A large-scale blast of cold air whistling southward from the distant homeland of Gaoche, passing through the desert steppes that had been completely occupied by the Turks, whistling across the Central Plains, spreading a thick layer of cotton on the vast Central Plains, and making the various territories that were still at war de facto uniform in color.

On the front line of Jibei County, where Wang Yong's army and Murong's army fought and confronted, after another fierce battle in recent months, and because of this large-scale snowfall and cooling, the two sides once again fell into a short truce, and only the scouts and horses of the two sides still had fierce skirmishes from time to time in this ice and snow.

After more than a day of snowfall, although the snow has stopped, the sky is dreary and there is still no sunshine, even if it is now close to noon, it is still very dark, and the thick clouds make people seem to be out of breath and feel a little suffocated.

The swishing cold wind pierces people's faces like an awl, making people's skin collapse tightly and there is a slight tingling sensation at any time. The wind whistled from northwest to southeast, and the branches that had lost their leaves were blown with a whirring sound, and most of the snow on the trees had already been blown off.

The large flags raised high in the camp were also hunting and swaying in the wind, and there was a violent collision sound from time to time on the Jishui water, which was still flowing, which was caused by the collision of large ice floes floating on the river.

This year's weather is a little abnormal compared with previous years, the Yellow River and Jishui, which rarely froze in previous years, are now filled with a thick layer of ice floes because of the cold weather, although the river is still flowing, and the Qi army takes the opportunity to cross the river, but whether it is the Qi army or the navy under Sun Xing, they are now honestly parked in their respective docks and dare not come out.

And Wang Yong's military battalion near Jibei County led out of a huge water intake pond from Jishui, because it is different from the flowing Jishui, it is a still body of water, overnight it was actually covered with two or three fingers thick ice, although it can not withstand the weight of an adult, but children under the age of five have no problem running on it.

A group of soldiers in sheepskin jackets stood by the pool, and several men worked together to lift a long wooden pole high and smash it into the ice, breaking the ice that was not too thick, and then filling the pool with clear water in huge wooden barrels and placing it on a cart in the open space by the pool.

These soldiers are the fireheads in the large camp, and they have begun to prepare the soldiers' lunches, although in ancient times everyone had two meals a day, but the army is different, in order to ensure that the soldiers have enough physical strength to fight, at least three meals a day during the war.

Compared with other armies, Wang Yong even asked each battalion to ensure that the soldiers had three meals and two additional meals a day, so as to ensure sufficient physical strength to meet the battle at any time at any time.

The snow in the camp has already been cleared out of several important passages, Zhou Tong strode on the frozen hard ground, followed by Yang Pengfei and Luo Huan, two generals, hurriedly walked past the camp tents, seeing that the target was the Chinese army tent in the camp.

This camp was set up by Wang Yong before Murong Ting's attack in the northwest of Jibei County more than ten miles near Jishui, when Murong Qi's army attacked, this camp and Jibei County formed a corner of each other, and many times resolved Murong Qi's offensive, and later Murong Qi's offensive was carried out around here.

At present, the military affairs here are in charge of the Wei general Hu Bingchang, as a cavalry general Hu Bingchang was appointed as the commander-in-chief because of his resourcefulness, the original 15,000 cavalry under his command only retained 3,000 in the battalion, the other 12,000 cavalry led by Hu Bingchang Shi Haiguang, Zhang Gang, Fa Yan and other generals, is now cruising in the countryside east of Jibei County.

In addition to these 3,000 cavalry, there were originally 40,000 infantry troops allocated by Wang Yong and about 4,000 people in the ironclad battalion under Zhou Tong, but as the war continued, the number of these soldiers has changed a lot.

When Zhou Tong walked to the huge tent in the middle of the camp, hundreds of guards were guarding here, and there was a stable that could accommodate hundreds of war horses dozens of steps away from the big tent, and there were now more than a dozen good horses eating feed seriously.

"General Zhou, General Hu has been waiting for you inside for a long time!" Seeing that Zhou Tong came to the big tent with his two generals, a guard commander hurriedly stepped forward to deliver a message.

Facing the warm greeting of the guards, Zhou Tong just nodded and said 'um' in his nose, but the leader of the guards could clearly see that Zhou Tong's mood was not very good, so he didn't say anything more and stretched out his hand to lift the curtain of the big tent for Zhou Tong and the others.

As soon as you enter the big tent, you obviously feel that the temperature inside is much warmer than the outside, and if you look closely, you can find that there are several big brass charcoal basins in the corners around the big tent, and the red charcoal fire adds a lot of heat to the big tent, it seems that it should be the best charcoal burned in the mountains around Changguang County.

Hearing that someone came in at the door, the people in the big tent turned around and saw the three Zhou Tong people coming in, so Hu Bingchang hurriedly greeted: "General Zhou has worked hard for the past two days, come and drink late minced meat to warm up!" As he spoke, he asked someone to bring a big bowl of mutton soup to each of Zhou Tong and the others.

In winter, especially on this snowy day, it is particularly comfortable to drink a bowl of thick mutton soup, Zhou Tong and Hu Bingchang and others are acquaintances and are not polite, immediately took the hot mutton soup and drank it carefully, while drinking it scanned the tent, only to find that in addition to Hu Bingchang, Qin Lang, Xun Yun and several other generals who were going to seize Dongping County were there, and there was a huge map on the carpet in the middle of the big tent.

"General Zhou, did you go to scold the Qi army today?" Seeing that Zhou Tong came to the big tent from the outside with his whole body draped, Xun Yun couldn't help but ask with concern not long after he came to the front line of Jibei County.

Zhou Tong sighed and said: "Damn, don't mention it, since I let Lao Tzu suffer that big loss a few days ago, Qi Jun is determined to be a shrinking turtle and not come out, no matter how we provoke, it's useless, I learned from Zhuge Kongming to send a woman's clothes to Murong Yi!" ”

Since the Northern Qi Dynasty has formed a large-scale ironclad heavy infantry based on the captured ironclad battalion equipment of Wang Yong's side, through the imitation of its own craftsmen, although the cost is far higher than the bearing capacity of the Northern Qi because the technology required for the horse sword is too high, so the weapon is equipped with a heavy axe, and the combat effectiveness is not as powerful as Zhou Tong's ironclad battalion.

However, because the Northern Qi Dynasty far surpassed Wang Yong's manpower, it successively sent nearly 20,000 sets of equipment to the Hu Lawyers Association from Yecheng and other places, and Murong Qi also received more than 7,000 pairs of heavy infantry equipment, but Murong Qi has always kept this secret and has been hidden in his rear army. 139

In a battle between the two sides when there was no snow a few days ago, Zhou Tong led nearly 4,000 soldiers of the ironclad battalion to sweep through most of the Qi army's army formation, and almost attacked Murong Yan's Chinese army camp. Just when Zhou Tong thought that victory was in sight, Murong saw that the thousands of ironclad troops under Zhou Tong had been attacking for most of the day, and most of his physical strength had already been consumed, so he instantly took out the heavy infantry that had been recuperating for a long time and suddenly appeared.

If it weren't for Hu Bingchang's timely discovery that something was wrong and led his troops to support, I am afraid that this time Zhou Tong's ironclad battalion would have lost at least nearly half, and in this way, nearly a thousand ironclad soldiers fell in the military formation of the Qi army.

was so secretly calculated by Murong Gang once, although the heavy infantry of the Qi army also lost one or two thousand people, but how could Zhou Tong, who had been smooth sailing for a long time, be able to endure this anger, so he wanted to have another fight with the Qi army many times later, but somehow Murong couldn't come out and fight with Zhou Tong, and it was impossible for the two sides to have a big battle when it snowed in the past two days.

Now on both sides of the Northern Qi and Xia armies, except for the small group of cavalry under the command of Hu Bingchang and Cheng Chong, who fight in the field from time to time with Murong Yan's cavalry Tanma, that is, the battle between the scouts, the infantry has no contact at all.

Hu Bingchang stroked his beautiful hair and whispered: "Something is wrong! The last time the Qi army suddenly stopped attacking, we were killed by Gao Yin, and they wanted to appease their soldiers, but this time, why did the Qi army suddenly stop again? Hu Bingchang clearly felt that even if there was no heavy snowfall, the Qi army would stop attacking.

"If you want me to say that Murong is just a girl, what else can you do besides sneak attacks! Are they waiting for the Yellow River and Jishui to freeze and cross the river from the frozen place? Zhou Tong, who was still holding a soup bowl, said casually.

Xun Yun retorted with a smile: "Brother Zhou is joking again, when has the Yellow River and Jishui been frozen over the years, that is, there are more ice ballast on the colder river this year, but how thick it is to be able to withstand human ice!" Since our fathers and ancestors, we have never heard of the Yellow River freezing a few times. ”

Hu Bingchang heard Zhou Tong's smooth nonsense but didn't laugh at all, he thought for a long time and suddenly looked up at Xun Yun, Zhou Tong and the others: "I'm afraid that the Qi army really has this kind of plan, now there are too many ice floes on the river, and General Sun Xing's army can't block the entire Yellow River and Jishui as before!" If the Qi army took advantage of a gap to cross the river from Ande County or elsewhere, it would be bad! ”

Compared with the Jeju battlefield on the other side of the Jishui River, the intensity of the battle in the Jibei County battlefield can be said to be much lower, but even if it is like this, nearly 20,000 soldiers have been lost in more than half a year.

However, if the Yellow River and Jishui suddenly freeze, then the natural danger that you could rely on will no longer exist, and the next battle will not be as simple as it is now.

Lightly deducted the case, Xun Yun coughed, and then looked at Hu Bingchang and the others: "I think the most important thing we should do is to deal with the 30,000 cavalry of Murong Yan first!" As long as these cavalry Murong Murong's 50,000 troops are solved, there is nothing to be afraid of! ”

Qin Lang, who is already in his forties, has been in charge of defense since he came to the front line of Jibei County, and he really doesn't have any good ideas for attacking, he asked Xun Yun: "Our army and the cavalry of the Qi army have also fought many times in the surrounding area before, we have to lose at least one or two cavalry to replace one Northern Qi cavalry, it's not easy to fight, the loss is too big!" ”

Qin Lang still knows the power of the cavalry of the Northern Qi Dynasty, this cavalry is mainly composed of Xianbei people, and there are also Xianbei Huns, Gaoche people and Huhua Han people, most of them are composed of young men who are good at riding skills who grew up in the border towns of Northern Qi, Wang Yong, the cavalry that has only been formed for more than a year, is far from being an opponent.

In the previous few battles, their cavalry still relied on the advantages of excellent leather armor and excellent weapons to exchange a two-to-one tragic result with the cavalry of the Northern Qi Dynasty, this is still a small-scale cavalry battle, if it is a large-scale cavalry battle, I am afraid that three to one is possible.

Of course, although Wang Yong's side has lost nearly 10,000 cavalry in the past year or so of war, which makes the generals feel distressed, the remaining 40,000 cavalry have already become veterans who are not afraid of life and death after more than a year of battle formations.

Because the Jeju battlefield is a narrow open space sandwiched between the Yellow River and Jishui, although the battle is fierce, the use of cavalry is not as great as that of Jibei County, so now Wang Yong's cavalry is mostly distributed in the battlefield of Jibei County. Now on the Jeju battlefield, the original 15,000 cavalry led by Hu Bingchang and the 10,000 cavalry led by Cheng Chong and Xunyun add up to nearly 30,000 people.

After many battles, the 30,000 cavalry led by Murong Yi were wiped out little by little by Cheng Chong, Xun Yun and others using the combat method of 'knocking kraft candy', of which nearly 1,000 cavalry were the credit of Zhou Tong's ironclad battalion.

Just when Hu Bingchang was discussing with Zhou Tong and others, suddenly the head of the guards outside the big tent came in and said: "General, Jibei County sent Han Biao and Han Duwei here, and now wait outside the big tent." ”

Han Biao is one of the only two heroes in Changguang County who took refuge in Wang Yong when Wang Yong first started, when Wang Yong attacked Changguang County, the Han family and the Zhou family took refuge in Wang Yong in advance, and each sent family disciples into Wang Yong's army to serve in this way, not to mention keeping the family business, but also expanding their own family business.

Among them, one of the two brothers of the Han family is Han Wenzheng who followed Jiang Chuan and Zhang Hang to fight against the Japanese people in Changzhou in the East China Sea, while Han Biao followed Wang Yong from the beginning, and now the two brothers are already captains.

"Captain Handu, the general suddenly called me to go to Jibei County, but what happened to me?" I thought that there was nothing big about it, just a trip by myself, but Hu Bingchang didn't expect Han Biao to say that Wang Yong called him and Zhou Tong, Xun Yun and others to rush to the city.

It seems that something really big has happened Hu Bingchang thought to himself, he thought about it carefully, and quietly leaned on Han Biao and asked in a low voice: "Captain Han, are you telling the truth, is there something wrong in the rear?" ”

Han Biao glanced at the generals who were talking in the civil strife in the big tent, and then whispered to Hu Bingchang: "Mr. Bingchang, you don't know, it's not just that something happened, it's just a big incident, don't ask anything else, the general will explain it to everyone when you get to the city!" ”