The 30,000 Gothic cavalry left the Thracian camp and marched north, told them that the target was Lower Mercia, near the Fort of Marciana on the Danube. As we all know, it was a fortress castle that the Romans spent hundreds of years building, and it was not only an important town in the Lower Mehcia region, but also an important support point for the Roman Empire's northern defense line on the Danube. But now that it has fallen into the hands of the Goths, it has rightfully become a fortress for the Goths to defend against the Chinese.

It was already winter, and the cold wind blowing from the north was getting colder day by day, although the cold weather did not bring any trouble to the Goths who grew up in this weather, but the Goths who rode their horses and wrapped in "sheepskin coats" felt that this year was the coldest winter, and the cold wind not only cut the Goths' faces like knives, but also pierced the Goths' hearts like icicles.

The Dnieper River can't stop the footsteps of the Chinese, the Dniester can't stop the footsteps of the Chinese, can the Danube stop the footsteps of the Chinese? The long journey of tens of thousands of miles can't stop the determination of the Chinese people to march west, can the small Fort of Marciana stop the determination of the Chinese people to continue to move forward?

All the Goths had no faith, they were more silent or silent in prayer. In the past few years, the "yellow race" roaring from the east has swept the entire Black Sea steppe with an unheard-of offensive. Maybe the Goths and Slavs were much taller than these yellow peoples, but as long as these "yellow peoples" were on horses, they were taller than any other people.

After three days of marching, Friedigan suddenly gave an order, and the whole army turned forward, for the cunning Chinese, seeing that the Goths were waiting for Lower Mexia in the lower Danube, waved their guns and turned to Upper Dacia, where they were ready to cross the Danube.

Fredigan told his subordinates very heavily in his order, according to the latest intelligence. The region south of the Dniester also fell into the hands of the Chinese, following the region south of the Dnieper. The brutal "massacre" of the Chinese cavalry caused everyone left there to abandon the last bit of resistance, and they laid down their arms and fell to their knees before these mysterious Oriental mounts, begging for mercy and forgiveness. Now the Chinese cavalry, which was marching very fast, was already close to the Danube, and it was possible at any time to cross the river south at Upper Dacia.

It is true that most of the Dacia region south of the Dniester River fell into the hands of the Chinese, but it is false that the Chinese cavalry went to Upper Dacia, because the latest information sent to Firedigan is that the two Chinese cavalry are now in a tendency to merge into one, and the Chinese seem to want to cross the Danube River in Downia and kill directly in Thrace along the Fort of Marciana. That's why Firedigan hurriedly concocted a set of lies. In order to implement the retreat plan he had been planning for a long time, the Chinese moved too fast, and in just over a month, they had already fought from the Dniester to the Danube.

The 30,000 Gothic cavalry turned around and ran westward, fearing that if they were slow, they would allow the Chinese to cross the Danube. Everyone knows that the Danube was the last barrier of the Goths, and it is now as important to the Goths as it was to the Romans.

When the 30,000 Goths ran wild for four days, there was still no trace of the Chinese, but the stragglers of the Roman army and the Roman inhabitants here caused some trouble for the Goths. The Goths though defeated the Roman army at Adrianople. destroyed the normal rule of the Roman Empire here, but the small part of the Roman army and inhabitants stationed here did not give up, taking advantage of their familiarity with the local terrain. Raiding the Goths day and night.

Messiah (located in present-day Serbia and Bulgaria) became a province of the Roman Empire in southeastern Europe more than 100 years ago, according to the practice of the Romans, not only built castles and fortresses here, but also migrated many Roman legion veterans to "immigrate" here to consolidate the rule of the Roman Empire here, so the local customs here are relatively strong, although it did not make the Goths break their bones, but it is always a lot of trouble.

The former military governor of the Messiah was Flavius Theodosius, but in 372 A.D. (the second year of Xian'an) his two legions were defeated by the Visigoths and Alans, and he was removed from his military post by the Emperor Valens. His father, a prominent general of the Roman Empire, tried to resist Valens' order, but was executed by His Majesty the Emperor, and Theodosius had to return to Segovia, Spain, where he was born. (There are some discrepancies with history)

But with the defeat of Adrianople, the generals of the eastern Roman Empire were also lost. The western emperor Gratian had no choice but to appoint Theodosius, who was familiar with the situation, as the eastern emperor. Theodosius quickly sailed from Spain to Constantinople and drew numerous troops from Messia, Macedonia and other places to defend Constantinople. Fortunately, Theodosius had taken his old legions from the Messiah, otherwise the Goths' westward march would have been even more difficult.

Listening to the reports of these small battles and casualties of his subordinates, Firedigan's face was dripping with coldness. He knew that this place had been Theodosius' region before, so he had a fire in his heart. After the defeat of the Roman army at Fredigan. once led his troops to "pursue while he was victorious". Take Adrianople in one fell swoop. Who knew that they could fight the Romans in the wilderness, but the Gothic "warriors" were helpless in front of the fortress castle, and were repeatedly repelled by the few defenders inside. For more than half a year, nothing was found. Friedigan then led his army south to attack the richer city of Constantinople. Who knew that Theodosius would come to office so soon, and he organized the city defense to repel the Goths' attacks again and again, and also repelled the Goths' enthusiasm that burst out from Adrianople's victory.

Seeing the increasing number of reinforcements from Rome, Fredigan knew that the Goths could not hold on, so he once again asked for "peace", but Theodosius flatly refused the Goths' request for peace, because he knew that the Chinese would soon appear behind the Goths.

If it weren't for the stubbornness of this fellow, the Goths might have made peace with the Romans, that is, they would not have had to worry about the attack of the Chinese, and they could have stayed in rich Thrace.

"Loot all the villages here, and kill all the Romans who resist!" Fredigan said fiercely. Since it was a flight, I couldn't take care of it so much, and this time I fled west in a hurry, and I had to hide people's eyes, so I didn't bring much food and grass. There has to be a way to raise it. From the moment he left Thrace, Fredigan told himself that the most important thing now was to save his life, and the second was to keep as much of the army as possible.

The Goths sprang into action, and they rushed madly towards the Roman villages, plundering everything from the Romans like crazy, and soon the fire and black smoke rose everywhere in the land of Messia, and the Goths ransacked all the places they passed like a swarm of locusts. Fridigan and Savolax just watched in silence, they didn't want to stop it and couldn't stop it, because they knew it was their own men venting. Give vent to their fears.

After two more days, there was still no trace of the Huaxia people, and some of the Goths began to turn a corner, and their big leader was probably not taking them to a decisive battle with the Huaxia people, but was fleeing, leaving behind their relatives and clansmen to flee shamelessly.

At the foot of the Stara Mountain, the great chieftains of the great chieftains, Fredigan and Savolax, approached the great chieftains and demanded an explanation of where they wanted to take the Goths.

"I want to take you to life!" The loud speech of Friedigen quickly calmed the crowd, and they all looked up at Friedigan who had jumped onto a large rock.

"In Constantinople, the eastern emperor of the Roman Empire, Theodosius, came from Asia Minor (a province of the Roman Empire. present-day southwestern part of Asia, Achaia (present-day southern Greece), Bithynia (present-day northwestern part of Asia, Turkey), Galatia, Cappadocia (all eastern part of Turkey), and even a steady stream of troops were brought in from Egypt, although we defeated the Roman army at Adrianople. But more Roman troops would converge to Constantinople and then continue north to Thrace. ”

"And our most dangerous enemy, the Chinese people in the north, they instigated their mounts, through tens of thousands of miles of vast grasslands, through boundless snow, through countless rivers appeared in front of us, we have countless relatives and clansmen died under their iron hooves, and now their war horses are already drinking the water of the Danube."

"The Romans and the Chinese have formed an alliance, and I have received very certain news from Constantinople by the men I have sent them. Because of this, the Romans of Constantinople cheered, and because of this, Theodosius rejected my suture for peace. ”

With that, Friedigan glanced at the leaders below. They're finally starting to understand.

"The Romans conquered the west of this world, and the Chinese conquered the east of this world, and now they are together with only one purpose, and that is to exterminate the Goths. Slav. Because we are the only obstacle and estrangement between these two great empires! ”

"Do you want to go back now? Do you still want to face the rain of arrows flying like lightning from the Chinese people in front, but behind you is the phalanx of Roman legions slowly driving over? "Speaking of which. The doubts in the hearts of all the big and small leaders were answered, and they all lowered their heads involuntarily in the face of reality.

"If you are still willing to go back, I will not stop you, but I will continue to move forward with the rest of the people, and find a distant place, a place that neither the Romans nor the Chinese can see." Friedigan finally said categorically.

After a while, one of the little chiefs asked, "Great chief, is there really any place for the Romans in the west?" Or is there a place that the Chinese subway hooves can't go? ”

Fredigan was silent for a long time before replying, "I don't know, but we can only go west, because only in this way can we Goths gallop freely across the steppe, enjoying the sun and the air freely." ”

Everyone exchanged heads and talked about it for a while, but many people should have been moved by the scene. Fridigan glanced at Savolax quietly, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately, he had been educated by the Roman Church Fathers (not necessarily Christians) when he was a child, and he also had a lot of information about the Romans and the Chinese, otherwise it would be really difficult to pass today.

After the night, about 5,000 men left the brigade and headed east, ready to return to their relatives. Although Fredigan felt a little regretful and heartache, he felt a little better when he saw that there were still more than 20,000 cavalry.

On the second day of the journey, the spies behind sent a piece of information that a Chinese cavalry was rushing west day and night, and the target should be their own army. Now the distance is only more than 100 miles.

This information made Friedegan's heart sink to the bottom of the sea, and he really couldn't imagine where this Chinese cavalry came from? It's no wonder that the Chinese didn't seem to have used any tactics before, but they just routed the Goths with an overwhelming offensive, but the Goths couldn't understand what tactics and strategies the Chinese people used, because none of them had read "The Art of War".

According to the strategic strategy set by Hu Lawyer's Association and others, not only Murong Ling's notorious 3,000 advance troops were false, but even the army that swaggered south along the west coast of the Black Sea was also false. When Hu Lawyers' Association read the Dniester, he immediately divided five thousand cavalry. Led by Dou Lin, under the banner of the main force, he continued to move south, attracting the attention of the Goths, and he and Ulolanto led 20,000 main forces, one man and two horses, directly across Dacia, crossed the river in Middle Mexia, and prepared to attack a handful of Thracian Goths.

But it was very coincidental that when Hu Lawyers' Association led the army to cross the Danube. I received a horse from the prospector who crossed the river in advance and said that two days ago, I found a Gothic cavalry of tens of thousands of people hurrying west from a place more than 100 miles away from Henan, and it seemed that it should be the elite of the Goths. It is not clear what the situation is. But he never let go of the cheapness, so he immediately reorganized the army and followed.

At first, Hu Bar Association was still a little hesitant, because he also regarded Phiredigan as an equal opponent, thinking that the other party would be the same as himself, and he would use all kinds of intrigues and tricks. But when the 5,000 goths fled the brigade and returned east, they were hit by the Hu Lawyers Association. The Hu Lawyers Association called the captives over and knew from the interpreter that it was one of their targets this time - the main force of the Phiredigan and the Goths, so he did not hesitate to follow them.

Seeing that the Huaxia people were chasing after him, Firedigan ran away with his men. Of course, the Hu Lawyers Association is in hot pursuit. After two days of running, the Goths suffered a big loss.

Fighting this kind of pursuit war is the specialty of the Chinese people, and this fine tradition has been left since the beginning of the Beifu Army. The Hu Lawyers Association divided the troops into four groups, each with 5,000 troops, and took turns to pursue. Changing horses does not change people, and does not seek to hold the Goths, as long as they bite the tails of the Goths, so that they keep running away day and night.

The Goths were chased into the sky for two days, and there was no way to enter the earth. It's often hard to stop and take a breath. Before they could catch their breath, the Chinese cavalry roared and chased after them again, and they didn't know how many of them were. I saw that they used bows, arrows and sabers to take the lives of many Goths, so that the frightened Goths had to continue to flee for their lives, not to mention eating, even drinking saliva had to take a break, and more than 5,000 Goths were lost in this way.

Fredigan understood that if he continued to run like this, his army would sooner or later run out, not to be killed, but to run alive. And Firedigan also found that there were not many Chinese cavalry chasing each time, only 3,000 to 6,000 people.

Savolax very much agreed with Friedigan's judgment, in his opinion, if there were really tens of thousands of Chinese cavalry behind, they would not have eaten themselves cleanly long ago. In the past two days, in Savolax's view, the Chinese people are not so much chasing themselves as they are chasing themselves, so that the Chinese people should not eat their own strength, but are just bluffing.

With Savolax's support, Firedigan categorically decided that the whole army would stop and turn to a decisive battle with the Huaxia, and he also communicated his conjectures in order to cheer up his subordinates.

This move of Firedigan was in the hands of the Hu Lawyers Association, because he knew that even if his 20,000 troops caught up, he could only defeat the Goths. So he used such a method, just to make the goths feel that something was wrong to turn back, and if the goths didn't look back, sooner or later they would be grinded to death by themselves.

On October 21 of the second year of Huaxia, it was a weather when small snowflakes began to fall, and the Huaxia and Goths stopped and began to reorganize their troops and equipment as if they had made an appointment. The two cavalry were only less than thirty miles apart, and their respective scouts had begun frequent battles in this short distance, which could be regarded as a prelude to the decisive battle between the two armies.

It was less than fifty miles from Lower Messiadian Issus (present-day Dinesh in eastern Serbia and Montene), the birthplace of Constantine I, the emperor of the Roman Empire decades ago, who left a great name in Western history, especially Christian history.