On October 13 of the 11th year of orthodoxy, Anxi Xingdu Si Kumutun Fort was shrouded in a snowstorm at the moment.

Located at the junction of the Zasak, Buria and Tushetu khanates, the Deadwood Forts were an important stronghold for the Ming Dynasty to monitor these three khanates, with 1,000 soldiers stationed here all year round.

The Anxi Xingdu Division directly governs the three guards, and its source of troops is different from that of the provincial capitals, mainly recruiting young people from the interior to join the army.

Although it is located in a bitter cold place, because the imperial court gave a relatively high salary treatment, there are still many hot-blooded men who apply.

Recently, due to the change of defense in Anxi Xingdu, there are only 400 people stationed in Deadwood Fort, which is commanded by a deputy Qianhu Liubao.

The snowstorm was howling, except for the people who took turns to stand guard, everyone else stayed in the house to roast the fire, and Zhao Xianrong, the deputy Qianhu, was no exception.

At the moment, he was in the duty room, nibbling on dry food and wiping his saber with a towel.

"Ten more days...... Someone will come to change the guard, and then you can go home and have a look! ”

Putting the knife into the sheath, Zhao Xianrong muttered: "One and two years...... I don't know if Yun'er has grown taller, if she still recognizes my father! ”

Most of the soldiers who stayed behind at this moment had the same thoughts as Zhao Xianrong.

Although the military salary of the Xingdu Division is high, it starts with a two-year rotation period, during which it will rotate in various forts, but it will take at least two years to see relatives.

Just as Zhao Xianrong was looking forward to reuniting with his family and children, the sentinels of the Dead Tree Fort discovered the situation at this moment.

"Someone seems to be coming......"

At this moment, the storm was raging, and the sand and dust brought up made the visibility very low, so the soldiers on duty could not confirm whether they were dazzled or not.

There were twenty or thirty guards stationed at various points on the fort wall, so that they could monitor the outside world from any blind spots.

So the man ran to a dozen feet away, where there was a higher watchtower with a better view from above.

However, before the man could go up, someone from above poked his head out and asked, "Do you see if there is anyone ahead?" ”

"Brother Chen, I really want to ask you!"

When the two of them said this, they instantly realized that there was really someone in front of them, so they immediately became vigilant.

There is a snowstorm right now, and it stands to reason that no one should come, and if something goes abnormal, it will be a demon.

So the soldiers on the sentry tower immediately ordered: "Then you hurry up and report Hu Xiaoqi!" ”

"Good!"

At this moment, Hu Xiaoqi is sitting in the gatehouse with his boss Zhao Zongqi, chatting about the current affairs of going home two years ago around the stove, and they are also full of expectations for the days after the change of guard.

"My lord, you must come to my house this time to be a guest, we have a ...... there"

didn't wait for Hu Xiaoqi to finish speaking, but he heard a voice from outside: "My lord, someone is coming ahead!" ”

"Which front?" Zhao Zongqi looked out the door.

The visitor reported: "...... from the front of the fort"

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a horn sound outside, which made the two people in the room unable to sit still.

In fact, as the sound of the horn spread, the entire fort was shaken.

The soldiers on duty took up their weapons and quickly climbed the fort wall, while the other soldiers also put themselves on, and no one would despise the sound of the horn, which was a joke with his own life.

On the north side of Deadtree Castle, Gizba heard the sound of a horn in front of him, and knew that his plan to attack had failed.

So he immediately activated the second plan, sending someone to trick the door of the Dead Tree Castle into opening.

Soon more than a dozen "herdsmen" were released and came to the gate of the Dead Tree Fort.

Seeing the Ming soldiers who were already waiting on the fort wall, the centurion who led the team was very confident in deceiving the fort gate.

"Who?" Someone on the top of the castle tower shouted.

At this moment, Zhao Xianrong, the deputy leader of the army, also came to the city wall, and the current situation made him feel uneasy and irritable.

"We ...... Be...... Herdsmen, the blizzard is coming...... We are afraid of freezing cattle and sheep...... Please take us in! ”

"Wait for the wind and snow...... We will have a good reward, and the cattle and sheep can give you some! ”

If you want to deceive the city gate, you must naturally be willing to give benefits.

In fact, it is not uncommon to take in herdsmen, after all, it is naturally better to have cattle and sheep as gifts, than to eat dry food, and this kind of thing has been done in various garrison forts.

So at this time, the hundred households who shouted looked at Zhao Xianrong, and it depended on what he meant if he wanted to open the door.

saw Zhao Xianrong shook his head, and the latter guessed that he didn't want to make trouble, so he immediately shouted: "This is a military village, don't take in outsiders, leave quickly!" ”

"We can send twenty sheep!" The centurion below continued to shout.

"Get out of here!"

How resolute Zhao Xianrong's attitude is, how resolute the tone of the hundred households who shouted is how resolute.

This surprised the centurion, and he cried out, "Thirty sheep, no more......

However, the next moment, three arrows were fired in front of him, and he quickly pulled the reins and took a few steps back, which was an instinctive reaction as a first-class rider.

The castle had already made it clear that there was little hope, so the centurion had no choice but to take the men away.

Knowing that he could not open the fort gate, Gizba on horseback sighed, he could only accept the worst and prepare his men to attack.

The walls of the Dead Tree Fort are two feet high, and they are also equipped with sharp weapons such as tiger squat cannons, plus all the soldiers of the Ming army are wearing armor.

It was not an easy task for Gizba's 3,000 light cavalry to take this place.

But no matter how difficult it is, for the sake of the great cause of Dzungaria, he can only fill it with human life.

In the face of today's abnormal situation, Zhao Xianrong also sent people out of the fort to investigate, and found a large number of cavalry wandering around, so he immediately ordered pre-battle preparations.

Half a day later, the three-day blizzard finally stopped, and a large number of arrows and projectiles had been moved to the fort wall, and the Dead Tree Fort was ready for defense.

All four hundred soldiers were on the fort wall, and the north side of the fort wall was nearly fifty zhang, and twenty or fifty people were arranged on this side, with an average of one person every one or two meters.

The remaining 150 people were in charge of the remaining three fort walls, and were used as reinforcements by Zhao Xianrong.

At this moment, Zhao Xianrong stood on the sentry tower, observing the situation hundreds of meters away, and his expression was extremely solemn.

"Bastard, what kind of people are these, but Lao Tzu is going to leave before attacking!" Zhao Xianrong's tone was cold.

As he pondered, a hundred households below said, "Your Excellency...... It's time to eat! ”

It was now the sun setting in the west, and it was indeed time for dinner, when the soldiers on the walls of the fort had begun to gnaw on their dry food.

"Have you chosen the person to deliver the letter?" Zhao Xianrong walked down the sentry tower and asked.

Baihu replied: "I have selected three good horsemen, and I am letting them rest at the moment, and I will let them out when it gets dark!" ”

"No...... You can't wait for dark, you have to wait for them to attack, and let people out while they are in chaos! ”

Obviously, in Zhao Xianrong's opinion, this will be more certain to escape.

But even if they escaped, the nearest Ming army stronghold to the Dead Tree Fort was nearly four hundred miles away, and it would take three or five days for the rescuers to arrive.

The question now is whether we can hold on to these five days.

Gizba also considered this problem, and he knew that he had to take the Dead Tree Fort in five days.

Although the time is tight, Jizba is not in a hurry, but asks his subordinates to prepare with all their might, and he will have the momentum of thunder when he moves.

Soon night fell, and the soldiers of Deadtree Fort also began to rest, leaving only some of them to stand guard and closely observe the situation of the enemy army.

The night didn't happen, and the next day was a rare sunny day.

And this was also the best time to attack, and after eating and drinking, Gizba gave the order to attack.

The battle of the Dead Tree Fort was fierce, and due to the defensive advantage of the Dead Tree Fort, plus the better equipment and weapons of the Ming army, Zhao Xianrong led the troops to repel one attack after another.

However, with the loss of his soldiers, the pressure on the defense of Deadtree began to increase.

On October 15, two days after the attack on Fort Withered, only one of the three soldiers sent out for interrogation made it to Fort Yongning alive.

As the core of the defense on the west side of the Anxi Xingdu Division, Yongning Fort was larger than the Dead Tree Fort, so the Anxi Xingdu Division set up Yongning Wei here.

The current commander of Yongningwei is named Sun Shaozu, and his ancestors followed Shizu to raise troops and fight against him, and he is the fourth generation.

Although the Sun family has lost its title, he himself has the heart to revive the family.

Ten years ago, Sun Shaozu was only twenty years old, and as the first flag officer of the Imperial City Yiwei Division, he dared to follow Zhu Xianming, the king of Jing, to raise troops and seize the first pot of gold on Qingyun Road.

In only ten years, he was promoted from the chief flag officer to the commander of real power, and crossed six levels and eleven orders in the middle, Sun Shaozu can be called the current king of volumes.

Now that he has been promoted from the fourth rank to the fourth rank of the martial arts captain, he will be promoted to the fourth rank of the general Mingwei, and he will pass a big hurdle in his life.

However, at this time, Sun Shaozu received the news of the attack on the Dead Tree Fort, which made him very annoyed.

"My lord, there are three thousand enemies attacking, and I am afraid that the Dead Tree Fort will not be able to defend it!" Commander Zuo Tongzhi Wang Xing said.

Ma Zongyi, the right commander, answered: "Even if we can't hold it, we have to take back the Dead Tree Fort, otherwise the Holy Lord will be furious, and you and I will only be severely punished!" ”

The right commander and Tongzhi Qiu Min said: "Now that the matter is urgent, you can directly go to Yongning Fort, and at the same time report to the Xingdu Division for help!" ”

When everyone was talking, Sun Shaozu didn't speak, and the right commander and Tongzhi Zhang Chunman also didn't speak, and the two were looking at each other at the moment.

"Spring is full...... What do you say? Sun Shaozu asked.

Zhang Chunman replied: "My lord, there is a very important matter, we have ignored ......"

"What?"

"Who the hell is so bold as to dare to attack our army!"

Everyone present was stunned, and they all felt extremely embarrassed for a while, obviously they were all carried away by anger.

"The Dead Tree Fort is located between Zasak, Tushetu and Bria, among which Zasak is the most rebellious, and I think it is them in eighty percent!" Zuo Commander Wang Xing analyzed.

Both of them nodded, obviously agreeing with this conclusion.

However, Zhang Chunman said: "I don't think it may be ...... Although the Dead Tree Fort is between these three, the grassland is sparsely populated, and other forces can also travel secretly! ”

Hearing this, Sun Shaozu frowned and said, "You mean...... Probably Dzungaria? ”

Zhang Chunman nodded, and the others present did not immediately refute, but fell into thought.

If the Dzungars make a move, then the problem is not ordinary, and it is not impossible to have a great chaos in the northwest in an instant, so the troops of Yongning Fort cannot move lightly.

"Pass the order, this rotation will be suspended, and all thousands of households will be on strict alert!"

"Besides, immediately send a message to the capital and ask them to send reinforcements over!" Sun Shaozu said coldly.

And with this order, the fate of Deadtree Fort is already sealed.

On October 17, after holding the fort for five days, all 421 officers and men of the fort were killed, and Jizba stood on the north gatehouse.

Although he had breached the Dead Tree Fort, Jizba was not at all happy.

The Ming army lost 421 people in battle, but his men lost more than 1,700 people.

If it weren't for the Dead Tree Fort's empty defense, his 3,000 men would not have been able to attack at all.

"Clean up the battlefield immediately, arrange it as the Zasak people, and we will withdraw immediately when we are done!" Gizba commanded.

Gizba was very uncomfortable with the loss of more than 1,700 men of the fort and the fact that he was about to give up in less than an hour.

But they can't go, they have to obey the khanate's plan and lead the troubles to Zasak.

As Jizba was preparing to withdraw, Anzai Kotoshi received information from Yongningwei and learned that Deadtree Fort was under attack.

Wu Changhui, the governor of the Chinese military and the current commander of the Anxi Xingdu Division, also realized the seriousness of the problem when he heard the news.

So he immediately ordered the guards to be on strict alert, sent an additional 5,000 conscripts to Yongning Fort, and conveyed the urgent military information to the capital.

At the same time, Wu Changhui also ordered the two alliances of Wolf Taiji and Namu to prepare for their best mobilization and dispatch.

When it comes to institutions at the level of the Xingdu Division, there are especially many places that need to be managed and supervised, so the commanders and the officials were all sent by Wu Changhui to keep an eye on them.

After another four days, as the commander of the capital Chen Rongxian returned to Jingning City, the news that the Deadwood Fort had been conquered was also brought back.

In the Xingdu Bureau, Wu Changhui's expression was cold, he looked at Chen Rongxian in front of him and asked, "Did the Zasak people do it?" ”

Chen Rongxian replied: "The situation at the scene indicates that the Zasak people did it!" ”

"All killed?"

Chen Rongxian replied: "Except for the people who went out of the fort to deliver the letter before, everyone else died in battle!" ”

"How many enemy soldiers died?"

"Two ...... More than 200 people! ”

thought it was 2,000 or more, but when he learned that the enemy had only killed more than 200 people, Wu Changhui immediately became uneasy.

"More than 200 people?"

Chen Rongxian explained: "Only 230 bodies were left at the scene, but there should be more...... It's just that the enemy took the corpses away! ”

For a while, the situation became more complicated.

What is the purpose of the Zasak people's hands and such strange methods?

After thinking about it for a while, Wu Changhui realized a more urgent problem, so he said: "It can't be just more than 200 enemy corpses, otherwise I won't be able to report it to the imperial court!" ”

More than 400 people died in his own family, and only 200 corpses were left behind by the enemy army attacking the city.

He knew that he had made the emperor dissatisfied, and if such a thing happened again, then he would have to apologize for his crimes.

Chen Rongxian is also a very smart person, and immediately understood Wu Changhui's worries, so he asked, "What do you mean?" ”

Wu Changhui said calmly: "Send a message to Sun Shaozu, if he doesn't want to lose his official hat, he will turn the corpse of the enemy into one thousand and five for me!" ”

"But how can this change?" Chen Rongxian asked like this, completely pretending to be stupid.

Become a commander like him, how can he not know such means as "killing good and risking merit".

"He'll figure it out himself!" Wu Changhui said coldly.

"You personally write to him about this matter and urge him to complete it!"

Many things can be avoided without pretending to be confused, for example, Chen Rongxian has to take over this errand at this moment.

Of course, he could refuse, but the consequence of refusal was that as an official in charge of the armament of the capital department full-time, the imperial court would also have to be severely punished when he learned of the situation.

As for the direct lie, the whole of Xingdu didn't have the guts, after all, Nanzhen Fusi was not a vegetarian, and they were still very good at counting corpses.

This also means that the matter of "killing good people and risking merit" must be done before the intervention of the Nanzhen Fusi Anxi Thousand Households, otherwise it is impossible to hide it.

"You go and do it immediately, I'll go to Gonggong Yang and Wang Yushi, and I'm going to play this matter with them!"

The two people mentioned by Wu Changhui at this moment are the eunuchs and the imperial historians of the supervising army, respectively, and these two people have an extremely key role in the Anxi Xingdu Division.

"I understand the lowly position, but I am an adult...... This matter, the humble always feels strange! Chen Rongxian wanted to speak and stopped.

"You suspect it wasn't the Zasaks who did it?" Wu Changhui said in one word.

In fact, they can sit in their position, so they are basically aware of the possibility of things.

"If you want to pull the corpses away, why do you leave two hundred corpses, this is too deliberate!"

Getting up from his chair, Wu Changhui said: "But there is no evidence that someone else did it, so we can only believe that it was a Zasak!" ”

"We should investigate this matter carefully, but the arrangement must not be missing!" Wu Changhui said with a serious face.

"Ignorance, understood!" Chen Rongxian sighed in his heart.

(End of chapter)