twin moon

Chapter 246 No.30 Act Three: Neither Enemy nor Friend III

Going west from Yanluoyuan, the further you go, the harder the wind and snow will fall.Originally, one day of snow could be expected to be sunny for two or three days, but now it is only four or five days of goose feather flying snow in exchange for half a day's respite.By the time the frost had passed, the entire northern border had been covered with ankle-deep snow, and even large icicles had formed on the Huxiao River, which would have been frozen only in severe cold in previous years.

The wind and snow greatly reduced the speed of the Red Flame Army, and also covered up all the traces that the wolves might have left when they passed by.In the settlements where a large number of herdsmen gathered to avoid the cold and spend the winter, now there is not only no sign of living people, even the shadow of half a galloping wolf.

"Have the scouts sent out made any new discoveries?"

Sitting on Wu Chen's back, Jiang Yan stretched out his hand to wipe off the white frost on the brows, and turned to Qian Hu, who had just been promoted, and asked.The other party's name was Bodu, but he shook his head in the face of the leader's question:
"Since we found a large amount of blood on the south bank of the Huxiao River three days ago, we have not found any new clues. Yamatohan, we have been marching continuously for more than half a month. It is not a good idea to continue like this in the winter of the Northland -"

Just halfway through the conversation, the boy with black pupils interrupted:
"It is true that all the people and horses have reached their limit, but we must persist for another day. On both sides of the Huxiao River, there is the most fertile grassland in the Wuma tribe. Going west from here is the Pingtung Gobi and the Shi Jinghai. Even if the fortresses and outposts that Qi Hezhen has worked so hard to manage for so many years will disappear without a trace. Even in this kind of wind and snow, we must find shelter from the wind and snow. Only where it is blocked by snow can we stop."

Bo understood that although the Hehan in front of him was not from the grasslands, he had already learned about the temper of this wild northern land from the mouth of the late Bakwuqin Tuya.The tenacity in him is no different from that of the prairie people who have struggled to survive in Shuobei for thousands of years.But that stubbornness is obviously different from when he first came to this grassland, less reckless and reckless, but more thoughtful.

Even Qianhu himself couldn't understand how he was persuaded by such a much younger young man to lead a cavalry team that might be the only one left in this grassland, rushing west and north.But what the black-eyed boy said was not wrong. Now that there is no shelter around them, if they set up camp here, nearly half of them would be buried alive by the wind and snow overnight.

"Found it! There's wolf dung here!"

Suddenly, someone shouted loudly in the wind and snow.Putting Yan on the horse's belly with all his strength, he rushed forward, only to see a ridge as high as half a person appeared on the plain.The wind blows from the north side of the ridge, the top of the slope slightly higher than the surrounding area, forming a shelter from the wind behind it.

When they got closer, people realized that the so-called ridge was actually a semi-arc formed neatly around the ground by sixteen or seven carts unique to grasslands.The convoy was severely damaged, and even the baggage pulled by several vehicles had not yet been unloaded.And beside the huge wheel, there are more than a hundred corpses of the Woma tribe that have already been frozen hard.

The tall car body and the high baggage piled up on it are now like a wall, making the biting wind and snow suddenly weaken a lot in the half-arc.Obviously, before the arrival of the Red Flame Army, whether it was the herds struggling to find food in the wind and snow, the surviving members of the Woma tribe, or the hungry galloping wolves, they had all visited this place in the wind and snow. location.

"Fortunately, the snow fell early this year, and the dung beetles on the grassland had no time to clean up the dung of these animals."

Qianhu followed closely, but he let out a sigh of relief.After all, although the cart did not completely block the wind and snow, it made people feel much better.

However, Jiang Yan did not show a relaxed expression. Instead, he ordered the Red Flame Army to be more vigilant, and he jumped off his horse, walked to the pile of wolf dung that had been frozen hard in the snow, and squatted down. , grabbed a piece of dung and crushed it vigorously.

"As expected. These wolves are exactly the same as what we saw in Suiyao City. They also eat human flesh!"

Bodu stepped forward, and he really saw two human finger bones in the shattered dung in Hehan's palm.He hurriedly turned his head to look at the fallen corpses next to the cart, but found that there was no part of his body that was damaged.

"If the wolves were not carrying these corpses on the ground, where did the werewolves find enough corpses to feed those terrifying beasts?"

Qian Hu's expression immediately became frightened and restless, but soon, his eyes and Jiang Yan's eyes fell on several carts carrying baggage.

"If this convoy only intends to rest here for a while, how can it unload most of the luggage on the vehicle? Besides, besides the carts and corpses everywhere, the tents and water and food used for camping have gone. where?"

Jiang Yan seemed to be talking to himself, but he pulled out Xiao Tianmo and walked straight towards a large cart.Before Bo could react, he cut off several ropes tied to the vehicle body with one blow.A corner of the linoleum wrapped around the baggage was lifted by the wind, and quickly slid aside.And the thing covered under the linoleum made everyone gasp——

What was piled up on the car like grass was not curtains and beams for camping, nor was it food and water supplies for people to eat and drink. Arms and human legs!
The brave ones in the Red Flame Army immediately cut the ropes on the other car. After removing the linoleum, they found that there were countless human torsos without limbs and heads!
"These corpses—could they be used to feed wolves?!"

Bo Du held the rein tightly in his hand, pulling the mount under his crotch back again and again.Even a veteran like him who has been on the battlefield for many years has never seen such an unreasonable scene on the grassland.And the corpses in front of him that had been frozen as hard as stones were strange and hideous, like a nightmare that fell from the sky.

"Those mutilated corpses in Suiyao City may end up here in the end."

After a long time, the young He Han said again, "Before we were still wondering why those fierce beasts that had the upper hand disappeared without a trace from the territory of Changzhou overnight. Now it seems , they didn’t disappear, but were gathered here by someone, in this sparsely populated and barren land of the North…”

"Could it be that those Woma tribesmen were lying before? Qihe has not lost control of the pack of wolves?"

Qianhu's complexion became paler and paler.He was well aware of the ruthlessness of the leader of the Woma tribe, and he didn't dare to think about what kind of terrifying evil things those man-eating beasts could do under his command.

However, Jiang Yan shook his head:
"No. The Woma people who fell here were killed by witchcraft. There were no obvious fatal injuries on these corpses, but all of them were extremely shriveled and emaciated, as if their blood had been sucked dry So-so. I was thinking that they might have been captured by the wolf hunter as coolies. After traveling here, they no longer wanted to work for them, and planned to run away. Xiaocai lost his life because of this..."

Speaking of this, the black-eyed boy suddenly shook his head mockingly, "However, no matter how we guess right now, it is impossible to know what happened to these Woma tribes—we don't need to know, either. These people deserve to die! Give me an order to camp here tonight and rest, and continue on the road tomorrow!"

Before Bodu could say anything more, the young Hehan had already gone far on his horse.Qianhuben also wanted to say that this place of shelter from the wind seemed a bit small for thousands of people, but seeing Jiang Yan's eyes looking at the corpses everywhere, wishing to spew out flames, he finally gave up.

The wind and snow did not stop all night, and when they got up the next day, no matter whether they were humans or horses, their bodies were covered with a thick layer of snow foam.The prairie people have lived and thrived on this land for thousands of years, and have never seen such desperate weather.Right now, the knife-like north wind whips up the fresh snow that just fell on the ground, like a sandstorm in Dunkelle, sweeping across the sky and fields, and nothing can be seen a few steps away.

Helpless, they had no choice but to continue to hide behind the cart, and then use several layers of horses as a barrier to set up a tent in the howling wind.However, after one night, more than half of the tents were blown away and collapsed by the wind and snow.

Fortunately, the snow in Shuobei was dry snow, and it fell from the person's body with a slight shake, without soaking through the underwear.But even so, there were not a few warriors who were frostbitten in the snowstorm.Even if the Shuobei warhorses had already been replaced with thick winter hair, many of them could no longer stand up and could only be slaughtered and used as rations for the march.

Traveling westward for more than half a day, the blizzard that had lasted for four consecutive days finally came to an end.The dark clouds in the sky refused to dissipate, covering the setting sun densely, and also making the whole snowfield cast a rather strange purple red.

Approaching the lower reaches of the Huxiao River, the river became more and more turbulent.The icicles in the water collided together and made a loud "bang bang". Accompanied by the seemingly never-ending north wind, it sounded like a tiger roaring, which made people's hairs explode.

Gradually, a sea that was much brighter than the surrounding snow fields appeared in front of everyone's eyes.The two banks of the waters are the Kinugawa River originating from the Wuping Mountains in the west, and the Huxiao River originating from the Lancang Mountains in the east.And here is the end of the entire Shuobei grassland, an inland lake called Shijinghai with a radius of tens of miles.

Standing on the east bank of the lake and looking northwest, you can see the boundless perennial tundra, but the lake surface is calm, like a whole piece of marble exposed from the ground.When you get closer, you can see clearly that the sea is covered by a thick layer of ice all year round, and because the north wind wiped off all the snow on the ice, it is as clean as a mirror. Hence the name.

For several days in a row, Jiang Yan's eyes were all white, and it was difficult to see even the dirt and rocks.Right now, on the ice surface of Shijinghai, dozens of slowly moving black spots can be vaguely seen.

Those black spots were evenly distributed on the ice surface, at first the young man even thought his eyes were blurred, but after blinking his eyes a few times, he could see them more clearly—it turned out that those black spots were actually Those who walk on ice!

Digging ice to encircle fishing is a long-standing tradition of the Wuma tribe for thousands of years.Every winter, it is also the season for fish migrating in Shijing Sea to spawn.Sometimes thousands of golden-bellied and black-backed sturgeon can be salvaged with one net.The plump and tender fish roe in the belly of the fish is a delicacy that nobles from various countries in the south bid for at a high price.

At this moment, the group of people on the ice were obviously preparing for the siege. They were holding iron drills and mallets for drilling holes in the ice, and dragging a large group of fishing nets behind them.Obviously, he never thought that there would be living people coming to this lake. As soon as he saw the red armor and red flags lined up on the shore, he spread his legs and wanted to flee westward.

But how could Jiang Yan let them go so easily?Hearing a whistle that resounded through the sky, more than a hundred vigorous horses formed a horizontal line and surrounded those people.It took only half a stick of incense to bring people to young Hehan.

"Worma tribe, are you the only ones left now?"

The black-eyed boy didn't show any sympathy at all, he just sat on the horse and looked coldly at the crowd kneeling on the ground in front of him.Most of them are wearing heavy fur coats and fur hats, and they don't look much different at first glance.

"Dare to ask where your honor comes from? Please don't embarrass us."

One of the crowd stepped forward, bowed and saluted, and seemed to be the leader of the fishing siege.However, Jiang Yan only glanced at him, then moved his gaze away from that person, and instead landed on the face of another person behind him.And the person he was staring at kept his head lowered all the time, as if he was deliberately covering up something.

"That person in the back, you must have recognized me—otherwise, why hide!"

The young Hehan shouted sharply, but saw that the other party not only did not answer, but turned his head and ran away.He immediately clamped the horse's belly, and rushed forward to get the man himself.Unexpectedly, seeing this situation, those members of the Woma tribe who had been trembling at first drew their weapons from their waists one after another, stopped the unprepared Wu Chen in place, and planned to protect that man to break through!

The standing horse neighed, almost knocking the owner on its back to the ground.This move made Jiang Yan even more suspicious, and he ordered the Red Flame Army to surround him with two wings, blocking the last retreat of the Wuma tribe.

On the ice field, the scarlet cavalry drove the fur-clad Muyun tribe together.They dodged, screamed, and ran, but they still couldn't escape the end of being surrounded and knocked down to the ground with their hands and feet bound.

But when he was brought back in front of the black-eyed boy, it was beyond Jiang Yan's expectations—it turned out that the guy who wanted to break out before was none other than Wu, who had led the army to fight against the Muyun troops. The leader of the horse tribe, beggars!
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　　I've seen it all, why don't you pay attention?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)