"Lao Li, what's going on?" Zhang Qing, the head of the tun who was watching the militia drill nearby, noticed that something was wrong here, and immediately walked over quickly and frowned and asked.

Li An leaned into his ear and whispered: "Brother Zhang, a large group of Ezo people suddenly appeared in the mountains and forests near our Tunbao, I think something is wrong with the situation, these people are likely to attack our Qingshui Village!" ”

Zhang Qing was also shocked when he heard it, and he subconsciously said: "It's impossible, how long have we not seen the shadow of the Ezo people here, don't be dazzled?" In addition, we have the territory of the Ezo people to the north of here, and it is not impossible for them to return here again! ”

Even Zhang Qing himself felt that it was impossible for him to say this, but he suddenly heard a subconscious statement that the Ezo people appeared around his tunbao.

Li An ignored Zhang Qing's nonsense, he frowned, a large number of Ezo people suddenly appeared in the mountains and forests near Qingshui Village, which made him feel very uneasy, and he was afraid that this situation was a little ungood.

Although the river valley where his Qingshui Village is located has always been the dividing line between the Ezo and the Wa people, after General Hu and Yang Duwei led nearly 10,000 cavalry to sweep the Wa tribes on the Pingma River, the nearby Ezo people who had been fighting with the Wa people on the Pingma River were frightened.

In the past, there were also several small tribes of the Ezo people in the river valley where the Qingshui Village was located, and after seeing the cavalry sweeping through the Japanese tribes, they quickly fled to the mountains further north, and it can be said that everyone has not seen the Ezo people once in these months.

This time, there were suddenly so many Ezo people hiding in the mountains and forests only a few miles away from Qingshui Village, and it was obvious that these people were coming for their own forts.

"What about the captain?" The militiaman who came to report the news looked at Li An and Zhang Qing with a little panic on their faces, he was originally a citizen of Qingzhou, and he only came to the East China Sea with the emigrant ship this year, but when he heard that joining the militia could get a lot of land, he joined as soon as his brain was hot.

Sure enough, the militia team he participated in also got a lot of land after following the expedition to Pingmachuan, but he didn't participate in the battle once, and this time suddenly a large number of Ezo people came to the vicinity of his tunpu, and the militia was really a little panicked.

Li An glanced at Zhang Qing beside him and said expressionlessly: "What are you panicking, it's just a group of Ezo people, why are you so scared before you can even see the number of people!" Saying that, Li An turned his head and asked the two people who were doing logistics, "Can you see how many people are in that wood?" ”

The two militiamen could not participate in the training because of their poor physical strength, and they belonged to the logistics personnel who cleaned and cooked on weekdays, and one of the lean middle-aged men was still in a trance, looking frightened.

It was another younger boy who said: "Just now, my third uncle and I were going to pick some wild vegetables, but when we were still more than three hundred steps away from the woods, we suddenly saw a few figures flashing in the woods!" At that time, I felt that something was wrong, so I pretended not to see it and went around to a high hill next to it, and I saw at least twenty or thirty Ezo people hiding inside! ”

Looking at the young man in front of him, he was only sixteen or seventeen years old, but he was talking eloquently, and he was not frightened by the sneak attack of the Ezo people at all, Li An looked at the young man with interest, and it seemed that he would not be in the pool in the future.

"What's your name, boy?" Li An opened his mouth but asked the boy's name.

"Huh?" The young man didn't expect that Li An was most concerned about not the movements of the Ezo people, but his own name, and immediately replied, "My name is Wu Ban, and I also have a younger brother named Wu Zhang, who is currently living with my third uncle!" ”

Today, Wu Ban followed his uncle to pick the last part of wild fruits and vegetables in autumn, preparing to add some food supplements, but he didn't want to accidentally find the Ezo people hidden in the woods, in order to confuse the Ezo people, he pretended not to find the Ezo people, but quietly found a clever terrain to find out some information.

When he quietly dragged his third uncle back to Tunpu, his third uncle Wu Sancheng knew that it was sinister at that time, and he was almost paralyzed on the ground in fright.

Knowing the situation at that time, Li An patted the young man on the shoulder and said: "Yes, the little brother of Wu Ban will definitely have a bright future in the future, I have a task I want to give you now, I don't know if you dare to ride out of the city alone to help me report the news?" ”

Young Wu Ban's eyes lit up immediately, and then he was a little excited: "What's not to dare about, I have learned to ride a horse with the instructor of the lion cub camp before, as long as there is a horse, I will go now!" ”

Before Wu Ban's words fell, he was stopped by his third uncle Wu Sancheng, and the lean middle-aged man said anxiously: "You child, now that your parents are gone, you rely on you and your brother to maintain your family's incense, and now that there are Ezo people coming, do you dare to go out of the city alone?" ”

Wu Ban looked at the third uncle who was holding his hand and said, "Why is the third uncle so worried? I'm riding a horse to report the news, not walking, relying on the little short legs of the Ezo people where can I catch up with me, the third uncle is still rest assured! ”

Li An was also speechless and said: "Wu Laosan, I didn't let your baby die, let's go down the river and there will be other tunbao less than five or six miles away, even the Ezo people don't dare to go too deep, and there is a cavalry team of nearly 1,000 people less than fifty miles away from us, I am giving him credit!" ”

Wu Laosan also knew that this was indeed a job with little danger and great credit, but he was still a little reluctant to his nephew who was only sixteen or seventeen years old, so he took Wu Ban's hand and said: "Even so, you still have to be careful all the way, take the big road on the road, don't copy the trail!" ”

Time waits for no one, taking advantage of the opportunity that the Ezo people didn't know that Qingshui Village had discovered them, Wu Ban took a steel knife that Li An had given him, and rode a fast horse out of Qingshui Village to the southeast, leaving Wu Sancheng alone there in a daze.

Seeing off Wu Ban, Li An said to Zhang Qing beside him: "Brother Zhang, this time the Ezo people in the mountains and forests must want to repeat the old example of Fangzibao, and take advantage of the opportunity at night to sneak attack, we have to prepare early, and then we can teach them a cruel lesson!" ”

Although Zhang Qing was only an official in charge of civil affairs, he had participated in the army in the early days, and even participated in Wang Ze's Battle of Jinan City.

Hearing Li An's words, he also gasped and hated: "These bitches are quite good at picking soft persimmons, if it weren't for the fact that there are too few militias in our Qingshui Village, I would immediately take my brothers to catch a group of slaves and come back, see if they are still arrogant!" ”

Looking at Zhang Qing's appearance, Li An snickered: "I said Brother Zhang, even if there is a shortage of slaves now, you don't need to be like this, in case there are a lot of Ezo people in the mountains and forests, it will be difficult to catch, let's hold Qingshui Village firmly now, and when the reinforcements arrive, we can attack inside and outside!" ”

After some discussion, the two finally reached a consensus to hold Qingshui Village firmly first, so that when the Ezo people came to attack, they would decide whether to attack according to the situation.

Quietly, groups of militiamen under the command of Li An received their own wartime weapons, although there were not many gunpowder weapons, but bows, shields, small stone throwers and other weapons used to defend the city were still available.

Lao Qian learned that there was a team of Ezo people in the mountains and forests outside his fort, so he was waiting for the night to come and attack Qingshui Village, he was extremely happy, seeing that he was short of slaves, Ezo people sent it to him, and this time he must arrest dozens of slaves.

I don't know it, and I think that old money is the internal response of Ezo people.

Time passed little by little, when it entered the middle of the night, a black shadow quietly came to the wall of Qingshui Village, because there was no moat to moat, although the wall of the Tunbao of the Water Village was as high as two zhang, but still could not stop these black shadows from climbing.

In groups of ten, they used long bamboo poles to send a black shadow up the wall of the fort, and in a short time, one or two black shadows came to the wall.

"Lao Li, I don't think it's right, they have to be at least a few hundred people to go to the city like this!" The more Zhang Qing looked at it, the more he felt that something was wrong, and he and others were just honestly defending the city, but everyone wanted to catch more slaves, so they thought about putting some of the Ezo people in first, and then catching a group of slaves.

But seeing that there are more than twenty Ezo people being sent up by bamboo poles outside the city, and black shadows are still being sent up below, in case the number of Ezo people is different from his own estimate, this is the rhythm of death.

"Shoot all!" Seeing the rapidly increasing black shadow on the wall of the fort, even Li An couldn't calm down, and if he waited any longer, it was estimated that Qingshui Village would be really captured by the Ezo people, and immediately ordered all the militia with bows and arrows to shoot arrows at the Ezo people on the wall.

With the launch of arrows one after another, mixed with some rockets in the middle, some of the ignition objects contained in the brazier on the castle wall where the Ezo people climbed were also ignited, illuminating the Ezo people on the city wall, and this time the big guy shot the arrows more accurately.

Except for a few more clever Ezo people, the other dozens of Ezo people were all shot like hedgehogs. come

When everyone wiped out all the Ezo people on the city wall, Li An found that there were nearly thirty Ezo corpses that died on the wall and fell into the city.

Although a lot of Ezo people were eliminated, but the Ezo people outside the city did not stop there, and the Ezo people continued to attack from four directions overnight, and the sound heard in the dark night alone was at least hundreds of people, and this data made Li An and Zhang Qing a little nervous.

When the sky gradually brightened, Li An and Zhang Qing were even more surprised when they saw the scene in front of them, what kind of rhythm was this, there were thousands of Ezo people outside surrounding their Tunpu, and in addition to the mountains and forests in the distance, there were still Ezo people emerging from the mountains and forests.

It turned out that Pingmachuan was originally a place of contention between the Japanese and the Ezo people, but since Hu Bingchang and Yang Wu led the army, it quickly became the territory of Wang Ze's family, and even the original Ezo people were scared away by Hu Bingchang's massacre at that time.

Later, Hu Bingchang only firmly guarded the Pingma River, and did not continue to make any movements against the Ezo people in the north, and now the Ezo people slowly moved their minds.

Not only is there a large amount of prey on the rich Heima River, but a large area of arable land has been carved out by the Central Plains people, which is very attractive to the Ezo people, who have been hungry for a long time.

The previous attacks were spontaneously formed by some large tribes of the Ezo people, but not only the cavalry of Hu Bingchang and Yang Wu on the Pingma River was strong, but even the ordinary militia simply became an existence that the Ezo people could not provoke.

This annoyed the Ezo people who had always coveted Pingmachuan, and later several sorcerers among the Ezo people came up with a good idea to concentrate the elite hunters in the tribe to harass some tunbao near the mountains and forests, so that they could not cultivate with peace of mind, so that the Central Plains people would inevitably give up these territories after a long time.

According to the advice of these wizards, there were three or four small tun forts that could not withstand the attack of the Ezo people and were forced to give up, which made the Ezo people swell up suddenly.

As a result, under the traction of the sorcerers of various tribes, some of the Ezo tribes close to the Pingma River began to unite and prepare to take joint action to carve up the Pingma River.

Under their joint planning, the attacks on the militia forts around Pingmachuan have been continuous, and at first they were mainly concentrated in the northern area of Pingmachuan near the Ezo people, and they did not expect that Qingshui Village, which is now the westernmost part of Pingmachuan, has also begun to be attacked by these people.

In the face of thousands of sturdy Ezo people, the militiamen of Qingshui Village had serious faces one by one, firmly grasping the weapons in their hands, and there were several young militiamen who were about the same age as Wu Ban, although they were also very nervous, but they had some indescribable excitement.

Old Qian Qian Desheng and his nearly 100 militiamen guarded the north gate, which, like the west gate of Qingshui Village, was the most vulnerable place and the place with the largest number of Ezo people.

Due to the important location here, when the tunpu was built, some of the armor eliminated by the army was also issued to the militia here, plus some of these militiamen hired leather craftsmen to make leather armor, a total of only 400 militia team of more than 300 people wearing armor.

This is indeed a high percentage for ordinary militiamen, although most of the armor on their bodies is torn armor, but it is a great boost to their morale, and it also greatly reduces their casualties.

The militia fought very bravely, but the number of Ezo was so large that even the cooks in the fort, Lang Zhong and even a few old men who were repairing shoes in the fort came to help defend the city.

In the fiercest battle in the city of Beimen Fort, Wu Sancheng had a bitter face, he was originally one of the cooks in Qingshui Village who was responsible for cooking for everyone, but now he had to use the big iron pot in which he used to cook rice to cook gold juice.

The pungent stench made Wu Sancheng really unbearable, this was still when he was wearing a mask, otherwise he would have to be smoked and fainted, the most distressing thing for him was this big iron pot, how to use it for cooking in the future!

Zhang Qing walked around the city wall of Tunbao, and then he said to Li An with a worried face: "Lao Li, I don't think it's a way for us to defend the city like this, aren't there more than fifty war horses in the city?" Let's choose a group of people with better riding skills to go out of the city to harass the Ezo people, otherwise we will be attacked sooner or later with these hundreds of people! ”

Li An also said with a distressed face at this time: "This can't be done, if you send out another fifty people, those Japanese slaves in the city will also have to be guarded by more than thirty people, so that there are only three hundred people on the entire fortress wall to guard the city, where can you defend it!" ”

With the consumption of the militia's physical strength, the defense became more and more difficult, and suddenly Li An saw bursts of smoke and dust rising from the southeast, and at a glance he knew that it was a large group of cavalry approaching, and he said excitedly: "Okay, our reinforcements are coming!" Wu Ban, this kid really lives up to my trust! ”

But when these cavalry were only three or four miles away, Li An could see that these people were not cavalry of the regular army, but like militiamen from several nearby tunbao.

In this way, Li An and Zhang Qing were even more moved, they deserved to be good men, they were really in trouble and supported from all sides, but although the cavalry that came was relatively strong, it was only two or three hundred horsemen, and it did not make the Ezo people pay too much attention.

Of course, hundreds of cavalry also pinned down at least a thousand Ezo soldiers, resulting in the attacking Ezo team not having the same density as before, and it also made the militia defending the city a little easier.

"Why isn't there that kid from Wu Ban?" Li An stood on the head of the city and watched for a long time and didn't see the young Wu Ban who went to deliver the message, which made his face a little ugly, did he really suffer misfortune?

At this time, a group of Ezo people rushed to the north city wall, thanks to Qian Desheng, a strong man, he struggled to hold a tree trunk with a bowl mouth thick and up to two feet, which was simply a domineering sweep of thousands of troops, and swept down the Ezo people who rushed to the city wall like dumplings.

Fortunately, there is Qian Desheng in the north, otherwise it would be really a little hanging today, Li An couldn't help wiping the cold sweat on his forehead, if only there were crossbow arrows in the army, now the militia who use bows and arrows in Qingshui Village have to give up archery after shooting a few rounds of bows and arrows, and begin to pick up knives and guns to fight with the Ezo people.

After all, bows and arrows consume too much physical strength, and it is already good for ordinary militiamen to shoot eight or nine rounds of bows and arrows, but if they continue to shoot, the damage to the body will be too great, and the crossbow arrows in Wang Ze's army are not in this ranks.

By noon, the militia of the water village had repelled five or six attacks by the Ezo people, and the militia in the tunpu also killed and wounded dozens of people, and they even killed hundreds of Ezo people, but the pressure on the militia in the tunpu was even greater.

The only thing that comforted them was that the militia who came to support them outside the city had also been insisting on fighting the Ezo people, which greatly restrained the Ezo people's attack, which was one of the reasons why Qingshui Village could be firmly defended.

By this time, the potential of the militia had almost been tapped, and if the Ezo people attacked again, Qingshui Village would be unable to hold it.

Fortunately, Hu Bingchang and Yang Wu's cavalry troops did not disappoint the militiamen, and when the Ezo people were about to attack again, thousands of iron horsemen suddenly rushed out from behind a hill behind the Ezo people's side and swept through the rear of the Ezo people, causing the Ezo people who were not prepared to suffer heavy casualties immediately.

Hundreds of cavalry militiamen who had been entangled with the Ezo people for a long time also rushed up, and now there is a shortage of slaves in each fort, and now there are so many Ezo people, if you can catch one more, you can reclaim a few more acres of land.

Seeing this, the militia of Qingshui Village also hurriedly opened the door to catch the Ezo slaves, for fear that they would be robbed if they went out late, and the Ezo people, who were already panicked under the internal and external attacks, fled even more violently.

It turned out that Wu Ban traveled all the way and informed the tunbao along the way, saying that there was a large group of Ezo people preparing to attack Qingshui Village, so that these tunbao behind him were also ready.

Although Wu Ban is young, he has a notice and an emergency letter stamped with the seal of Qingshui Village, so while the tunpu along the way is preparing for prevention, he also begins to rescue the cavalry in his tunpu after dawn, so that after the cavalry of multiple tunpu is gathered together, there is a team of hundreds of people.

When Wu Ban came to this cavalry station, the cavalry here had already gone to the rescue of another nearby tunpu that had been attacked by the Ezo people.

So Wu Ban was afraid of losing time, so he rode his horse to find it, and after some good searching, he found these cavalrymen who had already experienced a battle.

Although the cavalry who had just finished a battle were very tired, they heard that Qingshui Village was likely to be attacked by a large number of Ezo people, so they immediately rode and followed Wu Ban together

In this way, everyone took the path all the way and hurried slowly, and finally arrived at the scene at a critical moment, otherwise a tragedy would really happen.