twin moon

Chapter 128 No.16 Scene [-]

Yuansui 12 years, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, is another New Year's Eve.The sweet smell of steamed jujube cake wafted from the Feiyunxia checkpoint, and the soldiers were also immersed in the festive atmosphere, drinking and singing, or playing Pai Gow in small groups, and the sound of loud laughter was endless.

This place was originally a checkpoint set up by Fu Kingdom in the mountains, but with the destruction of Yunzhi City, the three counties and sixteen counties under its jurisdiction surrendered without a fight, and Haishi Guozuo also survived in name only.Today, the double carp flags inside the checkpoint have long been replaced by sea falcon flags with black background and white stripes, and the Jinlin Army that was originally stationed there has also been replaced by the Ye Kingdom Boat Division in black armor and black clothes.

Feiyun Gorge is located at the junction of Mianwan and Wanzhou. It cuts a mountain into two sections. The northern section is Qinglan, and the southern section is Suli.Feiyun Gorge stretches for more than [-] miles from east to west, and there are too many mountain streams and rivers originating from it, especially the most famous one.Its water originates from the western foot of Suli Mountain, winds through Feiyun Gorge relying on the mountain, and finally ends at Zuihuatan in the north of Yu State.

There is plenty of water, the river is half a mile wide at its widest point and nearly fifty feet at its narrowest.The cliffs on both sides of the river bank hang high, and there are many mountains.Especially Feiyun Gorge is the most precipitous place, known as the Nine Turns and Eighteen Turns.In the boat, the shadows of the trees are shady, and there is no place to go. You can only hear the sound of the surging water in your ears, but you can't find the sun.

Throughout the ages, if you want to cross the water from Mian to Wan in the west, you can only pass by a natural stone bridge on Feiyun Gorge that has stood for hundreds of years.Although it is called a bridge, it is actually a boulder that collapsed from Suli Mountain tens of thousands of years ago, and it happened to be stuck between the rock walls on both sides of the canyon.After years of water erosion and weathering, coupled with the excavation and polishing by skilled craftsmen in Fuguo, it has just become what it is today.

The Feiyunxia checkpoint was built on the west bank of this stone bridge.It is built with huge stones and stands against the mountain. There is a beacon tower at the highest point.Since the Great Ascension and the establishment of the dynasty, it has been regarded by all countries as a natural moat that cannot be opened by one man.Even during the Shuodi Rebellion a hundred years ago, Fu Kingdom's troops fortified here were only a few hundred people.After being taken over by Ye Kingdom, the defense has even decreased.

It was cold at night in the mountains, and it coincided with the festival, so most of the guards hid in the main building to avoid the wind.Right now, there is only a small team of three left, sitting around the watchtower built of bamboo and wood to the east of the checkpoint.

Layers of clouds covered the moon, and the night was as black as ink. At this time, except for a small pile of bonfires lit on the watchtower, there was no light in the mountains.The torches burning at both ends of the stone bridge were extinguished by the wind at some point, but no one was willing to light them up again.

The youngest of the three sentry posts held the bow in his arms, turned his head to look at the very noisy checkpoint not far away, put his hands around his mouth and kept puffing, and cursed angrily:
"It's really unlucky, but today it's our brother's turn to be on duty, and we can only watch them having fun inside. What is there to guard against this kind of cliff? It's better to go back and gamble two times, even if you are punished by the superior, it is worse than starving." It's so cold!"

As he spoke, he took out a few dominoes from his pocket and lit them up in front of the fire.

An older person beside him shook his head decisively and said:
"I just got the information at the beginning of the month that Chengguo's army disappeared from Dangpu, but Luqiu Borong of Weiliang stayed put. It's hard to guarantee that the opponent is not coming for our country of Ye. In troubled times, Shangguan sent people to take turns to patrol every day. Be careful."

"Why should you keep an eye on it? Not to mention this kind of ghostly place where no turtles can lay eggs, it is impossible for Yin Qujian to send a large army to attack. Even if Chengguo's Qingyong cavalry really sneaked in, wouldn't they have to obediently go from there one by one? Come over on a stone bridge? When the time comes, my brothers will take one arrow at a time, and we will be able to take them all together—"

The young sentinel started to blow the cowhide, and couldn't help but amplify his voice when he talked about the rise, and even stood up and patted his chest.Unexpectedly, before he could spit out the last few words in his throat, the expression on his face suddenly froze, and the whole person seemed to be frozen in place.

"Hey, brat, don't you talk too much and flash your tongue? The three of us are destined to stay in this watchtower for half the night tonight. If you are really bored, you can go to Shangguan to ask for some warmth. When the porridge comes back, let the rest of us deal with it outside to warm up our bodies?"

The elder thought that the other party was playing with him, smiled and stretched out his hand to push him.But under a light touch, the young man fell straight on the ground, and was hit by an arrow in the back of the head, and died on the spot!

"This is Cheng Guo's Shadowless Arrow! They really came!"

The elder immediately pushed down another sentinel beside him who was overwhelmed by fright and was still standing tall and looking across the canyon.It was too late to say it, and then it was too late, and there were three more "duk tuk", and several feather arrows flew in the darkness one after another, piercing deeply only a few inches away from them!

"Enemy attack, enemy attack!"

The old sentinel raised his head and glanced at the big cowhide drum erected in a corner of the archery tower, but the drum surface had been pierced by arrows from the enemy soldiers hiding in the dark, and it was impossible to beat it again.He quickly opened his mouth and roared loudly, but the human voice could not penetrate the thick stone wall, let alone reach the ears of the unsuspecting comrades in the checkpoint.

In desperation, he had no choice but to put his hands that were a little stiff from the cold around his mouth, and blew vigorously. Although the whistling sound of "woo woo" was not as good as the sound of drums, it still had some effect.The voices in the checkpoint gradually died down, and then someone was heard roaring up the arrow tower with a loud voice:

"What are you guys doing over there? What are you bragging about?"

Before the sentinel could reply, there was a scalp-numbing "buzzing" sound in the darkness, like a swarm of bees coming out of their nest.This time, people in both the watchtower and the checkpoint could see clearly that a fire cloud composed of thousands of light spots suddenly rose from the darkness on the other side of Feiyun Gorge.The dense rockets flew towards the sky above the checkpoint in an arc, and they were close in the blink of an eye!
"Hurry up and copy guys! Cheng Guogong is coming!"

With the panicked shouts echoing in the canyon, the checkpoint that had been quiet suddenly became agitated again, like a fried ant nest.The sergeants with bows and crossbow machines rushed up to the parapet, hid behind the arrow stacks and looked around, but their armor was disheveled, and they didn't know where to aim the bows in their hands.

After a volley, the fire arrows of the Chengguo army did not cause substantial damage to the defenders under the cover of the parapet.However, Ye Guojun watched helplessly as the archery tower that was close at hand, and the two comrades on it who shouted for help collapsed in the raging fire, but none of them dared to rush out to rescue them rashly, and could only let the burning wooden beams The pillars fell into the abyss under their feet.

"Don't act rashly! Find a few more people and throw some torches on the stone bridge to illuminate them! As long as the other party crosses the bridge, we can stop them effortlessly!"

Following the loud order of the captain in charge of the defense, several brave men in the army immediately pulled out a few torches from the brazier beside them, and threw them into the distance with all their strength.

The torch swirled, drawing out several strange bands of light in midair, and then bounced on the stone bridge a few times before it finally settled down.With the faint light of the fire, the defenders in the checkpoint clearly saw countless figures moving around near the stone bridge. They were actually a group of vanguards sent by the other side, and they had already snatched the bridge in the instant after the previous volley. !

"Arrows, arrows! Make these sons of bitches come and go!"

The captain was frothing, but he couldn't hide the frightened look on his face.However, the other side clearly planned the capture of the bridge carefully. Not only were the vanguard soldiers holding light cowhide round shields in their hands, but even the tall ladders were erected to the side of the female wall!

For a moment, Feiyun Gorge shouted Sha Zhentian.The Chengguo army on the other side fired another volley, arrows flew wildly above the city, and the flames spread, turning it into a purgatory.

The first ones to climb the female wall were the elite of the Qingharrier cavalry.At this time, they took off their heavy armor and only wore light civilian clothes, but they were caught off guard by killing more than a hundred defenders of Ye Kingdom who hadtily responded, and quickly occupied the city.

The defending lieutenant could only lead the remaining ten or so people back to the highest point of the checkpoint.Only then did he finally realize that there was no chance of winning this battle, so he waved the long knife in his hand and pointed at a mountain not far away, shouting loudly at the panicked faces beside him. drank:
"Send a few people to light the beacon!"

Before he finished speaking, the captain was pierced through the vest by a Cheng Guo sergeant who was chasing after him.The bloody blade tip protruded from his chest, the captain lowered his head, as if he still couldn't believe that he would end up in such a way, and still wanted to muster up his last strength to fight back, but the green kite cavalry didn't give him a shot at all. Opportunity, he stepped directly on his shoulder blade and pulled the knife out of the flesh and blood.

Steaming blood gushed out from the wound in an instant, and flowed all over the ground, and Captain Ye's heart also stopped beating at the same time...

Half an hour later, the last defender in the Feiyun Gorge checkpoint was also beheaded under the beacon tower.Cheng Guo's tiger and wolf troops crossed the river in a big way, and continued to march towards the hinterland of Ye State on the west side of the ridge.A personal soldier ran against the flow of people to the commander in charge of the battle, arched his hands and said in a loud voice:

"General, a total of [-] enemy soldiers were killed in this battle. Five of our side were seriously injured and eight were slightly injured. None of them died. However, the beacon tower was still set on fire by these hozens, and it will take some work to put out the fire." .”

The coach took off the tiger head mask on his face, never thought that it was Yin Qujian, the lord of Chengguo, himself!He looked up at the orange mass on the top of the mountain that illuminated half of the sky, and did not order to continue to put out the fire:
"Forget it, let him burn it. The beacon fire tower in Ye country must have been filled with whale blubber, and it is impossible to extinguish it even if it is carried up by manpower. This time we took this important road to Wanwan by surprise. Sooner or later, Qi Shouyu will know that we are coming, and he doesn't care about the situation in the past two days. Pass on the orders of the widow and let the soldiers get ready, and there will inevitably be a few tough battles to be fought next!"

The personal soldier arched his hand again and took the order to leave.And the eye-catching beacon burning brightly in the night sky also carried the news of the powerful enemy's attack, along the Yanjiang River all the way westward, and spread to King Ye's Palace in Mulu City overnight.

In the early morning of the next day, before the cock crowed and the dawn broke, all civil and military officials were summoned into the Jiying Hall.In front of Qi Shouyu, the lord on the throne, were more than ten volumes of urgent documents handed over from various military posts.Although it has not been unsealed, it is already possible to guess what it is playing.

Facing the furious lord, none of the ministers dared to speak out, even if there were still yawns brought from the bed, they forcibly suppressed them in their stomachs and did not dare to type them out.

Qi Shouyu repeatedly rubbed the tiger talisman in his hand, but there was a trace of helplessness in his tone.On the school field outside the hall, a huge army assembled overnight had already stood neatly.However, this army of more than [-] people was improvised by the Yuling Army defending the royal city and the soldiers from the homes of princes and nobles.

Since Yunzhi had just been captured not long ago, nearly [-]% of Ye Kingdom's elite boat divisions were stationed in various parts of Fu Kingdom to quell the chaos.Helplessly, Wei Liang in the north transferred heavy troops to the east bank of Yugu Lake and Mingshui at this time. Qi Shouyu had to send nearly half of the remaining troops to the border adjacent to Wei Liang.After going back and forth, the manpower he can use to stop Cheng Guo's army is no longer enough.

After pondering for a while, the short and fat Lord Ye finally got up angrily, and threw the tiger talisman in his hand on the ground, saying:
"He Yin Qujian just won a game by relying on a sneak attack, so he can't even weigh how much he owns? How dare a small border country dare to break ground on Tai Sui's head! General Yihui obeys orders, widow I order you to immediately lead the army to the south, and make sure to wipe out all of them on the south bank of Qinmengze before Cheng Guoxiao crosses the Zhihe River!"

General Yihui, Mi Zishi, who was kneeling on His Highness's knees, was originally a general under Xiang Baili's command.Although he is quite dissatisfied with Qi Shouyu, but now that the enemy is in front of him, he has to accept orders in the face of danger, but he is apprehensive and restless.

The night sky gradually turned light gray, but the sun failed to emerge from behind the thick clouds.Unknowingly, a winter torrential rain came, and the raindrops fell on the Xuanjia of the soldiers outside the hall, making a tinkling sound.Among the black ranks, a young man wearing a school captain's long feathers tightly clenched his fist - that was Wan Shi, who had served as Qi Ziyin's personal bodyguard. The Yamen General of the Left Army, commanding more than [-] people.

I don't know if it's because of the cold rain seeping into his clothes along the seam of his armor, or because he is worried about the fate of Ye Kingdom, Wan Shi's lips hidden under his mask are trembling involuntarily, and his ears are full of buzzing .

After all, Chengguo's army is coming in menacingly, even if it has been prepared, this battle is destined to be a result of mutual losses.At this moment, Wan Shi felt faintly in his heart, as if he was being pushed by a pair of invisible hands with these young warriors around him, together with the whole country of Ye, towards the irreversible abyss called war. , but there is no turning back at all, and even stopping temporarily is already an extravagant hope.

(End of this chapter)