As soon as November entered, the first snow of winter fell on the Jianghuai Plain on the north bank of Chaozhou.
The two hostile armies confronting each other on the land of Huaixi, neither side is in danger of defending, which also destined both sides to be doubly uneasy after entering winter.
After several setbacks, the Shouzhou Army still had more than 10,000 cavalry. The streams and rivers were frozen, and the Huaixi Plain was flat and there were no high mountains to block it. It was most conducive for the cavalry to quickly penetrate in a roundabout way.
How dare you relax even a little bit?
Last year, Han Qian took advantage of the cover of ice and snow to lead a surprise attack into Huaiyang Mountain. The Shouzhou Army's scars have not healed this year, so how can they dare to relax at all?
Almost after the onset of winter, both sides gathered troops and supplies who were usually responsible for heavy production tasks. Counties also gathered rural soldiers on a larger scale, picking up bows, crossbows, knives and halberds to practice in the ice and snow, in case an outbreak might break out at any time.
The battle was fierce.
While the situation on the eastern flank of Huaiyang Mountain is tense, the peaks, ridges and ravines on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain are crisscrossed by heavy snow. Beihengchong is named after a north-south ravine on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain.
Except for brief flash floods when there is abundant rain in summer and autumn, and the water is quite turbulent, Beihengchong is a dry ditch most of the year.
The ravine extends from the mountain crest four or five miles away. The ravine is deep and dangerous, with rugged rocks. The terrain becomes flat only when it reaches the foot of the mountain.
Although flash floods are exposed every year, and there is a risk of being washed away by flash floods at the foot of the ditch, the land where the flash floods pass is also extra fertile. There was a relatively large village at the foot of the ditch in Beihengchong in the early years, but
After the Battle of Wujinling, households on both sides of the South Feishui River Valley near the Huaiyang Mountains were forcibly moved north.
The village at the foot of the mountain was abandoned there, and in the wind and snow there were occasionally heard the barking of several abandoned domestic dogs that had not been hunted.
On the top of the Xixi trough in the north Hengchong, there is a Temple of Emperor Wu.
The Temple of Emperor Wu is surrounded by a chest-high rammed earth wall, which is one acre in size. There are weeds growing on the top of the rammed earth wall. There are three earthen halls built inside. There are still some mottled red paint left on the courtyard door. One door has fallen on the ground.
On the ground, a door creaked in the cold wind.
A gray hare got into the courtyard from the mud hole in the rammed earth wall. It stared at the creaking and shaking courtyard door warily. It took a while to confirm that it was safe. When it was about to jump to the front of the temple, it didn't want to make a "swish" sound.
A sharp arrow shot out of the window of the left side compartment, piercing the gray rabbit's chest with great neatness, and pierced hard into the hard ice.
A man wearing a gray cloak came from the earth palace and pulled the struggling hare out of the ice and soil together with the arrow. Seeing that the hare was still struggling, he stretched out his hand and squeezed the hare from behind the neck, and pulled the hare away.
He pinched his neck and broke it, then walked back to the earth palace and said happily: "I didn't expect to catch such a fat rabbit in this damn weather and make a tooth sacrifice. Do you think this rabbit is fat enough? Even if it is skinned, it still has fat."
Four or five kilograms, right? This rabbit skin is also big. If I don’t go out this time, I can tan a small coat for my daughter..."
In the inconspicuous earth palace, seven or eight strong men were taking a nap against the wall, piles of dry and warm hay under their bodies, and they ignored his every move.
The linen cloaks were tied with several patches, which could barely withstand the wind and snow. In addition to the short-handled shoulder knives that were easily hidden in the cloaks, everyone only had a four-foot-long hunting bow, but it was difficult to imagine an ordinary
A hunting bow can shoot arrows so fast and powerfully.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, the man anxiously shook the fat rabbit in his hand and said, "If you don't say anything, then I can only throw this rabbit out to feed the wild dogs?"
"It's such a cold day and the ground is frozen solid. Who has the strength to dig a smokeless stove just to eat a rabbit? Shi Ruhai, if you have the strength, you might as well take a good nap like us.
It's easy to travel at night." A famous man muttered.
"It will take more than a month to go through the Liang Kingdom and reach the Jin Kingdom. If you don't find something to do, won't you be bored? You have to help me. If they don't work, they will be greedy.
Kill them." When the man named Shi Ruhai saw someone paying attention to him, he immediately went over to talk.
When scouts are marching in the wild, they are most afraid of lighting fires during the day. Once a column of smoke rises, their whereabouts can easily be exposed.
Therefore, no matter how hard it is, the scouts who enter enemy territory usually eat dried meat, wheat cakes, and cold water to satisfy their hunger.
If you want to light a fire, you must be very careful when digging a stove. You must dig a flue that is at least six or seven feet long to disperse the smoke so that there is no obvious smoke rising.
On such a cold day, we had to dig a smokeless stove in the frozen soil in the corner of the yard with the tools we brought with us. It was very exhausting, but in the end everyone couldn't stand the man's encouragement, or maybe they couldn't resist a
The temptation of fat rabbit meat made everyone jump up and down.
Except for the watchers who were hiding in the woods on both sides, the others gathered firewood, dug stoves, peeled and picked wild vegetables and fragrant leaves. They worked together and soon roasted a hare until it was sizzling with oil. They also used melted snow water and wheat.
Pancakes and dried meat are cooked into a pot of steaming, fragrant batter soup.
"Master Bao is back!" A person came back and saw a fire in the yard and said, "You just wait for Master Bao to scold you. We haven't even left Huaiyang Mountain yet, and everyone can't bear to have their teeth beaten as a sacrifice?
"
"You grandson, don't reach out." Shi Ruhai raised his foot to kick the man's outstretched hand away.
"Anyway, you will be blamed and scolded. Why don't you have some meat before you get scolded?" The man said with a smile.
A moment later, another small group of people walked into the Wuguan Temple in the snow. The arrogant man at the head sniffed his nose and glanced at the courtyard.
"Master Bao, this is reserved for you." Shi Ruhai immediately smiled and handed over a big fat rabbit leg that was still warm and wrapped in oil paper.
Han Bao took the rabbit leg, sat on the stone pier and chewed it while cursing: "You grandsons, if I hadn't seen the smoke rising on the way back, I would have fucked you to death. How far have you gone?"
, everyone feels that there is no oil or water in their stomachs?"
"Why don't we mainly try to see if the things taught in the school work? When we light the fire, we ask the sentries on the left and right to keep an eye on it." Shi Ruhai said with a smile.
"You, Shi Ruhai, have a lot of trouble, what's our share?" The people behind came over and asked. They groped Shi Ruhai with all their hands, found the other half of the rabbit, and each of them filled a bowl of batter and broth.
Squat in front of the main hall and eat warmly.
Only then did Shi Ruhai notice that Han Bao and the others had tied up two men and came over. Seeing that they had stuffed dumplings in their mouths, they were howling and screaming ferociously. He kicked them and told them to be honest, and asked curiously:
"Were these two captured from the village below?"
"Are you blind? Didn't you see the coats they were wearing?" Han Bao glared at Shi Ruhai angrily and said.
Shi Ruhai opened the tattered robes of the two men, and saw a cut in the coats inside, revealing the white wadding: "Deserts? You grandsons, those who are popular and drink spicy food, how dare you run away with your fucking legs?"
After knowing the identity of these two people, Shi Ruhai was even more merciless. He took the handle of the knife and stabbed the two people in the chest, making their faces even more ferocious and distorted.
Although there is no special mark on the cotton-padded jacket on the inside, in the past in Huaiyang Mountain, the winter coats of the wealthy were either made of fur or filled with extremely expensive silk wadding. How many families wore cotton-padded jackets?
This time when they went north, they even changed into dog-skin coats.
"Stop," Han Bao stopped Shi Ruhai and ordered, "let them go. I don't know how many days they have been out. They must be very hungry. Give them two bowls of broth."
Everyone was not afraid of what kind of waves these two hungry guys could make, so they immediately untied them and gave them each a bowl of broth to drink.
The two skinny men were also very hungry. After hesitating for a while, they still drank the bowl of broth like wolves and tigers. They swallowed hard when they saw the rabbit leg that Han Bao had not finished chewing in his hand.
"These two grandsons are really worried about having a bite to eat right now," Shi Ruhai scolded.
Han Bao called them to him and asked: "Which battalion did you belong to before? What were your names? What were the names of the battalion commander and team leader? When did you join the Tangyi Zhiji Army and when did you escape?"
? Just tell me honestly and we won’t make things difficult for you..."
The two thin men were both young, both in their early twenties. Although they were thin, they had thick bones and joints and strong strength. They calmed down and answered:
"We are the guards of Rusongzhai. The battalion commander is Huo Li and the team leader is Zhou Cheng. Everyone calls him Zhou Mamian. We brothers were originally villagers below Beihengchong. We were captured in mid-March and were captured six days ago.
We left the village to escort grain and escaped - we just wanted to be reunited with our families, and he definitely didn't want to."
Han Bao stared at the two brothers named Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin.
For example, Songzhai is located at the pass of the northeastern foothills of Wujin Mountain. Together with Meitang Mountain and other villages, it forms a knife edge for troops to attack the Huainan Plain to the north. The battalion commander Huo Li and several team leaders below are familiar to Han Bao, and they know brothers Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin.
They didn't lie, and said: "You didn't lie about some things, but how did you two brothers get organized into the same battalion? You can hide it from the interrogation before joining the army, you are still very clever..."
During the great victory at Wujinling, more than 25,000 enemy soldiers and civilians were captured in Tangyi, and most of them were incorporated into the left and right armies or camp troops as part of the army expansion.
However, in order to prevent these generals from becoming restless, father and son brothers usually split up and formed camps.
The fact that brothers Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin were on duty as pawns at Rusong Village at the same time shows that they were cunning from the beginning and concealed themselves from the initial relatively superficial interrogation.
"What should we do with them? We can't run away for three or four more days and take them back, right?" Shi Ruhai came over and asked in a low voice.
Starting from the time when the Zhizhi Army incorporated a large number of captured enemy soldiers and civilians, it was inevitable that the soldiers would try their best to escape and return home. However, Han Qian abolished the brutal corporal punishment of deserters. The military supervisor would be sentenced to several months to several months depending on the seriousness of the case.
imprisonment ranging from several years.
They set out this time to sneak into the central part of Huozhou from the north. They had an important reconnaissance mission. They could not leak their whereabouts, and it was impossible to delay three or four days in escorting them back to Hetang Gouzhai, the nearest garrison, for trial. The only way
The choice is clearly before them.
Brothers Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin also realized what their fate would be. Their faces turned pale and they wanted to beg for mercy, but their calves were trembling and they could not speak tactfully.
"Seeing as you are also smart people, why didn't you think that if you escaped back, the Shouzhou Army would arrest you as spies and kill you? In the end, wouldn't you have caused your family to be implicated? You, what if that's really the case?
If you want to be reunited with your family, you might as well bully our Marquis to attack Shouzhou as soon as possible!" Although Shi Ruhai reminded Han Bao to be decisive, he couldn't bear it and couldn't help scolding them.
"Kill me, please spare Shimin's life. He doesn't want to escape. It's because I'm thinking that my wife is pregnant. My mother and father are dim-sighted. I don't know how they will live this winter. I really can't bear it.
I just took the soldiers and the people to escape - the soldiers really didn't want to escape. I pulled him back. I didn't expect that the village would be empty long ago!" Zhang Shigui collapsed and knelt down to beg for mercy.
"Get up and walk with us, but if you cause any trouble for us on the way, don't blame me for being ruthless." Han Bao called Zhang Shigui. The two brothers Zhang Shimin stood up and told Shi Ruhai:
, "You are responsible for keeping an eye on them along the way and don't let them go wrong..."
Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin were not clumsy if they were able to escape the initial interrogation and escape from the fortress. However, they escaped from hunger for six or seven days, and they were still able to struggle vigorously. Their strength was really not weak, and they were defeated.
If the two of them are brought along, they won't be a burden, and no one else will object...
