After returning from Huashan, the expeditionary force plunged into an intense and arduous training life. In the blink of an eye, it was mid-December. The Shence Army camp was covered with thick snow, and the first heavy snow fell in November.
, and then there were several heavy snowfalls, and the entire Guanzhong Plain turned into a snowy world.
Li Ji held the horse and looked up at the fierce man in the sky. He was hovering over the camp and kept making crisp calls.
He waited outside the camp gate for a while, and Liang Wu came out with a smile, "I thought the captain wouldn't come, but he did come anyway."
Li Ji said calmly: "Guo Changshi thinks highly of me, and the first thing he comes to is to come to me. How can I let him down?"
"Let's talk after we go in!"
Liang Wu took the horses and packages and welcomed Li Ji into the camp.
Li Ji glanced at the eagle in the sky and asked, "Mengzi has been following Guo Changshi?"
"Of course, it has caused great harm to the brothers. When they go out for training and running, it will keep an eye on them like a supervisor, and will run back to complain from time to time. Alas! It's hard to explain in words."
"It seems like Mengzi is becoming more and more understanding of human nature."
Liang Wu asked again: "Sister-in-law and the two children have made arrangements for third brother's trip to the Western Regions this time, right?"
Li Ji nodded, "Everything has been arranged. Even if I unfortunately die in Anxi, my wife will be able to raise a pair of children."
"Three brother, what you said is unlucky!"
Li Ji smiled and said, "Go to Anxi and escape death. If you don't even have this awareness, then don't go."
"Everyone understands that we just try to think on the bright side. No one wants to die."
Li Ji didn't mention the matter. After a while, he smiled and said: "Shi Tong originally wanted to come with me, we had already agreed, but the night before he left, his mother broke his arm with a stick, so he just
I can lie at home and recuperate."
"What about Lin Tai?"
Liang Wu asked again: "Does he want to come with the captain?"
Li Ji shook his head, "He never expressed his stance!"
"This one has no coward!" Liang Wu said bitterly.
Li Ji patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Everyone has his or her own ambitions. You must not force yourself to do something like this. But your little sister wanted to come with you, but her father gave her a beating and grounded her for three months."
The two chatted and laughed before entering the small independent military camp. As soon as they entered the military camp, there was a steaming feeling, which was in sharp contrast to the deserted camp outside.
I saw hundreds of naked soldiers fighting each other in the snow. They fought fiercely with unedged knives. Although they were blunt knives, a blow to the head would still kill someone.
Li Ji stopped and watched with great interest the soldiers practicing their swordsmanship. After watching for a moment, he couldn't help but exclaimed: "The swordsmanship is very powerful! You can definitely participate in the Lingzhou Martial Arts Association."
Liang Wu introduced with a smile: "This is the credit of Guo Changshi. He compiled nine extremely simple and practical sword techniques from his own martial arts. Moreover, every soldier got up at five o'clock to meditate and use a special method to breathe.
Guo Changshi said it was the breathing method of the Taoist priests of Kongtong Mountain. After practicing it for two months, everyone felt that their physical strength had greatly increased. They had to squat for an hour at night. After two months of squatting, the lower body became much more stable."
"You have to teach me how to breathe!"
Li Ji is extremely experienced and he knows that physical strength is the most important thing on the battlefield.
"No problem, I will teach you today."
Li Ji followed Liang Wu into a large tent. This was Liang Wu's tent. In the middle of the tent was a fire pit with a hanging pot on it for making milk tea.
Liang Wu cooked a pot of milk tea for Li Ji, threw a piece of dried meat and dry biscuits into it, and said with a smile: "Our current conditions are very difficult. It is completely the life of herdsmen. The herdsmen can still eat barbecue, but we can only eat it."
Dry biscuits and dried meat, and some kumiss, do you think I've become very rough?"
Li Ji smiled and nodded, "You are indeed dark and thin. You have completely changed your appearance. I almost didn't recognize you just now. It seems that you have suffered a lot?"
"A lot of pain?"
Liang Wu snorted, "The poorest donkeys are not as hard-working as us. It's because Lao Guo went to Beijing today that I had half a day of leisure. If he were here, I tell you, we would have to take off our clothes and jump into the glacier."
"So severe?" Li Ji laughed dumbly.
Liang Wu curled his lips, "You know what everyone calls him behind his back, Guo Butcher, this nickname was given to him by Guo Chongqing. Last month Guo Chongqing was a step late in lighting the knot and was punished to soak in the glacier for an entire hour. Everyone was
He was frozen, and was finally rescued by soldiers breaking through the river ice. He almost froze to death."
"Looks like I have to take off my clothes and jump into the glacier."
"Definitely, I guess I will jump early tomorrow morning. The experience everyone has summarized is to drink a few mouthfuls of kumiss before jumping. Try to swim up and down in the river without stopping. If you stop, you will freeze."
At this time, someone outside suddenly shouted: "Chang Shi is back!"
Li Ji quickly stood up and walked out of the tent, and saw Guo Song running in on horseback. It was not that horses were not allowed in the military camp, but that horses were not allowed to run around. As long as you walked on the horse track, you could still ride horses and gallop in the military camp.
Guo Song turned over and dismounted, and when he saw Li Ji, he was overjoyed and said, "Captain Li is here, great!"
Li Ji quickly stepped forward and knelt down on one knee to salute, "Li Ji, the captain of Guoyi, the scout of Shuofang Army, is here to see the long history!"
Li Ji's casual officers were guerrilla generals who were ranked lower than the fifth rank, two levels lower than Guo Song. Moreover, Guo Song was a civilian, which showed that he was the commander-in-chief of this 300-man army. Of course, Li Ji had to perform formal military salutes.
Guo Song smiled and said: "General Li, please get up!"
Guo Song said to Guo Chongqing again: "Inform all the generals above the team to gather in the Chinese army's tent. I have something important to announce!"
"Follow the order!"
Guo Chongqing ran to inform Li Ji, and Guo Song smiled at Li Ji and said, "Let's come to the big tent together! Let's get to know each other first."
After a while, three brigade marshals and six captains rushed to the big tent. Guo Song said to everyone: "I have two things to tell you. The first thing is to get to know my deputy general Li Ji. He just
Transferred from Shuofang Army."
Li Ji bowed to everyone with clasped fists, and everyone reluctantly returned the salute. Except for Liang Wu and Guo Chongqing, no one knew who Li Ji was.
Guo Song continued to introduce to everyone, "Li Ji is Captain Guoyi, a scout of Shuofang Army. He was born in a poor family. He was promoted from a soldier to Captain Guoyi step by step. He participated in dozens of battles and had hundreds of scars on his body.
, we have crawled out of the dead three times. Our biggest problem is our lack of actual combat experience. The arrival of General Li will be of great benefit to us in terms of actual combat experience."
Soldiers all respect the strong, and Guo Song's introduction made the generals respect Li Ji in awe.
Guo Song waved his hand, "Let me tell you another important thing. Our departure time will be moved forward one month. It was originally set to depart in late January, but now it is changed to ten days later. The reason is that there is little snow in the Hexi Corridor today and there are no road closures due to heavy snow.
So we have to leave early."
........
The training in the next ten days will be even harder. Many subjects that were originally trained in January will be carried out in advance. One is climbing, mainly climbing city walls and mountains, and the other is night fighting. Most of their operations are carried out at night, so night fighting
It is especially important for soldiers.
On the one hand, he was conducting devilish training for the soldiers, and on the other hand, Guo Song also began to actively prepare.
This trip to Anxi and Qiuci will take at least two months, and most of the journey will be walking in enemy territory, so supplies, equipment, medicine, etc. are very important.
Although the conditions for training soldiers in Guo Song were difficult, the important equipment was unambiguous. For example, the soldiers' weapons were almost all made of iron, which were strong and sharp. Each soldier had a pair of tough and lightweight inner armor.
The soldiers were equipped with two horses and each carried two sheepskins, which must be ten years old to withstand the severe cold in the Western Regions. They also brought a lot of gold and silver to buy supplies from herdsmen along the way.
That night, Guo Ziyi, accompanied by Guo Song, came to inspect the training of the soldiers. They trained outside during the day and only returned to the camp at night.
As soon as they entered the Independence Camp, they saw three armies fighting in the dark, with loud shouts of killing. They were wearing the same armor, except that their left arms were tied with strips of cloth of different colors. The other army had no strips of cloth.
Guo Ziyi had heard Guo Chongqing talk about their brutal training, but this was the first time he saw a melee in the dark.
Guo Song introduced to him: "We have been training on night combat capabilities for the past month. There is basically no problem in individual combat, but cooperative combat is still weak. It seems that they are fighting in a melee, but in fact they are fighting with ten people per fire.
, fighting under the leadership of the fire chief, we have been training this kind of night coordination operation for ten days."
"I can see the effect of the training. Although there is a melee, it is not chaotic at all and very organized. The most elite Tang army is nothing more than this!"
"Thank you for the compliment, Commander!"
Guo Song took out his trumpet and blew it in a low voice. This was an order to assemble. In an instant, groups of soldiers came running in formation, and in a very short time they were lined up in order.
Li Ji stepped forward and knelt down on one knee to salute, "Reporting to Chang Shi, the entire army has been assembled!"
Guo Ziyi secretly nodded. Compared with when it was first established, this army has been completely transformed. It only took two months of training, which is like three years of hard training. There are really not many armies in the Tang Dynasty that can compare with them.
At this time, Guo Song smiled at Guo Ziyi and said, "Commander, please say a few words!"
Guo Ziyi nodded, stepped forward and said slowly to the three hundred soldiers: "Tomorrow night you will leave Chang'an for Anxi. Your official name is the Eagle Attack Army. This is the name given to you by the emperor. I hope you can attack the sky with an eagle."
, Victory Ten Thousand Miles, I will not say more words of encouragement, I only have one hope, I hope to see each of you return to Chang'an alive and kicking."
On a bright moonlit night with few stars, three hundred expeditionary troops from the Tang Dynasty, led by Guo Song, the special envoy of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, left Bashang silently and headed west through the vast snowy fields.
There are still ten days left.
This was destined to be a low-key operation. Except for a few high-level officials in the Tang Dynasty who knew about it, the rest of the ordinary people and ordinary officials knew nothing about it. There were no flowers or applause. They were greeted only by danger and hardship, but this expeditionary force still had no hesitation.
The land is heading towards the Western Regions thousands of miles away.