Chang'an is good

Chapter 614 Let’s Send It Here

Li Suining looked at Adian, who was carrying a bulging bag on his back. It was obvious that he had been prepared, and his face showed the guilt and anxiety of lying. He deliberately did not respond to his words.

Ah Dian became even more anxious when he saw this, and confessed, "Your Highness! I didn't mean to disobey you!"

"But you are going to Beidi again!" he said, "I don't want to go back to Xuan Ce Mansion and wait for you!"

A long time ago, His Highness secretly went to Beidi without telling him. It was very far away and it took His Highness a long time to walk back. He didn't want to be away from His Highness for so long again!

"Do you know where Beidi is?" Li Suining asked.

Ah Dian shook his head, then nodded, his expression was that of a child's innocence and determination: "I heard them say that it's very dangerous there, but wherever Your Highness goes, that's Ah Dian's home. Ah Dian won't go anywhere, I just want to go home with Your Highness!"

This was the impression that was firmly engraved in Ah Xin's mind the first time they met on the muddy road at the entrance of the small village.

"Is that so?" Li Suining looked ahead and said loudly, "Okay, then when we go there, I will turn that place into Adian's home as well."

Ah Dian shouted ecstatically, "Liuhuo, His Highness has agreed to take us with him!"

Liuhuo seemed to understand, and his horse galloped excitedly. He soon passed the return date and ran to the front of the team, like a leading soldier, as majestic as ever.

"drive!"

Li Suining shouted and chased after him with a smile, his hair tied up with a copper hairpin fluttering in the night.

Cui Jing quickly caught up with her, and the two rode side by side, leading the army away.

Along the way, Liuhuo always led the way.

As a battle-hardened warhorse, Liuhuo had already lived out his retirement before reuniting with his old master at Furongyuan Horse Farm. He had not traveled long distances for a long time, and Li Suining had never thought of sending him to the battlefield again.

But when Jiangdu dispatched troops to Taiyuan, it became uncharacteristically agitated and insisted on following the army northward.

Chang Kuo knew about this. He knew that Liuhuo was arrogant and more intelligent than ordinary horses. If he didn't let it follow, he was afraid that it would become irritable and depressed, and its life would probably end.

Chang Kuo sighed and said, "Then let it go."

What is surprising is that from Jiangdu to Taiyuan, this old horse has been running in the front from beginning to end and has never slowed down the journey.

Just like at this moment, it was like a loyal old general with his pride still intact, leading the army all the way out of the mountain pass.

After leaving Guanshan, the army traveled through nearly a hundred miles of sand and stopped in front of a three-way road cut by rocks.

Kang Zhi pointed his knife at a Beidi prisoner who had his hands tied behind his back and was lying across the horse's back, and asked him to show him the way.

Kang Zhi spoke the Northern Di language. Her mother Yuezhi was originally a Hu people, and she also had half Hu blood. Pinglu was only a few hundred miles away from the eastern territory of the Northern Di. She could speak some Northern Di language since she was a child, but she was often teased as the daughter of a Hu girl in the Kang family, so she seldom spoke it on her own initiative.

Shepherd's Purse pointed the long knife in her hand at the three forked roads. When she pointed to the second one, the prisoner nodded and said in Chinese: "That's right!"

Kang Zhi's eyes were cold, and she turned the tip of her knife and pointed it at another captive on horseback: "But he was pointing at the other one!"

The two captives had their backs to each other and were unaware that there were other companions pointing the way. Their faces suddenly changed at this moment, and one of them argued, "He is talking nonsense!"

Li Suining held the reins in one hand and raised the other hand, with his fingertips falling down.

The two captives who were pushing each other were soon slit their necks and thrown off their horses, spurting blood.

Soon, Cui Jing ordered three more prisoners to come forward.

"You three must answer at the same time. If your answers are inconsistent, you will all die!" Kang Zhi drew his sword and sneered, "But don't even think about dying easily. I'll chop off all your hands and feet and leave you here to feed the wolves!"

This time, the three captives rushed to answer, and their answers were exactly the same, but different from the ones pointed out by the two people who had just been killed. It was the third way.

Kang Zhi put away her knife, and before mounting her horse, she gave a hard kick to one of the prisoners who was not yet dead.

In the cover of night, nearly ten thousand cavalrymen poured into the territory of Beidi.

After passing through this desert barrier, a large area of ​​green shade soon appeared in front of us.

The place where Ashide Yuanli's army camped was a land with abundant water and grass, surrounded by mountains and rivers, and crisscrossed with lakes and rivers.

Ten miles away from the military camp, they encountered a group of Northern Di soldiers who were patrolling at night. Yuan Xiang and his group, who had gone ahead to explore the way, killed them all.

The shallow stream was shimmering with dark light, and the crescent shadow of the waxing moon fell quietly on the water.

By the stream, a group of Northern Di soldiers who were patrolling the camp at night suddenly became alert. One of them clenched his sword and turned to look across the stream, but what responded to him was a sharp arrow that pierced through the night.

"--call out!"

The soldier uttered a short scream and fell to the ground. The others were alarmed and drew their swords, but the flying arrows were faster than the swords.

As they were shot by arrows and fell one after another, the water plants on the other side of the stream were suddenly broken apart by the impact, and a group of iron cavalry appeared out of the night. The two leading ones were both riding horses with one hand and holding bows with the other, and crossbowmen followed closely behind them.

The cavalry stepped into the ankle-deep stream, splashing crystal clear and cold water droplets under the pale moonlight. When the stream water splashed up and then fell down, it aroused murderous intent in the night.

The murderous aura spread with the waves, sweeping across the surrounding vegetation, and finally roaring towards the Beidi military camp half-hidden in the night.

Even though the patrolling and night watch soldiers who fell one after another only had time to make brief calls, they inevitably alarmed the army.

The Beidi people, who live by chasing water and grass and on horseback, are the most discerning falcons in this land and they are never lacking in vigilance.

But they never expected that they would be attacked tonight.

Thinking of the 20,000 tribesmen led by Nienu who were annihilated by Sheng’s army, their anger at this moment overwhelmed everything, and they vowed to make sure that these increasingly arrogant Sheng’s army would never return!

Soldiers soon ran out of the barracks, and their footsteps were accompanied by the sound of trumpets.

The dense array of sharp arrows temporarily stopped their steps. At this time, the cavalry behind Li Suining had quickly spread out on both sides. Four chariots, each pulled by three horses, were pushed to the front. Each chariot was equipped with something similar to a catapult.

The soldiers were distributed in an orderly manner to fix the chariots, then filled with gunpowder, ignited, and threw them -

At the same time, the hidden arrows used by archers were replaced with more powerful fire arrows.

More and more Northern Di troops began to move out, looking at those fireball-like things coming towards them, most of them had no idea what they were.

Until the "fireball" landed, an unexpected roar was suddenly heard!
The northern barbarians were immediately shocked. This new type of gunpowder was prepared by Shen Sanmao and other craftsmen, and they used a modified catapult to launch the gunpowder, which they called "flying fire from the machine."

In addition to the "flying fire", the craftsmen also discovered that if this kind of gunpowder was ignited and exploded under sealed conditions, its power would be dozens of times greater than that of fireworks.

Therefore, not only fireballs were thrown out, but also specially made earthenware jars with extremely small mouths. Some of the jars were filled with kerosene, while others were filled with gunpowder and fuse.

Roars and explosions continued to sound, flames spread rapidly, and pungent smoke choked the mouth and nose, making it impossible to open one's eyes.

While the Northern Di people were injured and frightened and unable to move forward, the four chariots quickly approached the military camp again. Soon, balls of fire flew into the camp. With a roar, tents were set on fire and thick smoke rose up.

Panic spread rapidly in the Beidi camp, and almost everyone was asking what the flying fire "falling from the sky" was.

Ashide Yuanli, who got up hastily, was also asking, but no one could give him an answer.

The Han people invented gunpowder and used it on the battlefield only a decade ago. Although the Northern Di people did not have gunpowder yet, Ashide Yuanli knew that the greatest function of gunpowder was to help combustion. When the Sheng army was guarding the pass, they often used rockets and kerosene to ignite a wall of fire to block their attack. Ashide Yuanli had seen it before and did not think it was something to be feared. But...what was this roaring flying fire? !

Through the smell of burning in the air, Ashde Yuanli quickly analyzed that this thing was most likely made of gunpowder!
A strange weapon that suddenly appeared brought fear to people far greater than its own lethality.

There were also many Beidi women accompanying the army in the camp. On weekdays, they were responsible for feeding horses, cooking, sewing and taking care of trivial matters, and had never been close to the front line. When they were suddenly attacked at night and saw this strange thing, they were all scared out of their wits. While fleeing in panic, they shouted that this was a punishment from God!

Some women cried and prayed to the gods to forgive their killings and mistakes.

Ashide Yuanli tried to tell everyone that this thing was "only" made of gunpowder, not a divine object, nor a punishment from the gods, but the situation fell into unprecedented chaos, with screams and shouts everywhere, which was completely out of control.

The advantage of a night attack is not only the offensive and defensive advantage brought by taking advantage of people's unpreparedness, but also the fact that people are suddenly awakened from their sleep, often becoming confused and causing disorder, and falling into psychological fear.

The roaring balls of flying fire that fell to the ground magnified the Northern Di people's fear to the greatest extent at this moment.

Cui Jing led his troops to charge into the camp from the rear and took away two gunpowder chariots.

Li Suining did not approach, she looked at the Beidi camp from afar, where the smoke was rising into the sky, and gave an order in time: "Take advantage of the chaos to find their horses."

Just as Kang Zhi agreed, she saw Liuhuo beside her barking and then rushing out, as if the order was given to it.

Li Suining said: "Follow Liuhuo."

"Yes!" Kang Zhi was secretly amazed and mounted her horse to follow.

Liuhuo seemed to be able to smell where its kind gathered, and ran ahead to lead the way.

Kang Zhi led people to follow Liuhuo, and suddenly thought, judging from Liuhuo's body shape, he must be of Huma bloodline... In this case, he actually felt like a traitor who surrendered to the enemy and led the enemy to kill his own family?

But Kang Zhi quickly cut off this thought, because she suddenly felt that she was looking in a mirror... so she simply punched the mirror and smashed it.

She was neither a Hu nor a Sheng, she belonged to her highness! Since she was his woman and horse, there was no question of blood unity!

Following Liuhuo all the way, we soon found the stable.

Kang Zhi shot and hacked to death the Northern Di soldiers who were guarding the stable or trying to escape with the horses, and slashed open the fence outside the stable with a knife.

As the fence fell, frightened horses rushed out one after another, neighing and rushing in all directions, and more fled into the night and scattered.

There was more than one stable. Under the leadership of Liuhuo, Kang Zhi and others quickly released the war horses in the second stable. During this time, Liuhuo rushed forward and trampled and knocked away two Beidi people who were blocking their way with swords. His bravery opened Kang Zhi's eyes.

When Kang Zhi was about to go to the next stable, he was stopped by the Northern Di army, and a fight broke out between the two sides.

Ashide Yuanli witnessed the chaotic battle situation and realized that there was no possibility of counterattack and victory under such circumstances, so he immediately decided to order a retreat.

A hasty evacuation is bound to mean giving up a lot, but any further delay will only result in greater losses!
The discipline of the Northern Di people was not as strict as that of the Han army. Before Ashide Yuanli gave the order, some of them had already fled alone or with their own tribal members.

As the evacuation order was issued, a large number of Beidi soldiers began to flee.

Yuan Xiang volunteered to lead his troops in pursuit. Cui Jing sheathed his sword and said, "No need to go too deep. Chase them fifty miles away and then retreat back here to join them."

"Yes, I obey your command!" Yuanxiang led his troops and rode away.

The sky gradually brightened, the fire died down, and only black smoke remained floating above the ruins of the camp.

Cui Jing ordered his men to collect the remaining supplies in the camp, and left behind some light and practical items for She Cai and the others to take with them.

Li Suining sat on a rock by the stream, Liuhuo and Guiqi drinking water behind her. She watched Cui Jing busy arranging various matters.

Not long after, Cui Jing came over. Li Suining smiled and said, "I am lazy here. Thank you for all the hard work, General."

The young general in black armor corrected her words in the light of dawn: "Your Highness, thank you for taking the trouble to be lazy. It makes me feel that I am still useful."

Li Suining rested his hands on the stone surface at his sides and smiled relaxedly. He did not look like a man who was about to go into danger.

"This raid tonight was really enjoyable." She looked at the remaining camp and said, "It's a pity that there are only about one-third of Ashide Yuanli's troops here."

After arriving here, through the size of this camp, it can be judged that the military force here is obviously less than 100,000. Ashide Yuanli must have divided the army into separate camps.

Cui Jing concluded: "If other Northern Di generals were to lead the army, they might retreat after this defeat, but Ashide Yuanli would not do that."

Li Suining nodded and looked in the direction where Ashde Yuanli fled: "What's more, there is a Khan who is determined to fight behind him."

The current Khan of Beidi is in his prime and is very ambitious... Therefore, he must die.

Otherwise, the war will never truly end.

This time, Li Suining decided to attack the rear of Beidi not only to disrupt the morale of the Beidi army in the front.

Before this, she had already arranged for Tang Xing to sneak into Beidi secretly, but this road was very risky and even depended on her luck in gambling. She couldn't just pin her hopes on this.

Since it is an adventurous road, you might as well try a few more. Perhaps one of them will work. Just like placing a bet, you cannot just bet on one place.

Li Suining looked further into the distance and stood up: "Cui Lingan, I should go now."

She turned to look at Cui Jing, her tone as relaxed as usual: "You played a very good cover game, and I'll send you here."

The surprise attack was real, to test the power of "Fire Engine Flying Fire", to shock the Beidi army, and to take the opportunity to cover her actions. Only when the army of Ashide Yuanli was in chaos did she have the opportunity to go deep into the Beidi territory.

Good night everyone, happy weekend~