Qiang Qin

Mao Dun was full of confidence.

In addition to Zang Yan's dark lines in Hetao, he also got an "accidental" piece of good news.

Li Yuan, who has always been physically strong and likes to patrol around, has not appeared in front of people for more than two months. There are rumors that Li Yuan is very likely to be seriously ill, and it is not known whether he is alive or dead.

Chang'an City.

Since July, the gate of Shenwu Palace has not been opened for a long time throughout the summer. The closed gate and the serious guards guarding the gate have made the people of Chang'an feel an unusual atmosphere. .

"What's wrong with King Wu? Why haven't I seen him appear for several months?"

"I heard that King Wu fell ill, and it was still the kind of malaria that can infect people. Haven't you noticed? A while ago, the Prime Minister's Mansion urgently issued an edict calling for doctors from various counties to come to Guanzhong."

"Here, if King Wu has three ups and downs, wouldn't our Great Qin be in trouble, not to mention the barbarians of the Huns in the north, even the country has just stabilized, and there are still cruel forces in the south of the great river stubbornly resisting."

Questions gradually shrouded the hearts of the people in Chang'an. In the day-to-day unease, they hoped that the gate of Shenwu Palace would suddenly open one day.

September [-]th.

The arrival of Kuai Ma, the scout who galloped into Chang'an City from Hetao, finally broke the silence of the capital. Qin General Cao Xin, who was in charge of guarding Shenwu Palace, welcomed the scout who was sweating profusely.

What is strange is that the scout who delivered the letter never came out again after entering, and then, the number of people entering and leaving the Palace of Shenwu Wang increased significantly.

"King Wu, could it be that it's really going to die?"

"How is this possible? King Wu was young and healthy, so how could he suddenly die of a serious illness!" Chang'an said.People panicked, and various rumors began to spread uninterruptedly.

Bourne.

It was the merchants from the Western Regions who were bought by the Xiongnu who sent back this good news to Maodun. While the prosperity of Chang'an brought innumerable wealth, it also made it extremely difficult to track down the enemy's dark places. In this regard, Yan Le's Jingjing Division has done a pretty good job.Some Hu merchants with many suspicious points and suspicious signs in their speech have been included in the scope of surveillance by the Yajing Division.

Feeling the tense atmosphere, the Huns secretly let out a sigh of relief while passing on the "urgent" information.For merchants like them who are both merchants and spies, completing the tasks assigned by the Huns is an act of their own accord, and as successful merchants, they still need to think more about themselves.

The sky is high and the sea is wide. Since Li Yuan can no longer effectively govern the country, there will inevitably be turmoil within the Qin State. For Hu merchants with huge wealth, choosing a peaceful place is the most important thing .

Is Li Yuan really seriously ill?

The answer is full of mysteries.During this period of time, Qin State's state affairs, military and other aspects were operating in an orderly manner, and it seemed that Li Yuan's absence had little impact.

Among the important officials in the Qin Dynasty, Li Zheng and Chen Ping were there.As for technical officials like Peng Sheng, the second military commander, presence or absence does not seem to have much impact.

——.

The abnormal actions of the Huns gradually lost their concealment as the tribes moved southward.Of course, after completing the initial strategic mobilization, Mao Dun wondered whether Qin could perceive his intentions.There are no longer many scruples.

The army was mobilized.

With the mobilization ability of this era, it would take at least one and a half months, and after one and a half months, the Xiongnu army had already drank the horses and occupied the rich grassland of Qin.

The situation in Hetao is getting tighter.

On the road from Jiuyuan to Chang'an.The posthorses kept coming and going, the Huns crossed the Hanhai desert from Mobei, passed through Longcheng, and their outposts appeared in the Yinshan area. , the experienced scouts still noticed the change.

Zang Yan developed eyeliner among the Qin army on the border. Similarly, among the Huns, Qin also laid chess pieces. When Bai Guangji was in charge of the military intelligence department, the main way for Qin army scouts to spy on intelligence was to pretend to be traders or other small tribes. The tribes were mixed into various tribes of the Huns.

After Meng Hu succeeded to take over the Military Intelligence Department, this general of the Qin Army who was more familiar with the situation in the north, in addition to continuing to follow Bai Guangji's practice, also sent several small teams of scouts to the Great Wall frontier to look for the Huns.

Seeing is believing, hearing is not.

Menghu was more willing to believe what his scouts actually saw than the information he obtained from the Huns.It is precisely because of his caution that Qin State did not completely lose time to respond to the Huns' suspicions.Based on multiple sources of intelligence, the Nine Plains Military Intelligence Department analyzed the possible invasion of the Huns, and quickly reported to the generals of the Qin Army stationed on the border, and at the same time quickly reported to Chang'an, the center of the Qin State.

——.

Autumn tall horse fat.

It was a good time for hunting. The Xiongnu took Qin as their hunting target, but in Gaoque City, the border city of Qin, Wang Xi, the Qin general who guarded the city, targeted a group of yellow sheep moving south.

After a summer of nourishment, the yellow sheep on the grassland gradually become fat and strong, and some ewes have new life in their stomachs. At this time, the yellow sheep meat is the strongest and most delicious.

Outside Gaoque city.

A group of cavalry from the Qin Army was chasing a group of yellow sheep running. In the hands of the Qin cavalry, they held a standard bronze machine crossbow. Iron weapons appeared, and the shortcomings of the bronze crossbow were gradually exposed.

The production of a crossbow needs to be carefully crafted by skilled craftsmen, and the middle process cannot tolerate any mistakes. This is why the names of craftsmen are engraved on Qin crossbows.In other words, the low qualification rate of crossbow making is the main reason why Qin Bronze Crossbow finally withdrew from the battlefield.

Today, among the three major military establishments of the Qin State, only one in Lishan still has a furnace for making bronze crossbows, while the other two have switched to producing iron wares.

Among the Qin army, the most handy one when it comes to the use of bronze crossbows is the frontier army guarding Hetao. Once the crossbow cavalry troops in the Qin army charge up, their deterrent power is far greater than that of the scattered bows and arrows of the Huns. Successful experience and achievements prove that the frontier soldiers are not afraid of the Huns.

Gaoque is an important city on the front line of the Yinshan Great Wall. It is a barrier to protect the Hetao Plain. The Qin State has [-] frontier soldiers stationed here. At the same time, the guard is Wang Li's close cousin: Wang Xi.

The strength of the frontier army is weakening day by day.

Wang Li, the backbone of the Qin army, was gradually replaced by Wang Shang, Han Xin and others. At the same time, after Su Jiao was transferred from the frontier army and Yang Wengzi was forced to leave Yandi, the non-royal forces within the frontier army gradually declined. , Wang Li took this opportunity to support Wang Xi and other cronies.

Wang Xi has a gloomy personality. Among the generals of the frontier army, he is quite independent. Not only does he not fit in well with the old Mongolian generals like Meng Hu, but he also doesn't match up with veteran generals like Su Jiao and Yang Wengzi. If it wasn't for Wang Li's protection, Wang Xi might have been pushed out of the frontier army long ago.

Under the law of life.

The Gazelle flock that originally lived in the depths of the desert was disturbed by the Xiongnu army, left their original habitat, and moved long distances to the south.

If Wang Xi was vigilant, he would be able to find clues from the abnormal situation of gazelle and other animals, but it is a pity that Wang Xi is not capable of military affairs. The urgent military report forwarded by the military intelligence department of the Ministry of Defense, but he did not pay much attention to it without the actual combat test.

The Huns are coming!

In the past few years, the Huns have tried to go south to Hetao in autumn to plunder Qin's cattle, sheep and people, but they have never really succeeded.A month ago, Wang Xi led a team of Qin cavalry to kill a small tribe of Yuanlou who was attached to the Huns, and escaped in embarrassment.

——.

Han Hai.

It has a radius of more than thousands of miles, and its location is between the Hannan River, Yinshan Mountain, and Hetao in the Tingting of the Huns. The "sea" here is not a big lake or a marsh, but a vast desert, a sea of ​​sand formed by long yellow sand. .

The existence of this desert is very important to the Huns.If it wasn't for Han Hai, Qin's crossbow cavalry would have gone northward for more than [-] miles. According to Meng Tian's temperament, they might have killed the Huns' royal court long ago.Of course, considering purely military factors, Hanhai is also a natural barrier for the Qin army. If the Huns want to cross the vast desert and then attack the border of Qin State in the south, the supply behind them will be reduced. Quite difficult.

The harsh natural environment not only protects people, but also makes them paralyzed.

In order to break the Qin war.

Mao Dun did not hesitate to force the Xiongnu tribes of the Left and Right Wise Kings to attack Qin's Hexi County and Yanbei County. As for giving up temporary allies like the Dayue clan, he did not hesitate at all.

The Qin army's attention was drawn to the east and west wings, and the Qin frontier army located in Hetao gradually became an isolated and helpless army.

Recapture the Hetao.

The Great Shan Yu Maodun issued the general mobilization order for the first phase of going south in the royal court, and all the grassland ministries responded in unison, and the tribe of Helianbi even volunteered to lead the vanguard force to attack Hetao and Yinshan in Qin State.

mid-September.

The [-] soldiers of the Helian tribe successfully crossed the Han Sea and arrived at the source of the Gonglu River, a tributary of the Han Nan River. On this small oasis, there was a temporary camp for the Huns, which was the main camp of Longcheng.

The existence of Dragon City.

Except for a few of the powerful Xiongnu, it is not known to many people. This is a hidden move that Maodun made during his two years of silence. Now, it has finally come in handy.

Helianbi had been stationed in Longcheng for five days. Since the Huns were good at field warfare but not at fortifications, in order to successfully take down Gaoque City, he had sent several small groups of troops to induce the Qin cavalry in the city to attack.

Not long ago, the Xiongnu tribe that Wang Xi just defeated was the bait that He Lianbi had laid out. Now, as Wang Xi, the big fish, bit the bait time and time again, He Lianbi felt that it was time to defeat the Qin army and capture Gaoque City. The time has come. (to be continued..)