At this moment, on the periphery of the camp, a group of people and horses gathered together, most of these people were cavalrymen on horseback, but the weapons and equipment were different, some were wearing leather armor, some were wearing iron armor, and some were even wearing coarse cloth clothes, holding rusty iron knives in their hands. www.biquge.info There is no doubt that such a jagged cavalry is definitely not a regular army, and any mercenary or adventurer who walks the trade road all year round will know the identity of these guys at a glance.

Obviously, they are the horse thieves besieging this caravan!

Among these horse thieves, a few of the guys sitting on horseback were a little different, their posture was very calm, and their backs were straight, which was very different from those horse thieves who were loose at first glance. Each of them wore a black cloak and an iron helmet, and one in the center was riding a tall horse, and the people next to him were all bowing their heads, and this man was obviously the leader of the horse thieves.

This group of people was originally entrenched in the vicinity of the grassland trade route, and with the advantage of being numerous, there was almost nothing to threaten their existence in this area, and the situation on the border in the grassland has been relatively chaotic in recent months. In normal times, there might be a few tribes that would have banded together to send troops to clean them up on a regular basis, but now, almost no force has time to control them.

However, although the war brought short-term security, the gang of horse thieves still encountered a more troublesome situation, that is, the number of caravans was significantly reduced, and almost all the nearby tribes of all sizes had moved away! This was by no means good news for the horse thieves!

In desperation, they could only do their best to expand the area on the edge of the steppe to search for the remaining small tribes and caravans. However, in the past two months, they have hardly encountered any large-scale tribes, let alone caravans coming and going, and if they continue like this, they are afraid that they will starve to death.

If the horse thief does it to such an extent, it is estimated that he will be laughed to death by his peers......

But while the thieves were considering whether or not to change careers, the Goddess of Light didn't seem to abandon them. A day ago, the horse thieves who had gone out to patrol the surrounding area finally had good news, they had found a caravan on a mountain road in the southern Xinjiang of the Geerqin grassland!

So after half a day of observation, the horse thieves quickly figured out the general situation of this caravan, the number of caravan guards plus hired mercenaries was only forty or fifty, and the number of horse thieves accounted for almost double the advantage!

However, despite the advantage in numbers, the horse thief leader still has some concerns in his heart, after all, most of these horse thieves are actually a rabble. Although the cavalry is the majority, most of the horse thieves are not ruthless characters who lick blood all year round, but a considerable number of horse thieves are exiled herdsmen who cannot survive on the grassland or exiles from Moxi, and there are even deserters from the east. Most of these horses were snatched or stolen from some weak tribes on the edge of the grassland, and the actual combat effectiveness of the cavalry was not very strong. It was all thanks to his own careful planning and slow accumulation that he had today's power.

However, the leader of the horse thieves was indeed reluctant to attack the caravans along the way, and there was naturally a reason for this. But although these hundred or so people followed him for a short time, after all, it was also the team he had accumulated little by little, and if he dispersed like this, he would definitely be the first to be unwilling. After thinking about it, when he was a little embarrassed, he unexpectedly learned from the horse thief who was exploring the way that the banner of this caravan belonged to a certain noble family in Moxi City, which made his last concern subside:

Anyway, since it is the goods of a certain noble lord in Moxi City, what is Lao Tzu polite?!

After making up his mind, the leader of the horse thieves immediately withdrew several horse thieves who were exploring the path to avoid revealing their whereabouts. After all, several tribes near this caravan have already moved away, and a radius of dozens of miles can be said to be sparsely populated, and there is only this one trade route, so I am afraid that they will not be able to fly?

However, even if he was preparing to plunder this caravan, the horse thief leader did not think of attacking it, he had also secretly observed this caravan during the day, although the number of caravan guards and mercenaries was small, but the equipment was very sophisticated, especially those mercenaries, almost all of them were wearing iron armor! There were more than a dozen cavalrymen with crossbow arrows hanging from their waists!

The goddess is above, and the leader of the horse thieves is sure that he is absolutely not mistaken, it is definitely iron armor and crossbow arrows!

You must know that he has seen the world, not to mention ordinary mercenaries, even the regular armies of Moxi or Macedonia can rarely equip such equipment! Most of his cavalry can only be equipped with some steppe bows and arrows, as for iron armor and crossbow arrows...... In some large steppe tribes, a batch of iron tools can be exchanged for hundreds or thousands of cattle and sheep, and this kind of extremely lethal bow and crossbow is strictly forbidden by the two empires to circulate to the grassland!

Just as the leader of the horse thieves was a little hesitant, he was surprised to find that the caravan had set up camp in the middle of two mountains, and behind the mountains...... If he's not mistaken, there's a river behind the mountain!

Seeing this scene, the horse thief leader finally stopped hesitating, and he was very soberly aware that such terrain was a godsend for ambush and interception! As long as he took advantage of the caravan rest in the middle of the night to send people to block the mountain pass, and then make some movement to scare and scare them, unless these merchants were idiots, they would never rush to fight with him, and when the time came, he would be able to take this caravan as long as he lost a small number of people!

So that night, the horse thief leader dispatched all his cavalry, assigned them the task of attacking, and attacked the caravan in the middle of the night. And things turned out to be as he expected, although the caravan's guards and mercenaries resisted desperately and barely held the camp, the mountain pass was also blocked by himself.

But what he didn't expect was that the mercenaries' resistance was so fierce, his own people relied on the advantage of the cavalry, and they were blocked by them several times when they forcibly charged, and the command was relatively chaotic in the night.

This made the leader of the horse thieves angry, damn, these rabble are really unreliable, the cavalry of 100 people is fighting around thirty or forty people, and they can still lose so many people! Even if the combat effectiveness of the horse thieves under his command is not as good as these mercenaries who walk on the grassland all the year round, but at that time, when the two sides have just received troops and the situation is unclear, they put on a desperate posture and desperately charge forward, even if there will be losses, but they will definitely be able to break their defenses, and this camp will have been taken by themselves a long time ago!

"Damn, if you boys were under Lao Tzu back then, see how Lao Tzu treats you group of pigs who delay the fighter plane and have no guts......"

The leader of the horse thieves wanted to have a seizure, but when he saw that many of the horse thieves who had returned were covered with blood and looked embarrassed and pitiful, his heart moved, and his anger couldn't help but disappear by seven or eight points, and it was not good to anger them too much.

Forget it, after all, his command is not a regular army, and his own troops are still not enough, if there are dozens more, don't kill the onslaught...... No, even if there are a dozen more people, assigned on the other side of the river, hmph, I don't want to let any of these guys run away!

However, after thinking about it, he still dispelled this idea, after all, he was only for money, and these troubles could be avoided. Although he has lost a lot now, he is afraid that the other party will not take much advantage. Moreover, this mountain pass is still in their own hands, as long as their own people do not retreat, wait until dawn, or stay here for a few days, as long as those people are not fools, they must have crossed the river and fled for their lives, after all, even if these goods are valuable, those timid merchants will never even want their lives.

Thinking of this, the leader of the horse thieves breathed a sigh of relief, and then he looked at the horse thief in front of him, and ordered in a deep voice: "The wounded rest in place, and everyone else will follow me, and you must guard the mountain pass!"

After speaking, the leader of the horse thieves raised the corners of his mouth slightly, shouted, and rushed out directly on his horse, and several people behind him followed, their black cloaks raised high, and under the moonlight, the armor on their chests glowed with a hint of cold light...... These people are all wearing iron armor!