I walked on the Loess Plateau for another three days. In the marginal areas of the loess gullies and the Mongolian desert steppe, the terrain is getting lower and lower. Gao Zhong and his entourage crossed the Kushui River, rested for a while at Hui'an Fort, replenished their drinking water, and continued northward.

After walking for more than an hour, a cannon rang out in front of them, and everyone saw a stream of smoke and dust in the northwest covering the sky and closing the sun. Gao Zhong saw a troop of cavalry roaring in the telescope, with three or four hundred horsemen. In the smoke, the sword light was faintly visible. In the telescope, Gao Pet also saw that the enemy's clothing was varied, and it was not a regular army, but a sand thief.

There was a scout's anxious shout from ahead. "Cavalry attack, ten miles!"

Gao Pet looked around and shouted:

"All of them, retreat to the rear high ground on the right, the car is in a circle, and the No. 1 defense plan."

The crowd pushed the cart and retreated to the high ground, and the scout cavalry broke off to cover it.

What is about to face is a bloody battle. Everyone's faces changed.

"Enemy cavalry 8 miles!"

"Enemy Rider 5 Miles"

"Crossing the Third Ditch"

"Enemy Four Miles"

"Enter Erdaogou"

"The enemy rode three miles and entered a ditch"

Scouts constantly reported the position of the enemy's striker, and Gao Zhong saw it clearly in front of the telescope. This small high slope occupied by the high pet has two long slopes, one to the south and one to the northwest, and the north slope is steep and difficult for cavalry to navigate.

All the people have all retreated to the high and small heights, and Gao Zhong divided the defense of the two sides into two teams, with Zhao Yi leading a hundred people from the fast counter battalion to take charge of the south side, and another squad was assigned to guard the north slope in the fast counter company. The south side is relatively narrow because of the attacking side, so there are fewer people arranged. About 120 people from the original personal guard battalion and the Qian family were in charge of the northwest front. Because of Ding Li's rich experience in cavalry warfare, half of the scout platoon and the Deng family's guards formed a horse team of more than 50 horsemen as a reserve, commanded by Ding Li. The short spear that originally accompanied the car was connected to the spear of Zhangba, and the waist knife was connected to the long handle. All the wheelbarrows form a double long arc and are connected by a drawstring. Only one counterattack activity port was left on both sides. After the high pet was arranged, the enemy horse team came out of the ditch and stopped at a place two miles to the northwest front.

The leader of this sand bandit is also experienced, and seeing that the other party has formed a defensive formation, it is impossible to suddenly attack, so he commands all the sand bandits to stop and discuss the attack plan.

This sand bandit rampant in this area, to rob the past merchants for a living, in the post and town have a line, in Hui'an Fort learned that there is a large caravan to Lingwu, poured out. The leader of the sand thieves claimed to be a descendant of the Tuoba clan called Tuoba Duo'er, but there were not many party members among the bandits, including Hui beggars, Han people, and Qiang people, and the composition was very complicated.

This Tuoba Battlement originally thought that although there were two or three hundred people in a large caravan, even if there were a few good hands, in the face of his own cavalry, there would only be a little resistance. But seeing the defensive posture of the caravan, it seems to be a hedgehog, and there is a feeling that I have no way to start. This Tuoba Duo'er arranged for the second master to take more than 50 horsemen to attack the southern slope to distract their attention, and he was preparing to attack the northwest slope with the main force of the brigade.

Before the attack, Tuoba Duo'er came out of the crowd and shouted to Gao Zhong and others on the slope, first in Western Xia dialect, and the other in Chinese:

"Listen, the people on the slope, I am the blood wolf of this Lueryuan, you obediently hold all your belongings, I promise to let you live, if not, dare to resist, and let your heads fall to the ground, and blood will be splashed in the wilderness."

"Tuoba Duo'er, you claim to be the descendant of the Xixia royal family, but what have you done, here you occupy an area as the king, the past merchants were killed by you and never left a living, the merchants have changed their ways, robbed the merchants and his herdsmen, robbed the herdsmen and you attacked the town. The ancients said that thieves also have thieves, so if you do this business and make your business absolutely absolute, let us believe you, we are stupid. ”

Qian Jichen Minsheng Xixia language, also understood the situation of this group of bandits, in Hui'an Fort, he persuaded Gao Chong to turn west and walk along the Kushui River to Hongsi Fort, but Gao Chong did not agree in two aspects. First, it took nearly two days to walk through the Red Temple Fort, and it was not safe on the road, and second, he wanted to train the psychological stability and combat power of the Flying Tiger Army and the cavalry through the battle with this sand thief. The country is only 300 troops for this sand pirate. It's just some experienced light riders, the so-called experienced is the experience of robbery, the experience of bullying the weak. Gao Zhong has the confidence to win in battle, and the confidence to destroy this murderous sand thief.

Gao Zhong asked the soldiers to raise their spears sparsely and lure the sand thieves to attack. The sand thieves are well equipped and familiar, we are in the open, the enemy is in the dark, and the team is defenseless. If the sand thieves want to run and guerrilla, the high pet will be a real headache, but the sand thieves will consume their combat power, personnel, and materials.

"Now I am strong and you are weak, I am a sword, you are a fish, you can only listen to me." Seeing Gao Chong's sparse guns, he stumbled in the middle of his speech, thinking that his own deterrence had worked, and said directly in stiff Chinese.

"Tuoba'er, I have more people than you, if you want to kill us, you will hurt yourself eight hundred, and you are not doing a good job in this business. Money is easy to find, but these brothers of yours are not easy to find, I advise you to quit, I have two jars of top wine, how about your hard work? "This money boss is also fun, the brigade of people came out to look for food, but he wanted to use two jars of old wine to pass the time.

"Two jars of old wine, you send it to call Hanako, kill you, everything is mine. Let some of you not do it! Brothers, kill me"

"Slow" Hearing Boss Qian say "Slow", these sand thieves thought that they were going to surrender, and stopped again.

"I'm scared. Going to surrender? Tuoba said sarcastically.

"I think you made less money just now, how about I add two jars of wine, four jars?" Boss Qian, you have to hit their morale, the ancient art of war: "One drum, then drum, three and exhaustion." ”

"Fart! Brothers, rush me! The cavalry began to run again in broken steps.

"Brother Tuoba, slow!" When Tuoba Duo'er heard someone call him eldest brother, he thought that the other party was really afraid, so he pulled the horse's head and stopped. "What's going on!"

"Our senior brother asked, what will happen to your wife and children after you die!"

"*** bastard, brothers kill me, kill everything!" This duel is really angry this time.

The team began to trot again, and was already within range of the high-pet second crossbow. There are three sizes of the highly favored exterminator crossbow, two stones, three stones, and four stones. Ershi's No. 1 crossbow is mainly equipped with cavalry, scouts or quick counter battalions, while most of them are equipped with No. 2 crossbows, which have enough range and do not need to be too strong, and a small part of the strength is large to prepare No. 3 crossbows. The maximum effective range of the short arrow of the second crossbow is 500 steps, the long arrow is 360 steps, and the maximum range of direct aim is 140 steps and 180 steps respectively. The third crossbow is higher, with a projectile of 560 and 750 steps, respectively. The maximum range of direct aiming has also reached 200 and 260 steps respectively.

This crossbow attack was commanded by Dazhu, who had command experience in several battles and had mastered the essentials of three-stage strikes.