, and the horse carried Xu Shouyi to the other side of the valley and galloped away.

By the time Xu Shouyi understood what was going on and turned his head to look back, the only remaining seven companions had died heroically under the attack of the archers transferred by the enemy.

In that battle, because of the exposure of the enemy's position, it was ambushed by Carroll's army, and suffered heavy casualties. And Xu Shouyi also returned to the army after half a month of recuperation because of severe injuries and excessive blood loss. At this time, he realized that he had become a hero, and at the same time was appointed as the leader of a squad.

But Xu Shouyi was not as excited as he imagined, he only felt that after the tragic battle that night, his whole body became insensitive.

Since then, Xu Shouyi on the battlefield has used the sword in his hand to constantly kill the enemy, but he has never hesitated to attack the enemy. As he continued to scar and retrieve a life from the pile of dead, he was quickly promoted from squad leader to general, and became the god of war in the eyes of the devil and border soldiers who feared his enemies.