Winter day, overcast sky.

The snow was pouring down from the sky, almost obscuring everything, and the snow that had accumulated on the ground before was nearly a foot thick, and this time it was thickened, and no animal could be seen on the endless snowfield except for the cold wind that howled in winter.

The original green pines and cypresses and yellow-discolored broad-leaved trees in the mountains and forests are now covered with snow, and as the snow falls, there will be a sound of branches and even trees being crushed by the snow from time to time in the mountains and forests.

Of course, without these strange sounds, the beautiful and idyllic island of the East China Sea would now be splashed with a layer of snow, corresponding to the dark green covered in snow and some strangely shaped dead wood, but also some classical Chinese ink landscape painting.

Although the warm current off the coast of Choshu Island makes the winter temperature much warmer than in the winter of Sanqi, it is still very cold in the mountains and forests north of the Heima River, and even the hardy pheasants, thick fur wild boars, and black bears have returned to their dens to hide.

As time passed, although the sky was still a little gloomy, but the clouds in the sky had slowly dispersed, and the heavy snow slowly turned into light snow, at this time, I saw a black shadow suddenly burst out of the mountains and forests that were originally empty of birds and beasts, and a closer look was a scout wearing a sheepskin jacket and stepping on a skateboard.

Since it was discovered that there was a lot of snow in the winter of the Wa Kingdom, which was very suitable for snowboard action, skis that were originally only circulated in the mountains near Changguang County became popular, not only because the army under Wang Ze had to receive forced training, but also because many people in the people liked this kind of simple and practical tool that was convenient for winter action.

I saw that this scout moved lightly, and when he encountered a large tree in the forest, he swayed from side to side and easily dodged, and his movements were extremely skillful, and he looked like a veteran skier, and soon rowed to a valley and came to a dense forest on the slope of the mountain.

When I entered the woods, I saw that there were a large number of tents hidden in this not too big woods, and according to the number of tents, it was estimated that there were at least a thousand soldiers hidden here, and the general of this army was Zhu Bofu Zhu Dalang, who was bored peeling pine nuts and eating.

There are a lot of red pines in the mountains and forests all over the country, although there are many pine nuts in other pine trees, but only the pine nuts of red pine are regarded as the top grade.

As soon as he looked up in boredom, Zhu Bofu saw the scout running in quickly, and immediately came to his senses, got up and asked, "Ah Han, how is the situation checking?" Where did Lao Zhang and Fu Wei go, why didn't they come back with you? ”

It turned out that this scout just now was Qin Ming's son and Qin Lang's nephew Qin Han, after the Battle of Jeju Island, the White Wolf Battalion expanded and he also took the opportunity to enter the White Wolf Battalion, although Qin Han joined the White Wolf Battalion for a short time, but he relied on good equestrian skills and superb martial arts to quickly become the forward scout of the White Wolf Battalion.

After joining the army, Qin Han was still relatively silent, and there was now a trace on his handsome face that looked a little hideous, destroying the original handsome face, which was left by him when he rescued the Haotian Great Temple last year when he fought with Xiao Yu's subordinate Zhu Huang's subordinates.

It may be that skiing all the way consumes a lot of physical strength, plus the fact that he was in a bit of a hurry to climb the hill just now, Qin Han has a lot of sweat on his forehead.

Although he was very tired, Qin Han still carried a short crossbow on his body, and there were two long and short horizontal knives on his waist, and his military appearance was relatively neat, only the skis he used just now in his hand ruined his image a little.

Just now, because he had to go uphill, he could only walk up with skis, and now that it is snowing heavily in winter, even the cavalry of Zhu Bofu's White Wolf Battalion can only give up their horses and fight as infantry.

"Captain Zhu, just now we found a very large wintering ground of the Ezo tribe near fifteen miles northeast, and Lao Zhang, Fu Wei and a few of them were staying there to monitor, so they called me to report the news!" Qin Han didn't care about cleaning up the snow on his body, and immediately reported his discovery to Zhu Bofu.

After hearing this, Zhu Bofu didn't rush to continue asking, he saw that there was still a lot of snow on Qin Han's body, so he immediately helped him clean up and patted him, and reproached him: "Look at you, I don't know how to clean up the snow on my body when I come back, if I catch a cold, it will be troublesome!" If you get sick, I won't have the face to go back to see Aunt Qin! ”

Saying that, Zhu Bofu turned his head and said to Wang Zongling, the deputy lieutenant of the cavalry garrison beside him, "Wang Erlang, you go and ask the Huotou Army to quickly burn some ginger soup to give Qin Han a bowl!" In addition, it is snowing and wet now, and other soldiers have to drink a bowl as long as they come back from duty! The body is very important! ”

Wang Zongling was a young man who followed Yan Xiaowu to participate in the selection of the White Wolf Camp, and now he is only eighteen or nineteen years old, and he also knows that Qin Han's father Qin Ming died at the hands of Duan Yining, the general of the Northern Qi Dynasty, in order to cover the people in the cottage.

Immediately after last winter, Qin Han's uncle Qin Lang was besieged by nearly 100,000 Qi troops when he led 20,000 soldiers to block the Northern Qi army because he covered the safe retreat of important figures such as Hu Bingchang, Yuan Jia, Zhou Tong and even Cheng Chong and more than 100,000 troops.

Therefore, for such a martyr family, Wang Zongling also admired it very much, and immediately took the order to leave, and a bowl of steaming ginger soup was brought over after a while, and a lot of brown sugar was put in it, and the typical combination of brown sugar ginger soup to ward off the cold.

Seeing that the steaming ginger soup was brought up, Zhu Bofu stopped asking, and motioned for Qin Han to drink the ginger soup first before continuing to talk about things, Qin Han was not polite and immediately took a small sip of the wooden bowl and drank it, and after a while, his forehead began to sweat, and it seemed that the cold in his body was released.

"Ahan, how many people are in this Ezo tribe? Do you see how many young people there are? "Zhu Bofu attached great importance to the information that Qin Han brought back, after he set off with 1,500 soldiers under his command this time, he did not find a large number of Ezo people for more than half a month, let alone find the wintering point of the Ezo tribe.

Seeing that the food supplies carried by the army were about to be exhausted, if he didn't find the Ezo people in another day or two, he would have to withdraw, which made Zhu Bofu, who was bent on making meritorious contributions, particularly annoyed, and now that Qin Han had found the wintering place of the Ezo people, it could be said that Zhu Bofu was overjoyed.

Seeing Zhu Bofu's happy face, Qin Han, who had always been more taciturn, also smiled, but the traces on his face shook a little when he smiled, if there was a child, it was estimated that he would be frightened, of course, people who knew how this scar came from would only admire.

Fortunately, Qin Han was not far from the temple when he was injured, which was also due to Liu Qing's superb medical skills, otherwise I am afraid that Qin Han's life would be gone, although he left a scar, it was much better than those friends who gave his life, so Qin Han was also depressed for a while at first.

In the days that followed, he began to work extra hard to connect riding and martial arts, especially when he knew that Uncle Qin Lang also died on the battlefield in Jibei County, so he practiced even harder, he didn't want to disappoint his dead father and uncle, and he didn't want people to say, look at this poor child!

After joining the White Wolf Battalion, Qin Han was even more fearless of death, which made many veterans a little frightened by his strength, this kid didn't want to die when he started a battle!

Looking at Zhu Bofu's expectation in front of him, Qin Han raised his voice and said: "Because the camp of this Ezo tribe is hiding in a mountain col to shelter from the wind, there are many big trees here to block it, and it is not easy to see clearly, but according to their tents, it is estimated that the number of people in this tribe is at least more than 5,000 people, and there are about 2,000 Qingzhuang, and the strength is not weak!" ”

Zhu Bofu said uneasily: "Ah Han, do you really see clearly?" You must know that some people in the blue wolf camp are now gossiping, saying that our cavalry is an embroidered pillow, that is, it can be used on the flat ground in normal times, but once the terrain is complicated or the road is closed by heavy snow in winter, it will not be useful! We'll have to fight this time! ”

Originally, since the snow began to fall last month, Hu Bingchang, who was in charge of the combat mission of the Pingmachuan against the Ezo people, considered that many soldiers in the army had been fighting continuously for a long time, and wanted to suspend the attack, so that the soldiers who had been fighting for a long time could take a rest, after all, people are not machines, and even machines must have time to maintain them regularly.

At that time, Hu Bingchang also sent a clipper to send a letter to Wang Ze, and Wang Ze also considered this problem after receiving Hu Bingchang's letter, so he also promised to let the army rest for a month, and then launch an attack on the Ezo people after the heavy winter snow of the Wa Kingdom passed. 3800

However, when Hu Bingchang gave the order to temporarily rest, the infantry troops of Cao An and Meng Xian's two blue wolf battalions, who had newly arrived in Pingmachuan from several other fronts, and the thousands of Kuyi soldiers, did not agree.

Because they were in charge of blocking the passage between the two sides of Lake Biwa connecting Kyoto and the central mountains of the Wa Kingdom, they failed to participate in the war against Kyoto, and then the passage on both sides of Lake Biwa was only fought against sporadic Japanese deserters.

Especially after the subsequent operation to clean up the mountains around Kyoto began, even the general combat mission was gone, and now it was finally transferred to the Hirama River, how could it be stopped with such a good opportunity, after all, every Ezo tribe is a war achievement.

At their strong request, more than 15,000 soldiers of the Blue Wolf Battalion and Kuyi soldiers who were good at jungle warfare stepped into the dense jungle on their skis, dealing a heavy blow to many Ezo people who thought that they would be safe for the time being after the snowfall.

Compared with the continuous meritorious service of the blue wolf battalion, the cavalry who were not suitable for cavalry combat after the snowfall in winter and were ordered to rest could not stay, plus some people gossiped, these proud men also asked Hu Bingchang to start the attack on the Ezo people again, and they couldn't let the infantry army take all the credit!

Considering that the heavy snow in winter is too thick, Hu Bingchang used this as a reason to reject the cavalry's request to fight, who knows that Ji Xiang's gang really can't stand other people's words, even if they give up their horses, they have to participate in the battle, can't our cavalry fight without war horses?

In the end, Hu Bingchang had no choice, but still agreed to the request of the cavalry unit led by Ji Xiang, and immediately Ji Xiang, Yang Wu, Zhu Bofu, Xu Zheng, and Cheng Hu of the White Wolf Battalion each led their cavalry to change to ski infantry.

In order to fight the Ezo people, Wang Zeke transferred all the cavalry of the White Wolf Battalion, including Xu Zheng, who stayed with Jiang Chuan at the beginning, has also returned, Yan Xiaowu has just been newly married and will not be able to come, so his team of cavalry is temporarily led by Cheng Hu.

After the Battle of Jeju Island, both Ji Xiang's headquarters and the White Wolf Battalion underwent an expansion, and now the White Wolf Battalion has increased from two or three thousand to four thousand five hundred, and the number of cavalry under Ji Xiang has expanded from more than two thousand to more than five thousand.

It can be said that although Xu Zheng, Zhu Bofu and others in the current White Wolf Battalion only serve as captains of the White Wolf Battalion, they lead the troops of the Imperial Captain, if there are 3,000 troops, it is the number of Captain Yilu, the highest level of the captains, and the increase in the number of people in the White Wolf Battalion this time is also Wang Ze's foundation for the expansion of the cavalry force in the future.

It's a good thing that Ji Xiang's cavalry has a strong desire to fight, but they are not infantry after all, so they were assigned to the middle with better terrain by Hu Bingchang, in addition to Hu Bingchang's cavalry staying in Pingmachuan, even the cavalry under Yang Wu also joined the battle.

In the later generations of the Wakoku Shinkansen from Tokyo to Sendai, the terrain was relatively gentle, so it was more suitable for the newly rerouted cavalry to fight here, and the east road was bordered by the mountains and forests of the East China Sea was the soldiers of the blue wolf battalion of Meng Xian's department, and the west road was gradually advanced by the soldiers of Cao An and the Kuyi people.

In this way, after the cavalry joined, there were nearly 40,000 people in the army, and they took the Dryad Scouts and Kuyi soldiers as the vanguard, the blue wolf battalion and cavalry as the main force, and some militia slowly followed, constantly attacking the Ezo tribe in the north.

The Ezo people, who had been attacked on a large scale, also wanted to gather and launch a counterattack, but in this cold weather, the soldiers on Wang Ze's side had warm items such as sheepskin jackets and sheepskin gloves with excellent warmth effect, while the Ezo people, whose hands and feet were stiff in the cold weather, were a little insensitive to reaction.

At this time, after several large tribes organized a counteroffensive but suffered a greater blow, the Ezo people no longer dared to counterattack the Han people who were gradually advancing northward.

Unable to defeat the Han army head-on, the Ezo people had to flee further north, and after several days of continuous pursuit and purging, the Ezo people who suffered a big loss in Qingshui Village suffered a greater blow, and lost 100,000 people in the past two months.

100,000 people may be the population of a large county in the Central Plains, and it is only the size of a medium-sized county in Namchen, even in Baekje, it is only one-tenth of the current population, but for the Ezo people, who have a small population, this is almost one-third of their number.

In addition to the more than 30,000 people killed by Wang Ze's army, less than 20,000 of them were plundered as slaves, and the other 50,000 or 60,000 people actually died of hunger and cold caused by the lack of food and warm clothing after Wang Ze's army attacked and harassed, and half of them were old and weak.

For Wang Ze, the more Ezo people die, the less effort it will be to fight in the future, but for Zhu Bofu, these Ezo people do not have much of their own military exploits in them, which makes Zhu Bofu, who has always been relatively high-spirited, a little depressed and dissatisfied.

Since the end of the last offensive, there was no longer a large force of Ezo people within 200 miles of the Pingma River to the north, and then everyone no longer acted together, but changed to a small force of about 1,000 people to clear out the scattered Ezo people.

This time, Zhu Bofu came out with this thousand five hundred soldiers, but if he returned in vain, he didn't know how heavy the pressure would be, so Qin Han also understood Zhu Bofu's performance very well, so he also touched his head and said: "Why don't we go and take a look again, now Lao Zhang and they are still watching over there!" ”

Zhu Bofu thought about it and was still a little uneasy, he had the intention to take all the army over and was afraid of disturbing the Ezo people, so he ordered all the cavalry not to act rashly, and then he took a few personal soldiers with Qin Han to investigate in person, which immediately frightened Zhu Bofu.

"That's what you're talking about, about five thousand?" Zhu Bofu looked at Qin Han, Lao Zhang, and Fu Wei who were blushing with shame and asked, and then he said with certainty: "I bet that there is definitely more than one Ezo tribe here, and the Ezo people here are at least a combination of more than two tribes!" ”

Probably because of the fact that the snow is no longer falling, when Zhu Bofu came to observe it, he found that the tents of the Ezo people in this col were basically all young and strong, and the women and children of the Ezo people were all living in a relatively hidden cave next to it, and it seemed that the Ezo people were also afraid of freezing their wives and children.

This led to the fact that the Qin Han people and others did not find the actual combat power of this tribe when they were scouting at that time.

Since this is a tribal alliance with at least tens of thousands of people, it is far from being able to swallow his cavalry of more than a thousand people, not to mention that his cavalry is temporarily converted into infantry, it seems that he has to contact the team closest to him, Zhu Bofu thought silently in his heart.

He didn't blame Qin Han and the others, because although some tribes of these Ezo people would unite to attack a third party on weekdays, they had never completely brought the entire tribe together, and the cave in the col was indeed too hidden.

If it weren't for the fact that some Ezo people carried some food out of the cave after the sunny day, they wouldn't have been able to discover the cave, and it seems that the blow to the Ezo people was too great, and even the habit of living in the bark house began to change.

For Zhu Bofu, if you want to find a helper to besiege the Ezo people together, it is best to find Cheng Hu, a good brother, first, everyone is their own people, and they have achieved war merits or distribution, so they don't have to worry about too many messy things.

But Zhu Bofu doesn't know where Cheng Hu's kid is now, he led the army out with Cheng Hu, but on the fourth day, Zhu Bofu and Cheng Hu separated, if he didn't find the Ezo tribe, now the food is almost exhausted!

As for Ji Xiang and Yang Wu, the two cavalry went back to replenish their supplies because of the exhaustion of food as early as the day before yesterday, do you want to find Cao An and Meng Xian and their infantry troops?

Because of the cool words of some people in the blue wolf camp before, Zhu Bofu was very reluctant to find Cao An and them to assist him in the battle, and even if he wanted to find Cao An, Zhu Bofu didn't know where to look.

Just when Zhu Bofu was pondering, suddenly Zhu Bofu felt that there was some movement a few feet away from him, and he was about to sweep it over with a long lance, but he heard a low shout: "Don't, it's your own person!" ”