Bidding farewell to the hundred riders, Zhang Mingyue and Li Qiushu set off at night, already dressed in white robes, plus a piece of ice and snow, if it were not for close observation, it would be absolutely difficult to see that Zhang Mingyue had a knife and a crossbow, and the scholar also wore a sword, but because Xu had never marched in a hurry in the cold, he was out of breath when he ran five miles away.

"No, no, you slow down, I can't catch up with you. ”

Zhang Mingyue, who threw out the scholar's big length, had to stop.

"Fortunately, we are going outside, if we are chased and fleeing, save your body, you will be caught and dismantled if you can't run a mile away, and then whether you are a military advisor or a big soldier, you will end up with a dead body. ”

Zhang Mingyue picked up the scholar who was sitting on the snow and couldn't leave.

"The general said that I should take the brothers back alive, and it was also my fault, if I were replaced by other brothers, I might want to bury your boy in what he would be, and would he be able to leave?"

"No...... Let me stop and take a breath. ”

Li Qiushu probably didn't expect that Saibei was so uncomfortable in winter, the Tiger Wolf Pass was fine, but ordinary people in the Western Xia land couldn't bear it at all, although the body was very warm after a long journey, but the feeling of not being able to get out of the air was really annoying, and he was even more powerless and couldn't sleep comfortably in the snow.

"Okay, then you stop, don't blame me for not telling you, in addition to the Western Xia barbarians, there are still many poisonous insects and beasts in this land, otherwise why do you think the general will not let us take care of the barbarians' corpses after every battle, because there are hungry beasts in winter who will deal with these corpses, and because these are accustomed to the smell of human flesh, wherever there is a lone person can smell the smell from afar. If you want to be food in the belly of the beast, then you can try it. ”

Zhang Mingyue saw that the scholar was really relying on not leaving, so he left him and said coldly.

"If you die for the war, at least my border guards still remember you, and the people of Xichu also remember you, but if you die like this, you will only become the laughing stock of others, the road is in front of you, and you decide how to go. ”

"You...... You're not fucking scaring me, are you?"

Li Qiushu only felt a chill all over his body.

"Does it scare you, don't you know if you try it?"

No longer reluctant to march, the scholar sat up with a grunt.

"Count you kid ruthless, don't you just bully me and just came to the border?"

Zhang Mingyue was noncommittal.

The scholar staggered and followed closely, it was dark, although there was no brilliance above the nine heavens, fortunately, he was not worried about not being able to see it in the ice and snow, and when he reached seven or eight miles, Zhang Mingyue suddenly stopped.

"It's here. ”

The two of them hid behind a small hill, and not far away they could faintly see the light of the fire, accompanied by the laughter of many soldiers, and from time to time there were one or two sentences of Xixia that they did not understand, including the Tatar language that they had been exposed to more than half a year ago.

Sure enough, it was a nest of snakes and rats.

Zhang Mingyue walked slowly and gently around the mountain bag, and finally saw the military camp.

Rao is no matter how mentally prepared he can't help but be taken aback by the situation in front of him, there is a plain under the mountain bag, the plain is encamped, occupying the entire mountain, the outermost part is the city wall that looks like it has not been built for a long time, the city wall has a watchtower every about two hundred meters, under the watchtower is densely packed with about ten people marching tents, the tent is not less than a thousand tents, and many soldiers are still building, a huge field is vacated in the middle of the camp, a bonfire is set up and singing and dancing, and even a lot of women can be heard crying and crying, Zhang Mingyue even if he has not seen it up close, he probably knows that these women are robbed for the soldiers to vent, from this point you can see the hatred of barbarianism。

"It's strange why I don't see their food and grass. ”

Zhang Mingyue had doubts in her heart, to ensure the life of so many soldiers, it was absolutely impossible to say that there was no food and grass.

"You don't understand this, I'm really inferior to you when I go into battle to kill the enemy, but when it comes to this march and battle, I must have read more books than you. ”

The scholar climbed up gently along the snow and was next to the young man.

"Reading more books doesn't mean having more actual combat experience, so why don't you put grain and grass in the barracks?"

"If it is placed in the barracks, if there is a war, do you care about these grains and grass or not? These Western Xia troops are different from our border guards, there are hundreds of camps of our border guards, even if one is destroyed, it still doesn't matter, but you look at how much grain and grass they get for such a large army, the soldiers are in front, and the grain and grass are behind, even if they are defeated, they can retreat to the front line, and they can support them with grain and grass, and they don't want to do whatever they want? So I estimate that they only have three days of grain and grass in their camp at most, and after three days, if there is no accident, they will be supplied for three days, and so on and so on until the day of the outbreak of war, and the grain and grass should not be too far from the barracks, I estimate that it will be at most twenty miles, and now it is winter before they will camp here, if it is summer, they will definitely set up camp to ensure the water source where there is a river, and at that time, we can poison the waters, and we can defeat the Western Xia army without wasting a single soldier, but now in the cold winter, there is snow everywhere, even if you want to poison, there is nowhere to throw。 ”

"What you said is simple, if you want to poison such a large army, how much do you have to throw in it to be useful? What's more, others will not be stupid enough to leave the water alone, let alone throw such a large amount of poison, even if you throw a few catties and taels, you may not be able to throw it in, and I thought you had great ability, but I didn't expect to read such a little thing from the book. ”

Zhang Mingyue immediately frowned.

Li Qiushu was suddenly unhappy.

"As long as the time and place are right, there is nothing that can't be done, but it's winter now, poisoning this one is definitely not good, it is not easy to bypass this army and enter the hinterland of Western Xia, now the cold winter soldiers are entrenched here, I estimate that after the ice and snow, the Western Xia army will launch an attack, at most two months The ice and snow will begin to melt, two months, the time is too rushed, I think our top priority now should be how to delay the Western Xia army to buy time for my Western Chu army. ”

"For example, what do you have a good plan? How about burning grain and grass?"

Zhang Mingyue asked in a deep voice.

He didn't expect Li Qiushu to think so much just by looking at the deployment of the Western Xia Army, and he thought of it so much, and he said in his heart that this scholar was more or less useful, and before he set off, he just took it with him to see his single-mindedness to die, and now it seems that compared to the rest of the more than ninety brothers who have been stationed in the Tiger Wolf Pass all the year round, Li Qiushu This kid finally has something in his stomach.

"It's more difficult to burn grain and grass than to poison drinking water. ”

Maybe it was uncomfortable to lie in a place for too long, so Li Qiushu turned over.

"If you think about it, the ancients said that the soldiers and horses did not come to the grain and grass first, which shows the importance of grain and grass to a large army, and how can it be casually obtained, where there is grain and grass is more important than anywhere else, this plan is absolutely not feasible, saying that we are nine deaths and one life when we come out this time, if we really start the idea of grain and grass, it is absolutely ten deaths. ”

"But the Xixia army thought that we didn't dare to go out of the tiger and wolf into the hinterland of the Xixia, so the camp was so close, maybe they didn't expect that we would actually send a strange soldier to go deeper, and then we will take advantage of its unpreparedness to set fire to the grain and grass, cut off the back road of the Xixia army, it is not easy for an army to get together the grain and grass, not to mention a barren place like the Western Xia, even if there is no grain and grass with the help of the Western Regions, I am afraid it will not last long. ”

Zhang Mingyue said thoughtfully.

The two of them were in ambush behind the hillside, and they were not in a hurry to discuss the Western Xia army, and they must come up with a proper way to delay this huge army to relieve the danger of the Tiger and Wolf Pass.

"I admit that what you said makes sense, but I still don't approve, after all, although our brothers said that they came out to die, but they didn't come to die in vain, Xixia would not have thought that we would go deep into the strange army for the time being, but the land of grain and grass is definitely heavily guarded, instead of discussing what to do here, it is better for our two brothers to go deep into the tiger's den in Longtan and personally find out how to make a decision about the situation in this big camp. ”

Having made up their minds, the two of them returned the same way, although the scholar was still physically exhausted, fortunately, with the previous experience, he was not so annoyed as before, except for the two, the rest of the brothers found a place to hide, it was the moon and the wind was high, and the temperature plummeted in the middle of the night in Saibei, as if even the world had to be frozen, fortunately the bow and crossbow with him was not a bow and arrow, otherwise it would be so cold and freezing whether he could pull the bow or not, even if Zhang Mingyue was so strong now, the old man had said a lot of things in the winter of Saibei, although the border guards had never used a bow, but from time to time the bow and arrow were also weapons that must be reserved, and the iron plough and wooden bow in winter were to be pulled apart, must be soaked in hot water for an hour to recover as before, otherwise the frozen iron plough wood if forced to open the bow only two results, either can not be pulled, or there is a force of nine bulls and two tigers to directly pull the bow off, so that the rebound force of the bow will only hurt the soldiers, and later Xichu for the border guards equipped with more advanced crossbow arrows, said to be equipment, but in fact, the border guards almost do not use crossbow arrows, any battle is not as happy as directly fighting shirtless, so the border guards also fell a barbarian nickname.

Zhang Mingyue and the scholar returned the same way, because the war horse had been sent back, and when they really arrived at the small hillside behind the camp of the Western Xia army, it was already quiet at night, and the Xixia soldiers were not machines, when they had enough to play and drink enough, they had rested, the fire was still slightly bright, and the snow was fluttering in the night as always, and the fire gradually became smaller until it was completely extinguished, except for the frozen sentries curled up on the tower on the watchtower and the patrols that appeared every quarter of an hour, the whole camp was almost silent.

"Do you know why you know that my Chu army didn't dare to go out of the Tiger and Wolf Pass to drive straight in, why these Western Xia troops are still so fierce, even at night like this, they don't want to slack off?"

Zhang Mingyue hastily ate a few mouthfuls of dry food, and drank several large mouthfuls of burning knives, only to feel that the internal organs were burning hotly, and habitually took out the pipe pinned to his waist and prepared to smash it twice, but when he really touched it, he unconsciously put it back.

It turned out that it had unconsciously reached the war years, and I could no longer sit on the loess hill and smoke dry tobacco and watch the sunset as in the past.

"Why?"

Scholar Li Qiushu chewed half of the beef jerky in his mouth for a long time and didn't swallow it and said vaguely, as for this burning knife, he just drank it and couldn't stand it, he knew that this was a strong liquor that was almost like sake lees, Zhang Mingyue was funny in his heart, just wanted to say that it was not the ice and snow in the north that even your kid's mouth was frozen, the beef jerky had not been swallowed for so long, and it was so difficult to eat, sure enough, it was a scholar, the kind of scholar who really couldn't do anything except reading, he said lightly.

"As I told you before, in addition to people in this Saibei, the most terrifying thing is the poisonous insects and beasts that are not really born in this land, I have heard Lao Xu say that on the ground of this Saibei, people are not terrible, because you at least know where people are, but the beasts are different, and when there is more horror, the beasts gather in groups to attack people, once more than 2,000 wild wolves set foot on a cottage, when we rushed to the ground, in addition to blood, there were no bones left, only a few wolf corpses died under the knife。 ”

"Isn't this wolf clever when you say so?"

The scholar finally swallowed the half of the beef jerky, blinked and said curiously.

"There is not much difference between a beast and a man, the only difference is that as long as the stomach is hungry, hungry, hungry, and hungry, he can do anything. ”

"It's like the Western Xia does not hesitate to collude with the Western Regions, but also wants to let the Western Regions army call the shots of my Central Plains land?"

The scholar patted his ass and stood up, not waiting for the young man in front of him to answer his question, which was not a problem.

"These dozens of watchtowers can almost observe the movement within a radius of dozens of miles, but they will never be able to observe the army composed of the two of us, bypass this plain, according to this weather and then according to our speed, and when we really find the grain and grass camp and avoid the ears and eyes of the Western Xia soldiers, the fastest will be tomorrow morning, and tomorrow morning, the two of us will be no different from the turtle in the urn." ”

Li Qiushu said thoughtfully.

How did Zhang Mingyue not know the truth of what this scholar said, the two enemy scouts went deep into the hinterland of Western Xia, unless they found a place where no one could find it and hide for the rest of their lives, otherwise once they showed up, they would be dead, and they had to admit that there may be ordinary people in Western Xia who really understand the righteousness, but when the two countries are at war, they may not dare to protect them on the charge of collaborating with the enemy.

"Maybe we should find an opportunity to kill two Western Xia soldiers and dress up as them. ”

Zhang Mingyue tightened the long knife behind her, so that the clothes would be warmer when they were attached to her body.

"Do you think the Western Xia soldiers are stupid?

Li Qiushu shook his head and said.

"It's not feasible, for the time being, I can only take one step at a time, first figure out the location of the grain and grass camp, I have the ability to remember since I was a child, the terrain within a radius of 100 miles is drawn into a map, and when the time comes, our army will not be afraid of danger, and it will no longer be passive. ”

"According to what you say, don't Lao Tzu have to protect your strange treasure next?"

Zhang Mingyue scolded with a smile.

In fact, there are some things that are probably clear without the two of them saying it explicitly, and I don't know if I can come back this time, so why not who protects whom?

Li Qiushu thought about the bits and pieces of his study for so many years, and he used to only envy the carefree sons and brothers in Bianjing City, and there were groups of ladies around him, but later he accidentally saw the ashes of the soldiers sent from the border pass, and only then did he wake up like a dream.

It turns out that under the seemingly peaceful and prosperous era of Xichu, there are still so many lovely people who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the country all the time.

On that day, the scholar who had been trapped at home and chewed words had the idea of joining the army for the first time, and in the following years, he studied the military books day and night, thinking that he could be a good staff officer when he joined the army in the future, but he did not expect to enter the camp only to be a big-headed soldier who was angry all day long, at that time the scholar may still have some regrets about the idea of joining the army, until he saw tens of thousands of soldiers sacrifice their lives for the country in that war, he did not understand how ridiculous his idea was.

All people are born equal, even those veterans who died on the battlefield and were born poor and couldn't even write their own names, why do they think that they can be superior to others and run for the position of officers?

To put it mildly, in the end, we should still be grateful for the disastrous victory not long ago, if not, how could the border guards begin to focus on ceasing to be brutal and start to change the entire army?

Standing on the top of the hill, in front of him were tens of thousands of barbarians in the Western Xia, and behind him was the Tiger and Wolf Pass, one of the two major passes in the Central Plains.

He said lightly.

"If I die at that time, you don't need to protect me, I will die hard to leave the map, you will take the map back to the Tiger Wolf Pass, I believe that you are so good, the Western Xia army will definitely not be able to stop you, not to mention that there is an old man in your family who is even in awe of the general, I believe that if something happens to you, the old man will definitely come to save you, with his magical powers, it will not be too difficult to save you from ten thousand people." ”

Zhang Mingyue was a little surprised when she heard this, such a "heroic and ambitious" remark really didn't seem to come out of the mouth of this scholar.

Xu didn't want this scholar who resolutely went out of the border to die at the border for the sake of the guy to come too sad the night before he died, Zhang Mingyue said with a smile.

"Even if you want to save it, the two of us will save it together, so you can save your last words for next time. ”

"Two people to save together?"

The scholar burst into laughter.

"Don't fucking fuck the calf, the old man only has one hand, how can he save two people?"

Zhang Mingyue stood on the spot.

yes, I forgot about it.

The two of them marched along the snow, fortunately, the two people in the ice and snow had a small target, and it was extremely difficult to be found, even if they stepped on the snow and the creaking sound would be drowned in the howling north wind and the heavy snow, ten miles away from the Western Chu military camp, the watchtower could predict the large-scale army in advance, but it was by no means built for these two small targets, all the people around the former horse thief's lair went to the empty building, presumably they all voted for Xixia, Zhang Mingyue had been mentally prepared for this, so he was not surprised, and finally arrived at a mountain col before dawn, and the two hid behind a boulder。

"Remember?"

"Remember, Lao Tzu has said that he will never forget, not a map, but Lao Tzu didn't bring paper and pen. ”

"It's easy to do without paper. ”

Zhang Mingyue tore off a piece of white robe from her body.

"No pen ......"

"Okay, the paper is yours, and the pen is my turn. ”

The scholar put his finger in his mouth, and when he was about to bite it, he suddenly stopped his mouth.

"What the hell, you should help me cut it with a knife, I'm afraid. ”

The scholar smiled awkwardly, and the young man was speechless.

A map was quickly drawn up, and just as the two were about to get up and continue their march, there was a creaking sound not far behind the boulder.

The two of them were nervous, someone came, Zhang Mingyue gently pulled out the long knife, ready to take their lives as quickly as possible.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for a while, and the footsteps behind him got closer and closer.

Three, two, one.

The young man burst out suddenly, and a long knife slashed down at the head.

"Slow. ”

The scholar hurriedly intercepted him.

It turned out that the "enemy" in the hearts of the two of them was just a seventeen or eighteen-year-old woman in disheveled clothes.

Zhang Mingyue's reaction to the enemy has already been perfected, and before the knife falls, she covered the woman's mouth and got behind the boulder, and the woman probably didn't expect to get out of the wolf's den, and then into the tiger's mouth, her eyes were full of fear, and she couldn't help but look like a teenager in front of her, but in fact she was an amazing guy with great strength.

Li Qiushu finally explained clearly after a long time of arguing on the side, and then Zhang Mingyue let go.

"You, who are you?"

The woman's Western Xia accent is not as obscure as the scriptures of Jiuhua Mountain, and it doesn't take much effort to distinguish it.

"Who are you?"

The young man asked coldly.

"You, you're southerners. ”

"If you mean south of Tiger and Wolf Pass, then we are. ”

The young man pulled out a piece of jerky from his bosom.

"Eat, you don't seem to have eaten for a long time, looking at you like this, most of you were also arrested as a vent and escaped, leave quickly after eating, don't tell anyone about us. ”

Zhang Mingyue only glanced at it lightly and found out a lot, the Western Xia barbarians, even if they marched, they would bring a lot of women to act as vents, cool before the war, and cool back alive from the war, so as to motivate the soldiers to fight hard.

I have to say that this woman is indeed quite handsome, and even in the eyes of southerners, she is lamented that she has become a soldier*.

Li Qiushu probably didn't expect that Zhang Mingyue, who kills people without blinking on weekdays, would be so kind to let go of an enemy woman this time, so he was also in a good mood, and originally prepared a large piece of rhetoric to persuade him, but now it seems that it is unnecessary.

"Eat, eat, I don't have enough to eat, I'll prepare some for you when you go on the road later, this ice and snow, even wild beasts can't find food, let alone you are a weak woman." ”

"You don't have to bring it on the road, you can't eat it. Besides, we don't have much dry food. ”

The young man who had just taken out a portion of jerky said softly.

"How can you watch such a girl starve to death?"

Li Qiushu was a little unhappy, and his tone was quite displeased, but it took a few breaths for him to understand what the young man meant when the woman was lying in a pool of blood.

"Don't worry, she won't starve, she doesn't have that chance. ”