In the sixth year of light and the sixth year, on July 15, the field of the long shrine.

In the early morning, Yan Gang, the general of the Taishan army commando cavalry who was marching, received a military report from the sentry cavalry of the Tunbu, ordering him to capture the barrier two miles away in front of him in the early morning to protect the communication line of the official road.

Since July 8, the Taishan army began to march south, and after seven consecutive days of marching, the mule and horse team of the Taishan army finally arrived at Yingchuan Changshe, which was less than 100 miles away from the Yingyang battlefield.

Different from what most people think, they think that the cavalry march is a march of hedgehogs gathered together and swarming, but in fact, as a military organization, the cavalry march still maintains its structure and cooperation.

For example, this time to the south, there are only more than 1,000 elite cavalry of the Taishan army, and the remaining 3,000 are infantry troops dragged by mules and donkeys.

Therefore, this time to the south, the turks and the flying army carried the flag together on the outer line, leaving a safer middle to the 3,000 mules and donkeys.

These outside cavalry troops acted alone, like bees, swarms out to scout, get supplies, and then return to the brigade together.

There is no way, even if donkeys and mules eat less than horses, but five thousand horses add up, they can eat up a piece of forage, and it is not possible to move without dividing troops, it is too difficult to supply.

At this moment, Yan Gang, who had already accumulated merit as a general, took his fifty horsemen and was preparing to attack a dock wall two miles away, which was on the marching line, and it was necessary to take it for the safety of the brigade.

Yan Gang first let everyone eat to replenish their strength.

During the march, there was no way to make a fire to cook, and the millet balls that were originally prepared when setting off had already been eaten, so at this time, everyone could only bite the jerky, drink some water, and take it as a meal.

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After eating, Yan Gang rode a horse and took fifty horsemen under his command and walked slowly on the ridge.

The warm breeze of midsummer blows the yellowed millet and sways all the way into the distance. Looking to the southeast, it is the silent eastern plain of Henan, vast and long. To the northwest, there is the dividing zone between the hilly areas of western Henan and the plains of eastern Henan, and the dark and gloomy slopes rise and fall, dotting the land. The rising sun in the sky, orange and red like a chicken, wisps of soft light, through the residual haze to spread the world.

Yan Gang's team, just like that, carried military flags one after another, marching in such a poetic early morning.

But all this is an illusion, Yan Gang's team marched on the ridge, in addition to the poetic morning, what they saw was more sparkling bones, broken spears, obviously, these are the remnants of the multi-day bloody battle between the Han army and the Yellow Turban Army some time ago. And what they smelled was that, in addition to the fragrance of the field millet that represented hope, more of the smell came from the smell of blood emitted from their own military flags and armor, which was the residual smell of their annihilation of a township tyrant yesterday.

Suddenly, there was a burst of human voices, and the neighing of horses and donkeys came from the official roads in the north, destroying the illusory sense of Yan Gang's team and pulling them back to reality.

The small dock fort in front of you is a typical product of a group of people, and does not have much military function. After all, Yuzhou is located in the heart of the Central Plains, and it has not smelled beacon fire for many years.

But this time the Yingchuan Yellow Turban swarm rose, and these dock walls with only earthen enclosures fell into bad luck, and I don't know how many villagers were easily captured by the chaotic Yellow Turban Army, and the whole family was cushioned.

And the dock wall in front of Yan Gang is also the same fate.

At first, it was built by a township tyrant named He's, but it was later broken by the Yellow Turban Army of the Changshe with He's apprenticeship. After that, the Han army came again, because of the proximity to the communication line, the Han army also came to fight, and finally the two hundred yellow scarves in the village were taken out and killed, and this became the stronghold of the Han army again.

But later, the main force of the Han army pursued Bocai south, and it was handed over to the few remaining Haoqiang in Changshe. But these heroes also suffered a lot of losses, and there were no extra manpower to manage this enclosure, and this place was located on the line of communication, which was easy to attract the enemy to attack, and it was not cost-effective to garrison here, so it was later abandoned.

Eventually, some beggars living in the countryside took up the fence to shelter from the wind and rain. And now, outside the dock wall, a team of elite horsemen, looking at their yellow clothes and yellow towels, these beggars know that the Yellow Turban Army is back, and after discussing with each other for a while, they decided to open the wall to welcome these yellow scarves.

They are also poor people, and the reputation of the Yellow Turban Army in Yingchuan has always been good, so these people can rest assured when they see these elite horses with yellow scarves.

Yan Gang outside the wall was still preparing to attack, and their usual method was to pull the wooden door with a lasso, and the barricade of these small dock walls could not afford to prohibit them from riding fifty lassoes. But now that the people in the city have taken the initiative to surrender, Yan Gang is not surprised, after all, there are not many people who can resist desperately.

But as the people inside these walls came out, all of them were in rotten clothes and barefoot, and they were full of stench, and Yan Gang realized that these were not those townsmen, but begging.

Yan Gang's family also has some family assets, and they are not very able to empathize with these beggars, and when he saw these people, he subconsciously thought that this time the grain collection was troublesome, and these people obviously did not look like they had supplies.

The horsemen followed these people into the wall, looking at the ruins of the wall, Yan Gang still did not give up, and asked:

"Do you have anything to eat here?"

As soon as these words came out, all the beggars looked at each other, and finally a slightly longer one took out a plate of roasted rhizomes from the back of the courtyard, and they didn't know what it was.

Yan Gang actually asked them if they had any extra food, not that they were hungry and wanted to eat. But seeing the miserable appearance of these people, Yan Gang touched the horseshoe gold in his pocket, and still didn't ask much, but asked his command to go to the nearby woodcutters, boil some hot water, and everyone cook something to eat together.

And less than ten miles away from Yan Gang, Cao Cao, the cavalry commander of the Han army, was also collecting grain at a barrier, which was obviously much richer than Yan Gang's.

At this time, the powerful people on this wall were surrounding Cao Cao, who had a beard, complaining. For this big man who is only seven feet tall, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, and speaks Kyoto dialect with a Yuzhou Peiguo accent, these local tyrants of the Changshe community did not give much face.

It's good in peacetime, but now in wartime, if they don't harden themselves, they will definitely be sucked out of the bone by these soldiers. Just like this, as soon as this Cao Duwei's soldiers came, they had to levy their millet and their draft animals. What's more, they also want to leave some war horses in their walls to raise, saying that this is the country's real horse, and if it is raised well, it is glorious, and if it is bad, they will all be charged with the crime of disrespect and be charged to the army.

This is really unreasonable, this is simply blackmail. How could these townsmen swallow this breath, and together with the surrounding townsmen, they blocked Cao Cao and others at the door of the dock wall, and they had to say something.

The townspeople in their vicinity are all distant branches of the Zhong clan of the Changshe Society, and they have always been strong. In this catastrophe, they blocked the moth thieves and suppressed the Han soldiers, and now a group of cavalry from Beijing wants to knock them out of the bones? How can it be!

But this is no wonder Cao Cao, he was ordered by Zuo Zhonglang to lead 2,000 cavalry to the north, because he was not sure whether he would meet the Taishan army in the south, these days he sentry rode out in all directions, running all over the vicinity of a hundred miles, is people sleepy and horses are lacking, and he wants to come to conquer these Zhong clansmen's camels, after all, he is bringing a cavalry, no mounts, what is it called?

But these sons and daughters under his command are all prodigal in Kyoto, and often do some blackmailing things. In the past, in Kyoto, royal gifts were often used to blackmail merchants.

For example, if you go to someone's store to drink wine and eat meat, you don't give money, but if you have to ask for money, you will take out a piece of cloth given by the royal family, saying that it is mortgaged here, and let him withdraw the money later. But if there is a little damage and stain on this cloth, it is not a matter of money, it is disrespectful to the country, and the whole family will be punished as slaves.

Those liquor vendors are doing business to make money, not to cause trouble, and when they see the appearance of these people, they are basically more than less, so that these people can eat well and go back.

And now, these Kyoto wanderers have used their methods in Kyoto in the countryside of Changsha. But they obviously don't know how these local tyrants in the countryside can bear this kind of loss, as they are also the lords of the overbearing place.

Therefore, as soon as they were persecuted, they led people to block Cao Cao's station.

This will be Cao Cao's side, that is, more than a dozen people, looking at the black pressure outside, he was so sad and angry that he scolded people in Yudong dialect, and the atmosphere was very tense.

Cao Cao was dressed in a military uniform, and stood in front of the leading townsmen with Wu Ben on his head, squinting his eyes, pretending to be attentive, and bowing his head from time to time as if he was listening.

Surrounded by a few local tyrants, while complaining and complaining, he openly and secretly said which elders he knew in the court and who he was related to.

Cao Cao knew that he could only listen to half of these words, but Cao Cao, who was also from Yuzhou, of course also knew the feelings of the people in Benzhou.

But listening to it, Cao Cao began to wander, he was so tired these days, and now he was just pretending to listen to these local tyrants. When these people talked, most of the time they reintroduced their backgrounds, which was nonsense for Cao Cao, so he just took a break to relax his tense nerves. So his hands are unconsciously twisting his beard, which is a subconscious behavior when he is nervous.

That's right, Cao Cao was really nervous, because this was the first time he commanded the troops, and then he directly became a general, and he also took two thousand cavalry, and the Taishan thief who was about to fight against was the most thief among the thieves. Now that he, a cavalry lieutenant with a rank of more than 2,000 stones, is fighting against others again, I don't know if he will add another one.

is also with such worries, he is extremely careful these days, after all, under the fame, there is no vanity, every time you are more careful, there will be more opportunities.

But those soldiers under him, how can they understand Cao Cao's worries, seeing his mother-in-law who searches for a hundred steps and stops at a thousand steps, and secretly ridicules him as "Cao Yuan", not a eunuch background who cares about his people, and even more ugly words, these soldiers can say it.

With such soldiers, it is no wonder that Cao Cao has to be so careful.

This will, those townsmen are still talking there, and it is difficult to think in a chaotic environment, but Cao Cao is fine, he is more sensitive than ordinary people's thinking, of course, a disadvantage is that he is now, and he occasionally has headaches. It can't be helped, this is the little fault of every wise man.

In the chaotic rap, the original hazy thoughts became clearer and clearer, and Cao Cao suddenly gathered the clues of the past few days of investigation.

The sentry cavalry said that a small group of horse manure was detected, and the baggage team said that there were fewer wild beasts than before during this time, and these townships paid more and more attention to food, and the obedience to the Han soldiers was decreasing...... These all made Cao Cao intuitively think that the Taishan thief should have arrived, but how could it be so fast?

He also led the troops, and knew that the normal march of the army was about 30 miles a day, and it was about 300 miles from here to Fengqiu, and according to the loss of Fengqiu on July 4, it would be at least until July 16 to get here, and this was still a case of no preparation. But no matter how elite the soldiers are, it will take three or five days for the whole army to set off, so theoretically, the Taishan thieves will not arrive until at least July 20, how can they come so quickly?

Did they fly?

When Cao Cao was thinking deeply, he could still keep dealing with those local tyrants who were getting more and more excited, echoing them, and constantly bowing his head. But suddenly, a local tyrant, perhaps aggrieved, suddenly pulled out a war horse that was already weak and had a broken horse's paw from the crowded disciples behind, and he dragged the remnant horse, pulling Cao Cao, and was about to speak.

The excesses of this local tyrant not only made the soldiers behind Cao Cao nervous to protect Cao Cao, but even Cao Cao himself was pulled by his others and returned to reality from his contemplation.

When he saw the horse, and then at the yelling tyrant, he understood what was going on.

The local tyrant was also frightened by the soldiers who rushed in at first, but then looked at the black crowd behind him, and his courage came back to life, and he shouted:

"You group of embryos, look at what kind of horses you have given us, don't you see that these horseshoes are broken? This horse can't even stand up, and you still need me to raise it? Is there such a bully? Isn't this clearly slandering me? ”

Cao Cao looked at the horse, it was good that it was weak, this was the lack of forage during this time, and he lost weight, so he raised it in the back, ate more night grass, and just got fat. But the most fatal thing was the horseshoe wound, which is typical of the horse's hooves worn off, and then the rider kept and rode hard, causing the horse's hooves to be lame.

This situation is also the main reason for the damage of war horses, those rocky roads, a little carelessness can make war horses lame.

And now it is obvious that it is the soldiers under his command who take a horse that cannot be raised well to let this local tyrant raise it, and it is indeed clearly blackmailing him.

Although he was tired of killing those soldiers in his heart, in front of outsiders, especially in the current situation, Cao Cao pretended to smile:

"Laosuo, I understand your feelings, but there is something wrong with what you say. You said that this horse is useless and can't stand up, I think this horse can stand up, do you believe it or not? ”

After speaking, without waiting for his reaction, Cao Cao bent down and stroked the mane of the remnant horse, and then in the surprised eyes of everyone, the horse actually slipped on the ground with all four hooves and struggled to stand up.

Then there was a whip, and a whip neighed on the horse's ribs, dripping with blood.

At this time, everyone saw clearly, it turned out that Cao Cao actually pulled out a horse whip from his cuffs, used the whip to deter the horse, and made it stand up.

Cao Cao touched the trembling horse, and in the frightened eyes of everyone, he said:

"Look, isn't that a good horse?"